During a recent Seattle City Council meeting, member Tim Burgess sought agreement on a juvenile justice issue by noting that “even some of our Republican friends” favor criminal justice reform. Council member Kshama Sawant, a socialist, stood to oppose what she saw as Burgess’s unfounded claim, the Seattle Times reported. For the record, she assured everyone, she has no Republican friends.
An old friend of mine, a liberal, shared this story on Facebook to lament the collapse of civility in modern American politics. Back when we both worked on opposite ends of many political issues in North Carolina, we would sometimes grab pizza together at the end of the week. Sitting outdoors on a warm evening, watching power brokers and business elites come and go, we bonded as two single guys trying to figure out life.
At one of these meals, my friend introduced me to one of his liberal pals by remarking that the two of us rarely agreed on anything. I corrected him. We agreed on almost everything—except politics.
When he posted that Seattle story on Facebook, the response was disheartening. So many of his friends sided with the socialist councilor. Developing a friendship with a Republican was out of the question because Republicans are, by definition, immoral people. This is not a minority view.
Only 9 percent of Democrats would use the word “moral” to describe Republicans, a 2016 Pew Research Center poll found. Only 3 percent of Republicans would use that word to describe Democrats.
It is hard to form friendships with people we believe to be morally corrupt. But the consequences of such a belief go far beyond that. When we view the other party as immoral, we are less prone to seek compromise. When we refuse to seek compromise, we render our system of representative government ineffective.
Our federal and state governments vest lawmaking power in popular assemblies structured to reach agreement through debate. But why?
The Framers of our Constitution (and those of our early state constitutions) considered numerous forms of government. They rejected systems in which a simple majority could easily impose its will on the minority. Our republican governments were created to diffuse hostility by bringing opposing factions together in assemblies, where we would talk to each other.
If we cannot talk to each other, we cannot govern together. In a republic, governing requires conversation. How do we start that conversation if we view the person on the other side as an enemy rather than a fellow citizen with whom we have at least some shared interests and goals?
In a May 30 column for National Review, talk show host Dennis Prager wrote, “America is engaged in a civil war, with the survival of America as we know it at stake.” Conservatives who criticize President Trump need to accept that “we are in a civil war, and that Trump, with all his flaws, is our general.”.
Politics may be “war by other means,” but it is not literal war. Viewing our political opponents as enemies does more than poison our politics. It rules out agreement.
When we can’t agree on anything, politics inevitably turns from a discussion into a shouting match. The goal is no longer to find common ground, but to win and hold power permanently.
Our system was not designed for this. It was designed for deliberation. The war mentality causes the system to cease functioning, which leads to election themes like Trump’s in 2016, that Washington is broken. But the system isn’t broken. The culture is. We no longer accept people who disagree with us as legitimate partners in governing.
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend William Hamilton in 1800. Months earlier, Jefferson had approved the draft of James Callender’s “A Prospect Before Us,” which he had helped to finance. In it, Callender viciously attacked John Adams’s character and fitness for the presidency.
Jefferson was a vicious political brawler. And yet he held on to the ideal that friendship should transcend politics. This once common view has almost vanished. Americans increasingly put politics above civility, friendship, even love.
As civil society becomes increasingly politicized, politics crowds out other priorities. If we are to reclaim a healthy civil society, we need to stop viewing each other as enemies. To stop viewing each other as enemies, we need to stop fighting over everything. To stop fighting over everything, we need to agree to disagree.
If we can’t replace “I win, you lose” with “live and let live,” our politics is only going to get more hostile, more vicious, more violent. That way lies disaster for all of us.
Andrew Cline is a writer in New Hampshire.
