The Politics of Neutrality

As many of my friends and colleagues will attest, I'm not silent with my political opinions. I've run the gamut from conservative Republican to liberal Democrat and for the past nine years, I've been somewhere much closer to the middle as an "unaffiliated" or independent voter.  I have no use for either political party's leadership and can't stand most politicians on the national level. 

In my experience the local politics tend to echo the national politics to some degree, but there certainly appears to be more room for cooperation at that level.  Local politicians have a more direct connection to the voters in their wards, districts, counties, and states than some of our Washington, D.C. representatives do.  Their re-election hinges more upon their voting track record and less upon the re-election funds they receive from their party.  They're far more likely to hold a referendum on a tough vote than to take their best guess as to what their constituents want or to vote the way their re-election fund contributors dictate.  The result? More states have politicians who reach across the aisle and produce better results.

In a recent appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) credited his state's incredible performance in the areas of schools, unemployment, and healthcare with the work of a bipartisan state team.  A Republican governor (his predecessor, Mitt Romney, who was far more bipartisan as a governor than he is as a presidential candidate), a Democratic legislature, and a Democratic senator (the late Ted Kennedy) worked to create that third option that seems to be so absent in today's national politics.  

As Gov. Patrick put it, "...we said, 'We have to come up with something better than the usual two choices' which is between a perfect solution and no solution at all. And we tried something, and folks have stayed together to make it work as it's gone forward."

Would that we could make that work on the national level, but it seems to me that far too often, U.S. Senators and Representatives are too worried about being labeled a "Republicrat" or "Democan" by the more outspoken members of the media.  You know the media I mean...the ones who make their living by stirring up anger among their listeners, who draw advertising revenue by painting the other guys as evil, the ones whose outraged demagoguery is eerily reminscent of the old video clips of Adolf Hitler even as they (incorrectly) accuse each other of modeling his political stance.

I've finally learned to refrain from arguing with the people who listen to those pundits.  As the saying goes, it's like trying to teach a pig to sing; it only frustrates you and annoys the pig. They're not going to change, at least not from any argument I can make.  Perhaps because anger is a much more addicting feeling than carefully considered logic.  Perhaps because they are absolutely sure that the other guy really is evil and the sense of moral superiority that comes with that conviction is too good to give up.  Perhaps they just don't care to hear what the other side of the aisle is truly saying.

It doesn't mean I'm going to remain silent, though. As a friend once recently reminded me, cynicism is always a choice.  The cynical side of me wants to say, "Forget it, nothing I say or do will ever encourage a more rational political discourse" and while I don't disavow that viewpoint entirely, I concede that there may be hope.

Hope that the Rush Limbaughs and Keith Olbermanns of the world may one day become obsolete when the politics of hatred that they promulgate are no longer sought after.  Hope that the tangible results of a bipartisan approach will eventually override the stagnation of the "our way or the highway" viewpoint.  Hope that common sense will be more common in our elected representatives.

I have faith that our system can work, but the current state of bipartisanship is disheartening. The more often we see it succeed at the local level, though, the more hopeful I am that it will eventually reappear on the national level. As they say on those Howard County bumper stickers, let's "Choose Civility" in our discourse, both political and otherwise.