How can anyone, conservative, libertarian, liberal, progressive, or whatever, reflect on the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court associate justice and be pleased with the spectacle? Republicans and Democrats share the blame — and should share the shame — for the political tone and faux statecraft dominating the federal government of the United States.
I had hoped disgust with the hearings would be mutual. Instead, each side has found reasons to cheer and retrench. Partisan believe their sides did well. How disappointing….
Watching Democrats grandstanding didn’t persuade me that they were a better alternative to the morally (and fiscally) bankrupt Republicans. I realize hypocrisy, hyperbole, and selective standards are natural. Likewise, we attack and counterattack based on “They did it first!” Nobody stops to consider letting go of victimhood would be a nice change.
Republicans point to Robert Bork and a handful of other defeated or withdrawn judicial appointments. Democrats point to the Republicans not even holding hearings for a qualified nominee. Both are correct and both are wrong to continue this downward spiral of middle-school morality.
I am not a Republican, so I cannot claim that I would leave the party based on Trump and current party leadership. I’ve been “declines to state” at least since 2006 when I didn’t want to be affiliated with parties in Minnesota. Both parties disgust me for their lies, omissions, and pandering.
My friends on the left argue a vote for the Democrat at least keeps the Republicans out of power. My problem with that is that I don’t want either party to have “power” over anything. I like divided government and would strategically vote to split Congress and the White House… if I believed my vote would matter in our hyper-sorted nation.
I’m apparently not alone in my disgust and frustration. The Atlantic website published the following on October 7, 2018:
Why I’m Leaving the Republican Party
The Kavanaugh confirmation fight revealed the GOP to be the party of situational ethics and moral relativism in the name of winning at all costs.2:00 PM ET
Tom Nichols, professor at the U.S. Naval War College
As an aside, let me say that I have no love for the Democratic Party, which is torn between totalitarian instincts on one side and complete political malpractice on the other. As a newly minted independent, I will vote for Democrats and Republicans I think are decent and well-meaning people; if I move back home to Massachusetts, I could cast a ballot for Republican Governor Charlie Baker and Democratic Representative Joe Kennedy and not think twice about it.
But during the Kavanaugh dumpster fire, the performance of the Democratic Party—with some honorable exceptions like Senators Chris Coons, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Amy Klobuchar—was execrable. From the moment they leaked the Ford letter, they were a Keystone Kops operation, with Hawaii’s Senator Mazie Hirono willing to wave away the Constitution and get right to a presumption of guilt, and Senator Dianne Feinstein looking incompetent and outflanked instead of like the ranking member of one of the most important committees in America.
I’m not a conservative, but I respect the following Nichols offers:
Maybe it’s me. I’m not a Republican anymore, but am I still a conservative? Limited government: check. Strong national defense: check. Respect for tradition and deep distrust of sudden, dramatic change: check. Belief that people spend their money more wisely than government? That America is an exceptional nation with a global mission? That we are, in fact, a shining city on a hill and an example to others? Check, check, check.
Nichols also does, like many of us must, and explain that he’s not a social conservative. I like the bit of wit expressed.
I believe in the importance of diversity and toleration. I would like a shorter tax code. I would also like people to exhibit some public decorum and keep their shoes on in public.
And like me, he’s not about to join a party that rejects his values. They reject his conservatism as much as they reject my market-based libertarianism. The Democrats don’t want us, so why support them?
Does this make me a liberal? No. I do not believe that human nature is malleable clay to be reshaped by wise government policy. Many of my views, which flow from that basic conservative idea, are not welcome in a Democratic tribe in the grip of the madness of identity politics.
In the end, we need centrists. I might not argue from the center, but I understand the center at least offers me some hope for compromise. Sure, I’ll fight against many centrist ideas. Libertarians and classical liberals know our best hope is to resist centralized authority and hope people come to see the dangers of centralized power when “their party” is out of power. Democrats hate it when Trump uses the executive, Republicans hated it when Obama used the same executive. Maybe the government shouldn’t be so powerful, period.
Compromise would at least lead to some limitations of power. Compromises also last longer and have more popular support. Geoffrey Kabaservice is the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party. Last year, he wrote that both parties want absolute control. Both parties want to dictate norms:
Scratch the assumptions of many Tea Party and Resistance participants and you’re likely to find a belief that nothing good can be accomplished in politics unless the correct side controls all branches of government and can run roughshod over its opponents. Many Republicans are now rejoicing as Trump and Congress work to repeal every part of Obama’s legacy and force their agenda on Blue America, while many Democrats dream of someday reversing every Republican action and imposing their own maximalist program on Red America.
What both sides overlook is that the only enduring causes in American life are those that have at least some degree of bipartisan legitimacy, and the only government actions that achieve lasting success are those involving popular persuasion and outreach, cross-party cooperation and compromise. That was true of the creation of Social Security, the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the birth of Medicare and Medicaid, the Clean Air Act in 1970—even Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform. Politics-as-warfare can achieve no lasting victories; in the long term, its only accomplishments will be to break apart the country and accelerate America’s downfall as a global power.
Political movements of left and right alike stand in a long tradition dating back to the American Revolution of giving ordinary citizens a voice in the counsels of their leaders and representatives. But the Founding Fathers also dreaded the consequences of unchecked popular passions, the overthrow of moderation and the erosion of mutual tolerance and respect among Americans of differing views. The coming years may witness the realization of their worst fears.
— from Politico 2017
The Kavanaugh hearings remind us that the two parties are in a winner-takes-all mode. This isn’t going to change soon. I’m not sure how we can return to more moderation. Social media and geographical sorting aren’t going away. Television cameras aren’t going to leave the halls of Congress.
The midterms and the 2020 election are only going to exacerbate national divisions. The Republicans are lousy, but I don’t exactly see Democrats embracing a more moderate tone. In the minds or partisans, extremism is necessary, now more than ever.
Ironically, things are nowhere near as bad as in the 1960s and 70s. I blame the non-stop media saturation of partisan tribalism.
