This week the president appealed for bipartisan cooperation. Politicians frequently call for or pledge bipartisan cooperation as if it’s a good thing, but it’s usually a good thing only for the two political parties.
The average American citizen should be frightened at the very idea of bipartisan cooperation, and not because one party is always right and so should not compromise with the other. Considering that bi means two, and partisan means loyal to a party or cause, bipartisan just means we have two self-interested groups conspiring.
Let’s try nonpartisan, putting the national interest ahead of party interest for a while. Is that too much to ask? Maybe for just a week?
When we have bipartisan cooperation in Washington, we get bloated, pork-laden bills which contain wasteful spending designed to benefit incumbents of both parties. This is a bit like the bipartisan cooperation that allowed Germany and the USSR to divvy up Poland in 1939.
The two parties have created election rules that severely restrict the chances of third parties to become known to voters. Election laws are created by the two major parties, and neither wants any additional competition. Unfortunately our media cooperate by not adequately covering third parties, and by excluding third party candidates from so-called presidential “debates.” For their entertaining shock value alone, one might have expected Ron Paul and Ralph Nader to have gotten more press coverage.
Is it a coincidence that the 41 Republican Senators just happen to agree with each other on almost every issue? That the 59 Democrats just happen to agree with each on almost every issue? Is it surprising that it’s page one news when a senator says that she or he might vote with the opposition?
Of course not. Senators vote almost exclusively as their party leaders tell them to.
Years ago I asked a Massachusetts state senator how she and others were able to decide how to vote on over 5,000 bills annually, since she obviously could not read and evaluate many of them. She replied with admirable frankness that her party told her how to vote on them. To continue to receive vital party support, she had to vote the party line, although the political party would not punish an incumbent for voting against the party line if doing so would damage chances at re-election (a higher good, apparently). A Democrat representing the conservative and heavily Catholic city of Chicopee, for example, could vote pro-life rather than pro-choice, without being punished. The Republican Party had similar strictures and loopholes.
Putting partisan interest above the national interest should bother us all, but apparently doesn’t. I find it a little bit scary that we find only gentle amusement in Ronald Reagan’s elevation of party loyalty to the level of divine mandate when he said with a smile that the 11th Commandment was to never criticize another Republican.
These days I seldom hear variations of the old adage, “My country, right or wrong; but right or wrong, my country,” thank goodness. Now I hear in effect “My party, right or wrong.” If only the two major parties would allow “neither of the above” as an election ballot choice, but of course they won’t. In some elections blank votes are not even recorded or reported; one of my blank votes was disappeared by the Virginia election authority,which reported no blank votes or write-ins in the entire primary; that maintains the illusion that everyone is happy with one of the two choices. Inaccurate vote reporting is to be expected in totalitarian countries, but should not happen here.
The next time a politician proposes bipartisan cooperation, let’s demand to know why.
6 thoughts on “Why bipartisan is a dirty word”
Ditto! The two political parties are really just well-dressed gangs.
I came back to this blog post after reading that Donna Brazile said she thought about removing Hilary Clinton from the ticket during the 2016 election, and replacing her with Biden. This is not much of a democracy when that can happen, and when most candidates have to do and say what the party bosses want. It’s fun to watch Republicans sweating out whether they would benefit more from supporting or ignoring Trump, and it’s fun to watch Democrats trying to decide whether they will benefit more from backing a progressive like Warren or the establishment. I would rather not have that fun, I would rather have honest candidates. When does that happen.
Funny, I have seen on the local news a couple of times where the jury tells the judge after just a few hours that they are deadlocked. All it takes I guess is one person on each side refusing to discuss.
This problem is so obvious now, with Trump in office. Maddening.
Forgot to say, it is SO FRUSTRATING waiting for elected Republicans to start peeling away from Trump. Once that starts, I bet it accelerates, like a stock market bubble bursting. Who will be the last Republican in the Senate or House to turn away from Trump. I can’t even figure out who might be next.
Just one other thought, and that is that it’s ridiculous that Rush Limbaugh attacks the Democrats for not taking part in writing the legislation that the Republicans introduce. Even low-ranking Republican senators and reps are not allowed in on that process, they just wait to be told what the legislation is, often without enough time to read the damned thing, so the Democrats have no way of getting involved.