The Politics of Party

I listen to a podcast called My History Can Beat Up Your Politics by Bruce Carlson. He had a recent episode titled Cameral Midterm Thoughts. In that episode, he contended that there was no discernible pattern in each party's control of Congress.

While I agree that the multitude of variables make any pattern hard to parse, there is one common ingredient in elections. Partisans believe that their party must win at all costs and by the largest margin possible, and anything they do that is unethical is acceptable, while anything the other side does that is unethical is reprehensible.

If you are familiar with Nebraska Cornhusker football fans, you will know that they are not satisfied until there is a huge rout and their team wins by a large margin. In politics, it usually requires only a bare majority, a won election that puts their forces in control, before a voter feels that things are going in the right direction. While the recent resurgence of the fillibuster is contrary to that sentiment and all it takes is 1/3 of the senate to spoil spoil the work of the majority, we still behave as if a party is in power when it gets a majority. Most individual voters will stop their efforts to influence an election once their party is in power.

When your party is out of power, you are more likely to be alert, aware, and unhappy about the direction of the government. So people of that persuasion get stirred up and vote in larger numbers.

I think this ties into a general fear of what your own party or government in general will do with too much power. So in some ways, we as a society use voting as a moderating influence on our government. I personally am not pleased with the results, but I think it is following a natural system with a dampening effect to keep the system balanced rather than out of whack. The question from this standpoint about the 40 years of Democratic control of the House is whether this resulted in any particular shift to Democratic policies and actions of the Government as a whole. If one segment of the system trends toward one ideology or the other, it doesn't matter if the other parts of the system are there to balance or nullify that effect.

This also keeps our system fickle and unfocused, making it nearly impossible to tackle long term problems until they become problematic or a crisis arises. This is the most damaging aspect of our system in particular and a democracy in general. True leadership and guidance of a society into a better future sometimes involves making decisions that amount to sacrifices or unpopular situation in the short run, but have a major benefit in the long run, which brings up the whole separate issue of individual rights versus collective benefits for the society at large.

One thing for certain, party politics is not about doing what is right and best for the country, it's about doing what is right and best for the party. If that sounds a little chilling because it is reminiscent of soviet era descriptions of government, it should be. These people are supposed to swear an oath to the constitution, which means the country, and not their party or their supporters or contributors. That's putting the interest of your side over the interests of the whole, and it's not sustainable in the long run.