The Strange Familiarity of the "Post-Partisan" World

In early 2009, the campaign for the presidency of the United States ended with the historic image of a second generation American standing atop the capital steps. A man whose name and skin color alone would have disqualified him from the office as little as thirty years ago, Barrack Obama now stood before the country that elected him as the new embodiment of the American Dream. He had become the paradigm of everything we like to tell ourselves is possible in America. That anybody can make it. In this historic moment, President Obama used his pulpit to triumph his long standing campaign call for a new Washington, one devoid of the "childish things" that had for so long corrupted our politics. He would rise above the fray, and through bipartisanship, forge a new working era of politics that would create both consensus as well as progress. 

Since that moment, we have dealt with Republican charges of socialism directed at the administration, Democratic charges of apathy and obstruction towards Republicans, a conservative campaign to undermine Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner, an apparent concerted effort led by Democratic strategist James Carville and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to paint Rush Limbaugh as the head of the Republican party, and a Press Secretary in Robert Gibbs who spends more time throwing rocks at the conservative "cabal" then he does providing substantive answers. So much for bipartisanship.

Of course, this lack of cooperation can't be blamed on Obama (except perhaps his own naivety for believing it could be achieved), nor on the Republicans who oppose his agenda. In Washington, consensus is the myth. Usually for it to exist, either a terrible event has to have occurred, as with 9/11, or some foreign threat must hang over our country as it did with the Soviet Union during the 50's and 60's in the supposed golden age of consensus. Even under these circumstances, consensus is temporary and hardly across the board. Under normal circumstances in Washington, bipartisanship is trying to force the other guy to accept your ideas, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. Competition among the parties, not universal concurrence, is what breeds constructive compromise. We should be thankful that our system is not so threatened that dissenting ideas have disappeared. If we are ever all of us in agreement, odds are we're in trouble.

But while consensus may be the myth, moderation is not. When I say moderation, I don't mean those holding one or two views that stand in opposition to the party you call home. For those who pat themselves on the back and love to discuss these issues where they can demonstrate their "independent streak", don't get too excited. That's not called moderation, that's called the ability to have rational thought (Though I suppose such an act is commendable in this day and age). True moderation is the  removing of the partisan glasses through which so many of us see the world. For all this country's talk of being independents (according to polls, around 35-40%), less than ten percent of Americans vote a split ticket. 

That is a troubling statistic no matter your party ID. In America, we have only two parties, and so those parties are forced to cast very wide tents in order to incorporate everyone. On a given ticket, the variance WITHIN a party can be astounding. Comparing only the Democrats on a ballot, you'll find social progressives, tax cutters, pacifists, hawks, atheists, religious moralists, fiscal conservatives, and maybe even a socialist or two. And yet, despite this variance, 90% of voters cast straight tickets. The danger in this country is not the politicians who compete so viciously for control, it is the voters who treat politics like a football game, mindlessly cheering their team to victory. How often have you found yourself defending the almost indefensible, even when you didn't agree with your own arguments, just to protect your team. This is the danger in America. 

This true moderation can be achieved, however daunting it may seem. We exist. We are out there. We are what everyone claims to be, but no one actually is. We don't need to be slaves to parties. We can watch the news and read the paper without keeping score. We can use both parties as instruments of change depending on the particular issue we care about. I don't know what Post-Partisanship in Washington means, and it seems like a pipe dream at the aggregate level. But for the individual, for you and me and everyone like us, there is no reason we can't be post-partisan. No reason we can't "rise above the fray." There is probably no national movement to be had in the way Obama talked about, but there can be a movement within ourselves.