Farewell, Party

I know it’s an ironic thing to write on Election Day…but it has to be said (written):

Winning isn’t everything.

At the polls today, everybody is going to vote for their candidate and hope their candidate wins. In fact, many people – Republican and Democrat alike – will be motivated purely by their genuine belief that a Republican or Democratic agenda/philosophy/approach is best for the country. But not everyone will be motivated by anything this high-minded or engaging…some people just want to beat the “other guy;” some voters just want to win.

And although this isn’t a new phenomenon, it does seem that it’s an increasingly common one. I’ve written before about the expression of the American Dream and, by extension, the expression of the American (which you can read HERE), and in this election cycle, there has been precious little dialogue about if and how elections can or should represent America at its best: both in tone and in whom we choose to run for office. This dearth exists as much because of the candidates and their respective parties as it does because of the electorate; that is to say, because of You and Me.

Are you sick of the election ads and robo-calls? It’s your fault it’s like this.
Do you think elections have gotten too negative? Yeah, you did that too.
Are you of the opinion that the candidates we choose are somewhat sub-standard? Well, You picked ’em!

For all the complaining we do about Washington, we do almost ZERO complaining about ourselves, and what terrible choice-makers we are. It’s not like these politicians we all deride just sprouted up out of the ground in Georgetown and Dupont Circle and Foggy Bottom, we put them there. WE did. You and I.

I suspect that although we elect our leaders through democratic process, many of us feel like so much of the process is out of our control and is mostly lead by the two major parties. We have, in many ways, signed our individual political minds and freedoms over to the party system. Whether for the sake of expediency or efficiency, the increasingly obsolete construct that is a Political Party happily does all the paperwork as long as we hand our allegiance over to them and promise to be good little voters.

There was a time, to be sure, when political parties were downright necessary in order for our democracy to function. In the 1790s, it took days or weeks or even months for news to spread around the country. During a time in our earliest American days when most people lived in rural settings, were under-educated, and often illiterate, a political party could streamline and consolidate a general set of beliefs or philosophies or interests. Being a member of a political party helped ensure that the interests and concerns of “Josiah-the-illiterate-rural-dairy-farmer” in New Hampshire would be voiced and represented in the budding political process.

Over the past 230 years, however, nearly everything about the average American has changed: education levels, literacy, living conditions, and technology. In a time and at a place where information is so readily available and rapidly accessible, where the diversity quotient of the electorate is more dynamic than ever, and where emerging generations balk at the notion that they are expected to subscribe to a blanket set of beliefs or philosophies, the political party system is losing its control, and it’s losing its credibility. What’s more, the political parties know this. This was evidenced in the last Republican Presidential primary process. The protracted primary was as much reality show as it was political winnowing. It was a party’s way of trying to convince who ever would listen that they can still find people “just like you” to run for president – even though people “just like you” aren’t necessarily qualified to be president. I don’t know many Republicans who feel like the months and months of that primary represented that party’s finest hour.

If the argument is that political parties help the voters make better choices, then I think maybe that’s not working so great anymore. I don’t think the parties necessarily help the voters make better choices, I think they just require the voters to pick one of the only two possibilities. Parties are, after all, in existence to help their candidate or issue win. But winning, in and of itself, isn’t what our political goals should be. Our political goals, regardless of one’s political leaning, should be to get better…to BE better. Not just to win.

So in the form and function to which both it and we have become accustomed, I think it’s time to say Farewell, Party. You had a good run, but it doesn’t take me 3 weeks to get a message to my state’s leadership anymore, I can just fire off an email, or you know, pick up a phone. I read the newspaper – 3 papers, in fact – and watch both local and national news. I can look up information on almost anything, anytime of day, almost anywhere I am by simply pulling my phone out of my pocket and typing a few words. I don’t need you to do these things for me the way people did, you know, 200 years ago.

The most important tool we have against tyranny and dictatorship is also the most important tool we have in advancing the cause of freedom: our vote. Your vote does not belong to the Republicans or Democrats, it belongs to you. You don’t owe it to anyone or any party or any entity. A candidate, a cause, or a party should have to EARN your vote and know that it’s never something to take for granted.

This kind of shift will not happen quickly. But it can happen. It can happen in the way we talk about our political opponents and how we evaluate and critique our political allies. It can happen in the way we teach our children to expect public servants to SERVE the public, instead of the public serving them. It can happen in the way we challenge ourselves to know why we believe what we believe, and to be fully responsible for the political choices we make.

Slowly but surely, we can shift the culture of our political discourse more in the direction of valuing the principles that have always lain at the foundation of our republic: coming together to create solutions and find a better way forward, restoring compromise to a virtue instead of a vice, and believing that our capacity to navigate the unforeseeable challenges we are yet to face is bolstered when we act in concert and require each other’s best.

One step, one election, one vote at a time, we can do this. WE can. You and I.

Inspired Voting; TMGI Day 7

On the eve of election day, I was thinking that it’d be pretty difficult to comment on the political system, and still somewhow integrate a feeling of inspiration.

 
I drew a blank.

 
I thought about doing a piece to try and revive the soaring optimism from this time of year 2 years ago, but that felt too escapist, and while the election night 2 years ago was absolutely inspiring, in many ways the promise of that campaign is still yet to be fulfilled, and none of the campaigns being waged  these midterms are remotely inspirational.
During the regular meditation I do while trying to put a voice to the topic about which I want to write, I couldn’t help but feel as though there was this mental itch I couldn’t quite scratch – a feeling that there was something I wanted to be thinking but couldn’t put my finger on.  It started to drive me just a little bit crazy, and the harder I tried to put it out of my mind, the more I thought about it and the more frustrated I was getting.  It was like that feeling you might experience when you can’t remember the name or lyrics or singer of that song you have in your head, and it starts eating away at your brain.
Well, enough was enough, and during a mid-afternoon break, I found a quiet place, and searched: back through my memory, back through my thoughts on the body politic, through my mental rolodex of people and perspectives advocating for the victories of our better angels over our darker demons in the great undertakings of electing officials, promoting policies, and better understanding the notions of freedom and responsibility to ourselves, and to those most in need.

 
I searched and searched.

 
And then I found what I was looking for.  I remembered the words I have turned to on days like election or inauguration day.  Call it a poem, call it a prayer, but I hope you read it and read it often. Whether you’ve read this before or not, I’d love to hear your thoughts on its message, and its staggeringly beautiful sentiments.  It may be hard to find inspiration in the voting booth, but at least I can take it in with me.

Let My Country Awake

by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

 
Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.