Baseless Politics/ Primary matters

Baseless Politics/Primary Matters

In light of the Nations tragedy a lot of people are looking at the heat and fervor surrounding our political rhetoric and asking did the public square influence the troubled Arizona shooter. I can no better say than anyone else whether or not this is true. I do not believe that this particular case is a pattern of a breakdown in civility. In fact I don’t even think it matters. I think what matters is that the fact that we are even engaged in this debate indicates a significant divide in the nation as a whole. Sadly this is a totally manufactured division. I’m a liberal/progressive/social-leaning person and I can tell you I have no difficulty interacting, living, and loving my conservative brethren, yet it is a given that we should not be able to talk much less be friends. Think this is an absurd notion? Think about James Carville and Mary Matalin. If you’re unaware Carville and Matalin are notable pundits from different ideologies who have been married for nearly 15 years. The pundits are notable for their views but they are also notable for their marriage. Granted politics for those who care about it is a deeply personal affair but there is no reason that we should just assume political differences should break up friendships. Politics should be treated like your favorite book or TV show, you can proselytize for it all you want but there is no reason anyone should hate someone because they don’t like the same thing. The question is at this point how do we bridge the divide?

At a guestimate 40% of the population are swing voters. That leaves roughly a 30% base for each side. Unfortunately what this means is we are ruled by the minority. Let me explain. While it is true the independent movement carries a ton of political clout for the most part as a movement can only act as king maker. As swing voters they are necessarily hard to divide so in the average they break up 50% leaning left or right. This means in their respective sides they are in the minority in determining primary results, that is if they are registered towards their leanings which a sizable number of independents are not. How many times have you heard of some politician appealing to their base? It’s always the same, we constantly hear phrases like that’s red meat for the base. The base decides the primaries while the independents decide the election.

I have two problems with this setup. First off independents are forced to pick between two extremes. You’ve heard this before, “I voted for the lesser of two evils.” Independents are constantly forced to choose between two candidates neither of whom they’d vote for if they had the option to choose someone else. If we are to describe anything in our government as a tyranny (a notion I don’t subscribe to) this is it, it is the tyranny of the 30%. Secondly we leave our politicians with the need to run two campaigns one for their base and one for the general elections. Some contort themselves in knots so much playing the game they are never the same(*cough mccain cough*) the rest just end up looking disingenuous and untrustworthy. 

From my perspective the problem is then the primary system. I’m a registered Democrat. Not because I always agree with the democrats, but because I lean left, and it is more likely that I will be able to find a democrat I would like to see running things than a republican. That doesn’t mean there are republican politicians I could not see eye to eye with. yet I have no opportunity to choose them. The purpose of primaries is to choose the best representative for the party. The problem is that elections are to choose the best representatives for Americans. Everyone should be allowed to vote in primaries. This would destroy the traditional notion of a base. It would also end the betrayal the base feels when their elected official decides to govern in consideration of the opinions of the other 70%. It would also, hopefully, show that there is a lot more room in the center then we tend to believe. I talk to conservatives all the time, I try to engage them and I challenge them on their perspectives and more times than not when you dig past the talking points and the rhetoric tactical nukes we arm ourselves when we start these conversations it turns out our differences are not as contentious as we are led to believe and each of us have very valid points that should be addressed to avoid missteps. The problem is the way our politics is currently structured we are shouting with megaphones from our respective corners. This does two things it absolutely prevents hearing what the other side has to say, but worse still it ends up simplifying our ideas to catch phrases and mottoes which makes it easy for someone semantically poke holes in the ideology and thus falsely reinforcing their stand point.

If we are to move forward together in this country we must believe that all of it’s citizens are going to move forward with it. For this to happen we have to acknowledge and respect the notions of governance from all it’s participants are genuine. The constant out of hand rejection of ideas based on whatever party espouses it will only increase the divide.