Is my title an oxymoron? Well, yes, because it does not distinguish between political sense and common sense. Allow me to explain the difference with a few examples drawn from the American presidential campaign.

The Clinton Email Controversy

Factual premise: The FBI recovered 30,000 emails from Secretary Clinton’s last server and some 20,000 other emails from previously abandoned servers and from recipient’s emails routinely deleted from Mrs. Clinton’s server. They read every single email they recovered or tracked down on recipient’s email files. About 2,000 of these emails were posthumously classified by “other” agencies (Pentagon? N. S. A.?). Amongst those emails reviewed, 110 were classified at the time they were sent/received. The email chains on these emails were as high as 52 recipients. Of these emails only eight (or seven, according to Mrs. Clinton) were marked classified as “Top Secret.” Four of these were found to be incorrectly classified according to Mrs. Clinton. In addition, three documents were classified with “partial markings,” according to the FBI, or “inappropriately marked,” as termed by Mrs. Clinton. So, out of 50,000 emails, there may have been one clearly identified classified document that passed through her server and through other email accounts in the State Department (depending upon whether there were seven or eight “Top Secret” documents before deducting the four incorrectly classified and the three with “partial markings”).

Political sense: Mrs. Clinton has jeopardized national security and deserves the pseudonym of “lyin’ crooked Hillary” and should be “locked up.”

Common sense: If an urgent or classified matter of national importance needed to be sent to the Secretary, her decision to maintain a private server placed her subordinates in a compromising position. This decision is what Mrs. Clinton regrets and has termed a mistake. Her statement that she trusted her professional associates to determine the appropriate classification is an apparent dodge of the FBI Director’s accusation that her actions were “extremely careless.” That dodge makes political sense in the midst of a campaign. But it begs common sense. The broader issue, however, is how poorly the various agencies determine and maintain security classifications. They seem to operate in a context where there is no uniformity and little consistency in the handling of sensitive material. Mrs. Clinton was part of this inter agency problem which, I suspect, has been around for a very long time.

The Trump Campaign Style

Factual premise: Donald Trump is a successful and accomplished businessman who says whatever is on his mind. He is not “politically correct,” demeans the use of a teleprompter, and therefore, unlike many established politicians, is authentic.

Political sense: Mr. Trump is an outsider with the business acumen to create jobs, to enrich average Americans, to shake up the self-serving Washington establishment, and to “make America great again.”

Common sense: Mr. Trump’s son says that his father is “a blue collar billionaire.” But, as John Stewart recently stated, “that is not a thing.” Though CEOs I have known do care about their employees, they direct their companies primarily from the bottom line, that is, the corporate ledger. Companies succeed by selling more products/services than servicing debts and meeting operating costs. Mr. Trump’s bankruptcies represent failures to do so. Moreover, the penalty for this type of failure falls mainly upon creditors and employees, both blue and white collar.

Mr. Trump says he will shake up the establishment because he is a premier deal maker. His success in leveraging municipalities’ investments and the tax depreciation schedule to finance his real estate projects is evidence of his deal making prowess. But he is no Lyndon Johnson who spent years in the Congress mastering the legislative machinery and learning what levers to pull with his associates to attain his goals. How does Mr. Trump’s deal making skills translate to Washington? In truth, he is a neophyte with little knowledge of how the government works and, apparently, not much familiarity with either the separation of powers or the Articles of our Constitution.

Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan seems to address the plight of white middle class blue collar workers. It somewhat narrowly resonates with Bernie Sander’s concern about income inequality. The middle class worker’s income has not kept pace with his/her productivity. The poorer classes, which still harbor more minorities, have even less upward mobility. Wealth in America is disproportionately amassed by large international corporations and a few billionaires, much as it was before the Great Depression. But Mr. Trump is no Franklin Roosevelt. His plan to eliminate the estate tax, to lower the tax rate for the wealthy, and to make child care a deduction instead of a tax credit offers no benefit to the vast majority of Americans. The question for Mr. Trump: for whom will he make America great again?

And, finally, though authenticity is welcome and sorely needed in our elected representatives, it is not predictive of performance in office. In fact, it has no value without character. The question voters must ask themselves is whether Mr. Trump has the strength of character—the discrimination, the compassion, the composure, the self-discipline—to lead our nation.

Media Coverage of the Presidential Campaign

Factual premise: The media has become apoplectic with political commentary, polls, and daily coverage of every word or action of the candidates.

Political sense: Every gaffe, political strategy, and polling results have a bearing on the outcome of the Presidential campaign. Its daily progress will determine the winner. The press’ job from this perspective is to predict who that will be as it breaks down the contests each day and even in each state.

Common sense: There are journalists who do not follow the campaign like an inning by inning baseball scorecard. Rather than a game to be won or lost, they analyze the expectations of the electorate, the shortfalls of government institutions, the needs of national security, the nation’s progress towards the goals set in the Preamble to our Constitution, and the effectiveness of the candidates’ proposed agenda to address these concerns. From this vantage point, they can educate the electorate and provide the one service that justifies their labor.

I readily concede that both the media and the candidates feel compelled to a course that makes political sense. But somehow we Americans have to navigate through the media myopia and the political demagoguery to determine which candidate we trust to administer our institutions, our military, and our foreign policy. We have just one task: to select the candidate we trust to govern us wisely in accordance with our Constitution and our “general welfare.” That task is just simple common sense.

Comedians use satire to expose somebody’s flaw or discredit a false statement. They often embellish their satire with irony, a rhetorical flourish, or wit to highlight the contrasting virtue or truth. Sometimes their satire incorporates sarcasm in order to insult the character of somebody, literally to sneer at the targeted person. Although comedians do not always deploy sarcasm in their satire, politicians very often do, especially during campaigns.

In the next hundred days, Americans will task themselves with unravelling the snarling sarcasm inveighed by our two presidential candidates against each other. Both Party nominees want to win our trust by exposing the reasons why we should distrust their opponent. Part of our task is to weigh the legitimacy of the truth implied in the discrediting insult. But this task may become difficult in the melee already underway. Since sarcasm is meant to be hurtful, it easily invites retribution. In other words, this presidential campaign could well devolve into a bar brawl where the winner is whoever punches harder. One of the candidates has already used this metaphor to exclaim his intent to punch harder. But has reason ever won a bar fight? The value of satire is demeaned when sarcasm stands alone as pure meanness and insult. Stated more plainly, it is imperative upon us to evaluate the truth behind accusations that accuse Clinton of being a liar and a crook and Trump of lacking the temperament and competency to be President.

Both candidates have used satire touched with sarcasm. You can judge their relative success by simply reviewing their respective use of satire. For example, in past years Mr. Trump has pointed out the irony that Obama won the Presidency even though he should have been disqualified by reason of his alleged foreign birth. He now offers the irony of Clinton seeking the office of Commander-and-Chief while violating national security and failing to protect our Foreign Service personnel overseas. He accuses her of being a crook who has violated the law and lied about knowingly receiving classified documents on her personal email server and who repeatedly denied responsibility for the deaths of foreign officials who were killed during the attack on the CIA protected consulate in Benghazi. Mrs. Clinton, for her part, has called attention to the irony of Mr. Trump’s claim to be “the voice” for working Americans whose wages have not kept pace with the growth in our economy. She has sarcastically referred to his lack of experience as an employee, to his propensity to hire overseas workers, to fight union participation for his domestic laborers, to his hiring of illegal immigrants, to his several bankruptcies that relieved him of any obligation to his creditors, and to his tendency to engage small business owners in lengthy legal battles rather than meet their demands for either his adherence to mutually signed agreements or to a fair settlement of their contributions to his business.

When sarcasm has no basis in fact, then it is not satire, but simply unabashed insult. In the political arena, too often the only irony is that there is no irony, for there is very often not even the semblance of truth. I don’t believe the previous paragraph misrepresents either candidate’s statements. It is not at all difficult to assess the truth behind their scathing sarcasm. Which one deserves your trust? You be the judge.

My readers know I have a propensity to delve into the roots of language. So, in closing, I feel compelled to point out a strange linguistic anomaly: the word “satire” and “sad” have the same Latin root, satis, which literally mean “enough.” It seems that feeling sad is a surfeit of grief or unhappiness; and satire expresses a surfeit of another’s vice or folly. We very quickly reach our fill of unhappiness, but we can revel endlessly in another’s falseness. If you will excuse a little linguistic gymnastics on my part, satire might just be our way of keeping sadness at bay. Certainly, you never see a politician pounding his/her chest with a resounding mea culpa when it is so much easier to find fault with an opponent, even if that fault is based upon a lie.

This campaign season has already suffered enough from misused satire. When based upon a lie, sarcasm is not satire. It is simply an insult intended to malign an opponent and repel any assessment of the self.

Are you dissatisfied with this campaign? Have you had enough already?

A new documentary attempts to divulge the context of O. J. Simpson’s trial, the so-called “trial of the century.” It not only explores O. J.’s life before the trial, but also the circumstances of both his life and the trial, to include the state of race relations in Los Angeles generally and between the African-American community and the Los Angeles Police Department more specifically. The assumption behind this production is that we can never really understood O. J., the crime, or the verdict without an understanding of the context. You see, everything is connected: race, culture, locale, background, and even history.

Some day in the future, another documentary will be researched and presented to the American people in order to make sense of our current political upheaval. It is probably presumptuous of me to write about the context of the storm that is brewing. But it seems to me that the stakes are too high if we ignore it entirely. To the extent that we can grapple with our contemporary context, we may be able to divert a very unwelcome trajectory into our future.

What the current electoral season seems to reveal is that Americans are not happy with their government or, at least, with the candidates running for office or those already in office. And yet, Americans continue to vote for incumbents: allegedly, 80% of House seats are considered non-competitive. Meanwhile, our major parties continue to nominate established politicians—with the notable exception of a one recent Presidential nominee. On the one hand, we seem to trust local politicians or familiar candidates; but, at the same time, the new and different outsider captures our hopes for change. Clearly, we want change, but are divided on how to accomplish it. The question I am asking today is whether we are mistaken in placing our hopes in any candidate for office without understanding the context. More to my point, no champion, political savant or crash-and-burn strongman can alone change a social environment with deep historical roots, the entrenchment of a failed system of governing, or the implacable façade of an inflexible ideology.

Taking an historical perspective, one must admit our society has been both pluralistic and divisive from its very outset. Even before our slice of the continent became America, migrants began populating this land. First, they came from various countries in Europe. Those early settlers pushed the native Indians from their hereditary lands and imported slaves from Africa. To this day, most Native Americans live in impoverished Reservations while many African Americans live in poor segregated communities where access to public services, education, and job opportunities lag far behind the general population. Subsequent migrations from Europe, Asia, and the American sub continents have all been met with resistance before their eventual assimilation, usually over one or two generations. That resistance has always been colored by prejudice. Remember the injustice of the Japanese internment camps or the exploitation of Mexicans in the Bracero program. Although our society has at times assimilated large numbers of migrants, such as refugees from foreign wars, we still seem reluctant to fully integrate people who have been here as long as or longer than any segment of our population, such as Indians, African Americans, and Mexicans. The concept of a “more perfect union” still runs afoul of divisiveness born of racial and ethnic prejudice.

Overlapping with these racial and ethnic divides are social economic factors that further define both the diversity and contention within America. The mobility inherent in our system has allowed people to concentrate within communities of similar ethnic and social economic identities. It is this concentration phenomenon that has given our political parties the inspiration to develop gerrymandering into an art form. The rural/urban divide, as a result, seems to largely define Party alignments. Population centers like our major cities have no more voice in the House of Representatives than much less populated rural, districts. Should we be surprised that our diversity supports contention in Washington along the lines of race, ethnic origin, and urban/rural communities of like-minded perspectives? Both divisiveness and cultural diversity are very much a part of our context.

Another aspect of our society is what is now commonly called “low information voters.” When news outlets offer this label, they seem to imply a native ignorance within a portion of our population. But there is no lack of common sense amongst Americans. It is not “low information voters” that are deficient, but low information providers. Once again, I must turn my focus on cable news where it appears many people obtain the news of the day. The core issue here is corporately sponsored news programs produced for profit. How often do you hear a speech from a public servant without commercial interruption? Sponsorship and ratings are the driving force instead of viewer education. The few exceptions are programs that combine both characteristics or that function as “fillers” in prohibitive time slots. For the most part, the broadcast media is obsessed with the loudest voice, the most outlandish behavior, scandal, offensive dialogue, and a complete lack of in-depth reporting where context is almost never included. When politicians oppose each other’s positions, “objective” reporting most often lends air time to both positions without reporting on the objective truth of their remarks. Fair or equal access to media may seem to be a neutral position for a corporation not wanting to offend its consumers, but how neutral is a failure to report facts or state the consequences of serious issues? Neutrality in this instance is just journalistic cowardice and a disservice to the American public. Of course, the lack of substantive civics education is a factor in voter participation; and so is the truncated information or misinformation that inundates social media. Nevertheless, the broadcast media, unlike other, less available news outlets is largely responsible for the “low-information” voter syndrome. American voters are left to their own devices to search in private for credible data on the issues and candidates that interest them. The result is a public information context overflowing with data, but mostly lacking in substance.

Besides the societal context, what can be said about the current functioning of our government? It still bears the main features the founding fathers intended. Our democracy is structured around a check-and-balance system of three equal branches of government, a bicameral legislature, and the early development of a two party electoral system. The Constitution defines and regulates our separate but equal branches of government. Party constituents establish and define their respective Parties. And the House and the Senate make their own rules for conducting their legislative agendas. Their success in serving their constituents is defined by their ability to compromise in the interest of the general welfare of all Americans. Although the wheels of government were designed to move slowly, our system allows for the representation of a diverse electorate and the resolution of differences through compromise. But, currently, it is not our government’s cumbersome process that hinders American progress; it is the lack of compromise between the Administration and Congress and between the political Parties in Congress. It is too easy to cripple our form of government when our two political Parties refuse to work together toward common goals. During the Obama presidency, the lack of compromise between the Parties has become entrenched. (For more on this topic, you might refer to “Is America Broken?,” “A Tale of Two Fallacies,” or, with a touch of satire, “Politicians are One Eyed Cats,” and “Compromise: An Unfulfilled Promise.”)

Perhaps we should not be surprised that failures to assimilate in our general population reappear in our representatives’ inability to work across the aisle. Nevertheless, a stubborn resistance to finding common ground or to build a basis for compromise is not just fouling the wheels of government but betraying its very purpose. In other words, this behavior is un-American. Before Party loyalists point the finger at their opposition, let me illustrate a few areas where both Parties illustrate my point:
➣ Party-line voting suggests that Party loyalty rather than individual conscience dominates Congress. Certainly, Party positions require teamwork, but the extent of this practice defies profiles in courage in lieu of political tribalism. Americans are best served by bipartisan legislation that addresses the diversity of the electorate.
➣ The legislative agenda is set by the majority Party, as it should be in a democracy. But when the minority Party’s agenda is totally vanquished from the floor—prohibiting both debate and an up or down vote—then the legislature no longer speaks for all Americans. The voice of many Americans is silenced; and requisite compromise is averted. (As an aside, I might add that too often special interests are allowed to define the legislative agenda, further limiting representation of the general public’s interests.)
➣ Political fund raising consumes much of the time and effort legislators could be devoting to working “across the aisle,” as many of them admit. Although there is evidence of some collegiality in the upper chamber, there appears to be none in the House. Obviously, political campaign reform is a major issue (reference “American Revolution 2016”), but it still cannot justify the lack of bipartisanship in our legislature. If our elected officials cannot find time to talk to each other, then there is even less opportunity for compromise.
➣ Political strategy too often takes precedence over the obligations of public office, including the critical responsibility of compromise. Perhaps a particularly heinous example is the Republican strategy for defeating Obama: (1) delegitimize him as president (e.g., the birther controversy, secret Muslim inference, etc.); (2) block everything and make victories look ugly; and (3) make it appear to the country that anything is better than the partisan caricature drawn of the present situation. It was this strategy that killed what would have been the most significant bipartisan compromise of recent years, the so-called “grand bargain.” That compromise potentially would have curtailed growth in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to the tune of hundreds of billions, would have increased revenues by 800 billion, and would have reduced both defense and non-defense discretionary spending by more than one trillion dollars over a ten year period. Though this example stands out, both sides of the aisle have become entrenched in strategies that befuddle compromise.

The complexity of our diverse society and the uncompromising gridlock in Washington are both emblematic of an underlying phenomenon. While we struggle to live up to our founding principles, such as equal justice for all, promotion of the general welfare, and the spirit of compromise, we have developed the ruse of inflexible ideologies to justify this drift from core values. At the most generic level, it is no longer capitalism and democracy, but capitalism or democracy. It is not conservatism and liberalism, but conservatism or liberalism. But these “ideologies” are not inflexible, but complementary. At the outset, America was a mercantile enterprise. And capitalism was never the sole bastion of conservatism. In fact, free trade always was (and still is in Europe) considered as a liberal position. The regulation of business, which is anathema to Republican conservatives, was first proposed by a Republican President whose face appears on Mount Rushmore. The Republican Party was born out of the “far left” abolitionist movement. The Democratic Republican Party morphed into the Democratic Party and was founded on the Jeffersonian principle of a limited central government, ironically the central concept behind the current Republican Party’s preference for State’s rights. If you took the measure of history to our present day, you would find the concepts of capitalism versus democracy or conservatism versus liberalism overlap in many areas. In their actual application, they form a continuum, ever ebbing and flowing with the tides of time. The antagonism invented by protagonists is really for the purpose of maintaining divisions in our society, for stimulating those divisions to gain constituents, and for justifying positions on matters of governance (reference “The Weirdness of American Politics”). These concepts and their political representations are just the flip sides of the American experience. Regardless of Party affiliation, all Americans find themselves projected on one side or another of a seesaw. The task before Americans is to find that balance in the middle and not to contend with one another until one side is thrown to the ground.

Often our Constitutional “professor and chief” has denounced unfairness, meanness, or uncompromising behavior with the words, “that’s not who we are.” Unfortunately, his words are a lie that panders to our mistaken self-image as a nation. What he should be saying is “that’s not who we want to be.” America, the so-called “melting pot,” is a cauldron of burning elements that cannot be reduced to a single entity. The fired-up passions of an election season might promise total victory for one Party, but governing in our system must assure “justice and liberty for all” members of our pluralistic society. Of course, we want our businesses to succeed, but not at the expense of a diminishing middle class. Naturally, we want our Constitutional principles to address contemporary issues, but not at the expense of those principles. The liberal/conservative push/pull is a natural concomitant of the American system, as is the for-profit/public service tension. The diversity of our history, our society and our beliefs demand that we accept our past and present differences and work toward the greatest good.

The American Constitution is a hallmark of the Age of Enlightenment. The system of government it constituted is both an experiment and a challenge for succeeding American generations. Our task is to learn from our failures and make that document a living trust in order to realize its promise. Recent history has shown us the pitfalls of other systems. America has fought in world wars with countries that adopted nationalism where the state subordinated the individual and populism where tribal beliefs victimized individuals who were different. Those ideologies are antithetical to our Constitution, and anybody who proposes them should be considered a radical and un-American. Equally, we should be wary of corruption from within, to include the influence of money and the usurpation of power for its own sake. When self-interest trumps public service, both our institutions and Americans suffer. And, finally, we should not give too much credence to the recently touted analogy with right wing challenges to the European Union. Washington DC is not Brussels, but a part of our country, the United States of America.

A prescription for change, then, is for Americans to cast off the indifference displayed in low voter turnout. It is long past the time for us to address our problems with class/ethnic/racial inequality in our society and with the uncompromising/nonsensical ideological contest for power in our politics. We already have what we need to continue America’s evolution in the Articles of our Constitution and in the core values expressed in that document. The change Americans seem to be seeking will not be found in antithetical political philosophies or radical demagogues that deviate from those values, but rather in a creative application of our founding principles to our contemporary problems. That change is solely in the hands of individual Americans. We simply need to reengage with the promise of our heritage and with the responsibility it entails. Let’s make our voices heard in the halls of Congress and in local voting booths across our great country. Awake, America!

Is America a “house divided against itself?”

This question is assumed by many political observers in this country and is voiced by many world leaders abroad. Within the beltway, it seems common wisdom to accuse the opposing side of intransigence. Recently in a Charlie Rose interview, the Senate Majority Leader blamed the President for not supporting what he terms as the biggest problems facing America, namely, tax, entitlement, and regulatory reforms. He would like to simplify the tax code by eliminating deductions and lowering the tax rate at the top, while maintaining a neutral fiscal balance. The President agrees with the tactics, but not the overall strategy: he wants to raise money for both debt reduction and infra structure “investment” which, in Republican eyes, is merely a pseudonym for “expenditures”. The Senate Majority Leader would like to “save” entitlements by extending age eligibility for Medicare and Social Security, following the path taken by President Reagan. The President recognizes that people live longer, but does not agree that they should work longer or retire later. Instead, he appears to favor an increase in the income cutoff for Medicare taxes and to maintain the status quo with Social Security which is projected to remain solvent for the next several decades. The Senate Majority Leader strongly feels that regulations are stifling small businesses in America. He specifically calls out the Environmental Protection Agency and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, while castigating all regulatory agencies in general. The President believes that government must regulate the economy to provide for the safety, protection, and economic interests of the general public. He has pointed out that the EPA and Dodd-Frank have mainly impacted multi-national energy companies and America’s largest banks, respectively, rather than small businesses. Maybe there is some room for compromise on these differing positions regarding tax and entitlement reform. For example, Congress could give the President some “investment” income and stipulate a measure of debt reduction from tax reform while lowering the corporate tax rate and eliminating tax “loopholes.” And it could take a balanced approach to Medicare, possibly raising the income cutoff for the Medicare tax in exchange for raising the age limit for eligibility, perhaps to match Social Security. But the ideological arguments on regulatory reform seem to offer no quarter for compromise. Besides the public interest interwoven into many regulations, many were created for and written by business. Culling out the bad regulations would be like pulling weeds from an overgrown and long unattended garden. Many parasites who feed there would object.

Our two political parties appear to be locked into positions defined by ideologies that may be generalized. The Republican Party emphasizes personal freedom, largely unhindered by government. The Democratic Party champions equality, largely guaranteed by government. Remember “one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Liberty and equality under the law are both interwoven into the very fabric of our nation. The Parties should be like a happily married couple who work as one team, each party completing the other. Whose interests are they really representing? Why do they act like embittered divorcees?

I can think of several reasons. David Brooks points out that besides freedom and equality there is a third refrain at the heart of the American experience, specifically, economic mobility. The latter was a theme of the Whig Party, to which most of our founding fathers belonged. It was most eloquently espoused by Alexander Hamilton, generally recognized as the primary author of our economic system. Oddly, it has been incessantly repeated by our current President when he speaks of opportunity—“any person who works hard should have a fair shot.” Perhaps our government would interfere less in personal freedom and at the same time provide more equality by focusing on the opportunities available to Americans and to their ambitions in life. Most conservatives, I suspect, would agree in principle. If so, why can our government not insure a quality education for every citizen, provide funds for infra structure investments, institute only those regulations and patent laws that encourage entrepreneurship, and provide healthcare at a reasonable costs to all its citizens. Most liberals, I suspect, would not only agree but strongly affirm “yes, we can.” If our government truly focused upon providing every citizen the opportunity for his/her personal realization of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the currently divisive approach to regulatory, tax, and entitlement reform would dissolve into a single goal. Compromise would necessarily be the result. Each side would lose something in order to benefit society as a whole. We could then lift the burden of a government without representation from our collective shoulders. That burden weighs heavily on us today and cannot be born for long if we are to remain a free society. Emphasizing one American ideal over another can lead either to worthwhile debate or to gridlock. The latter serves neither the synergy of those ideals nor the American people who strive to live them. Instead, our political Parties should focus on what government can do to promote equal opportunity for individual Americans. “It’s the economy stupid” is not the right catch phrase if it is measured by a rising stock market and increased corporate profits. The economy is a byproduct of equal opportunity—as are personal freedom and equality.

Another reason for the intransigence in Washington is something we too easily take for granted. It was part of that loudly proclaimed refrain in the French revolution, namely, liberté, egalité, fraternité. That last element, “brotherhood,” addresses our feelings for each other and the realization of our common humanity. It is implied in our dedication to “form a more perfect Union.” But it cannot be realized until all barriers to our union are torn down, including all forms of bigotry, gender bias, racial or ethnic discrimination, and the systemic impoverishment of the less fortunate. Only compassion for each other can break down those barriers. It is not the same as “nationalism” which establishes the state’s interest over the individual’s. Nor is it encompassed by “popularism” which tends to represent tribal or class interests over that of the individual. Compassion is that quality that can unite all of us on a person-to-person basis and is the integral binding force of communities. Of course, the larger the community, the more difficult it is to represent the value of personal relationships. However, the leaders we elect and the laws our legislators pass must reflect the empathy we share as individuals for each other. Otherwise, these leaders and legislators can be seen as personally unauthentic, as “not one of us.” And their governing principles will not reflect the welfare of individual Americans, but some self-interest, such as staying in office, rewarding their supporters, or serving those adolescent goals that can entice any of us to money, power, fame and/or status. America can still promote individual self-sufficiency without betraying its communal devotion to all of its citizens, its sense of “brotherhood,” and its unrelenting quest to “form a more perfect Union.”

So, again, why is there so much vitriol in our politics and antagonism between the Parties? Is there simply an absence of unifying principles and goals? Are our elected officials more devoted to narcissistic hubris or just lacking in any real empathy with those they are elected to represent? In some measure, it would seem both questions can be answered in the affirmative. But there is another reason for the ineffectiveness of our politics: there is a complete and total breakdown in communication. The problem begins with the distinction between discussion and dialogue. “Discussion,” like the word “percussion,” implies the pounding of the air with sound waves. A person delivering a lecture behind a podium or a speech before a camera has little if any feedback from an audience. There is no dialogue: communication is one way only. Likewise, a debate in which opponents attempt to disprove each other’s argument in favor of their own can easily devolve into straight-on attacks, as seen in recent political debates. Again there is no real attempt at understanding the opponent’s position and no real dialogue. Have you ever watched a Senator or Congressman address his/her colleagues on C-Span? When the camera pulls back from the speaker, you will most likely see an empty chamber. The speaker is talking for the record, perhaps for his constituency, but definitely not for his/her fellow legislators. Has anyone of us ever resolved a disagreement with a spouse without first attempting to understand our spouse’s position? Compromise requires dialogue. Without the ability to listen and understand someone with whom we disagree there is no space for identifying common ground or correcting our own misconceptions.

Referring again to Charlie Rose’s interview, the Senate Majority Leader explained the President’s intransigence in this manner: “instead of talking about things upon which we might agree, he wasted my time trying to convince me of things with which he should know I could never agree” (my paraphrase). The door into his mind was shut before the President even began to state his argument. Why even bother having a meeting if at the outset you refuse to listen or even try to understand a different opinion? From the Senator’s perspective it was arrogant of the President to believe he could change the Senator’s opinion. Is it no wonder that the Republican majority cannot suffer this President and are offended by him? Both sides appear to be talking past each other. In the case of the Senate Majority Leader, he clearly demonstrates the problem in his refusal to even listen to the President’s position. There is no dialogue here and, therefore, no possibility for compromise on the real issues that separate the Parties. Instead, there is just a growing disrespect for those in the opposition Party. At best our Congress can make spineless agreements to extend funding on programs that require revision. But it declines any real dialogue on those major issues that both Parties will turn into campaign attack fodder.
Unfortunately, this breakdown in communication extends into the public forum. Yesterday, I was fortunate to hear three complete speeches; two were by major Party candidates for President, and the third by Elizabeth Warren. All but one of these speeches clarified Party positions; and all three were noteworthy for the hateful vitriol they poured upon the opposing Party nominee. Today, I witnessed how cable news reported these three speeches. They clipped out any context and broadcast only the vitriol. The one speech that was largely incoherent and clarified nothing was given equal treatment and, therefore, equal weight. What we have come to accept as fair and impartial reporting is no longer fair or objective for it leaves out the truth. What we are forced to witness is politicians engaged in self-gratifying harangues and a media obsession with the spectacle. What is missing is substance.

Maybe, the American system is not yet broken, but cracks are noticeably developing, as evident in both major political Parties’ complaints. Neither side seems willing to address the issues considered most important to the other side. Should our government address income inequality or tax reform? Should it address a deteriorating safety net or entitlement reform? Should it address climate change or regulatory reform? Each of these questions juxtaposes the opposing priorities advanced by each Party. If we had a decent civics education program, every 16 year old in America would be able to see that these priorities are not opposing, but interrelated. They are two sides of the same coin. Their presentation as opposing viewpoints clouds the real issue: our elected officials are not listening to each other, making it impossible to appreciate other perspectives; and their lack of real dialogue makes it impossible for them to understand where compromise might exist. The issues they raise about laws affecting abortion, guns, religious freedom, and voting restrictions are all legitimate Constitutional issues that will wind their way through the judicial branch of government. But they are not the major issues that sit unattended in the Congressional inbox. Those issues can be readily identified in a dialogue with Charlie Rose, but never seriously addressed in any dialogue between our elected representatives. What might motivate that dialogue is a heartfelt concern for the welfare of the people that elected them. What might keep them on track is the common goal of providing equal opportunity for every American.

So how do we burst the beltway bubble and force our government to attend to the people’s business? Some number of blogs ago, I proposed “voting rights legislation consisting of universal voter registration, Federal fair election guidelines, and populist regulations governing Federal campaign funding and candidate debates” (reference “American Revolution 2016”). My intent was to promote discussion around a proposal that would return power to the voter rather than to campaign funders. I still cannot envision another way to both preserve the promise of America for all of its citizens and prevent the breakup of our system of government.

We must begin to realize that the people we vote in office govern with our consent. Their failure is as much ours as theirs.