The year is almost over, and an election looms. Is the country more divided now than it ever was? Can Americans find common ground on anything? Is there life beyond political squabbles? As 2015 comes to a close, Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, reflect on the year that was.
To save the union, make a friend of a political foe
Some of my best friends are conservatives.
There are those of you who will roll your eyes at that, and probably a few of you who might find it patronizing. What can I say? It’s a cliché, but it’s also true.
What’s also true: My life is immeasurably better and richer because of my conservative friends, starting with Ben Boychuk — no RINO he — and extending to a vast array of people with whom I grew up and attended college. I don’t just have conservative friends; I love them dearly.
I just happen to think they’re wrong about a lot of stuff.
That’s OK. They think the same about me. We have raucous disagreements, we occasionally make each other really mad, and then we persist with each other because, hey, we’re friends.
What’s more, I’ve come to think conservatives have a few insights that liberals could learn from. We liberals aren’t in favor of big government for its own sake — it’s usually a means to solving some societal ill. But conservatives are (sometimes) right that expanding the reach of government can involve tradeoffs in personal freedom, that regulation sometimes has unintended consequences, that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. They’re not always right about these things, but they’re right often enough that liberals should pay attention.
The problem? We Americans don’t really pay attention to each other any more. We’re not friends with each other anymore. We increasingly see our rivals as evil, meant to be stopped entirely. Compromise and accommodation — meetings of the minds — seem increasingly impossible in this atmosphere.
Our republic cannot survive this state of affairs for long. It rests on the notion that electoral losers accept the legitimacy of the winners, and that is increasingly no longer the case.
This isn’t a call to centrism, or an end to politics. Our republic also depends on healthy debate. We will argue with each other. That’s how it works. But we need to stop treating each other like enemies. Maybe we should even try, once again, to be friends. Happy holidays.
— Joel Mathis
Step back from the fray and count your blessings
Our republic is in bad shape. No need to sugarcoat it. Americans have put up with eight years of executive abuses, constitutional usurpations and broken promises, right and left. Nothing ever seems to change, except for the worse. People are angry. Enough of this.
Simply look at the rise and enduring appeal of Donald Trump among a sizable slice of Republican primary voters and erstwhile Reagan Democrats. “America doesn’t win anymore,” Trump says. “I can make it win.”
Is Trump a demagogue and a fraud? No doubt about it. Then again, so are the Democratic alternatives. A November Quinnipiac poll found that 60 percent of U.S. voters — a pretty broad demographic, as far as these surveys go — say Hillary Clinton is neither honest nor trustworthy. Yet she would still trounce Trump if the general election were held today.
People say they’ve had enough. But they’re going to get more of the same.
Americans are more divided and dispirited than they were in 2008 or 2012. Journalist Bill Bishop in 2004 coined the term, “The Big Sort,” which he used to describe the way like-minded Americans over the past 40 years have been segregating themselves not only into regions and states, but cities and neighborhoods.
The trend continues unabated. We are a much redder and bluer America today than when this column began in 2008. A Pew Research study published last year found that Americans are far more divided along ideological lines than we were a decade ago. That isn’t a good thing.
Usually around this time of year, I like to observe what I call a “Christmas truce.” Politics can be exhausting any time, but especially in an election year. The madness we’ve seen unfold this year is but a prelude of what’s coming in 2016.
Let me suggest stepping back from the fray for a moment. Put the paper down or step away from the screen (after you finish reading this column, of course). Sit quietly. Breathe slowly. Count your blessings — you have many more than you may realize.
The country may be a mess, but don’t forget that despair is a sin. Take heart. This, too, shall pass.
— Ben Boychuk
Ben Boychuk is associate editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. Joel Mathis is associate editor for Philadelphia Magazine. Visit them on Facebook: www.facebook.com/benandjoel.
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