Tag: politics

Character Matters

Posted on by Andrew Minion

Yesterday’s assault on the Capitol demonstrates clearly why the character of our leaders matters; why “the policies are the important thing” and “we’re not electing a pastor” are poor excuses to gain power.

President Trump for five years has shown nothing but disregard for laws and norms in his quest for power. He consistently encouraged those who support him to do the same.

Remember when he said he could shoot a person in public and still be elected? Or encouraged supporters at a rally to assault a protestor, adding that he would pay the legal fees?

This type of rhetoric, and countless other examples, all led to yesterday.

“I support his policies but wish he would tweet less” is a poor excuse for power. What we say comes first from our heart:

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

—Luke 6:45

The words we speak have consequences, and five years of Trump’s words led to yesterday’s actions by his supporters. (Yes, his supporters, not antifa.)

Months of claiming “the election will be rigged” and weeks of claiming rampant election fraud in public while offering little to no evidence in courts—where it actually mattered—have resulted in “different truths” for those who support Trump and those who do not, and led directly to yesterday’s events.

His quest for power led to this. But it was encouraged and enabled by Republican and “conservative” support.

Growing up during the Clinton presidency, I often heard “character matters in our leaders” and more than ever, I believe that is true.

I was also taught that “the end does not justify the means,” that “it’s never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right.”

Yet during the past five years, “conservatives” and the church have demonstrated time and again that all too often, those were just words.

“But he’s better than the alternative” is pragmatism, pure and simple. “But the left is going to destroy our country” is a poor excuse for failing to stand for convictions.

Christian and “conservative” support for Trump has enabled and emboldened him, at the cost of losing all credibility because of these double standards.

Thank God for people like David French and Phil Vischer who are not afraid to stand for truth.

Character matters. It always has, and always will, and we cannot afford to ignore it in our leaders.

Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation

Posted on by Andrew Minion
Cover of Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation

This excellent book explores the reasons behind our current polarization, presents two believable scenarios where various states might secede from the Union, and offers suggestions on how to bring down the temperature of our civil discourse.

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Highlights

At the core of each narrative is the burning conviction that the other side doesn’t just want its opponents to lose political races, but rather wishes for them to exist in a state of permanent, dangerous (perhaps even deadly) subordination. And, really, if you’re steeped in your own side’s narrative, shouldn’t your opponent not just lose but also be cast down from American politics and culture?

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American civil society is retreating, and as American civil society retreats, politics surges to take its place.

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On Pluralism

America was built from the ground up to function as a pluralistic republic. It can flourish only as a pluralistic republic. …contrary to the beliefs of illiberal activists and intellectuals on the left and the right, America can exist only as a liberal, pluralistic republic. By “liberal,” I do not mean Democratic or progressive but rather the form of government that “conceive[s] humans as rights-bearing individuals who could fashion and pursue for themselves their own version of the good life.”

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to embrace pluralism is to surrender the dream of domination. To embrace pluralism is to acknowledge that even the quest for domination is dangerous. It understands that human beings will not yield that which is most precious to them, even at the point of a gun. Embracing pluralism means embracing the lessons of history and understanding that not even our great nation is immune to the forces that have fractured unions older than ours. Our nation’s angriest culture warriors need to know the cost of their conflict. As they seek to crush their political and cultural enemies, they may destroy the nation they seek to rule.

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To embrace pluralism, citizens truly need only to embrace two real limitations on their quest for ultimate ideological victory.

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First, if you are a citizen of a pluralistic, liberal republic, you need to defend the rights of others that you would like to exercise yourself—even when others seek to use those rights to advance ideas you may dislike or even find repugnant.

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Second, if you are a citizen of a pluralistic, liberal government, you should defend the rights of communities and associations to govern themselves according to their values and their beliefs—so long as they don’t violate the fundamental rights of their dissenting members.

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Let’s start with the absolutely most basic building block of reconstructing a commitment to liberalism and pluralism. Let’s start with a term that conservatives have grown to hate and all too many progressives abuse and misunderstand. Let’s start with tolerance, properly understood.

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Americans must be tolerant of dissent, even when they believe dissenters are offensive and wrong.

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The political class exploits grace. The political class treats it as weakness. Thus, while parts of the public may long for mutual respect and a deescalation of partisan vitriol, even weary partisans don’t want to show weakness. The people who actually drive American politics and policy are committed to escalation, and as they escalate, they drive their committed followers into ever-greater frenzies.

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On Centralization and Federalism

American centralization is a response both to a terrible failure of federalism and to the dramatic external, existential threats of the Axis powers and the Soviet Union.

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In the case of America’s history of race discrimination, federalism enabled evil.

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Federalism has become a tactic, not a principle. It’s a defense mechanism when you’re out of power and an annoyance when you’re in power.

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On Our Attitudes Toward Others

Those who care the most often hate the most, and one of their chief methods of discrediting ideological allies with whom they compete is by portraying them as too tolerant of the hated political enemy. Kindness is perceived as weakness. Decency is treated as if it’s cowardice. Acts of grace are an unthinkable concession to evil.

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The next two qualities, mercy and humility, are indispensable to our national life. Mercy is the quality we display when we are, in fact, right and our opponents are wrong. We treat them not with contempt but with compassion.

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Humility reminds us that we are not perfect. Indeed, we are often wrong and will ourselves need mercy.

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On Religion and Politics

Posted on by Andrew Minion

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong—faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.”

Frank Herbert in Dune, kindle location 7,089

It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the Politics of Extremism by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein

Posted on by Andrew Minion

It’s Even Worse than It LooksThis 240-page volume by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein seeks to examine the causes for hyper-partisanship, deadlocked Congress, and refusal of the major parties to compromise to accomplish anything significant.

Honestly, this book sounded like it had been written during the 2016 election season rather than in 2012. They did release a second edition in 2016 with some updated information.

Problems

Adversarial Mindset

First, the authors point out that the Republican and Democrat parties have increasingly pointed at each other as adversaries, acting as if it’s “better to have an issue than a bill, to shape the party’s brand name and highlight party differences.” (p51). While undoubtedly this tactic does help win elections, it also limits the ability to accomplish anything.

“The single-minded focus on scoring political points over solving problems, escalating over the last several decades, has reached a level of such intensity and bitterness that the government seems incapable of taking and sustaining public decisions responsive to the existential challenges facing the country.”
—p101

Asymmetric Polarization

The authors coined this term to describe their conclusion that though politics are more polarized than in recent decades, they have not both moved the same distance from center. They argue that the Republican party has moved further to the right and become “more idealogically extreme;… scornful of compromise…; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition, all but declaring war on the government.” (p102). They don’t hold the Democratic party up as a “paragon of civic virtue” either, but contend that it is more “idealogically centered and diverse,… open to incremental changes in policy fashioned through bargaining with the Republicans, and less disposed to or adept at take-no-prisoners conflict between the parties.” (p102).

Suggestions

To address the hyper-polarized state of current politics, the authors seek parties that are “less idealogically polarized, more accepting of each other’s legitimacy, and more open to genuine deliberation and bargaining on issues of fundamental importance to the future of the country.” (p132, emphasis mine).

Expand the Electorate

Higher voter turnout would bring more moderate voters to the polls, reducing the extreme partisanship shown especially in primary elections.

Reduce Presumed Bias Against Moderates

Reducing gerrymandering, making primaries open or semi-closed instead of completely closed, and instant-runoff voting (ranking candidates in order of preference, rather than picking just one) may help reduce polarization.

Change Campaign Funding and Spending Rules and Practices

Requiring the disclosure of donors and prohibiting contributions from lobbyists and others receiving government money would help make candidates more transparent.

Others

They include several chapters with more suggestions for reducing hyper-polarization and improving honest deliberation and debate, both among citizens and government officials.

Conclusion

No matter your political leanings, you will find something here you do not like, probably because the authors managed to put a finger on something you do not like to acknowledge.

These authors were remarkably prescient; writing in 2012, they made some predictions of what would happen if a Republican government was elected in 2012. In 2017, nearly all of these have taken place already, with more on the horizon:

  • Dismantling health reform
  • Gutting financial regulation
  • Cutting taxes even more
  • Making deep cuts in domestic spending
  • Strong temptation on Mitch McConnell’s part to act unilaterally to erase the filibuster to take advantage of this rare chance to achieve revolutionary change
  • Steep reductions in Medicaid through block grants to the states
  • Partial privatization of Social Security
  • Massive deregulation in finance and environmental policy
  • More than half of the citizens would likely strongly oppose these moves and be jolted by their implementation

(pages 199–200)

I wholeheartedly recommend reading this book and considering what you can do to improve genuine deliberation and debate rather than name-calling, adversarial positions, and blind partisanship.

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