Polarization

IN a little under a month, South Carolinians head to the polls for the primary elections. Before any election, signs begin to appear on every street corner and along the streets, sometimes crowding in front of others like people elbowing and pushing others out of the way to put themselves at the head of the line. Sometimes this tactic works, winning votes by name recognition only. The problem comes in the fact that these signs, by design, lack one important detail, policy positions. Recently though, one detail always on the sign caught my attention, the political party, the one political party mentioned in my local area, a political party which I have grown up with but has recently made decisions that I do not necessarily agree with. The lack of diversity caused me to ask the following question. How has our country become so polarized that large sections of every state proffer choices during primaries but have general elections where those candidates run unopposed? How have we become so polarized?

Last week, I started paying attention to these signs, reading the other words and noticing that every single one had the word “Republican” and most of them also had the word “conservative” as well. This post has nothing to do with the merits of either of those ideologies. What struck me was the stunning lack of diversity. When I make a choice and I want to choose who I think would do the best job in the position, I appreciate having actual choices. If I think that a certain willingness to compromise would be a quality important to have – which I do – a plethora of choices that lack that quality forces me into a dilemma that I never thought I would have to face. I do not believe in voting for the lesser of two evils. When I cast a vote, I say that I believe that this candidate is the best candidate. My vote is my word.

Seeing these signs and their lack of diversity made me think of many things Dan Carlin said in his Common Sense podcast which I recently binge-listened to. (Yes, I am late to the game, listening several months after Carlin released what is likely the last of these podcasts.) While I definitely do not agree with many of his individual believes, I found myself agreeing with his assessment that our two party system might be irrevocably broken. The parties have become tied to certain issues which act as anchors drowning any hope of compromise. Carlin long called for a maverick candidate, one who did not conform to the party line. He believed that this sort of maverick could force each party to face their flaws and institute needed reforms. In the 2016 Presidential campaign, Carlin got his wish fulfilled in spades with Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. When the “unthinkable” happened, a maverick becoming President of the United States and the parties did not change but rather retreated even further to their intractable corners, changing nothing, Carlin found himself at a loss for words, unable to continue to promote the fix that did not fix anything.

So what does Dan Carlin and his podcast have to do with the lack of diversity in the political parties of the candidates in my area? Nothing specifically. However, the issue that Carlin highlights in his podcast, the inability to compromise, the rabid polarization, is not new. Too often in history, geography has become destiny.

Political candidates wishing for election success appeal to the ideas of the majority of their constituencies. As someone outside the mold of the majority living around me, I have the opportunity to scrutinize the situation from a somewhat objective viewpoint. I think on my half-hearted desire to move somewhere that more accurately aligns with my values and realize that people have done this throughout history. Living with and near people who agree with you brings comfort, so much comfort at times that we become blind to the idea that someone could legitimately believe something different than we do. This ignorance can be shed but more often becomes willful ignorance, refusing to entertain the idea that a different amount of household income, family shape, race, or ethnicity could possibly contribute to life experiences that mold different values. That’s how a white man in the conservative south could grow up surrounded by women who met and were satisfied by stereotypical norms of the 1950s and have no concept that there could have ever been a culture that demeaned women and considered them nothing more than objects of desire who lacked any independent thought. It explains how someone who spent their formative years in the 1960s carefully ensconced in a white bubble never going anywhere near the points of controversy, could have no knowledge of the institutional racism that permeated the Southern town in which they live and could almost legitimately believe that racism wasn’t as bad in Greenville, South Carolina as it was in Little Rock or Birmingham.

Compromise should not be the dirty word it has become. Government functions when each side sees, truly sees, the other side, acknowledges the legitimate life experiences that side brings to the table. When we do not, we have a government like the one of today where nearly nothing happens, where people cling to their ideals and drown before accepting the help of someone who does not look like their picture of a rescuer, someone who to the drowning person looks like a villain about to shove them underwater.

Instead of retreating down the wide path that looks easy, I choose to be someone that extends a hand of friendship, a hand willing to compromise for everyone’s benefit, not just my own.