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“George Washington was first in war, first in peace and
first in the hearts of his countrymen, a soldier remembered as uniquely inspiring
to the men who went through hell with him at Valley Forge. Washington is not
particularly remembered as a political scientist, but early on he recognized what
may yet be the fatal flaw in the American political system.
“He recognized the blind partisanship born of the party
system, and we see it writ large in the {current} presidential election campaign
. . . He foresaw with remarkable clarity and prescience how organized
factions could come together to obstruct the execution of the laws enacted by
Congress, and how this would effectively override the Constitutional separation
of powers of the executive, congressional and judicial branches of the government.
“. . . late in life, he wrote that ‘however [political
parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of
time and things to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and
unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp
for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines
which have lifted them to unjust dominion.’ [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“Washington understood, as many Americans do not, that
political parties are organized as if to promote graft, greed and corruption,
leading inexorably to putting party above country. . .
- - -
“George Washington, like a modern prophet, was concerned
with the damage that loyalty to party above country would inflict in a time far
beyond his own. The alternate domination of one political party over another, he
said, would enable one party enjoying temporary control of the government to use
that power to exact revenge on the other at the expense of the country.
“This tendency toward atrocities directed at the party
out of power, he said, ‘is itself a frightful despotism. But it leads at length
to a more formal and permanent despotism.’ " (Ref.
1)
Americans would do well to take heed of Washington's
admonitions during the politicking leading up to the elections in November 2020.
Extreme party partisanship and despotism are not far removed from each other.
It was never the intention of the framers of our Constitution to empower one
political party or one individual to the detriment of the American people.
Their intent was to guarantee that the good of the citizens of this country
would always take precedence over all selfish political considerations.
They had fought to do away with one despot and wished to ensure that no other
despot - whether an individual or a group on individuals organized into a
despotic cabal - should ever seize uncontrolled power in America. Hence the
establishment of the three branches of our American government and the checks
and balances written into our Constitution.
Some 250 years or so after Washington’s words were
spoken, America finds itself embroiled in the “blind partisanship born of the
party system”. But, we may finally be seeing the possibility of blind party
loyalty becoming subservient to the national interest and simple conscience.
“Even as Democrats in the House pursue an impeachment inquiry into his dealings
with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, President Donald Trump has doubled
down on his attacks, using Twitter to go after his perceived political rivals
as well as the members of Congress investigating him. Trump’s actions suggest
he has no fear of being removed from office—as well he shouldn’t. So far,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his GOP have proved an almost
indestructible firewall against attacks on the president and his agenda.
“While McConnell has called it ‘laughable’ to claim
that Trump committed an impeachable offense, he’s also taken a few careful
steps to insulate his caucus against a possible reversal. ‘If this is the
‘launching point’ for House Democrats’ impeachment process,’ he said in a
statement to Politico, ‘they’ve already overplayed their hand.’ But
he also told CNBC he’d have ‘no choice’ under Senate rules but to take up
impeachment articles and stopped short of blessing Trump’s conduct.
[Emphasis mine] In recent weeks he’s ordered a bipartisan Senate intelligence
investigation, backed a resolution written by Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer demanding that the administration turn over the then-secret
whistleblower report, and announced he’d been privately pushing the
administration to release aid to Ukraine that had been held up before
Trump’s phone call with that country’s president.
“While no Senate Republican has yet said Trump
should be impeached over Ukraine, what they have said suggests he might
not have a solid wall behind him if damaging information continues to come
out. Trump’s sometime rival Mitt Romney of Utah has called the president’s
actions ‘troubling in the extreme.’ Nebraska’s Ben Sasse, who criticized
Trump as a candidate but has fallen in line since, said his colleagues
shouldn’t rush to ‘circle the wagons’ around the president. And Senate
Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina has vowed to ‘get
to the bottom’ of what happened.
“It would likely take a collapse in support for
Trump among Republican voters to change GOP senators’ calculus. While polls
show increasing approval among the public for impeachment, it’s come mostly
from Democrats. The president’s approval rating among GOP voters remains
above 80% in public polls, making any Republican senator’s defection a
potentially career-ending decision.
“The administration is counting on Republicans
to toe the party line. [Emphasis mine] Before it released a rough
transcript of Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine, the White House
summoned a group of Republican lawmakers for a strategy briefing. Anyone who
might have been considering breaking ranks wouldn’t have had to look further
than former Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee to see
the consequences: Both decided to retire last year rather than run for
reelection after their dust-ups with Trump sent their poll numbers plummeting.
“Having to cast a vote in an impeachment trial would
put some swing-state Republicans, such as Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob
Portman of Ohio, on the spot. Toomey and Portman have sought to split the
difference, criticizing the president but suggesting his actions don’t warrant
removal from office. GOP Senators Cory Gardner (Colorado), Martha McSally
(Arizona), Joni Ernst (Iowa), and Thom Tillis (North Carolina), all up for
reelection in battleground states, have accused the House of overreaching.
“Others, including Susan Collins of Maine, have
started telling reporters they don’t want to comment on the impeachment
question because they might end up serving as de facto jurors, a line that
conveniently keeps them out of the daily political fray. Collins has yet to
say whether she’s running next year, but she could face the toughest fight
of her career if she did, having to court voters in a state that went for
Hillary Clinton in 2016. Many Democrats who have voted for Collins in the
past are angry over her support for Trump’s agenda and her vote to confirm
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, causing her approval ratings to tumble.
“By contrast, an impeachment fight could benefit
McConnell—who is himself running for reelection next year—given that Trump
won his state, Kentucky, by 30 points. McConnell’s campaign has attacked Amy
McGrath, his Democratic rival, for supporting an impeachment inquiry.
“Trump’s best protection remains the constitutional
requirement that two-thirds of the Senate vote to remove him from office,
rather than the simple majority it takes to impeach in the House. No president
has ever been removed by Senate vote—Richard Nixon resigned before he could
be—and for the Senate to do so in this case would require an almost unimaginable
20 Republican votes to convict.
“Even a few defections, however, could damage the
president heading into 2020. The White House would have to worry the most
about senators like Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee who ripped Trump’s
character in 2016 and, like some other Republican senators, refused to vote
for him. And Trump has little leverage over long-serving senators planning to
retire, such as Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.
“There is some precedent for Republican senators
turning against the president. Earlier this year, a dozen Senate Republicans,
including Alexander, Collins, and Romney, defied Trump on his emergency
declaration at the border, despite McConnell’s publicly encouraging them to
‘vote for border security.’ The opposition was enough to rebuke Trump, but
not enough to override a veto, making it a relatively safe show of independence.
A vote to remove the president from office would of course be far more
consequential—and potentially far more politically dangerous.”
(Ref. 2)
In light of all this, there are several questions
that have arisen. Have the most recent actions of Donald Trump
finally driven Republican senators and representatives into abandonment of
their blind party loyalty? Has principle finally superseded obedience to
Republican party leadership? Has patriotism finally emerged as the guiding
value for Republican lawmakers? Will conscience take precedence over passive
compliance? The answers to these questions are not yet known, but the time
for these questions to be answered may be fast approaching.
Lest it appear that all partisan politics resides
on the Republican side of the isle, let’s remember that Democrats have yet
to prove that they be objective and fair in their treatment of Donald Trump.
It is incumbent that Democrats in the House and the Senate pursue the issue
of Trump's impeachment and removal from office with much more impartiality
than they have heretofore shown. Democrats may not like Trump, but dislike
for a President is not grounds for impeachment and removal from office.
Republican party unity was again tested when
President Trump ordered the abrupt removal of U.S. ground troops from northern
Syria where they had been supporting America’s only ally in the region,
the Kurds. Immediately upon this action, the Kurds came under attack from
Turkey.
“Congressional Republicans have spent most of the
past two years trying to limit public fights with President Donald Trump, either
out of party loyalty or fear of being on the wrong end of a presidential tweetstorm.
“But that show of unity was put to the test {in October
2019} when Trump announced he would withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria in
advance of an impending Turkish military operation against Syrian Kurdish militia
fighters.
“Senior Republican leaders like senators Lindsey Graham,
of South Carolina, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, and Ted Cruz, of Texas, all joined
Democratic colleagues in publicly criticizing the idea, with Graham even going on
Fox News to label the decision ‘short-sighted and irresponsible.’
- - -
“. . . a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s
Center for Middle East Policy, said domestic political considerations may have
played a role as well {in some Republican politicians breaking ranks with the
President}. She speculated that some prominent Republicans felt uncomfortable
defending Trump over the Ukrainian scandal that prompted a House impeachment
inquiry.
“ ‘I think it’s not just Syria. I think this is about
Republicans with a national spotlight feeling the need to show some daylight
between them and the president,’ she said. ‘Clearly they’re feeling some need
to show they’re not in lockstep.’ “ (Ref. 3)
With partisan party politics seemingly in control of
the American political system for the last several years, one may rightly ask
if there is a practical solution to this worsening problem? It is said that the
two-party system is destroying America. Democrats and Republicans appear to be on a
sinking ship and we, the American people, will go down with them if nothing
is done. One proposed solution is to change the system so as to encourage third
party participation on the national political stage.
“The nation faces all sorts of serious problems, from
growing inequality to spreading international terrorism, but the bitter fight
between Democrats and Republicans has largely ground government to a halt.
Partisans on both sides are so angry they can barely speak with the other,
much less work together. The most extreme are convinced that members of the
other party are treasonous and purposefully harming the nation. . . They don’t
just think they have better ideas or their opponents are misguided and honestly
believe that the other side is more interested in partisan gain than the
well-being of the nation. Many of the more extreme partisans simply refuse to
work with the other side. The result is that the two parties have the nation’s
capital, and many state capitals, in a death grip.
“This level of hostility is a direct cause of gridlock.
. . . {Over} the last thirty years the nation has grown more partisan and
Congress has become less effective. Each side is more extreme, and each bases
their political agenda on demonizing the other side. Each side engages in political
machinations, which include partisan gerrymandering and manipulating the rules of
Congress to get their way, stymie their opponents, or deny them office completely.
- - -
“And the public is sick of it. 80 percent disapprove of
Congress. That’s actually an improvement, last November {2015] 86 percent disapproved.
. .
“But what if the problem isn’t the politicians, or the
parties? What if the problem is the system? What if the problem is a system that
makes every election a battle between a single Democrat and a single Republican?
Maybe the solution isn’t new people, or new parties. Maybe the solution is changing
the way we elect people.
“We used to have viable ‘Third Parties’ in this country.
A few, like the Whigs and the Republicans, eventually became the dominant party.
Others, like the Abolitionists and the Progressives, brought important new ideas
into the national debate, and helped change the course of history.
‘Was there something different then that allowed these
third parties to exist? Yes, multi-seat Congressional Districts. A multi-seat
district could have two or more elected representatives. This system allowed a
candidate to be elected with as little as 10 percent of the vote. This allowed
candidates from minor parties to win office, which allowed these parties to gain
political traction and eventually participate in a meaningful way on the national
stage. Our current single seat districts, with ‘winner-take-all’ elections, favors
parties that can assemble coalitions of over fifty percent of the voters. This
favors the two major parties.
“Congress eliminated multi-seat districts in 1967, with
the passage of the Uniform Congressional Districts Act. It is time to repeal this
law. It is time to give the American people a meaningful choice in politics. We
have choices in everything we do, but only a false and divisive choice in politics. . .
{We} need to kill the two party system, but {this doesn’t mean} we get rid of the
Democrats or Republicans. {Instead,} we change the system to bring in new voices
and new ideas. For this we need new political parties.
“This will give voters more choices at the polls. It will
also bring new ideas into the political debate, which will mean that public policy
issues may be debated as if there are a range of possible solutions. This will get
us away from the silly idea that every issue is a death match between left and right.
And maybe, just maybe, the debate won’t be so stupid and we can seriously address
the issues facing the nation.” (Ref. 4)
While our elected politicians remain at blame for allowing
party loyalty and partisanship to steer their decision making, the ultimate blame
for the consequences of this situation lie at the feet of the American citizenry.
It is the American voter who decides who represents them and what they want these
elected officials to do when in office. We, the citizens of America, have the power
to turn out of office those who do not act in our interests and to demand that they
place patriotism first and foremost above any party loyalty. We, the American voters,
must insist that those we place in public office, must place us, their constituency,
above the leaders of any political party to which they are beholden. And we, the
citizens of these United States, must stop blindly voting by party affiliation and
start voting by reason of the individual candidate’s abilities, honesty, and
willingness to place our and the country’s interests above party. We need to start
focusing on the candidate and ignoring the party.
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References:
- Loyalty to party above country, Steven T. Dennis, The
Washington Times, 6 November 2016.
- If Impeachment Comes to the Senate, Mitch McConnell Has Some Wiggle Room,
Steven T. Dennis, Bloomberg Businessweek, 4 October 2019.
- Trump’s plan for Syria withdrawal weakens GOP unity,
Michael Coblenz, News Tribune,
9 October 2019.
- The two-party system is destroying America, Michael Coblenz,
thehill.com, 28 January 2016.
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