In the partisan pits

Civility is becoming a thing of the past, and anything you don’t like (like perhaps someone’s arrest … or conviction) isn’t civil … sigh. 2019 Editorial cartoon by Nate Beeler, Columbus Dispatch.

We did this to ourselves. We have no one else to blame.

In the wake of last week’s unanimous guilty verdicts from the jury on 34 counts in New York, Donald Trump and his supporters have decried the legal system that they swear has been weaponized against Republicans.

Besides proclaiming it a sham trial (without proof), SHS inserted a hyphen after an -ly adverb, and that CANNOT STAND. Screenshot from SHS’ Twitter/X account.

When the district attorney who filed the case (the weakest of the four indictments, and which has no federal involvement, so no, Joe Biden and the U.S. Justice Department have nothing to do with it) campaigned on bringing Trump to justice, one could hardly be surprised that people see partisan fingerprints all over it. Especially when the now-convicted felon continually paints himself as a victim rather than someone experiencing the consequences of his own actions for an easily swayed audience of people who were apparently out sick when civics was taught in ninth grade and who think media literacy means knowing where all the “best” far-right-wing media sites are … you know, the ones that don’t even pretend to care about credibility and have the best prices on colloidal silver and hydroxychloroquine.

Partisan sniping has always been a part of America’s DNA, but I can’t recall a time in our history that it’s been this bad, and it doesn’t help that we have people who blindly believe what they’re told by their preferred political figures despite evidence to the contrary.

Sigh. Even the juror who got her news solely from Truth Social and X voted to convict on each count. But sure, unfair. It’ll probably be even more unfair when his other trials happen. Screenshot from Arkansas Republican Party Facebook page.

To wit: Jan. 6, 2021, was not a typical tourist visit at the Capitol, as tourists generally don’t break doors and windows, smear excrement on walls or steal lecterns. Prosecution is not the same as persecution; if you break the law, you should expect to face charges (and seriously, Sen. Bob Menendez, resign; serving and running for re-election while on trial on bribery charges is not a good look), and if found guilty, be sentenced accordingly.

We’ve allowed politics to infect even the food we eat (I don’t need a political reason not to eat at Chick-fil-A, though, being firmly against waffle fries, which get cold too quickly, and the use of pickles on chicken sandwiches; blech), the stores we shop at, and even the words we use (for all those people who pitch a hissy fit whenever someone refers to the U.S. as a democracy or a republic, settle down; it’s a constitutional democratic republic). Some are using politics as a bludgeon to impose their beliefs on others (the founders would not approve).

This is why I don’t like politics, and would greatly prefer something that’s never going to happen: eschewing parties and voting instead for people. I’d like to hear what individual candidates think about the issues, not talking points handed straight from a political party. If we placed a premium on and voted for candidates who think for themselves, we’d be better off. Heck, instead of party primaries, why not just vote on all filed candidates for an office together, with the top two in a race going on to the general election, regardless of party? And, hey, maybe even use ranked-choice voting, which would allow for nuance and give a better shot of the best candidate winning.

Asa wouldn’t have a chance of being elected in Arkansas now because he has not only decried Donald Trump, but said the jury verdict against him should be respected. How dare! Screenshot from Asa Hutchinson’s Twitter/X account.

The major parties have ill-served us over the past several presidential elections, giving us terrible candidates, and third parties keep giving us people like Robert Kennedy Jr., who somehow keeps making himself look worse (I’m still waiting for the bottom there; it’s been at least a decade since I had any respect for him, but he keeps digging). We’ve gotten it into our heads that the parties are monoliths, and that everyone who takes a party label believes the same things (because of course Pramila Jayapal and Elissa Slotkin are exactly the same, as are Marjorie Taylor Greene and Brian Fitzpatrick … I’ll wait while you try to figure out who Slotkin and Fitzpatrick are). We’ve forgotten that Democrats can be Christian and pro-life and that Republicans can believe in the separation of church and state. Nuance? What’s that?

How do we get past it? Not without difficulty, especially since we keep digging when we’re already deep in the hole (if you’re feeling it getting hotter, you may be in Arkansas or too close to the center of the Earth; stop digging).

I’d prefer a hands-off approach for things like medical decisions, but for public works, government is necessary. Serious representatives elected by serious voters are also necessary. Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin, Miami Herald.

First, though, we have to start taking government seriously. We have to elect people based on themselves, their qualifications and their commitment to serving the entire public, not their party, and definitely not their grievances. We must elect people who are serious about governing and who are qualified for the positions they seek (running for office and having people vote for you is not a qualification, despite what a friend from back home said about a past gubernatorial candidate who campaigned mostly on fighting the president and distressing the “radical left” in Arkansas … all seven or eight of them). Candidates for local and state offices, especially, should be in tune with the concerns of their districts, not whatever is bothering the national party. They definitely should understand that in their local or state offices, the odds of them having to deal with government in Washington are very slim unless a topic of national importance arises because state/municipal governments are their own animal and are not overseen by D.C.

The attitude depends on who’s in power, and this was 2020. Gosh … wonder who the president was then … Editorial cartoon by Monte Wolverton.

Electing judges and district attorneys is problematic as well, as justice isn’t supposed to be partisan, but inevitably becomes so when certain people paint the justice system as biased when it doesn’t rule in their favor but perfectly fair when it does. Justice isn’t supposed to be conservative, liberal, libertarian or any other partisan leaning, but based on the law, which is supposed to be the same for all (though in practice it isn’t, especially for those with fewer resources).

Where judges have to be elected, I’ve grown fond of the Missouri Plan often touted by fellow columnist John Brummett, where a nonpartisan judicial commission reviews candidates for an open judgeship to give a list of the best qualified to the governor, who selects from the list (after 60 days or so with no decision from the governor, the commission would make the choice). After a year of service, a retention election is held, and if the judge fails, the seat becomes vacant and the process starts anew. While there would still be problems with this, it would take more of the partisan element away to focus on what’s actually important: the law.

It won’t solve the problem of the naked partisanship on the U.S. Supreme Court, but ethics rules that apply to all federal courts, including the Supremes, would help.

Sadly accurate, though I’d still prefer the actual French Taunter. Editorial cartoon by RJ Matson, Roll Call.

But nothing will change until we do. We have to stop being reactionary and grievance-driven. We have to get our news from a variety of sources (making sure those sources are trustworthy; if your news sources always tell you what you want to hear, look elsewhere), and ensure that something is true before we share it as fact on social media. We have to be educated on how government works, and on the issues. We have to demand that our elected representatives be accountable to us and the law. We have to live in the same reality again, using the same set of facts.

That last bit might be a tough row to hoe for many of us who’ve become so trapped in our partisan silos that we only believe what comes from our own trusted sources, whether they’re worthy of trust or not, as long as they feed our fear and resentment. That’s no way to live.

Especially if you can’t accept the verdict of a jury of one’s peers. But hey, in reality, that’s what happened.

And in reality, words, not politics, are my milieu. I’d like to get back to that, please.

Charlie and Ollie agree. “Aunt Brenda is much more entertaining when she’s not having to think about politics, and she’s about to sit us again! We demand entertainment!“