Author: Ben Dalgetty
There is no greater tragedy in modern politics then the death of debate. Politics in America has never been a clean game. From Vice President Aaron Burr’s murder of founding father Alexander Hamilton to the death of President Andrew Jackson’s wife due to rumors of adultery, politics is not for the thin-skinned. But tune in to political news today and in all likelihood you won’t see any governing at all. Instead, the world’s leading democracy has devolved into blatant misinformation, smear campaigns and partisan filibustering.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) screamed, “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during his address to a joint session of Congress a month ago, an interruption unprecedented in those hallowed halls.
The sight of Obama or other democratic leaders burning in effigy has become commonplace and accepted at conservative “tea-party” rallies. And, iff nothing else, the fact that the President can no longer address America’s youth without preemptive condemnations that he is attempting to “indoctrinate America’s children to his socialist agenda,” is stark evidence of how far from productive the debate has become. That conservative media and politicians reacted with joy when Obama’s bid for Chicago to hold the 2016 Olympics failed simply left me speechless.
To be sure, the rise of over-partisanship is not a phenomena limited to Republicans. Democrats also burned President George W. Bush in effigy during his administration, and their penchant for fixating on his ineloquence rather than actual policy he implemented is equally condemnable.
The problem is that we have come to worship ideologies and ideologues more than individuals with ideals. Americans, particularly American politicians, have become so obsessed with their beliefs, and the belief that anything to the contrary is unequivocally wrong, that debate is no longer possible. Instead, we are left with childish screaming matches and name calling.
This trend runs contrary to every facet of American political tradition. Today, members of the minority party have perfected the art of stonewalling and seem to prefer a lack of legislation rather than any middle ground. Again, the party in power is not without blame, and their own unwillingness to talk is equally condemnable.
Perhaps it is only the idealized lens of history, but it seems as though this was not always the case. The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) marked in many ways the end of an era where politicians were friends before partisan ideologues, and it does not show any signs of a comeback.
The simple reality is that I no longer believe that members of Congress are there because they want to improve the country. Today they seem more interested in shipping back as much pork as possible to their constituents and making headlines through ostentatious partisan hackery.
Unfortunately, we have no one to blame for this devolution of politics but ourselves. We bought into the promised democratization of news by cable channels that serve to reinforce our ideologies more than inform our opinions. We elected leaders more interested in tearing down the opposition than working for the common good. And, until Americans take a stand and demand the return of debate, this freak show will continue to consume politics.
Ben Dalgetty is a senior Politics major. He can be reached at bdalgetty@oxy.edu.
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