The Bipartisan Divide

What does it mean to bridge the bipartisan divide?

This is a topic that I’ve written about in various edited versions of essays over the past several months for grad school applications, and in many online facebook formats in the past few weeks as I’ve gotten increasingly absorbed in the presidential race. It’s a topic I’ve also been alluding to on this blog starting with my “experiments with conservatism” back in July. It is one of my main interests in environmental journalism and communication. Yet I have not explored it in depth.

For me, bridging divides centers around the idea of fostering understanding between two sides of a debate. In this case, it would be between the American left and right. Stop the vilification of each side by the other. Recognize the ounces of validity in all arguments. Understand another point of view without necessarily compromising your own. Seek discussion, not debate. Attempt to understand, not to demonize, not to beat down. Seek truth, not victory over one’s opponent.

As back story, I will launch briefly into the rant that has been waiting to take a more dignified form on my blog, and which has popped up in bits and pieces in a few posts (e.g. What is Sexism, Stanley Fish is Awesome).

(As I write more about the election, it becomes harder to keep my writing apolitical. I will attempt not to stray too far from being politically neutral, but if any partisanship on my part does seep out, it is only due to its inevitability in making a broader point, and I’d like to make clear it is not my intention to promote any political party. I have no desire to alienate readers of any particular political bent, and I apologize if I offend anybody. Thanks.)

I have been very peeved, to say the least, at the prevalence of hatred against Hillary Clinton that has too often been grounded in nothing more than vague, personal explanations (not on policies or her potential to be a good president). But what has been even more troubling to me has been the lack of perturbation among my peers, most of whom – as I admitted in an earlier post – are liberals who are generally concerned about and aware of social issues – the lack of concern among many professed liberals about the sexism that to me has become quite apparently manifest in discussions about Hillary Clinton during the current primaries frenzy. These discussions have taken place on discussion boards, among people I know, and also, to my chagrin, pervasively in the media. I will (I WILL) go into this at more length in another post. Meanwhile, read All You Need Is Hate by Stanley Fish and The Hillary Haters from GQ.

Though I couldn’t vote because of my non-citizenship status, I found myself leaning towards Clinton more and more, in part because of the injustices I saw being perpetuated against her in the form of these abundant, irrational, sexist, verbal attacks, and in part because some women I highly respect support her. These, I realize, are not the best reasons to elect somebody president (although I can expound more on the topic of voting for Clinton because of her gender in my coming post on sexism). In Clinton were unqualified, these factors certainly would not play a primary role; however, in my view the two candidates are both very qualified, and I would support either as president and be sad when either loses the nomination. But Clinton’s battles with sexism are reflected more personally in reality for me.

A couple of days ago, I was reading a few thoughtful facebook notes by Stanford friends and their friends about their support for Clinton or Obama. There were more Obama supporters (three or four) than Clinton supporters (one). The arguments were powerful. I found myself swayed further and further towards Obama as I read. By no means was I a full convert by the end, but the merits of Obama that his supporters are so adamant about became more lucid to me. I liked Obama more, but my feelings for Clinton had not diminished; basically, now I liked both.

Reading the comments people left under the notes, I saw many people were intent on crushing the opposition, attacking not only the presidential candidate, but also the authors of the notes for their flawed thinking and arguments.

It was the usual heated political debate (over the internet, at that, which perhaps renders it even more antagonistic than a flesh-and-blood debate).

Since by now I more or less supported both candidates, I began wondering about how they stood on one issue that is hugely important to me: Who would be better at bridging the bipartisan divide? I posed the question under an Obama supporter’s note, meanwhile wondering if perhaps McCain is truly the best bi-partisan candidate due to his adoption of certain liberal policies. I immediately got a response from somebody asserting that of course Obama would be better at uniting the country because he talks about uniting the red and blue states, and he is more appealing to moderates than Clinton is. This, of course, was said differently and accompanied by a blessing for Obama for being “extremely liberal,” an attack on McCain for being “as conservative as they come” despite his adoption of some liberal policies, and a denial that having Clinton as president would help the cause of feminism:

“Do you ever watch the debates or the news? Of COURSE Obama is more of a uniter than Hillary. One look at McCain’s appeal shows you that having bipartisan appeal has very very little to do with policies – McCain is as conservative as they come, but by publicly breaking with the party on a handful of issues, he comes off as a centrist. Many liberals now think they like him because he has this rebel reputation, but they fail to notice that he’s socially regressive, for cutting social programs, and for continuing the war for another 100 years. Similarly, yes, Barack Obama is extrememly liberal (god bless him). But that’s not what matters to independents; the rhetoric is. In every single speech, he says that “there are no red states and blue states, we are the United States of America,” After 8 (maybe 16 or 20) years of each half of the country viciously hating each other, it is extremely refreshing to hear that Obama believes that there is more that unites us than divides us.“

It seemed to me the commenter was confusing the merits of being bipartisan with the wonder of being liberal. She also seemed to interpret bipartisanship as connecting with the moderates, rather than what I meant, which was connecting liberals with conservatives. But basically, the commenter was saying that bipartisan rhetoric matters more than bipartisan policies. I disagreed and launched into my speal about how liberals and conservative should try to understand each others’ stances on issues, as the issues are what matter.

My comments were somewhat long, and no responses followed.

Later, as I thought about the interaction, I wondered at how futile my endeavors might be to promote this type of bipartisanship–or if it is even what we should want for our country. Did the commenter have a point? I talk about fostering understanding between two sides. But the more common approach to politics IS to hold one’s own views as absolutely good and the others’ as absolutely wrong. On the one hand, I do believe this is harmful can creates divisions. After all, observe any argument between a couple. But then I began thinking, is this such a bad approach to politics after all? After all, there have always been right-wingers and left-wingers, but America has not always been as polarized as it has become in the past eight years. Is there another view of uniting the country that allows for the continuing of a strong left and strong right that don’t necessarily talk to or understand each other? Can unification be based more on common inspiration than on any reconciliation on party policies?