As I type this, great deliberation is going on in Washington D.C. Principled men, elected by their constituents, are debating the great ideas of our time. When the debate ends, they’ll hold a final vote and a cross-party coalition of principled men will prevail. The victors will be gracious in their victory, the defeated humble in their loss, and the world will continue to go ‘round.
At least, that’s the dream. Alas, this is not Mr. Smith’s Washington. Such impassioned pleas to Congress happen less and less. And, when they do, the person offering the appeal tends to be talking to an empty Congress.
The actual situation in Congress tends to be people on one side of the political aisle lobbing insults and accusations at those on the other side of the aisle. No actual discussion takes place. Congress too often fails to legislate on even the most straightforward matters. This is especially evident when Congress tries to pass its annual appropriations bills.
What should be twelve routine bills, Congress tends to ignore. The result is almost always a massive omnibus package that has a funny habit of increasing spending on everything Congress wants to do with no regard for fiscal sanity. Congressmen then go home to their districts where they bravely tell their constituents that, if re-elected, they will fight for the same issues they said they’d fight for the last time the people elected them. It’s a vicious cycle.
The blame for this issue lies, first and foremost, with the state of political parties in the U.S. today. Political parties are not necessarily a bad thing. The coalitions they build and the concentrated power they can throw behind ideas are sometimes useful.
However, the party system as it operates today in the United States has decayed to the point of being counterproductive to good legislating. In years past, when a political party outlived its usefulness, the party died. A new organization would replace it with a fresh commitment to ideas and people.
Today that is not the case. The two major US political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, have each existed since before the Civil War. Their roots run deep, down from the national stage to state and even local politics. Almost every major politician today comes from one of these two parties and every President since Abraham Lincoln has belonged to one of them.
This would not be so bad if the parties believed in the principles they say they believe in. A close look at each party, however, shows that this is not the case.
On the Republican side, the stated principles are those of limited government and free-market capitalism. But the operational heads of the party paint a different picture. In the House, we have Kevin McCarthy, a man whose claim to power comes from being in party leadership for over a decade. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell has worked for decades to funnel money into his home state of Kentucky and has been an accomplice in every budget bill passed since he took power. And, of course, we have Donald Trump in the White House. He has been a president whose blatant disregard for free-market capitalism is only made worse by his moniker as the “King of Debt.” Indeed, these are the great “conservative champions” of our day.
In the Democratic Party, the situation is similar. The supposed platform is one of solid progressivism in the tradition of the New Deal and the Great Society. However, the politicians in power in Congress tell a different story. Both Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are dyed-in-the-wool establishment politicians, having served for decades each. They worked their way up the party ladder, and have been faithful representatives of the party itself.
These two parties, while ostensibly counter to each other, have had in practice more in common than meets the eye. The lock these parties have on elections, in particular on congressional elections, is strong. The bills that come out of Congress when each party is in power are, essentially, the same. This shows that many of our current politicians care less about the principles they espouse and more about the petty politics of it all.
The parties are vicious in their shallow attacks on each other, but fail to support and defend the positions they themselves claim to hold when it becomes convenient. Republican support of Donald Trump is a prime example of this. The man is not conservative, and yet the party marches in lockstep behind him.
We the people are also to blame. The lack of civic virtue in society today is alarming. But it isn’t surprising. Since WWII, participation in the political sphere has steadily declined. With it, so to have principled positions in our political operatives. We have given up on critical analysis of what happens in Washington. With that retreat, the rampant partisanship of today’s America has gleefully advanced. So long as we continue to take what the parties and politicians say at face value, the principles that this nation was founded on, which we should hold dearly, will continue to be forgotten.
The situation is dire. But there are solutions. Principle men and women can change the parties from within if they stand up and fight for what they believe. The old saying rings true, “You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.” But if enough politicians choose to die as heroes, they may very well become martyrs.
Most importantly, though, we need to step up. If every one of us takes the time to study the great debates of our time and look at our politicians, holding their feet to the fire, then many of these problems would cease to be so prominent. But we must act quickly and decisively. The actions we take today may determine what semblance of our principles remain tomorrow.
Scott Howard is a constitutionally-minded conservative freelance writer with a focus on fiscal matters and foreign policy. You can follow him on Twitter: Follow @thenextTedCruz