“Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

That’s how a correspondent characterized an op-ed by Mitch Daniels* that appeared yesterday in the online edition of The Washington Post. Daniels says, in part, that

ours is an era when it seems no one ever confesses to being wrong. Moreover, everyone is so emphatically right that those who disagree are not merely in error but irredeemably so, candidates not for persuasion but for castigation and ostracism….

John Maynard Keynes is frequently credited with the aphorism “When I find I’m wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?” Today, the problem may less be an attitude of stubbornness than that fewer people than ever recognize their mistakes in the first place.

In a well-documented fashion, steady doses of viewpoint reinforcement lead not only to a resistance to alternative positions but also to a more entrenched and passionate way in which thoughts are held and expressed. When those expressions are launched in the impersonal or even anonymous channels of today’s social — or is it antisocial? — media, vitriol often becomes the currency of discourse and second thoughts a form of tribal desertion or defeat. Things people would not say face to face are all too easy to post in bouts of blogger or tweeter one-upmanship.

I doubt that it’s possible to return to the “golden days” of political comity, whenever they were. The U.S. hasn’t come close to attaining a sense of national unity since World War II. And even then, FDR’s popular vote share dropped between 1940 and 1944, and the GOP picked up House and Senate seats in 1942 and 1944. At any rate, things have gotten a lot worse since then — there’s no doubt about it.

How might they get better? Someone — an extremely influential someone — has to make the first move, and be willing to lose on an important issue. And he has to bring influential allies with him, or else his move will likely be nullified by a stiffening of his side’s position on the issue.

I submit that the stakes are too high for this to happen, unless a greater objective than “winning” a political debate emerges. Right after 9/11, it appeared that such an objective had emerged, but the sense of unity against a common enemy didn’t last. And it wasn’t entirely Bush’s fault for pushing the war in Iraq. I witnessed (on TV) HRC’s eye-rolling performance during Bush’s post-9/11 speech to Congress, a performance aimed not only at the Dem colleagues near her but also at anti-Bush zealots around the country. (Bush’s “theft” of the election less than a year earlier was still a sore spot for a lot of Democrat politicians and voters.)

It would be the same again with Trump in office. In fact, he’d be blamed (by Democrats) for whatever dire thing happens, and polarization would strengthen instead of weakening.

I shudder to think what it might take to achieve real and lasting unity, or at least a willingness to engage in honest and open discourse. The nation may be better off if the status quo persists. I certainly do not want compromise if it means giving any more ground to the left.

* I came to know Mitch slightly when we had business dealings about 30 years ago. He is the anti-Trump in size, thoughtfulness, articulateness, and manner. He is exactly the kind of person who might be able to put the country more or less back together. But having said that, I am glad that Trump is in the White House now. His uncompromising push for conservative policies and judges is exactly what’s needed to counterbalance the Dems’ continuing slide into loony leftism.

Politics and Prosperity

“Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.”

“Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

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