Insults and invective, from both sides of the partisan divide, have long been part of American debates. That continues unabated. Usually, it’s the far right that trashes my opinions, like the person who emailed, “It’s too bad your mother didn’t abort you.” Or the one who wrote, “You are an intelligent person, but I know that being a liberal destroys the ability of a person to think logically.”
But, my column on the foolishness of impeaching President Bush brought equally strident howls from the other side of the political spectrum. One correspondent informed me that I am “a DLC Dino.” He followed up with the admonition that I should “get used to hostility.” There was plenty of profanity in that e-mail. Another told me she was “ashamed of columns like yours – you think by pandering to forgiveness and moving on for the good of the country that sympathetic voters will vote for god-damned cowardly democrats.”
Read “Founding Brothers,” a superb book about the constitutional convention and the men of remarkably diverse opinions who populated it, for a picture of the anger and venom during those tense debates about our country’s governance. But, these men found a way to work out compromises despite their frequent antipathy for one another and their deep divisions over the new government’s structure.
In American politics today, there is the same ire and pandering to special interests that has always been a part of policy debates. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lesser commitment to solving the huge problems of our time than the founders had more than two centuries ago.
For example, the focus in Congress and many state legislatures on the divisive issue of banning gay marriage does little more than stir up anger, fear and prejudice, timed to impact the upcoming November elections. It does not deal with immigration, health, education or national security policy, issues that have far more importance to every one of us.
On the other hand, the very acrimonious debate over immigration, while often unseemly, has enabled Americans to hear all sides of a difficult issue. This national dispute has aired opinions from businesses, politicians, immigration foes and fans, and immigrants themselves. Whether either side’s language is angry or mean-spirited is far less important than having the debate itself, which helps Americans form our own opinions.
Yet to fully happen in the immigration debate, however, is the difficult task of forging the compromises that must occur for a coherent policy to take shape. We are still in the divisive stage of too much pandering and too little negotiating. If the founding brothers had let the process break down at this stage, we would have had no Constitution.
When neither broad debate nor effective compromise happens, we get bad policy, like a war with no endpoint or education reform with no funding. When the discussion is not public and prominent, like the secretive decisions made by the Clintons on health-care reform or Vice President Cheney’s closed-door development of energy policy, we get policy failures and public distrust.
Some of those on both sides of difficult issues would prefer that we simply avoid the tumult of debate and adopt their, to them, superior opinions. But, most of us prefer to hear all sides, even if a point of view enrages us, so that we can, in our uniquely American democratic tradition, solve the problems of our era. Better, no doubt, that the level of insults and invective be lower. Better, for sure, that the discussions and decisions be made in full public view. Essential, above all, that political leaders make the difficult commitment to compromise and cooperate so that they can set sound policies for our future.
Let politicians and the many interest groups on all sides of volatile issues make their cases as strongly as possible. If abuse and pandering are part of the process at the beginning, these leaders must recognize when it’s time to move on to diplomacy and compromise. Without that, our democracy cannot function.
Gail Schoettler (gailschoettler@email.msn.com) is a former U.S. ambassador, Colorado lieutenant governor and treasurer, Democratic nominee for governor and Douglas County school board member.
