PETERSON: Can we regain ‘reasonable discussion’ in governance?

After I got home and finished writing about the Creston football team banquet Sunday night, I thought I’d unwind by watching the recording of that night’s 60 Minutes episode that I’d missed. I’m so glad that I did that.

The philosophy expressed in an interview with Andrew Sullivan, a British American conservative author and commentator now living at Cape Cod, expressed what I have been feeling for some time now. He’s concerned about the sharp division of American politics today, and where it might be taking us as a society.

The divisions are so sharp that we lose friendships and relationships with family members, because everyone is now marked as “Them” or “Us” with no middle ground. The days of Republicans and Democrats actually sitting down and debating with each other under mutual respect, without today’s name calling, have all but disappeared.

“Too many Americans are not the citizens that the founders were counting on,” Sullivan said. “They can’t compromise, or separate politics from life.”

The American Constitution was set up for people who can reason and argue, and aren’t afraid of it — and then reach compromise.

But, if you’re in a tribe, and all that matters is the victory of that tribe, then you end up thinking that you have ALL of the truth, and the other side has none of it. You have all of the virtue, and the other side has none of it.

This country reached a point where we had violence in the usual transfer of power. Sullivan said that is a huge warning signal about how unstable our system can be. It’s a system that is designed for “reasonable” citizens.

Of course, it was all based on a fallacy that there’s no way someone could have actually lost an election. There had to be corruption and manipulation, even though evidence of such never materialized. But the idea of it brewed violent, unreasonable behavior that landed some people in jail.

Sullivan acknowledged that rough and tumble, sharp rhetoric has been around forever in this nation. But, what’s not healthy is when that isn’t just retained in the political area, but becomes personal and something you bring to the supermarket and the Thanksgiving dinner table. When that polarization infiltrates everyday life, that’s when we lose what we had.

In his 2006 book, “The Conservative Soul,” Sullivan wrote that conservatism had lost its way because it had become too sure of itself. When you believe you own all of the answers and the TRUTH, you become intolerant of anything offered by the opposition as reasonable for discussion. That brooks no compromise, he said. The virtue of humility vanished.

So, is there any hope for getting back the sense of respect and compromise that we used to see when opposites Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan could actually find some common ground? Sullivan says there’s a chance.

“Perhaps if we wait for these terrible passions, and the current cult worship of a human individual, Donald Trump,” he said. “And you wait and hope that will pass, so we can get back to the pragmatic process of governing reality. That’s not what we are engaged in now. We’re inventing abstractions and ideology, and we’re demonizing each other. The system can still work.”

Perhaps one small sign is the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill, although there were death threats lodged against GOP Congress members labeled as “traitors” for voting in favor of it. Vilified for reaching compromise.

I’ll have to admit that in some cases there are media organizations that are not helping this situation. Too many newsrooms, Sullivan said, are pandering either to the right or left now, and too often their presentations lack supportive material for both sides of an issue. I was trained to interview those representing all points of view, but I see that approach waning.

“I hate reading that I need to be perfectly woke, or perfectly Trumpy,” Sullivan said.

Democracy works best when it allows for arguing, reasoning and deliberating under the umbrella mutual respect. To be immediately dismissive of someone because of race, gender or political persuasion achieves nothing of substance.

Based on current trends, Sullivan isn’t optimistic that we’ll see change on the immediate horizon. But, he hasn’t lost all hope.

“A sense of grace can happen,” he said. “Maybe there will be a leader, or a figure that can take us there, or a groundswell of people saying enough of this noise and rage. It’s deafening. We’re better than this.”

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Email: malachy.lp@gmail.com

Twitter: @larrypeterson