By Ray DiLorenzo
George Washington disliked political parties. In fact, he was the only president who was not affiliated with any political party. Washington believed that parties produce factions and division. A non-partisan government of patriots, even with different views, was what Washington felt was best for America. He was a nationalist, believing unity was necessary for a democratic republic to survive.
Washington favored a strong executive branch and was inclined to favor Hamilton’s Federalist policies and strong support for the Constitution rather than Jefferson’s idea of a weak central government and strong state governments.
In 1787, Madison asked for but did not receive support from Jefferson in writing the Constitution. Jefferson felt there was nothing in the document that guaranteed the rights of the people. Two years later, the Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments, was adopted.
A Pew Research poll in 2023 offered an insight into what people think of our system of politics. 86% of respondents believe that politicians prioritize squabbling over problem-solving. 85% say that the cost of political campaigns makes it hard for good people to run for office. 84% say special interest groups and lobbyists have too much sway.
It has been this way for decades with no appreciable progress.
What this says is that people are tired of the drama of who wins an argument. They just want our leaders to work together to move our nation ahead instead of moving sideways. And many people believe the system of political opposition is getting in the way.
There has always been political opposition, but now it is in our faces everyday, all day… TV, media, late-night comedy, the internet, podcasts, and documentaries all play a significant role. In times past, we didn’t have TV news 24/7. And, like in Dragnet, it was just the facts, ma’am. In those days, most reporters fell in the center. TV news was on for maybe 2 or 3 hours a day, with the TV discontinuing transmission at midnight with the Star-Spangled Banner. There was no TV channel a politician could depend on for reliable support. People were more social, we didn’t have the internet to occupy so much of our time.
An intriguing note: For those who were proud to say they had the first color TV on the block, it was found that early color TVs until the late 1960s were radioactive. GE was singled out, but all were found to produce unsafe radiation levels. I remember TV hosts urging people to sit back at least 6 feet from the screen.
We live in a visual culture where politicians have become media personalities who are almost always in front of a camera, and they all want to avoid looking bad. However, when politicians from the same party repeat the same talking point verbatim, it can exacerbate the negative perception. It looks ignorant and totally political.
In addition, they are now inciting emotional backlash. Trump is Hitler. The Republicans are an existential threat to our democracy. If we don’t address climate change, we will all perish within five years. It is literally disgusting and has annoyed enough people to make it ineffective. But they still do it because they have run out of ideas of getting your attention.
The opposition party wants to change the face of our country, our values, our pride, and our system of government to something foreign. And they are apparently willing to use force or violence to achieve their goals. And they seem determined to become rich in the process. At this juncture, compromise becomes out of the question.
Having said that, what our nation will do in response is totally uncertain.
Hypocrisy certainly has a prominent place in politics, and people don’t like it. What was an acceptable spending budget just a few months ago is now completely unacceptable to the Democrats, causing a shutdown. Soft-on-crime policies in blue cities are now a plague. These cities seem totally unresponsive to major crime. Paid rioters assault innocent people and the police arrest the victims. Criminals who have been arrested 20 or 30 times walk our streets.
Traditional marriage, the most important institution in human history, which almost every politician was in agreement with in 1996, has now been relegated to being optional. This is all due to the Democrat Party’s desire to win over the morally bankrupt voters. They were convinced they could gain their votes and still hang on to yours. What they managed to achieve was their party being taken over by the far left.
The Left may strongly dispute the idea that America is still a religious country. However, a majority of Americans continue to believe in something greater than themselves, their government, and certainly their politicians. Democrats would prefer that you view them as your savior.
What Washington wanted was a group of nonpartisan patriots looking out for the prosperity of America. It is far from what we have today. The evolving landscape of American politics reveals a delicate relationship between the Democrat Party’s aspirations of a voter sweep and the broader antisocial societal influences that shape much of their voter base. They are not handling it very well.
While Democrats once positioned themselves as champions of progress, they now face the reality of managing a more radical and vocal majority on the Left, which highlights a fracturing not within their base—still as radical as ever—but among the majority of Americans. Unfortunately for the party, the far left has taken the lead, and the recent shutdown serves as evidence that Democrats are struggling to make any progress. They have already alienated many of their voters and are positioning themselves to alienate the rest. In Democrat land, it’s politics over good government.
