I’ll go out on a limb here and say that the partisan divide in this country has gotten out of hand.
It seems that many career politicians spend more energy trying to sound-bite each other than they do trying to accomplish anything useful. It’s all about thin-margin re-election contests and avoiding getting “primaried”. I read in The Economist that a typical House Representative spends about 20 hours each week working for donations. Even if that’s only half true, it’s terrible.
Here on this page I will elaborate my take on how partisanship became so toxic, how it inspired me to run, and what I hope We the People can do about it.
Just two basic things so far, plus a few relevant quotes that capture some of the frustration with the partisan circus, divisiveness, and hostility over the years.
- George Washington was so insightful about “the spirit of party” it’s almost hard to believe. Read the excerpt from his Farewell Address and see for yourself. Highlights:
- The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge…
- … the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
- It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.
- … it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose.
- A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
- I’m sorry. I feel partly responsible for the divide we see today, because about forty years ago, in my early twenties, when I discovered that one does not need a party affiliation to vote in California, I dropped mine and registered as “decline to state”. I felt pretty smug about being so independent of mind, but I never really considered what I might do instead of joining an established party. For decades, I did very little. When millions of us, like me, walked away from the major parties, we left them freer to drift toward the extremes. This campaign is part of my amends.
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H.L. Mencken, Minority Report, published in 1956
Commentary
Partisan divisions and animosity are nothing new in American politics. Yet it’s hard to believe they were as intense in Mencken’s day as they are today. Mencken was widely regarded as the quintessential cynic, so we shouldn’t take his condemnations too literally — but we can certainly enjoy them.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Stealers Wheel, 1972
Commentary
When I first heard this in the ’70s I thought it was about how “you and I” (most of us) are stuck between the extremes of the “political circus”. Turns out it’s not, but it certainly could be. I still love this song, it’s one of my Karaoke go-tos.
Republicans and Democrats are breakin’ my heart
Paul Thorn, Mediocrity is King, 2016
I can’t tell them sons of bitches apart.
Commentary
I was fortunate enough to run into Paul during his morning workout on the 2026 Cayamo music cruise, and asked him about this. He confirmed what I expected, that he is not a political guy, but he was (and is) saddened and frustrated by all the hatred between the parties — as I believe most of us are. “Hate is never the answer” he said. He’d also like to see less ego, less “being right” and more “trying to find out what’s right”. Amen.