When George Washington declined to align himself with either the Federalists or the Republicans for fear that the country would become divided by the opposing views, he may have been on to something. Granted, the only American president ever to run unopposed hardly needed a political party to back his efforts. Nonetheless, Washington’s relatively neutral stance towards political parties tells us three things: that our first president foresaw the issue of political stagnation due to conflicting interests, that he warned the country of the dangers, and that I actually paid attention in history class.
Politics has never really been my thing. I understand that governance and law are absolute necessities in any functional society. I am aware of the problems around the world cause by political discord. I guess what I don’t understand is the whole basic concept of politics. I just don’t get how a bunch of powerful, intelligent, charismatic, and seasoned men and women can sit together for so long and so frequently in debate and discussion and simply not get that much accomplished.
Maybe I’m being blunt or just plain ignorant, but the way I see it, we’re still at war, would-be retirees are still working past standard retirement age because of insufficient funds, public education is still severely lacking in adequate resources, and the economy is still receding. Fewer and fewer Americans are voting nowadays, and in general, more people are beginning to lose their faith in the whole election process – and for good reason.
As Washington predicted long ago in America’s infancy, a good deal of today’s political activity revolves around understanding the sometimes subtle differences between parties, aligning yourself with a particular one, and then spending the rest of your life supporting and defending that party. Everyone does it, even (and maybe especially) the policy-makers and enforcers of our nation. I, on the other hand, find it troublesome that some people are more willing to support a person who represents a particular party than a person whose personal values and ideas for change would make him or her a more apt leader. By this phenomenon, a totally inept and morally stagnant person can be – and indeed has been throughout history – elected for the highest executive position in the most powerful country in the world, simply because his publicly stated views coincide with those of his party at large. Since when do the causes one claims to support the sole indicator of his or her potential as a leader?
Furthermore, in the past few decades, the presidential campaign has become tainted with the poisonous effects of controversy, scandal, and media image. Since the days of the great Kennedy-Nixon debate, when Americans saw for the first time the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of their presidential candidates, television has become the people’s source of information regarding the campaign. But the information presented since then has hardly ever been about the politics alone. Campaign coverage media, like its slimy cousin in the realm of celebrity lifestyles, feeds off of drama and imperfections. It was only after his youthful, dashing face was projected to the masses in juxtaposition to Nixon’s sweaty, makeup-stained face that Kennedy became for many people the image of America.
Media regarding politics went from simply portraying the facts as they were to scrutinizing every aspect of the private lives of the candidates, forcing them to dig up and explain every single skeleton in their closets. It seems as if anyone considering a political career nowadays must be prepared to defend their past with a full public statement and apologize immediately to the right people for the smallest mistakes in order to ease the burden of media eyes. Meanwhile, members of the opposing party have a field day as they work to fan the flames and pin their opponent in what eventually, if left unchecked, becomes a political deadlock.
What it all comes down to is that, in recent years, the party system of America has severely hindered the political progress of the nation as a whole. It seems that Republicans care more about bashing Democrats and sabotaging careers than they do about fixing the nation’s many fundamental problems, and vice-versa. Party politics has become more of a gladiatorial arena than a forum of intellects working towards a common goal, and in the meantime the condition of the country is fast deteriorating. It appears that George Washington was right once again.
