Bring Us Together

“Bring us together.” This was a major theme in Richard Nixon’s l968 election campaign.* It said as much about his presidency as “compassionate conservative” did about George Bush’s. Still the principle is inarguably worthy. By this yardstick, it can be said that we haven’t done well the intervening forty three years. Of course peoples’ political opinions will always differ. It’s just that they used to differ more politely.

Whatever Barack Obama has done to his credit or discredit, he is our president. Yes, past presidents have been vilified at times in unforgivable ways, but not with this much breadth and intensity. The incivility is not limited to slapstick performers at Tea Party rallies. Titled leaders of the opposition in both Houses of Congress have refused specific presidential requests for their time. I believe this is a first and, make no mistake, it is very personal.

Within Congress itself, there is a diminished pretense of courtesy. All administration appointees are now routinely filibustered. The comity that used to exist among Senators has all but disappeared. Will Rogers spoke of Senators addressing a colleague they didn’t like as “the honorable gentleman” really meaning “the rotten polecat.” At least they observed the formalities. Late on election night 1972 I saw both local opposing party chairmen in East Rutherford, New Jersey sharing a few cordial rounds of drinks in a jazz club where I was working. Does this sort of non partisan conviviality still exist at this level, and if so, to what extent?

In the public sector, where these divisions are the most harmful, my evidence is entirely anecdotal. A friend wrote me about a 77 year old companion who was physically attacked at a Florida bar over a political argument with a younger man whose ultimate bone of contention was being addressed as “young man,” a poor choice of words perhaps, but nothing demanding physical retaliation.  

Tea Party types, and consequently the entire Republican Party, are clearly moving sharply to the right. If one accepts the premise, my premise at least, that the political left is fundamentally the same old left, it’s easy to see where this new divisiveness and the rancor accompanying it come from.

I believe that religion has no place in politics, to which I’d add that politics should have no place in religion. For far too many people their politics has become their religion.

*Nixon claimed that the idea came from a sign carried during the campaign by a young girl in Deshler, Ohio. A 13 year old girl named Vicki Cole claimed to be the sign carrier and achieved a “Joe the Plumber” celebrity status. This ended with Watergate and suspicions within the Nixon campaign, by staffers who were on the train at the time, that she was a phony.