Fanatic Partisanship Divides a Country
By Agnessa Kasumyan
In the horse race that is the United States presidential election, Americans are privy to an arc-shot view of the ideological war between Democrats and Republicans.
This war is a domestic one, and it presents a far more lurking threat to the country than ones overseas.
The average American only has to turn on the television or browse through their Facebook newsfeed to observe that the growing hostility between parties is reaching comically avant-garde heights.
Tune into Fox News and Bill O’Reilly is likely going off on his latest alarmist rant. Switch the channel to MSNBC and one host or another is probably making their alliance with the left-wing evident to their audience through an impassioned spiel.
To avoid digging an even deeper partisan hole, let’s avoid pointing fingers as to which party is guiltier of perpetuating this war. Let it not be said that a liberal mob media is out to demonize the right.
Political discourse and disagreements are healthy in a functioning democracy but dangerous when they hinder institutional effectiveness, particularly that of the parties themselves.
The U.S. government already experienced a shutdown in 2013 when a GOP-majority House of Representatives failed to approve the budget for the 2014 fiscal year in an attempt to stall funding of the Affordable Care Act, a glaring power play that to anybody watching from the outside, undermines any decent level of respect for the executive.
In July, TIME outlined 13 reasons for the potential shutdown. However, one of the key motives is an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, which Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff rather irresponsibly called “the country’s largest abortion provider” in a column for the Wall Street Journal. Whatever one’s stance on abortion, the fact is that the majority of Planned Parenthood’s services are cancer screenings, pelvic exams, and birth control distribution, not abortion.
However, Rove does point to the fact that although 41 percent of Americans support cutting public funding for Planned Parenthood, only 22 percent are in favor of shutting down the government in order to do so.
Shutting down the government every time there is a partisan disagreement is petty and irresponsible. Nobody wins in the end, but some, like the approximately 800,000 workers who were furloughed during the last shutdown lose more than others.
Yet the dangers of fanatic partisanship were not unforeseeable. In fact, they echo the warnings of perhaps the most famous Founding Father.
The father of the country itself, George Washington — who was notably nonpartisan — predicted the perils of political parties during his farewell address. He warned Americans that although parties keep the “spirit of liberty” alive in free countries, they pose a serious threat to the union when power struggles resulting from an “excess” of partisan spirit and a desire to discredit opponents ensue.
Washington was not off by any means. If the party wars and government shut downs continue, Americans will have more to fear from domestic disputes than foreign ones. For united a country will stand, but divided it will surely fall.
Reach Contributor Agnessa Kasumyan here.
