There is a reason strong ideologies end up ruling alone – National Socialism, Italian Fascism, Soviet Communism, Chinese Communism…They don’t play well with others, no more than do state religions – Catholicism or Protestantism, Islam, or Judaism. They don’t compromise. Compromise is a betrayal of the purity that is essential to ideologies and religious doctrines.
The Republican Party is no different. As Paul Krugman observed the other day, “the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency.” Being infected by ideals of both political and religious purity, they are especially poorly placed to function in a multi-party system of government; it’s like trying to cram the proverbial square peg into a round hole.
In a modern, pluralistic liberal democracy like the United States there must be compromise for government to function – a free exchange of ideas – debate on the issues, arguments (sometimes vehement) but in the end, compromise. Compromise is what keeps democracy working. Compromise is what gave us the United States Constitution. If our current crop of Republicans had been at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, we would have no Constitution today, and that’s a point they seem not to understand. It took a lot of give and take – not one individual or group dictating to another – to forge that all-important government.
It seems absurd to think the government and the nation can function without the same willingness to compromise in a much more complex 21st century, but that seems to be the Republican mantra. ...
Read more at Politicus.
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