Politics Should Be Contentious
This is Part 3 in a symposium on "I, Citizen: A Blueprint for Reclaiming American Self-Governance" that seeks to answer the question posed within this essay: "Can 'We the People' be trusted?"
Many readers seem to enjoy these “If only we could” books. “If only we could reform campaign laws.” “If only we could fix our litigious culture of pestiferous lawsuits.” “If only we could get back on the gold standard.” Then all would be well.
Most of these volumes stop short of outright utopianism, but their authors often indulge in wishful, simplistic thinking. It’s not surprising that such books are popular. Who wouldn’t want to tackle our most urgent problems by identifying a clear villain and implementing a straightforward solution?
The “if only” premise of Tony Woodlief’s “I, Citizen” hinges on repudiating the partisan ruling class in Washington, D.C. that is destroying self-government. But Woodlief’s contribution to this genre contains some ironies. Much of his book is devoted to disparaging false dichotomies. He claims that American politics is fuzzier and more complicated than opinion polls tell us. Yet the book often avoids confrontation with hard questions.
Woodlief thinks American politics isn’t as polarized as it looks. Rather, it is self-interested elites who want us to think that we’re divided. And he believes that we can unite around common-sense pragmatism and compromise. In other words, citizens can usually avoid hard choices between mutually incompatible alternatives, since virtually every political problem has a moderate solution. To convince his readers of this conclusion, Woodlief himself often takes a too-easy route by ignoring research that contradicts his thesis.
His book preaches modesty and nuance, though these virtues sometimes seem more like breezy inconsistency. In one short section, Woodlief actually defends polarization – but only if it avoids “demonization” and leads to “healing.” Likewise, he can’t seem to decide where he stands on his ideals of moderation and cooperation. He defends these principles against the unpleasant extremes of left and right. Yet rather than using honey to attract readers to the center, he angrily lambastes “partisans” and “partisanship” (terms he uses more than 200 times) as well as “ideologues” and “ideology” (more than 150 times). He depicts, by his own estimation, one-fifth to one-quarter of the American citizenry as, well, enemies. That’s a lot of people to exclude from the happy consensus.
Let me be clear that there is much to like about this book. It’s written in a folksy, disarming style, consistent with Woodlief’s belief that large reserves of goodwill still exist among ordinary Americans. I think he’s right about that. He is certainly correct that an exploitative ruling class now spurns the Founders’ constitutionalism and is almost indifferent to the common good. Unfortunately, the book’s easygoing populism comes at the price of bypassing knotty issues that get in the way of its calm assurances.
“Unlike partisans and the political class, most Americans care more about consensus and peace.” Ordinary folks, Woodlief argues, are not “fussy about the distinction between what’s public and private. Economists and ideologues fret over those things, whereas normal people just want what works.” And again, “They want to work together, to get along, and to reach [surprise!] consensus.” Like the girl in the fairytale, Woodlief believes that most Americans want their porridge lukewarm; extremists are always making it too hot or too cold. Even if this is true, the reader wonders when we get to go into the kitchen and see how the recipe works. Woodlief does offer some suggestions, but they largely consist of broad generalizations about federalism, which raise as many questions as they answer. One would hardly know Americans have been hotly debating the meaning of federalism since the beginning of our history.
The bad news is that the philosophical and institutional origins of our current crisis are more complex than the simple story Woodlief wants to tell. Political reality is more intransigent, more intellectually and morally demanding, than his book contemplates.
Yet this is also good news. Humans are not ants scurrying about in harmonious but soulless conformity. Americans are, to be sure, an amiable people; but self-government means that we must also live up to our nature as rational beings. As the ancient Greek philosophers showed, politics always involves arguments about the noble and the just, in part because such arguments are essential to being fully alive. This doesn’t necessarily mean endless war or conflict; in a well-constructed regime, after all, ballots replace bullets. We debate precisely so that we do not have to fight, although fighting sometimes can’t be avoided. Some differences are real, and compromise is neither possible nor desirable. No amount of focus-group massaging will alter that harsh reality.
To accept mankind’s confrontation with eternal questions about the true and the good means acknowledging that there are things worth arguing about, that our intellectual gifts of reason and moral deliberation exist to be used. Authentic, and thus contentious, political life is better than a placid fairytale. It is certainly more interesting and more worthy of a serious life than Goldilocks’ bowl of warm consensus.
Glenn Ellmers is the author of "The Soul of Politics: Harry V. Jaffa and the Fight for America" and the Salvatori Research Fellow in the American Founding at the Claremont Institute.
