When Partisanship Becomes Destructive, the Sky Can Really Fall

Originally published at Wrong Speak

We’ve been hearing that the sky is falling for generations.  Hyperbolic pundits have likened every political challenge to the end of days for as long as there have been pundits.  They see the ship listing too far to one side and assume it will topple over, and are proven wrong every time sanity prevails, balance is restored, and the nation recovers.

I’ve always felt this way.  Be patient, and eventually cooler heads will prevail and the ship will be righted.  Even when cooler heads remained overshadowed, the extremes would see the folly of their ways when the chickens came home to roost and the flaws of their extreme positions became exposed in real time.  It was like panicking every time the stock market took a hit, or celebrating recklessly when it thrived, laying bare our stubborn inability to see the long-term big picture.

Now, for the first time, my confidence is truly shaken.  By my (admittedly limited) predictive determinations of cause and effect, I can no longer see a path where this turns out well.  Our partisanship has crossed the threshold from policy disagreement into spiteful ideological hatred, and we’re resorting to self-destructive measures in order to make a point.  This used to be called cutting off your nose to spite your face, but now it’s called just another day at the office.

Why have we lost the collective character to acknowledge when our side is wrong, or when the other side is right?  Why must everything be so black and white?  Our current events are a microcosm of this on a monumental social scale, and the outlook is ominous.  Maybe it’s because I’m a centrist who doesn’t fully swallow what either party is trying to feed me, but our centrist numbers are dwindling in the mad rush to gang mentality that has swept this country.  I’m right, everyone else is wrong, and compromises are for suckers.  Recovery is starting to look like a pipe dream.

Nobody wants to acknowledge uncomfortable facts which don’t support their narrative, so they obfuscate and redirect them.  Political spin has always occurred, but at least concessions happened once deniability was lost.  No more - now it’s lies upon lies telling us not to believe our lying eyes, as cover your ass mentality supersedes preventing our collective downfall.  

We know former President Trump illegally hoarded sensitive classified materials, yet many would still vote for him.  We know President Biden did the same, yet many would still vote for him as well, so many in fact that they are the landslide front-runners in their respective parties.  Trump’s people say “Well Biden did it longer, and kept them less secure”, while Biden’s people say “Trump’s were more sensitive, and he was less cooperative”.  Can’t we just say the truth, that they’re both criminally responsible?  

Trump supporters point out that Biden (and Hillary Clinton before him) seems to be getting a pass from Democrats for this, as well as for foreign influence peddling (possibly to the point of outright bribery) while in office, whereas Trump was impeached over the debunked Steele report and indicted for the classified documents.  They claim a witch hunt against a political rival, and you don’t have to be a MAGA Republican to see they have a point.  But that also ignores the fact that he did break laws, and serious ones.  Their stubborn response is a vow to vote for him anyway, if only to stick it to Democrats for their unequal applications of justice.

What does this accomplish if they win this battle?  Functionally, even if you agree with their perspectives, a president cannot fulfill his duties from a prison cell.  They would throw the system into chaos, and Democrats would rightly conclude that Republicans had lost their collective minds, dividing us further and justifying their own position as a necessary oasis in a sea of anarchy.  The “political statement” of a second Trump term can only backfire, and spectacularly.

Biden supporters see Trump as the boogeyman, and point out January 6th, the classified documents, and Trump being Trump as reasons they are entitled to circumvent basic fairness to protect society from him.  They minimize or outright deny Biden’s own malfeasances in a classic case of selective persecution.  But they also ignore the fact that he did break serious laws, and that their actions are what inspire such over-the-top responses.  It’s like having a spouse cheat on you, and responding by cheating on them in return - everybody loses that war.

What does this accomplish if they win this battle?  Perhaps they keep Trump out of office, but new precedents are set where front-running opponents in upcoming elections become open season, dismantling the democratic process.  Opponents will rightly feel that their options have been taken from them by those who think they know better, which eventually - and inevitably - leads to open rebellion.  The “political statement” of forcing the electorate away from a second Trump term can only backfire as well, and just as spectacularly.

Everyone is too busy shouting from their pulpits to look at history, and those who bother to look have too much hubris to acknowledge its predictive nature.  To say this could end in civil war is not an exaggeration, with two parties fighting over support of two felons.  

We actually have people justifying a President’s mishandling of secret materials with an excuse of “Well, he gave them back”.  That’s like letting a captured bank robber off the hook if he returns the stolen money - it’s madness, and it doesn’t stop there.  While we lock horns with each other, our adversaries wait for the resulting attrition to weaken us as they prepare to strike.  China already threatens Taiwan, central Asia, and the South China Sea, and has set up military presence in Cuba, 90 miles from our border.  The missile crisis of 1962 will look like child’s play compared with the abilities of modern Chinese war technology.  Allies in Europe are financially destabilized and likely incapable of significant assistance.   

Conflict with China would be devastating, and likely develop into a World War.  Meanwhile, as we distract and weaken ourselves in such a struggle (if we can even win - not a guarantee), other adversaries like Iran will have strengthened their nuclear weapon and delivery systems, readying them for a long desired ideological strike against our shattered remains.  We could easily find ourselves expending blood and treasure in the Ukraine, followed directly by conflict at home against ourselves, then right into further conflict with Russia, China, and then the Middle East.  This is not just frightening, it’s probably also unsurvivable; if we did survive, the remnants would look nothing like America.

Aside from brief, surprise attacks like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, Americans have not felt the sting of war on our shores since the Civil War ended 158 years ago.  We’ve grown complacent with the entitled belief that those horrors can’t happen here, so we ignore the signs of their development.  

I am neither an alarmist, nor a conspiracy theorist.  I have never drunk the Kool-Aid regarding previous claims of forthcoming armageddon.  I have always subscribed to the fact that people will eventually punch themselves out, and the fires will extinguish organically.

I don’t feel that way anymore.  We have to find common ground.