If you saw my post yesterday, you may remember it was about the evils of the current Republican Party and the dangers to the country if the 2024 election goes the wrong way. The title of the post referred to deja vu all over again because we have been talking about this for the five or ten years, again and again. It has gotten so that it is tiresome to read about things written about this subject, and it is equally tiresome to write about it. That is a fact, I am afraid. Doesn’t make the subject less important, but it is a fact.

But after I posted yesterday’s blog entry, I was driving in my car for about an hour and I spent that hour listening to live coverage from the National Governors Association convention. Presiding was the chair of that group, Governor Spencer Cox of Utah. He may have been newly elected to the chair, and he was giving what was in effect both a “state of the governors” speech and an inaugural “what I am going to do while I am here” speech. He is very well spoken, and very reasonable sounding. He is a Republican.

His topic was about process, not substance. He complimented his fellow governors for being something like “maybe the last adults in the political world” and looked to them to provide necessary leadership to tone down the political rhetoric, and to get people to disagree agreeably, rather than simply to call each other out as evil. A panel of experts in conflict resolution followed with much the same message, although I did not hear the entirety of their conversation.

All well, all good, I thought. But wait a minute. Even if it were possible to tone down the rhetoric and to disagree agreeably, isn’t there another step needed? That step would be the willingness to compromise on the issues that today are so divisive. Without that, toning down the rhetoric may help lower the decibel level, but it wouldn’t accomplish anything more. During the hour I had the radio on at the NGA, I heard nothing about compromise.

So, this morning, I want to briefly address both topics. And as I do this, remember that I have spent a few weeks thinking about Saul Alinsky’s tactics set forth in his Rules for Radicals, which I believe have become the play book of the leadership of, and the right wing of, today’s Republican Party.

Alinsky’s “radicals” were “have-nots”, who are fighting against the “haves” to upset the status quo. He did not say “fight hard, but fight fair”. He said (my words) = you are in a war, you need to win that war, and if the only way to win that war is to put morals and ethics aside, then put morals and ethics aside. And then he gave a number of ways to fight that war, including things like (a) targeting your opponents and keep attacking them personally, (b) ridiculing your opponents, (c) keeping your opponents off guard, and (d) trying to make your opponents argue within themselves. Just the opposite of the disagreeing without being disagreeable that Governor Cox was hoping to encourage.

Of course, I don’t know if Cox would agree with me that this is a present-day Republican problem, a problem brought about by the master of Alinsky’s tactics, one Donald Trump. But – again – I think that is a fact. I don’t think we can consider the average Republican and the average Democrat today as being equally at fault. And I think that, until Republican leadership recognizes this, we will continue to flail, and our form of government and world leadership will continue to be in peril.

Okay, now let’s leave behind the question of disagreeing agreeably and move to the necessary next step – compromise. Again, on the Republican side, I find two faults that must be addressed.

First, we can’t continue to govern by threat. If there is an important piece of legislation that clearly needs to be passed (an appropriations bill, for example, or a bill to increase the debt limit), we need to stop holding the bill hostage to irrelevant matters – such as holding a defense bill hostage to agreeing that the military needs to change its approach to women’s health care or gender transition services. These social policies are something that the legislature should deal with if they wish, to be sure, but they should be dealt with on a stand alone basis, not used as a gun to the head of others in Congress. What the Republicans are doing now…..is using Alinsky tactics. And those tactics do not belong within the government if they threaten to disrupt crucial (not just important, but crucial) government services.

Second, we have to be willing to reach a compromise on divisive issues. To some extent, if we can stop trying to badmouth each other at every opportunity, we can accomplish this. But on some issues – particularly abortion and trans matters – we have a serious problem. That is because people on the anti-abortion and anti-trans sides of these issues do not seem willing to compromise. This is both because they have been told not to compromise, and for many this is as much a religious issue as anything else. A way has to be found to compromise on these issues to accommodate people on both sides as much as possible and (this next clause is for Governor Cox) the Republican governors have been part of the problem here.

There is a third stumbling block – one where both Democrats and Republicans are at fault. And that is trying as hard as possible to turn the others into the “others”. The rise of media (and I don’t just mean social media), including TV news, talk radio, and even C-Span which televises every session of both houses of Congress from start to finish, has pushed this problem to the fore, as every member of Congress now has the chance to have their speeches and presentments preserved to be viewed again and again and again and again. Somehow, the grandstanding must be stopped, and we must get to a point where politicians who can work with the other side and accomplish things are the politicians who are praised, not the ones to hog the floor and insult every member of the opposing party.