Partisanship

Photo of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner taken 11 days before Gettysburg Address, Mead Art Museum, Source http://museums.fivecolleges.edu (PD-Art, Old-100)

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced…that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

-Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)

Earlier this month, we buried a great American, a military hero, an advocate of bipartisanship, and a model of political courage.  This week we were treated to a travesty by his peers.

John McCain must be turning over in his grave.

Whatever else we may have hoped for during the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, what we witnessed was an ugly display of partisanship and the raw exercise of power.

Democrats and Republicans alike betrayed their high calling and the American electorate – alternately fawning over a woman whose credibility was in dispute, and engaging in the blood sport of political attack.  Critical evidence was not pursued until public pressure was finally brought to bear.

The search for truth be damned.

When did we become so certain that our personal views are absolutes and our political allies are saints above reproach?  When did we decide it was appropriate to win at all costs?

Where are the statesmen who put principle over party?  Where are the patriots willing to sacrifice their own ambitions for the good of the nation and the integrity of its institutions?

Have we forgotten that we once fought a Civil War?  Do we suppose that we are immune from a recurrence, that this nation cannot again be divided to the point of violence?

The reality is that – whatever party commands our allegiance – we all have feet of clay.  A few of us have a past of which we ought justifiably to be ashamed.  Men with sterling reputations are capable of committing sexual improprieties.  Not even years of “clean living” can erase some infractions, party affiliation (and a sense of entitlement) notwithstanding.

Democracy is not an easy form of government.  There will always be issues over which Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservative, passionately disagree.

But we must remember that we are all Americans…if government of the people, by the people, and for the people is to stand any chance.

Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Chris Coons (D-DE) deserve great credit
for their bipartisanship, against this backdrop.

READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse https://avoicereclaimed.com