The Problem is Partisanship
The end of 2023 is approaching at ludicrous speed--the fastest category of actual time travel, which starts right after Thanksgiving (US), and continues until the end of the year.
As we reflect on 2023, and assess our hope for the future, I expect many would agree that the state of humanity is not trending positively. You can translate that to things have never been more messed up. Select your own level of doom.
We've got a global climate crisis, a growing normalization of fascist ideology worldwide, income inequality and corporate greed at perverse levels, new permanent wars, drastic rises in hate-motivated violence, and a population that continues to disengage from their actual communities making all of it more difficult to solve.
There are little problems; they have a small impact radius, usually only a few people, and they are trivial to solve, even if that takes some coordination--we all do it every day.
Then, there are large problems. These have vast impacts and require a lot of people working together to reach the best solutions. They tend to be social issues; human rights; inequalities along lines of race, gender, and sexuality, homelessness, poverty, crime.
The thing about these large problems is that they are where governments and their assorted bureaucracies become involved in the problem-solving process, and we all know how impressive are the track records of government agencies at all levels for actually making problems worse, much less not solving them.
If the inefficiency of government could be considered a problem in itself, which I'd say it could (read: yes, it's a problem), then we are two levels deep in a system of stacked problems, and level number two comes connected to problem level three, though they are separate.
Problem level three, which I suggest could be thought of as the foundation on which all possible solutions must be built upon, or a huge wall that a solution must find it's way over in order to be applied to any of the big problem. This is the problem of partisanship. Partisanship is not only the reason so many problems don't get solved, it's the reason we don't even try to solve them.
The example in this case is obviously political parties, though partisanship exists in many areas of society, and the indictment will apply equally well in any situation where groups act in opposition.
We are taught to regard the party system as some kind of a masterpiece of design. We can't help glorifying the intellects of the colonial aristocrats who sketched the design for this government, and despite their own fervent warnings that we should view their product only as a framework, and adapt it over time to "keep pace with the times" (Jefferson), we insist on preserving their work as it is some sort of holy text. ("Originalism" being a whole other topic, and one that is also maddeningly illogical to me, must be left aside for this moment.)
In her 2018 book Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, Lilliana Mason does an impressive job of theorizing exactly how people in the United States have become so bitterly divided. The book relies on well-reviewed work in social science, and demonstrates how quickly and naturally people will form themselves into groups, and how predictably those groups become hostile toward each other.
I mention this reference because it helps explain why people accept a form of government that is fundamentally based in opposition and not cooperation, how it is more important for their party to win than for major problems to actually get solved. After all, it's very satisfying, and much easier, to just blame the other side for everything that's wrong. It feels safer to be part of a group and be wrong than to be right and risk being alone.
"even when policy debates crack open and an opportunity for compromise appears--a chance to increase the greater good--partisans are psychologically motivated to look away from that possibility and instead to find a way for the team to win, even it if means that we all receive less than we would have won together. In the 2013 debate over expanding background checks for gun purchases, 83 percent of Democrats and 81 percent of Republicans personally supported a law expanding background checks in a Pew poll. But only 57 percent of Republicans supported the Senate passing a background check bill, an action that would have been a victory for Democrats." (Mason, 53)
It can be said that we often don't even get to the point were we can thoughtfully debate an issue. The urge to support a victory for our group overwhelms the need to reach the best solution to a problem. Rational ideas are replaced by partisan talking points, and compromise is viewed as a failure right out of the gate. How can we accept this grossly flawed mode of operation when we have so many big problems to solve?
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