Opponents, Not Enemies

Since Donald Trump first became a serious candidate for the presidency, I've been thinking about which of the cultural norms are essential for our democracy to function.

This is to differentiate between those that are critical versus ones that a merely important. Sort of like the difference between a functioning heart and functioning legs.

One in particular that isn't often spoken of, especially in these polarized times, is the importance of not making opponents into enemies.

Maintaining this distinction has a lot of positive consequences: ability to shift coalitions on different issues, keeping a civilized political culture, giving room to compromise and make deals.

Perhaps the most important consequence of not demonizing one's opponent is that it supports the norm of conceding electoral defeat. We have a tradition of not only transferring power without bloodshed, but trying to make the transition as smooth as possible. George H.W. Bush put it well in the note he left to Bill Clinton:



"Your success is now our country's success."

Contrast that with the actions of North Carolina's legislature and outgoing governor:

...(A)fter he narrowly lost his re-election bid, (Gov. Pat) McCrory's tune entirely changed. This month the Republican-controlled statehouse passed two pieces of legislation that stripped duties from the governor so that the power of his successor, Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, would be curtailed. 

Skirting the criticism, McCrory said in a statement Monday the laws were "hardly extreme changes" intended to fix a "broken election process" and "enhance" education policies. But the laws shift power toward Republicans, either by increasing their influence on boards, or taking away key appointments from the Democratic governor-elect. Progressive Democrats have blasted the legislation as a "power grab" that is unconstitutional. Legal challenges are likely to follow.

I don't know enough about NC's constitution or courts to offer an informed opinion about which, if any, of these will stand. (Changing the law so that Republicans chair county election boards every election year with Democrats doomed to chair only on off-years seems especially hard to defend.)

It seems reasonable to say that relations between the incoming governor and legislature are acrimonious even before the new government takes office.

I'd be surprised to hear if Gov. McCrory believes that Gov.-elect Cooper's success is the state's success.

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Cultural norms evolve more than they outright change. The NC GOP's actions are the latest example of a cancer that's infected how we divy up power in this country. I'm no Pollyanna - a cursory glance of our country's history shows that we've never been governed by angels. 

This also isn't limited to Republicans. I'm a longtime observer and occasional participant in the internecine Democratic battles over charter schools. Those can turn quite nasty.

But it also feels like our current political era is different. Facebook and Twitter have empowered individuals whose voices would otherwise fade into the background. Twitter, especially, seems optimized to allow white supremacists, misogynists, and others of their ilk to harass absent the shaming that would come in polite society.

I remember Paul Krugman, in one of his books (can't remember which one, so I'm going to paraphrase here) describing this age as one of super-empowered individual. 

At the time, that read as an optimist's view of the future. Now, of course, it cuts a lot of ways.