The Roots of American Partisanship
In very general terms, one party is an enemy of big government, the other an ally of it.
There is always an expressed distaste for partisanship, even if the accusation is only used as a club with which to beat the opposition.
We never talk about what drives partisanship. Partisanship is assumed to be based in political allegiance - but it goes deeper than just ideology or political leanings, it goes to the very root of power.
There are essentially two subtypes of power and the conflict between the two is the genesis of partisanship. The first form exists when oppressive government or rule is destroyed to return independence to the people. The second exists when government or rule is increased to oppress people – often justified by “protecting” or “doing good for” people.
This is not me, this history talking. Wars have been fought against kings, dictators, and countries to free people, to increase their individual freedom by removing the hand of an oppressor. Wars have also been waged by kings, dictators, and countries to oppress people, to decrease their individual freedom and subjugate people.
Power arises in the former through the protection of people against the rise of more government, in the latter through doling out indulgences as government is increased.
No shocker here, but since these two are diametrically opposed, friction and conflict are guaranteed.
Neither of America’s two major political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, are pure in their pursuit of power, often giving rise to historian Carroll Quigley’s concept of a “uniparty” or even references to the Horseshoe Theory of philosopher Jean-Pierre Faye.
At least in each political party’s alleged reasons for existing, each subtype of power is evident as expressed in organizing/operating principles.
Republicans generally favor the former, the destruction/reduction of government. While the GOP has never escaped the urge to legislate and spend, it is not their primary and expressed reason for existence. On the other hand, Democrats seem to believe the latter, one might reasonably deduce the reason they ally themselves with government so tightly is the only way Democrats can increase their power is to increase government.
In my study of history, I find it interesting that the oppressed often become the oppressors over time. Take the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia for example. A revolution expressly executed to free the people from domination by a monarch and the bourgeois class led to one of the most brutal authoritarian nation-states in history. Same with Mao in China – both revolutions were built on what was “good” for the people but became tightly controlled dictatorships.
What made America’s revolution different from that of the Bolsheviks and Mao is the Enlightenment ideals incorporated in the Declaration of Independence and later in the Constitution. These ideals were based on the God given rights and freedoms that should never be abridged.
For nearly a semiquincentennial, those unabridged rights and freedoms have been a bulwark protecting Americans from a fall into either anarchy or autocracy.
However, for the past century and a half or so, those are the very rights and freedoms that have been under attack, as noted prior, often under the guise of “working for the people.” Those attacks have come in the form of activist assaults designed to reinterpret, reinvent, or misapply our own Constitution.
One might realize these attacks come not from people intent upon reducing government, they come from those wishing to expand government power, and in turn, their own power - in amount, scope, or reach.
Our defense is simple, as Justice Antonin Scalia said, “The Constitution says what it says and doesn’t say what it doesn’t say.”