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In defense of partisanship

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
Saying Party X aligns more with my values so I support them is not partisanship.

Promoting one’s values is not partisanship.

Feeling the need to see anything Party X does as good and anything Party Y does as pure evil is partisanship and is not good in any way.

If I call out a particular party for repeatedly working against the best interests of the country, is that partisanship on my part? Or am I just stating the facts?
 

Orbit

I'm a planet
If I call out a particular party for repeatedly working against the best interests of the country, is that partisanship on my part? Or am I just stating the facts?
The facts are the facts, if you can demonstrate them. I see partisanship as supporting your favorite party no matter what their policies or the effects of their policies.
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
I disagree with the article and I don't see how it demonstrates partisanship is good. It highlights a problem of partisanship, with Republicans continuing to support Trump in large numbers and presents more partisanship as the solution, with people voting Democrat.

If you use voting as an example of partisanship, you're negating the whole idea of voting for a party when our whole system is built on parties.

None of that sounds good to me, and I think falls back to the stated assumption that political parties are an inevitable and positive element of democracy. I'm not sure where the example of the "healthy partisanship" you mentioned is.

We've had political parties in the U.S. for almost as long as we've had a Constitution. There's no party system laid out in the Constitution, but it wasn't long before they figured out they couldn't really run an election without them. I'd be open to a no party system if it meant the end of political donations.

I suspect parties of some kind are a fixture but how they operate could certainly change. It is widely recognise that a major issue with US politics specifically is the complete dominance of two parties and how they can use that dominance to keep it that way. That feeds the core issue with partisanship, which is that specific policies and even individual candidates become largely irrelevant because when the only viable option is the opposite party, no amount of bad policy or administrate failure will be enough to push enough voters over to the other side.

On significant improvement would be to enable and support more parties to meaningfully compete with the big two. To be fair, I'm not quite sure how that could be best achieved there and we're moving in the wrong direction on that here in the UK at the moment.

I'm one of those who won't vote third party unless the third party has a chance, and I admit that can be a self-fulfilling prophecy but there would have to be some cosmic political shift that shatters the paradigm and the possibility is there, given the right circumstances and the right candidate.
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
What is the distinction you draw between being partisan and being a mere supporter of certain causes?

As I see it, blind partisanship to some extent is an integral part of partisanship. It is impossible to have the latter without the former being necessarily present.

Blind partisanship would be where two circles of a Venn diagram overlap, but that area is only part of the whole of either circle, so I don't see it as impossible to be partisan to the point of blindness. To me, it's comparable to the difference between being zealous, and zealotry.
 

PureX

Veteran Member

Opinion | Why Partisanship is Good


E.J. Dionne Jr.
September 7, 2022

Partisanship is a moral good, not an evil. Parties organize conflict in a democratic society, acknowledge that a free people will always have disagreements to resolve, and accept that the other side will sometimes win.​
With that paragraph, I have violated one of the central assumptions of contemporary political commentary. Even in opinion writing, virtue is typically cast as “nonpartisan,” “independent,” and unconstrained by grubby political concerns . . . .​
Small-d democratic partisanship entails an acceptance of ongoing discord, and of victory and defeat, because the partisan understands that “my party’s status is just one part in a permanently pluralist politics.” . . . .​
The mistake anti-partisans make is to confuse necessary limits on partisanship with an attack on partisanship altogether. The most obvious: Courts should not twist the law on behalf of party leaders. . . .​
I pulled a few quotes on partisanship from the above opinion piece, just to get the gist of it into the OP for those who likely won't click the link.

Partisanship doesn't hold a negative connotation for me, and I'm wondering if I'm in the minority? I know there are plenty who see it as negative, but I don't, if it's not the "blind partisanship" the OP cautions against. I'd argue there's such a thing as a healthy partisanship.

Full disclosure: I've been registered as NPP (no political party) for the last decade-plus, and have voted Democratic for that same time period.

What do you think?
I think the fundamental problem of partisanship is that it ignore the complexity of the human cognitive entity. It' ignore the fact that we can hold two or more conflicting views of a single 'object' simultaneously. Which then leaves us very often being both "right" and "wrong" at the same time. Or on both sides of the partisan divide and to varied degrees.

We humans are just too complex for these kinds of binary sociopolitical over-simplicities. And if that isn't confusing enough, many of us are not even aware of how contradictory and complicated we actually are (cognitively speaking).
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Negative partisanship to me is seeing all members of the opposing party as one homogenized enemy.
Which seems to be the case with the political parties in the US. The "common enemy", i.e. the duties of government, infrastructure, prosperity of the whole country, upholding law and the system - are not big enough to stop them fighting each other. All those, including democracy itself, are things one might abandon for the party to "win". (At least on one side.)
And it is not a problem of the party elites either. The voters applaud any stupid move if it's only "owning the libs".
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
If you use voting as an example of partisanship, you're negating the whole idea of voting for a party when our whole system is built on parties.
It's specifically the issue of voting along party lines regardless of who the individual candidates are, that a weak candidate for my party is better than a strong candidate for another party.

We've had political parties in the U.S. for almost as long as we've had a Constitution. There's no party system laid out in the Constitution, but it wasn't long before they figured out they couldn't really run an election without them. I'd be open to a no party system if it meant the end of political donations.
As I said, the existence of political parties (or something very much like them) is pretty much inevitable but exactly how the system works with those parties can be very significant. I think a major issue you have in the US is that the to major parties are massively integrated in to the processes of government (including, significantly, elections).

I'm one of those who won't vote third party unless the third party has a chance, and I admit that can be a self-fulfilling prophecy but there would have to be some cosmic political shift that shatters the paradigm and the possibility is there, given the right circumstances and the right candidate.
That's never going to happen at any level unless enough Americans put in the effort to make it happen. Remember that the politicians (and by extension, their parties) are meant to be working for you, not the other way around.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Blind partisanship would be where two circles of a Venn diagram overlap, but that area is only part of the whole of either circle, so I don't see it as impossible to be partisan to the point of blindness. To me, it's comparable to the difference between being zealous, and zealotry.

Can a partisan refuse to support his own party?
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
I think the fundamental problem of partisanship is that it ignore the complexity of the human cognitive entity. It' ignore the fact that we can hold two or more conflicting views of a single 'object' simultaneously. Which then leaves us very often being both "right" and "wrong" at the same time. Or on both sides of the partisan divide and to varied degrees.

We humans are just too complex for these kinds of binary sociopolitical over-simplicities. And if that isn't confusing enough, many of us are not even aware of how contradictory and complicated we actually are (cognitively speaking).

Don't you think it's more of an eastern than a western thing to hold two or more conflicting views and be at peace with it?
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
Can a partisan refuse to support his own party?

If his party were to radicalize to an extent he could no longer support it, then yes. I think that's where you'd find the never-Trumpers, maybe?
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
Which seems to be the case with the political parties in the US. The "common enemy", i.e. the duties of government, infrastructure, prosperity of the whole country, upholding law and the system - are not big enough to stop them fighting each other. All those, including democracy itself, are things one might abandon for the party to "win". (At least on one side.)
And it is not a problem of the party elites either. The voters applaud any stupid move if it's only "owning the libs".

I don't know. There are those who see all MAGA as irredeemable, but I don't, even though a substantial block of them may be permanently unreachable. I know from life experience that people can change their views, but us-and-them is built into human nature and it takes some work to break that down.
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
It's specifically the issue of voting along party lines regardless of who the individual candidates are, that a weak candidate for my party is better than a strong candidate for another party.

Not necessarily. My candidate (Joe Biden) was definitely not my first choice. But he was exceptionally superior to Trump so he was the logical choice, not because of partisanship but because of his vision of what is best for the country, and my agreement with that vision. The problem is whose version of "weak" or "strong" is the most accurate? I see Trump as weak, MAGA see him as strong. I see him as a menace to the Constitution and the rule of law and MAGA see him as political strongman/savior.

There are only a few Republicans I'd consider voting for, one of them being Adam Kinzinger. I'm sure there are a few more I'm not thinking of.

As I said, the existence of political parties (or something very much like them) is pretty much inevitable but exactly how the system works with those parties can be very significant. I think a major issue you have in the US is that the to major parties are massively integrated in to the processes of government (including, significantly, elections).

That's never going to happen at any level unless enough Americans put in the effort to make it happen. Remember that the politicians (and by extension, their parties) are meant to be working for you, not the other way around.

It's less a problem of parties and more a problem of the firehose of dark money that's poured into politics since Citizens United.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
If his party were to radicalize to an extent he could no longer support it, then yes. I think that's where you'd find the never-Trumpers, maybe?

But only on that case?
Imagine for instance there is some position being promoted by your party that you don't happen to agree with, but that is not radical. Must a partisan support it even if it goes agaianst what one holds dear? If yes, then how is it not blind partisanship? If not, how is it partisanship?
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
But only on that case?
Imagine for instance there is some position being promoted by your party that you don't happen to agree with, but that is not radical. Must a partisan support it even if it goes agaianst what one holds dear? If yes, then how is it not blind partisanship? If not, how is it partisanship?

How many voters do you think agree 100% with their party? If I support the party candidate because I believe them to be the best candidate even if I'm not on board 100% with the party platform - no - the doesn't make voting for that candidate a result of blind partisanship. It's pragmatism. Voting for the best candidate, not the perfect candidate.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
How many voters do you think agree 100% with their party? If I support the party candidate because I believe them to be the best candidate even if I'm not on board 100% with the party platform - no - the doesn't make voting for that candidate a result of blind partisanship. It's pragmatism. Voting for the best candidate, not the perfect candidate.

But are you going to support the part of the platform that you don't agree with? Or are you going to speak against it whenever you have the chance?

IMO, what makes someone partisan is the full support of everything a party is standing for (except for some radical change that is out of line here and there), plus the politicians (no matter who is the politician in question, except for, once again, extreme exceptions to the norm). Merely preferring one candidate over another, even if it is frequently the candidate from the same party, doesn't entail partisanship.
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
But are you going to support the part of the platform that you don't agree with? Or are you going to speak against it whenever you have the chance?

IMO, what makes someone partisan is the full support of everything a party is standing for (except for some radical change that is out of line here and there), plus the politicians (no matter who is the politician in question, except for, once again, extreme exceptions to the norm). Merely preferring one candidate over another, even if it is frequently the candidate from the same party, doesn't entail partisanship.

When a person votes for a presidential candidate, they're tacitly supporting the platform even if they're not on board with all of it. In other words, you don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
When a person votes for a presidential candidate, they're tacitly supporting the platform even if they're not on board with all of it. In other words, you don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Sure, but the mere act of voting for a given candidate doesn't make you partisan. Or do you think otherwise?
 
If one can promote one's values without taking sides, either the values are vapid or the promotion is worthless.
That was why I said
Saying Party X aligns more with my values so I support them is not partisanship.

In many cases the effect is benign. In too many others, partisanship is critical, and disdain for partisanship serves primarily to promote complicity.

It comes back to what one means by partisanship.

The context isn’t armed resistance, but loyalty to a political party. And few find any political parties noble nor admirable, just that they may be a bit better than the alternative.

While we all think in terms of "my side" and "their side" to some degree, it distorts our view of reality when we commit to it. Especially when our side is very flawed by any reasonable standard.

Like fans of opposing football teams who watch the same incident yet one is certain the referee was correct to award a penalty as it was a clear foul, while the other is certain they have been on the end of a historic injustice, each side living in incompatible realities certain they are factually and morally correct on all things is not something I can be persuaded is a positive facet of politics.
 
If I call out a particular party for repeatedly working against the best interests of the country, is that partisanship on my part? Or am I just stating the facts?

I wouldn't call that partisanship if it is based on your values.

Partisanship for me is if you would praise/accept/tolerate something if done by your side, but criticise exactly the same thing if done by the other.

It is to disavow one's values whenever it is politically expedient to your team. It's when who does the action is all that really matters, not what the action was.

That's what I see as the meaning of the term anyway, but others may have their own preferences.

Happy Birthday btw :birthdaycake:
 

anna.

colors your eyes with what's not there
Sure, but the mere act of voting for a given candidate doesn't make you partisan. Or do you think otherwise?

You're right, but that's not exactly what I said. When you asked "are you going to support the part of the platform that you don't agree with," I replied that you're tacitly supporting it when you vote for the candidate representing that party. When you support the candidate you're supporting the platform even if you're not 100% on board with it. That doesn't make you partisan. Are we in agreement?
 
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