A couple weeks after the partial shutdown of the United States’ government, the American public’s confidence in our two-party system is at an all-time low. Parks are closed, tax audits have ceased, food inspections are slowed and our nation is inching closer to defaulting on our obligations. If this picture sounds bleak, it should. While this fight may have started because a few principled house Republicans decided to put their foot down on President Barack Obama’s health care law, it has transformed into a highest-of-stakes game of chicken.
Politically what is at stake to Republicans and Democrats are issues that lie at the heart of what both parties stand for. The president’s health initiative has been a piece of legislation two decades in the making, when Hillary Clinton made it her mission as first lady to fix the inequities of the health insurance industry. When George H.W. Bush proclaimed, “Read my lips, no new taxes,” he set in place a new era of rigidity in Republican fiscal policy (even though he later raised the taxes). If either party were to compromise in this debate, what is to stop them from compromising on the very nature of who they are?
In many ways, this debate transcends partisan politics, and speaks to a deeper issue on our nation’s values and how they are transforming over time. Americans have different attitudes on today’s issues ranging from gay marriage to the distribution of wealth than they did 15 years ago.
What has resulted is a nation more deeply divided, more ideological in nature, than perhaps ever before. Combine this trend with the effects of gerrymandering, in which the last election cycle saw over 90 percent of incumbents re-elected, and what has resulted is a political system where ideology over practicality is not only allowable but also rewarded.
At an even deeper level, this shutdown reveals a fundamental inconsistency in the values that our nation’s two dominant parties uphold. The Evangelical right, the backbone of the Republican party, advocates for a nation built on Christian and traditional family values. Yet the party has worked for years to undermine government programs that help the poor. Democrats claim to be about defending the weak and giving everyone an opportunity at fulfilling the American dream. Yet when it comes to defending the weakest of people, the unborn, all you hear is crickets.
These inconsistencies have created a national culture of individuality that stifles compromise and makes community unnecessary. Political debates of past decades precipitated off shared national values and were settled. I’m not one to usually say the proverbial political sky is falling, but it seems more and more like America is splitting up into a nation of two different sets of values. Sooner or later the two sides will be unable to live with each other.
It’s time for not only politicians to think more deeply about what values our nation should uphold, but also the voters who put them in office. Who knows, maybe this government shutdown will give people the opportunity to do just that. At the heart of this debate is not only our national debt, but also the spirit of our very nation.
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