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<\/a>Jim Elliott<\/p><\/div>\n
Often, the promises in the latter case were: \u201cIf elected I will not compromise, I will shake up the government and I will succeed.\u201d The first promise, to not compromise, doomed everything else to failure.<\/p>\n
It is the same tactic as a child holding his breath until he is given what he wants; it soon becomes apparent that breathing is more important than getting what you want. The breath-holding exercise that led to a government shutdown in 2013 didn\u2019t go well for Republicans.<\/p>\n
Whether then-Speaker John Boehner was giving the hardliners a lesson by forcing them to take a close look at reality by letting them have their way, or whether he actually believed it could work, is immaterial.<\/p>\n
The lesson learned was that it was unpopular with the public, and in his final act as speaker in late 2015 Boehner adopted compromise (as did the Democrats) and another showdown was avoided. Current Speaker Paul Ryan seems to understand the perils of not compromising as well.<\/p>\n
Anyone who has been in a personal relationship knows that the key to getting along, if not to being happy, is compromise. Why can\u2019t politicians act on that simple bit of wisdom? Sure, we want what we want and we want it now, but that doesn\u2019t happen very often. We are now in an era of extreme polarization, and that\u2019s not good for America.<\/p>\n
Worse, we are in an era where those holding one viewpoint can\u2019t tolerate others with a different viewpoint. A cardinal principle of debate is that you argue the issue at hand, and not disparage the person you are arguing with. It goes back millennia and has survived because it works.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/div><\/div>But modern politics was stood on its ear in the early 1990s by two men, Ralph Reed and Newt Gingrich. They conceived the notion of demonizing the opposition and turning out their own voters. It worked. People who were the objects of the personal attacks became demoralized and didn\u2019t vote, but the tactic energized the aggressors, who did vote.<\/p>\n