Compromise is dying

Compromise is an important art that allows our country to exist and to thrive. Back in the 90's it felt like most people understood the importance of compromise, and most people honored compromises. Today it now feels like most people, especially on the left no longer see compromise as an important thing.

First, let's discuss how a compromise should work. Let's say you have two roommates sharing an apartment - Tim and Gary. Tim and Gary both hate cleaning the bathroom, and Tim and Gary both hate doing the dishes. They also both want to have a clean bathroom and clean dishes. If Tim got his way, Gary would always clean the dishes and always clean the bathroom. If Gary had his way, Tim would always clean the dishes and always clean the bathroom. Tim and Gary value their friendship and want to live in peace with each other, and so they decide to compromise. In this compromise, both Tim and Gary will agree to do something that they don't want to do, with the assumption that the other person will do the same thing. Tim and Gary decide that the bathroom should be cleaned once per week and that the dishes should be washed after every meal. Tim and Gary agree that next week Tim will clean the bathroom and Gary will do all of the dishes. Then the week after they will swap. Gary will clean the bathroom and Tim will wash the dishes. They will keep swapping back and forth every single week until they stop living together or until they decide to officially get together and both agree to a different plan.

This compromise seems fair. Both parties are giving up something and they are meeting in the middle. They both officially agreed to the compromise. And they both have to agree if they decide to change the compromise. But this compromise only works if each party to the compromise is dedicated to holding up his own end of the compromise. Even though he doesn't enjoy it, Tim needs to step up and make sure he cleans the bathroom the first week. And Gary needs to clean the dishes even though he doesn't enjoy doing that. You see, in a compromise you are most responsible for doing the part you didn't want to do. You must commit to looking after the rights of the other person.

In this scenario, Tim could theoretically let Gary clean all of the dishes the first week and just pretend like he is going to clean the bathroom. He could probably get away with it for one week, but if Tim doesn't honor his side of the compromise Gary will very quickly resent Tim and will not want to hold up his end of the compromise. Also, Tim has essentially given his word that he will do his part. Compromise only works when you can trust the other party to honor their promises and obligations. As soon as trust is destroyed the ability to compromise is destroyed. While you can get short term gains by breaking trust, losing the ability to compromise in the long term is a very heavy price to pay for that betrayal.

This is what a world looks like when compromise breaks down, and no one is willing to do their part:

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Kind of gives you nightmares, right?

Why is all of this important? Because we have now entered a world where the left seems to take the attitude that today's compromise is tomorrow's starting bargaining position. In our example, let's say that Tim takes the exact attitude. Tim and Gary alternate doing the bathroom and the dishes every other week for 6 months, and Tim calls Gary back to the bargaining table. He then tells Gary that he wants to compromise. He doesn't like cleaning the bathroom. He offers to clean the dishes every other week if Gary will clean the bathroom every week and do the dishes every other week. Gary accepts the offer because Tim hasn't been cleaning the bathroom or doing the dishes, so Gary is just happy to have Tim do anything. Six months later, Tim calls Gary to the bargaining table again and insists on compromising that instead of doing the dishes every other week, he will only do the dishes once every three weeks. Every time he gets his way, he takes his girlfriend out to celebrate and says, "I'm making so much progress! I absolutely hate doing dishes and cleaning the bathroom. It's disgusting, and I don't have time to do it. One day I am going to end the oppression that Gary has over me and I will not have to do either chore. But sometimes you have to make progress in steps. I am fully committed to this process. I have already made so much progress already."

How would you feel in this scenario if you were Gary? I know I would be angry. This is not progress. This is Tim being incredibly selfish and dishonest. Little by little, with each step of "progress" Tim is slowly destroying his credibility and is causing Gary to build up resentment towards him. What Tim doesn't realize is that one day he is going to take things too far and Gary is going to snap. Gary may refuse to do any chores and may just let the bathroom and dishes stay dirty. Or he may kick Tim out and get a new roommate. He may come back one day and say, "I have been doing all of the chores for an entire year, now. In order to make things fair, you must either do all of the chores for a year, or I am kicking you out of the house." He will likely lose his friendship with Gary. And most importantly, Gary is not oppressing Tim or taking advantage of Tim by asking him to do his fair share of the chores in the house. Gary didn't invent these chores. Tim has been doing just as much to make the dishes and the bathroom dirty as Gary has been doing. No matter what Tim may believe or what he may say to his girlfriend, Tim is actually taking advantage of Gary. If anyone is being oppressed, Gary is being oppressed by Tim.

This is the problem with the left today. Each time the left and right get together to come up with a compromise that both sides can live with, the left treats the compromise as the new starting position for bargaining next time. To a certain extent, they have also been getting away with it. When the left agree to a compromise position with the right, it should be their moral duty to protect all of the rights of the right from that point on. But instead of living up to this moral duty, a few years later the left will start the compromise process all over again pretending that the previously existing compromise is the new starting point and the right has an obligation to meet them at the new half-way point. They may be getting their way, but they have destroyed their credibility. No one trusts their integrity when it comes to compromise. And they are creating a ton of resentment. It is only a matter of time before the right snaps and refuses to ever compromise with the left again. Instead of agreeing to compromise positions, the right will start embracing far-right positions and will refuse to back down from them or negotiate even a little bit. Also, the farther to the left the compromise becomes the more people who started out in the middle end up on the right side of the compromise, and the more people who are feeling like they are being required to make unacceptable compromises to meet the compromise position.

The problem with this is that compromise is the process that allows us to live together. Unlike with a terrible roommate, it is very difficult to evict a large segment of the population out of our country no matter which side wins that eviction process. This basically leads to the only two remaining alternatives: tyranny or war.

Things aren't so broken yet that they can't be fixed. There are ways the left could act in good faith and show the right that they are once again willing to peacefully compromise. And people who are moving to the far-right could come back to the negotiating table if they see good-faith efforts of the left to be genuinely present at that table. But the left needs to know that the right will not silently submit to tyranny. If we don't get some compromises that both sides can live with and that both sides are willing to honor we are sadly on a path to war. And a bunch of innocent people in the middle will also be caught in the middle of that war.