Partisanship and Gridlock – An Analogy

To those of you who came here for a laugh – I apologize now, you will find no jokes here today. This is a think piece. A think piece about politics, which I believe means I’ve lost about 75% of you already. So how about I make you a deal: I won’t take sides or advocate any particular positions and I will try to be profound, thought provoking, and at least a little entertaining. In exchange, you read until the end. Deal? Deal.

Sometimes I think about the sad state of American politics and the gridlock and partisanship that plagues the system. For those of you unfamiliar with politics in the US, we have team Red and team Blue waged in a high-stakes game of chicken with the lives of 300 million citizens and a 4 trillion dollar budget. I’m sorry, but you must pick a side. And under no circumstances may you ever agree with anything the other side says. Oh, and the only acceptable positions to advocate for are the most extreme ones – centrism is not allowed. Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride to nowhere.

But why? Why is it this way and how did it come to be like this? As some of you know from my comedy writing, I love finding metaphors and analogies. I’d like to share my political analogy with you here.

Imagine the country as a large building. We all live here. Each room represents a different issue. Some are big rooms and some are small rooms. Some people spend a lot of time in a few rooms and rarely ever go into others. In each room the argument is always the same: what should the temperature be?

Some people want a nice cool room, while others like it a bit on the warmer side. Most people are generally happy with the temperature in the room they happen to be in, but a few people are not. This vocal minority wants their room freezing cold or blazing hot. They yell the loudest for change. Over time, they drown out the other voices, and the moderate people leave the room and just hang out somewhere else. Even worse, these extreme voices convince the more moderate people to drift farther towards end of the spectrum. “Sure cool is nice, but isn’t colder so much better? Wouldn’t you rather be too cold than even a little too hot?”

When the arguments over temperature erupt, the thermostat is set to 70 (or 21 for you metric readers). The opening statements are from the people who want to move the dial down to 55 against the people who want to crank it up to 85. All these people are not willing to give up a single degree to the other side, because it would represent a loss for them and a move away from their ultimate goal.

Even the people who only want modest adjustments are convinced to argue forcefully against any retreat in the wrong direction. If you want it set to 72 and it’s on 70, why would you agree to 69?

That is why we have arguments that end up in court about a limit for the size of a firearm magazine or whether or not a pro-life pregnancy clinic is required to display information about abortion facts. We endlessly litigate these 0.1 degree changes in temperature, because when the decision is made, you will be either farther or closer to your ultimate goal. Often, the true and unstated goal is just to hold the status quo, because you know the people on the other side won’t rest until the thermostat is cranked all the way to the right or to the left. But you can’t say that, because when you say “I want to stay at 70” and someone else says “I want to go to 55” then compromise starts to look a lot like somewhere in the 60s. If you just give in and say “I want it to be 85” then you’ve offset the other side and there is no possibility for compromise.

And there truly is no room for compromise, because the temperature can only go up or down. The only way to “reach a deal” on anything is to give up a degree or two in one room in exchange for a degree in another. Since there is somebody out there who views any given room as the most critical room in the building, they will fight tooth and nail against any such deal where they lose out on their own agenda. If the deal goes through, they will even viciously pursue former allies and do everything in their power to vote them out of office. Because of this, all the politicians are afraid to make deals. Best to argue each room individually. And thus, gridlock ensues.

Anyway, that’s my analogy and I’m sticking to it! What about you? Do you think that politics is gridlocked because there is no room for compromise? Do feel like giving even an inch to the “other side” means you lost and you’re farther away from your own goals? And if this is all pretty accurate, how do we move forward from here? I have my own ideas, but I’ll save those for another post.

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