Our political system is broken. Partisanship, however, is not to blame. It’s the personalization.
In the current political environment, it’s not enough to disagree with a political foe about policy. You have to discredit, demonize and destroy that person as a human being.
Arizona Republican Paul Gosar’s anime on Twitter showing his avatar killing New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden with a sword is just one recent example. During the floor debate preceding his censure by the House, Gosar tried to justify the video by claiming it was a necessary vehicle to highlight Democrats’ flawed immigration policy.
Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert’s recent comments are another example. It’s obvious that she and Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar have different visions for the country, yet Boebert has chosen to repeatedly attack Omar, specifically targeting her religion, with anti-Muslim nicknames and jokes as part of her monologue.
Personalizing attacks is not unique to the Republican Party, but it’s certainly modeled and glorified by former President Donald Trump.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
To be clear, the goal doesn’t have to be a utopia, where everyone gets along. Everyone on Capitol Hill and around the country doesn’t have to agree on everything. It’s healthy for the country to have two (or more) healthy parties with divergent views on the role of government and who we should be as a nation. Disagreement can be good. It’s “how” we disagree that is increasingly the problem.
Partisanship is not new, but we, as Americans, seem to have lost the ability to have love, compassion, respect or empathy for people who look different, think differently, vote differently and live in a different part of the country or even...