John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Party Conventions

Troop Rallying or Pluribus Unuming?

(A long winded spiel–so long and windy that you may just forget what you were mad about at half-time during the DNC and RNC conventions)

It’s political party convention time– it’s a party for the parties, so to speak–where partisan cheerleading becomes the order of the day. The goal of both the Democratic and Republican parties is to “rally the troops.” Both major political parties strive, as they should, to make the case most dramatically for their side to win in November. It’s a time honored tradition–and an important one. And hyperbole and histrionics are not only expected—they are featured front and center.

But with every rhetorical flourish, left or right, that hits it mark at the conventions, something else is jarred too. The opposite of rallying the troops, I suppose, is trying to find common ground in our already very divided nation. Political conventions are constructs that are a bit like Midnight Madness if you are a UK basketball fan. You leave such events not only feeling a stronger than ever allegiance to your team but stronger than ever animosity toward any team that threatens them.

If political conventions are successful, when they are over, those who identify with each party should feel stronger than ever about their party being right —and stronger than ever about the other party being wrong. We don’t put on war make up. But we do, say and wear some awfully silly things at these conventions. In more primitive cultures, they had these sorts of partisan conventions but they called them tribal war dances. Seriously. (See clip below.) Note that neither Clint Eastwood nor Betty White were given prominent roles in the pre-convention warrior dances. Our political pros today could learn a thing or two from these ancient tribal rituals. Stay on message; whip up feelings of righteousness to a fever pitch; and dance like the dickens. No need to use chairs as a dialectical prop by a tribal elder (republicans) or matriarchal elder (democrats). Ever. Just keep dancing.

Oh sure, we should have fun celebrating and rallying with our political brothers and sisters during our side’s convention. I certainly intend to! And hope my republican friends did so last week.
But I suspect it would be good to note, too, that “rallying the troops” theater, while good for cheerleading, isn’t terribly useful once the political parties’ parties are over. That’s important to remember –as it is to recall that we have many more brothers and sisters than just those sharing our political opinions. Our Founding Fathers certainly realized this and memorialized it in our new nation’s motto that they selected– a simple Latin phrase: E Pluribus Unum. I’m really glad a few weeks before our Constitution was signed we didn’t have competing conventions represented by the political factions of the day. We may not have a constitution. We may have instead had some funny stories about Benjamin Franklin getting his lights punched out by a lesser signer because of his acerbic speech a few weeks earlier. But we didn’t have political parties back then. In fact, the Founders warned against the dangers of divisive factionalism—or extreme troop rallying.
E Pluribus Unum means essentially that within our diverse differences we are committed to an unassailable unity. Not “My country, right or wrong” blind allegiance, but more like “our country no matter how right or wrong we believe ourselves or our political opponents to be.”

In many ways E Pluribus Unum is nearly the opposite of the raw partisan blood sport we see played out regularly today masquerading as serious debate . Is it the worst it’s ever been? Hardly. It’s easy to pull up some old allegations about Abe Lincoln looking like a baboon, or Thomas Jefferson being an heathen atheist. But it’s pretty bad. And it’s not the end game our Founding Fathers had in mind. I suspect our Founders wanted more of legacy for their efforts than Glenn Beck lecturing about left wing conspiracy theories or The Daily Kos flaming the Internet about right wing conspiracies. If this is the apex of 236 years of a great republic’s maturation, the Founders probably would have stayed home and played cribbage instead.

But we are better than our partisan extremes. A whole lot better. We are not at our best divided and petty. Granted, it’s difficult to be united and idealistic for very long when there are over 300 million of us. But we don’t have to be that way all the time. I’d settle for opinionated but respectful –and a little more curious. Maybe a little more open-minded about where we might find common ground rather than determined to more deeply draw the boundaries that divide us.
But last week in Tampa and this week in Charlotte, is not the landscape for such things. Our country’s simple yet complex motto won’t be on prominent display in either city. That’s not the point of political party conventions. Or tribal war dances.

But unity among diversity is what makes for a great nation. And I hope that as we inch toward—and then beyond—the November election we don’t forget the motto our Founders hoped we’d live up to. To be a more unified nation. A time when political warrior dances are replaced again by Dancing with the Stars.

Even if it means I have to cheer again for Tom Delay.