Daily Herald opinion: The soul of our democracy

Reflecting on the coming year in politics, we have spent much of the past week thinking about matters of specific policy - redistricting, ethics, candidate petitions, artificial intelligence. Today our thoughts are dominated less by policy than practice, though we might confidently assert that no policy matter will come to successful fruition without a significant change in practice.

And that practice involves partisanship.

Our primary target naturally centers around political leaders and candidates as we enter an election year not just for president, but for Congress, state legislature and county government. But our message applies to all of us as citizens and voters as well. For partisanship has taken control of our politics with a firmness we can’t recall in long years of watching and studying government. The U.S. Senate has achieved almost nothing of significance in years, even as our deepest and most complex challenges - immigration, health care, economic equality, climate, to name just a few - only grow more deep-rooted and intractable. Indeed, Congress has so abdicated its role in government that policy making on our most serious problems has been reduced to an ever-changing string of presidential executive orders. This is neither productive nor sustainable, and 2024 is a year in which we can chart a different course. That does not necessarily require wholesale replacement of the leaders we have. But it does demand that those we elect expect more of themselves, and that we expect more of those we elect.

The term uncompromising often carries an aura of strength and determination. In our representative democracy, it has become a rallying cry for inaction. Rooms full of uncompromising policy makers can achieve nothing beyond division and endless argument.

So, as political campaigns begin warming up over the coming weeks and months, beware of the candidates, whether newcomer or challenger, who beat their chests with promises of unyielding attack or defiance. The candidates we need now certainly must have strong and unwavering values. But they also must understand how to integrate those values with the strong and unwavering values of their colleagues, the vast majority of whom share their love for our communities and our country and for the welfare of all our people.

It may sound melodramatic, but it is not too extreme to see a battle afoot for the soul of our democracy. If we continue to elect candidates who take pride in their refusal to work with their colleagues. If we satisfy ourselves with sorting into tribes whose individual goals override those of the people as a whole, we can only expect more of the erratic, volatile and unproductive government with which we have become all to familiar.

Let’s demand more, of our leaders and would-be leaders and of ourselves. Unless we do, we can have little hope of enacting the kinds of policies our editorials of the past week have advocated or conquering any of the many other signficant, festering issues that are disruputing individual lives and crippling our leadership.