What Trent Lott's Retirement Says About U.S. Politics

This is an interesting article from Wednesday’s Washington Post, about Minority Whip Trent Lott’s retirement and the Senate’s fading ability to compromise across party lines.

The piece states, “A major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws went down in flames. Just two of a dozen annual spending bills passed Congress, and one of those was vetoed. Repeated efforts to force a course change in Iraq ended in recrimination and stalemate. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) filed 56 motions to break off filibusters to try to complete legislation, a total that is nearing the record of 61 such "cloture motions" in a two-year Congress.

“Lott's departure from Capitol Hill in the coming weeks after 34 years in Congress -- 16 in the House, 18 in the Senate -- is further evidence that bonhomie and cross-party negotiating are losing their currency, even in the backslapping Senate.”

The truth is, the legislature isn't becoming partisan – it’s been that way for a long time. But it does feel like we’re living in a totally polarized political environment. Perhaps my view is skewed because I live in the East Village, in New York City -- the locus of liberalism on the East Coast.

I once worked next to a copywriter who would have loud daily conversations with his work partner likening Israel to Al-Qaeda, wishing for centralized government, and spewing hateful 9/11 conspiracies about President Bush and Dick Cheney. I'd overheard enough one day and defended some reasonable conservative ideals. I suddenly became branded throughout the company as a right-wing nut. In fact, the Chief Creative Officer, who I was friendly with, came up to me at a work function and said, “I never would have thought you were a Republican … you seemed … so normal.” I keep my name off this blog because it would be bad for my career.

To be fair, I’m sure the same scenario in reverse occurs in Lubbock, Lincoln, and Salt Lake. But it tells me that we’re spreading further apart on issues that used to be considered private or local. Many of today’s key debates were once deemed the domain of individuals, families, towns, and states. They’ve unfortunately become national and are consistently shaped by those on the margins –- left and right. I’m a die hard conservative on fiscal policy, foreign policy, and ideas about government’s role in our lives, but I believe that reasonable people, red and blue, can come to some consensus about topics like immigration, social security, and abortion.

Even better, perhaps our national debates on these hot button issues should be kicked back to the local level and not be national at all. Should we have really been discussing the fate of Terry Schiavo on a national scale? Do we really need federal government dictating appropriate sexual health lessons in schools when needs are different in Vermont, Harlem, and Kansas? Conversely, why can’t I decide what to do with my retirement funds? The dead-on-arrival plan to invest 3% of our own SS money in a private account is not that radical.

This polarization of politics shows me that we shouldn't be leaving everything up to the politicians. I don't want a bunch of backslapping, pork-slopping legislators deciding what the future of healthcare looks like for my generation. The Bridge to Nowhere is not just in Alaska. In the incompetent hands of beaurocrats, it potentially leads to our future as well.