Why can’t we just get along
The death of former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter and the Hurricane Sandy emergency efforts drive home for me what has gone wrong with American politics.
Sen. Specter’s death had people all over the world lamenting the loss of a statesman whose focus was that “more perfect union” promised in our Constitution, working above the fray of party politics. His passing is a reminder of a time when our Congress managed the nation together civilly, professionally.
This week, New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie, among others, and President Obama swiftly partnered to respond to the Hurricane Sandy crisis, to bring government aid and minimize the suffering in the hardest-hit part of the nation. Headlines commend Christie and the President’s joint efforts.
Both of these events symbolize something lost in America today: our elected officials are supposed to cooperate. They are supposed to apply their party platforms to do their jobs together. This happens every day in nations all over the world.
The only nations that have one dominant political party that doesn’t have to cooperate with others are either communist or fascist. Other democracies bring together multiple political ideologies cooperating for the good of their nation.
This is what we should expect from our leaders. This “us vs. them” mentality is the hallmark of dysfunction.
We now have long-time politicians who worked in that spirit of cooperation, from both political parties, who are giving up. Not because they did anything wrong, but because they know we can’t function without mutual cooperation.
The rest of the world is baffled by the American regression into incivility. It doesn’t have to be this way. We have a history of cooperation going back to our earliest days. It’s just sad that the promise of a more perfect union is becoming less and less of a reality, and more of an unattainable vestige of days gone by.
Kelly E. Rusinack is a resident of Bitner.