Hello from Common Ground – United We Stand! Rep. Chenele Dixon (Idaho) and I founded CG-UWS to counter the impact extremist organizations have on our state legislative systems. Our federalist system requires each level of government to perform its role, fulfill prescribed responsibilities, and administer both formal and informal
duties. Our complex interwoven system of checks and balances resulted from the short comings of the Articles of Confederation and is designed to balance individual liberties, states’ rights, and federal interests. The Articles of Confederation formed a “firm league of friendship” between the states and united under a central government absent enforcement capabilities. The failure clearly demonstrated that states, like any other faction or person,
are self-interested. But self-interest is relative--as game theory and The Prisoners Dilemma has shown, some people, and by extension, the factions they create, will act against their own self-interest if it puts an opponent in a worse position. A cut off your ear to spite your face mentality.
For more than a decade foreign governments, extremists, and extreme organizations
have been undermining and de-legitimizing our systems and institutions through rhetoric and mis/disinformation campaigns aimed at creating doubt and mistrust. Simply because a statement, investigation, court decision, or policy decision is contrary to one’s interests, doesn’t mean it is “Fake” or “Radical.” These disinformation campaigns have focused on exacerbating natural divisions between groups and people and are generating greater divisions between us as Americans. The
result is an increasing disconnect between voters, legislators, and parties.
Both the Republican and Democrat parties are being pulled to polarized, inflexible positions which, in combination, with the increased presence of “identity politics” is cementing people behind a party, cloaked in their merch and rhetoric, no longer under a banner of a shared ideology or policy positions. This effective demagoguery has caused
people to abdicate their individuality and their agency, giving instead their whole allegiance to the party. According to a 2017 Pew survey, the median Republican is now more conservative than 97 percent of Democrats, up from 64 percent in 1994, and the median Democrat is more liberal than 95 percent of Republicans, up from 70 percent in 1994. In addition to people sorting themselves
and identifying by their party, the animosity between parties and the way people perceive each other has deteriorated. A striking finding in a 2022 Pew Research poll.
“In 2016, about half of Republicans (47%) and slightly more than a third of Democrats (35%) said those in the other party were a lot or
somewhat more immoral than other Americans. Today, 72% of Republicans regard Democrats as more immoral, and 63% of Democrats say the same about Republicans.”
Identity, who we are, and associating with similar people is natural, it is part of being human. However, this tribalism we are seeing is dangerous. I am a third-generation Oregon State University graduate and a die-hard Beaver Believer. In
1993 the football team ended 4 – 7, up from 1-9-1 the year before and we thought we had it figured out, only two wins away from a bowl game! But alas we didn’t become bowl eligible until 1999. Regardless, at the beginning of each season I was optimistic, and at the end of each disappointing season I was hopeful for the next season. I am a Beaver believer through and through cloaked in orange and black merch and rhetoric. While wrapping yourself up in an identity for sports
is one thing, politics is another—it is dangerous to our Republic. Hamilton and Madison both famously warned about factions in Federalist Papers #9 & #10, and President George Washington warned of factions and parties in his farewell address:
“One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts.”
“They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force—to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified
by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
I think Hamilton, Madison, and Washington clearly grasped our human nature and articulated today’s political reality. They understood we are fallible, egocentric, and passionate. They attempted to design a system to protect us from us by combining ingredients from previous systems, guided by historical results, into a brand-new recipe--a new reformulation that balances personal freedoms with stability, resilience, reliability, and adaptability.
State legislatures are pivotal in balancing state and local interests with federal interests. Decisions state legislators make--bills passed, policies enacted, and tax dollars spent, impact peoples’ daily lives–for years. The security, stability, and opportunities provided (or not) have a direct and immediate impact on people, people who voted us into office to represent and advocate for them. We directly impact people at a level the
federal government can’t and doesn’t.
The widening disconnects between major political parties and what governing legislators know is needed to represent their districts is detrimental to effective governance. Government after all is created by humans, to manage interactions between humans, and can either be propped up or destroyed by humans. Because we are fallible, our governmental systems will always be
fallible. After signing the Constitution, Ben Franklin said:
Mr. President
I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects,
which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines
is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said "I don't know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right"--Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison."
Common Ground’s mission is to counter extremism, to mitigate their rhetoric, and mis/disinformation campaigns including their aggressive personal and familial attacks. Ethics, integrity, and decency matter. This is the time to reinvigorate these virtues in our state legislatures and ensure our system endures. We can support each other, inform, and educate voters, and work with other likeminded organizations. It will take all of us at every level and in every
role.
Once again President Washington’s words: “…cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
Sound familiar? Enough is enough – I choose to put people and country first. I am always the optimist and I
know we can do this, if we decide to.
Charlie
(Go Beavs!)
