Obama as Exemplar: Will The Two Parties Reach Across the Aisle This Time?

Listening to many persons tonight who are moved by Obama’s being Prez-elect, seeing people in the moment changed by their own joy and awe… I just wonder sometimes, don’t we sometimes be changed, even slightly against our wills, when others are changed suddenly for the better? Or just out of their plain happiness for something they value deeply?

Obama has said both parties will work together and he will lead the way. Can this occur really?

Maybe hyper-partisanship needs aggression as an opponent in order to flare? But, what if no opponent is particularly aggressive and there’s nothing for a hyper aggressive person to attach to, to engage? What if by placid or calm demeanor on the part of Dems, there is no ‘there’ there for anyone else looking to scorn-fight? I wonder truly.

Remember that last time the Republicans took over Congress some years back, they were led by example of Newt Gingrich… the scathing talk, the glee and retribution of forcing Dems from their plush offices so Repubs could move in, the closing out of thoughtful Dems for appointments on important committees, the open rancor and paybacks… and so on, were in no way conciliatory… nor honorable.

Leader Newt in fact published a book with a list of derogatory words he felt should be freely applied to Dems. It was not a shining moment for time-honored statesmanship.

Playing tit for tat is considered in developmental psychology the unsocialized trait of the very young and self-centered child. The same deficit of maturity in an adult seems not only foolish, as in short-sighted, but also egotistic in the extreme, hypermanic. Surely, at base, the soul’s gone missing.

Too, later, Dems had their turn to be kings of the dirt pile, and devolved, many of them into doing the same. Subsequently, Repubs under Bush had their chances and doled out the put-downs and casting out, similarly.

Will elected officials be far more mature this time; stop to think this time? Not act as though civility is some cheap gaud, that brotherhood and sisterhood are subhuman and that lording it over others is suprahuman?

I sometimes sense, don’t you, that there is an atmosphere of courtliness that allows / engenders true statesmanship? And there are acid words and actions that scream disrespect, that smash ideas of building and doing ‘together’ into being DOA from day one.

I’m not sure it’s the president who sets tone as much as the VP, the House and Senate Majority Leaders and the Minority leaders, and some of the Cabinet members. What is notable, I think, and this is just my two cents worth, is when a cabinet member or congressional leader says outrageous and ridiculing things about other members of Congress… and the president doesn’t challenge, correct, soften or hold them to a civil discourse… then, like flu, ill-will seems catching by all concerned, including pages, media, lobbyists, constituents, man in the street, pundits, et al

I remember once meeting with the mayor of our city along with three other persons, one a highly competitive man who interrupted and talked over us because he wanted the mayor only to listen to him and his moneyed friends and ideas. You know how it can be when someone suddenly keeps interrupting you and you think that you don’t want to be rude in return, so you remain silent and wait to get a word in edgewise, but the ‘edgewise opportunity’ never comes because the other person’s whole point, you realize too late, is to silence you and highlight only their own interests?

But though the mayor listened to the man, the mayor also bypassed the man by turning his body toward us and speaking to each of us with regard and interest, asking us questions addressed to only us, even though I and the other person were absolute nobodies.

And, at the end of the conversation, the mayor turned to the pushy man and said pointedly, but kindly,

“I want to hear what everyone has to say.” That was Mayor Webb in 1992, often spoken about as ‘the first black mayor of Denver,’ but to many, he was just a decent-enough man who listened to the average Joes, whereas many other officials only listened to the open wallets.

In that case, the leader Webb, brought, for the moment, an overly aggressive, ‘me me me, only me’ person into some semblance of civility. Without the mayor’s comment, the pushy man would have assumed the mayor approved of his marginalizing others. Perhaps the man’s heart was changed, I’d like to think so… or perhaps it was not, but the mayor was bold, insightful, and set the bar nonetheless.

In any event, we will all be watching to see whether three rounds of ‘leg-up’ in the Congress over these many decades, have taught current members of each party to be more well developed with one another, than say, some of their predecessors.

We’ll be watching to see not only if Obama sets new tones, but whether he intervenes effectively, with honor, in the ill-tones/shrill tones of others.

It may really be a new day then.. and wouldn’t that be sweet for us all?

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h/t Jim Satterfield.