I don’t want to be the latest to bemoan the state of politics, but here I am.
For several years it has felt like politics was more about winning than helping. Politics has always been about winning, personally. From the earliest days of democracy, and even more so before that, candidates would do whatever is necessary to win or keep their position — whether a seat on a condominium board or in the Oval Office.
But in the past 10 years it seems like that mindset has translated equally, and more disturbingly, to the party.
While I disagree with the logic, I at least understand that for some people there is a mindset that they are the best candidate, therefore winning by any means, while ugly, still accomplished the best outcome for the most people.
I struggle to believe that anyone can believe their party is wholly in the right and therefore worthy of blind support.
And yet, that’s where we are, with politicians, news outlets, candidates and even voters so enamored with winning, they don’t stop to think about the toll it takes on the integrity of our country, their profession or even themselves.
Organizations and people have been so willing to take the low road to find a win, they can no longer stand on, or often even find, moral high ground and rise above the fray.
They have so drastically aligned themselves with that party they are forced to see members of the other party as evil or incompetent. They are so entrenched in their party that it is impossible for them to see value in the other side’s policies or even in a compromise.
The last two weeks I have been fascinated as a journalist and broken hearted as a human being watching the whistleblower process play out.
Judgements were made about the report and the phone call — days before either had been seen. Both sides grabbed any journalist they could find and loudly regurgitated the party-created talking points.
Republicans proclaimed the call exonerated the president and that we should focus on what Joe Biden had done, as he is the real abuser of power.
Democrats declared this the smoking gun they had feared and formally opened an impeachment inquiry.
And all of this before any of them laid eyes on the report or the transcript. (To be fair, we still haven’t seen the transcript. We have seen a report, formatted like a transcript, but not the actual transcript.)
The problem is, as I see it, that the facts contained in either the whistleblower’s report or the phone call are irrelevant. The parties are going to declare victory, regardless of what either say.
We have forgotten the point of government is not merely to win, but to win something better, to be something better.
-Mac Cordell is a reporter for the Jorunal-Tribune.