The Art of Politics
By Hank Silverberg

The United States has lost some of its best artists in recent years, and it doesn’t appear we will be getting any new ones soon. Wait! Before you start listing great painters, musicians or writers, let me clarify. I am talking about those who practice “The Art of Politics.” 

(The U.S.Capitol)

Done the right way, political discourse and decisions have always been art. You come up with a good idea, float it around the political circle and the public, seek input, and redraw it based on the views of colleagues and constituents. We’ve had some wonderful political artists in our history. Ben Franklin comes to mind. There was Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ted Kennedy. Yes—they were partisan many times. But in the end, they compromised for the good of the country.

(Sen. John McCain)

 I write about this now because we have lost one of our current political artists this week— Republican Senator John McCain, of Arizona. I interviewed the Senator a number of times when I covered Capitol Hill decades ago. His views were mostly conservative, and I often didn’t agree with him, though as a journalist I never told him that. The answers you got from Senator McCain were always straight forward and always what he really believed. There was no B-S, to put it plainly. McCain was not afraid to walk across the aisle and talk with liberals. Kennedy, who died nine years ago, also from brain cancer, was mostly on the other side of the political spectrum from McCain, but the two men sometimes worked together or with Presidents from the opposite party for the good of the country. They could disagree and have vigorous debate on issues like abortion rights or immigration without rancor, name calling or insults (at least not in public). Lawmakers like these often gave a little to get a little. Part of the Art of Politics is compromise. At its best, it works. Wisconsin Senator  Russ Feingold and McCain disagreed on most issues but did not hesitate to work together on mutual interests like campaign finance reform setting new limits on campaign contributions.  The current Congress has been unable to get much done even as roads crumble and bridges collapse across the country.  Good transportation is good for the country. It isn't about Liberals and Conservatives or Democrats and Republicans.  The Art of Politics and the compromises it sometimes requires are totally lost on most of those now in Congress and the White House. Senator McCain even practiced the art for his own funeral, inviting former Presidents Barak Obama and George W. Bush, who had both defeated McCain's presidential hopes, to give eulogies. 

I heard a number of people call McCain a “lion of the senate.” I am afraid we don’t have very many lions left there. Not even any lion cubs. Take just one example from this past week. In an interview with Fox News, President Trump expressed anger with his own Attorney General for re-cusing himself from the Special Counsel’s investigation of the Russian interference in the 2016 elections. He implied once again he might fire Jeff Sessions. 

There was only one meek roar. It came from Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse, who is not up for re-election this year.

CSPAN (@cspan)

8/23/18, 4:40 PM

Sen. ⁦‪@BenSasse⁩ (R-NE): "I find it really difficult to envision any circumstance where I would vote to confirm a successor to Jeff Sessions if he is fired because he is executing his job rather than choosing to act like a partisan hack." pic.twitter.com/oqI3oXH0DX

But most of Sasse's colleagues were pretty quiet. A few Senators issued statements expressing concern about the President’s comments, but there were no lions, no cubs, not even a feral cat who seemed outraged by the notion that Donald Trump could fire an Attorney General for not killing an investigation into –Donald Trump.

That might be okay if the Senators were too busy working on fixes for the nation's crumbling transportation system, or the troubled immigration system, or just about anything else that matters. But they weren’t.

This is not a totally new phenomenon.  In the last three decades the U-S Congress has passed only two significant pieces of legislation. The Patriot Act, well intended, but severely flawed, was rushed through in October of 2001 in the aftermath of 9-11. Liberals and Conservatives have complained ever since about law's abuse of civil liberties. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare),  also severely flawed, was passed in  March 2010. Republicans then spent the next eight years trying to get rid of it rather than fixing it, and finally weakened it to an almost hollow shell. Everything else, including gun control, immigration reform, environmental protection, shoring up Social Security and Medicare and even the annual comprehensive federal budget, fell by the wayside, the victim of party before country. This has been amplified by the Trump Administration, which seems bent on weakening both the legislative and judicial branches of the government beyond a point of no return. 

   

We as a nation are in trouble if our political leaders continue to care more about how many times their comments are re-tweeted, how much money they have raised for their next campaign, or public opinion polls, rather than the impact their inaction has on you, me, our children and grandchildren. A nation has no future without art. And that includes the Art of Politics. 

            (A new edition of this blog comes out every Monday         before noon.Your comments and suggestions are welcome)  

     

         (Copies of my new book "The Campaign" can be purchased at hanksilverbergbooks.com , BN.com or Amazon.com)