Editor’s note: This commentary is by Peter Berger, an English teacher at Weathersfield School who writes “Poor Elijah’s Almanack.” The column appears in several publications including the Times Argus, the Rutland Herald and the Stowe Reporter.
The country is in trouble. Over the past few months I’ve found that to be the majority opinion in my slim neck of the woods. Liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, Trumper or Never-Trumper – it doesn’t seem to matter. Very few on any side express confidence in our government. Pessimism reigns at our kitchen tables.
We’ve been at odds with each other before, most notably and murderously during the Civil War, and it’s encouraging to bear in mind that we survived even that fratricidal tragedy. But I’m not talking here about the political and cultural divisions that have smoldered over years and periodically erupted among us, or about any particular issues that incite us today. I’m talking about our declining confidence in government, our apparent diminished commitment to making it work, and our common exhaustion and discouragement.
My object here is not to present a bill of indictment against our current president, though I frankly do regard him as both an agent and a symptom of our national disease. This is meant merely as a citizen’s observations concerning government in general, and whether it prompts assent or dissent, it will have served its purpose if it provokes a few minutes’ consideration.
When I teach history, I always ask my students if they’ve ever heard their parents say, “That’s the government’s job.” Most of them raise their hands. Then I ask how many have heard their parents say, “That’s none of the government’s business.” Most of the same hands go up again.
Our Constitution is founded on two competing imperatives. In our early days James Madison wrote that if men were angels, we wouldn’t need a government. Since we aren’t angels and do need a government, and since the people we choose to govern us also aren’t angels, we needed to design and maintain a government that’s strong enough to do its jobs but not so strong as to become a tyranny. We’ve been disagreeing about how strong and which jobs ever since.
Thomas Jefferson began from the position that the federal government’s powers were either specifically listed or very closely and directly implied in the Constitution. We each have residing in us an element of his belief in limited government. We expect the government to leave us alone in our private lives.
Over time what we expect from government has expanded, and with those greater expectations we’ve expanded what qualifies as an implied power. Back then Jefferson and Hamilton disagreed. Today we’re treated to opposing spokesmen like McConnell and Schumer, a telltale decline.
A century ago Teddy Roosevelt was part of expanding our understanding of the government’s job. He believed that the growing size and economic power of his era’s big businesses and corporate titans meant that ordinary citizens like you and me were grossly outmatched and needed an advocate who could contend in strength and stature with those powerful modern interests. For Roosevelt government was that advocate.
Both Jefferson and Roosevelt’s intentions were good, and their principles of government worthwhile. Most of us would probably nod in general agreement with both. When it comes to applying those principles to specific issues, however, unanimity is hard to come by.
Presumably because it so rarely happens, Jefferson taught that unanimity wasn’t the point. Instead government should be about achieving a “workable consensus for a given time.” Jefferson wasn’t always faithful to that creed when dealing with his political opponents, but we today seem to have entirely given up even trying.
Governing isn’t a winner-take-all proposition. Our government’s decisions and actions should represent not only the slightly more than half who are the majority, but also the substantial number of citizens who are at that moment the minority. No republic can survive if nearly half the population is routinely denied a proportional share in governing the republic.
Political parties only make things worse. That’s why George Washington advised against them. He foresaw that partisan politics would lead to polarized government with representatives torn between party loyalty and their better judgment on particular issues. We see that conflict and partisanship in the nation’s capital and increasingly in government at all levels.
Consider, the particulars aside, the recent case of Justice Kavanaugh. There are doubtless senators on both sides of the aisle who acted and judged according to justice as they construed it. I suspect as well there are senators on both sides whose consciences are troubled by the actions they were party to and the partisan choice they made. I also suspect there are those who aren’t troubled because they’re so accustomed to sacrificing their consciences on the altar of Party.
Some issues are for some of us truly matters of conscience. And sometimes call for political warfare to confront a political extreme or aberration, when in Mr. Lincoln’s words, the people must stand in opposition, “united with each other, attached to the government and laws,” regardless of political party or program.
Most governing decisions, though, aren’t staged on a moral battleground. Most come down to grappling with and arriving at Jefferson’s workable consensus, a mutual, centrist agreement most of us can live with, even if it leaves each of us a little dissatisfied.
Too often in the ordinary course of governing, we elevate our plain political preferences and dress them in the robes of absolute right and wrong. The trouble is my political preferences aren’t endowed with the moral power or certainty of the Ten Commandments.
Neither, I suspect, are yours.
All this requires moderation. It’s my sense today that most of us hunger for moderation in the public space we share as Americans. The trouble with moderation is it demands that we not expect to get everything we want.
We aren’t very good these days at getting less than we want.
We need to get better at it.
Elections by their nature are about winning. Somebody wins, somebody loses, and the winner takes the seat.
Governing, though, can’t be about winning.
Otherwise we’ll all lose.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Peter Berger: On governing and moderation.