The Partisan’s Last Stand
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STEPHEN BLINDER: Partisanship, both in theory and in practice throughout much of American history, has proven not anathema to a healthy democracy but an invaluable and, indeed, a necessary constituent of our political system. Partisanship and the sincere, meaningful debate it fosters have been at the root of our democracy from the beginning. It is exactly for this reason that we can ill-afford to conflate partisanship with today’s hyper-partisanship, as well as the partisan with today’s hyper-partisan.
The Founders, for all their well-documented and understandable criticism of factionalism, never understood American democracy as a smooth-sailing enterprise. Indeed, they knew political parties were an inevitable byproduct of American ideals. In his speech to the Constitutional Convention on the Right of Suffrage, James Madison observed that “[n]o free country has ever been without parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom.” Crucially, the Founders also realized the Constitution directly enabled political parties, affording them a role in effective governance. Madison, this time writing to Henry Lee, affirmed that “[t]he Constitution…must be an unfailing source of party distinctions.”
Partisanship, as Professor Nancy Rosenblum describes in On the Side of the Angels, “is the only political identity that does not see pluralism and political conflict as a bow to necessity, a pragmatic recognition of the inevitability of disagreement.” In fact, the strength of democracy lies within these spirited differences. Democracy, at its best, harnesses the multitude of voices and perspectives that comprise a nation as diverse as ours. Democracy endeavors not to silence disagreement but to enable it within a constructive forum in service of the common good.
The partisan embraces this aspiration of democracy. The partisan does not shy away from expressing their deeply held opinions but simultaneously recognizes and champions America’s ultimate calling—E pluribus unum: “out of many, one.” Partisanship is, as Rosenblum continues, “the political identity of representative democracy.” This fact alone makes today’s hyper-partisanship so distinct from partisanship itself and, thereby, so destructive to the democracy partisanship aims to elevate.
Today’s hyper-partisanship was born largely out of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and is now tragically on display within the halls of Congress for all to see. Such hyper-partisanship is distinctly defined by an inflexible, fundamentally anti-democratic posturing that sees our differences not as a source of strength but rather as a threat to be eliminated. Trump has vowed to imprison political opponents—presumably anyone who dares to challenge him publicly, including those in his party—should he return to the Oval Office. Perhaps most tellingly, Trump has gone so far as to place “retribution” at the core of his 2024 messaging. Trump’s hyper-partisanship paints an intractable “us versus them” picture of democracy in which not only are dissenters invariably wrong but also “enemies”—Trump’s language, not mine.
It is this rhetoric that also distinguishes today’s hyper-partisan from Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution,” which tested the limits of partisanship but almost entirely avoided crossing this perilous boundary. Today’s hyper-partisan opposes pluralism in favor of, as Alton Frye termed it, “[t]he tyranny of the Trumpian minority.” What today’s hyper-partisan has either forgotten amid Trump’s “reign of terror” or has willfully ignored is, as Rosenblum notes, that “[p]olitics exists only when the fact of pluralism is accepted and there is latitude for open agitation of groups with rival interests and opinions.” Make no mistake: at risk today is much more than short-term political fallout; it is the fate of democracy.
At heart, partisans are, as Rosenblum writes, “on the side of angels.” Politics is rarely, if ever, straightforward and easy-going. A nation as large and diverse as ours requires debate, often intense but always in service of a greater end. The partisan helps our country strive, however slowly and circuitously, toward its potential. The partisan seeks to embody the call of Abraham Lincoln, a trailblazing Republican president: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
We must not lose sight of the partisan, even as its antithesis seeks to cloud our judgment.
Stephen Blinder is a staff writer for On the Record. He is a junior studying government and philosophy in the College of Arts & Sciences.