We Have Met the Enemy & They is Us

I can’t wait for this election to be over. Don’t misunderstand me – I’ve been glued to the news channels on television and radio for the better part of the last six months – and one reason why I look forward to November 5th is what I consider to be the excessive length of time it took to get from the first Primary to Election Day. And while I believe that American voters would be better served by a relatively brief election cycle (such as in Britain, where it is six weeks), that doesn’t fully explain my desire to see this election season come to a close.


My political exhaustion stems from the incredibly polarized context within which this presidential contest is being negotiated. While I recognize that the art of politics requires that the choice of candidates needs to be presented in stark terms; it is hard for me to watch the debates and view television ads which imply that support for the other side will lead to moral, economic and political ruin. After all, the nation survived the election of 1868 which put Ulysses S. Grant (a man better suited for the battlefield than the halls of government) in office, as well as the disputed election of 1876 that put Rutherford B. Hayes in office. More recently, while the election of Herbert Hoover in 1928 didn’t directly lead to the Great Depression, historians regard his failure to respond effectively to this calamity as one of the great presidential failures.

The point, I think, is obvious: the strength of the American political system is to be found in its resilience. We understand that politicians are as flawed as we are – yet when it comes to the ballot box, we seem to ignore that rational understanding and invest entirely too much energy into the “Great Man” theory – that one man (or woman) can singlehandedly fix our problems. Recently, I was listening to a radio presentation of a panel discussion of Republican and Democratic economists who were debating the causes of our current financial crisis. At the end of the session, the moderator – a student at Georgetown University – summarized the conversation by expressing gratitude that the panel could disagree agreeably. I sensed a note of astonishment in her voice. That’s why I can’t wait for this election to be over. Somehow we have allowed the public debate about our Nation’s future to become a shouting match regarding who’s right and who’s wrong. Last time I checked, neither political party (nor their leadership) could fall back on a sterling record regarding their prognostication skills. And that’s the point: we, the consumers of political messages, allow our elected officials to distract us from the central fact that neither red nor blue states have a lock on the Truth. We do this because the issues are complex and complicated and it is stressful for us to try to figure them out. Yet, the desire to consider these challenging social problems in a simplified way often results in outcomes we never expected.

While it is easy to look at religious world views through the same, cynical lens, there are perspectives which remind us that, in the end, we are responsible for the people we elect. The Catholic Bishops in the United States issued a pastoral letter entitled:



Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship



The document offers three statements, in particular, which clarify our responsibility as citizens and Catholics:



We do not tell Catholics how to vote. The responsibility to make political choices rests with each person and his or her properly formed conscience.



and:



As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support.



and:



Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person

recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act. . . . [Every person] is obliged to follow faithfully what he [or she] knows to be just and right”



What I find particularly encouraging in these statements – and in the document as a whole – is the Bishops’ clear recognition that we are responsible for the government we put in place and we cannot abandon that task in search of simple answers. So, while I can’t wait for the election to be over, I can find some peace in the notion that glib answers in debates or advertising cannot be substituted for our individual responsibility to choose wisely, carefully, and with a great deal of thought.