“Strategery”, “nucular”, and “guesstimate” are words that make people twitch when heard. For me, my head instantly starts pounding when “bipartisanship” starts being thrown around. Both Republicans and Democrats use the word in their attempt to assuage people’s need for civility and goodness. In reality, what either side is saying is “we need to come together as long as our coming together is on our side of the issue”.
Our political disagreements is the actual bipartisanship we should strive for. Disagreement on policy is how policy making works. Having everyone sitting around in a chant circle signing “Kumbaya” and agreeing on every single thing proposed allows crud to flow through with the good stuff. Rather than bipartisanship we need people discussing, disagreeing, and reworking legislation so that it is succinct, serves a purpose, and does the most good.
I am sure tonight’s State of the Union address will have plenty of “we need to come together” lines along with “we are one so we should act like one” ovation getters. These are simply long forms of “bipartisanship”. What I wish the President would say is, “We need to hash out the details on legislation to get the economy moving. We need each side to whittle this legislation down to help as many Americans as possible”.
Agreement is great, I’m just not sure that having a Legislative Branch of yes-men is the best way to go about getting people to agree.