Getting to 51
The national reaction to the murder of George Floyd and to “all the unseen shit, where we don’t have the video,” as one protester in Minneapolis put it, is fueling calls for substantial changes, not only in the way we do policing, but also in our political, economic and community structures.
Getting there from here will be difficult if Minnesota and Wisconsin are examples. In Minnesota, the legislature adjourned a special session called by the Governor on policing reforms when the House controlled by Democrats and the Senate controlled by Republicans failed to reach agreement. In Wisconsin, although the Democratic Governor has proposed legislation, the Republican leaders of the Assembly and Senate have shown little enthusiasm.
How to get to 51 percent – the magic number required in democracy to make anything happen?
It requires building a coalition that can win, that can govern. A coalition of ideas. A coalition of groups. A coalition that can win the support of a majority of the voters. In a diverse society with many communities, different interests have to be accommodated. Compromise is a tool for getting there. Politics, at its best, helps.
In his book In Defense of Politics, Bernard Crick argues persuasively that politics “is a way of ruling divided societies without undue violence . . . an attempt to strike a particular harmony . . . an effective way by which varying interests can discover that level of compromise best suited to their common interest in survival. Politics allows various types of power within a community to find some reasonable level of mutual tolerance and support.”
Politics is the art of addition, not subtraction. We get to 51 by adding to the coalition. Negotiating the terms might be difficult. Success depends on whether we see the process as one of accommodation or conflict.
In a review of multiple studies, Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, concluded, “The most successful negotiators cared as much about the other party’s success as their own. They refused to see negotiations as win-lose or the world as zero-sum. They understood that before you could claim value, you needed to create value. They didn’t declare victory until they could help everyone win.”
That approach echoes Aristotle who advised whatever faction was in power to not only pursue its own goals but to take care of the needs of the other if it wanted to maintain stability and longevity. Otherwise the result is “constant strife and civil war.”
Recently, however, we have largely forsaken the activity of politics for the pursuit of power. Politics has become combat. Those we elect to public office are expected to continue the fight to victory. They are seen as an extension of the interests that elected them. Those who seek conciliation are rejected by their supporters. Compromise is seen as the abandonment of principle, not as the necessary accommodation of diverse groups and interests that allows us to live with each other in relative harmony. Building a coalition for change is as much about trust as it is about policy. There has to be some appreciation for and understanding of the motivations and integrity of the other. Some comfort level with reliability is necessary if yes votes are to be added.
“What do you agree to?” is the central question of legislative politics. Yes is the vote that moves things along. Without enough yes votes to make a majority, there is no action. A common ground, held together by yes votes has to be found. Only those willing to provide the necessary yes votes on final passage will have any influence over the contents of a proposed law.
In the legislature, as with voters generally, persuasion is better than conflict at getting to yes. Our tendency, when we see conflicting policy, is to adopt conflict as the way to combat the conflict. But strategy should always be considered separately from the goal. The question is what will be most effective, not what makes us feel good.
In a New York Times story, Sean McElwee, the co-founder of the progressive think tank Data for Progress, said the left’s vulnerability was in some ways self-inflicted. “By refusing to acknowledge persuasion, we leave ourselves out of part of the equation. For progressives to have a seat at the table, we have to start speaking in the language that people are actually thinking in.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib is quoted in another story, “I think it’s about shaking the table and taking someone else’s chair from them.”
In a third story, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is quoted, “There’s so much emphasis on making outreach as conflict-based as possible … it’s about how we build a majority in progressive Democratic politics … it’s about what tools you use, and conflict is one tool but not the only tool.”
This past week after more than four months of negotiations a new governing coalition was formed in Ireland when two long-time rival center right parties and the smaller Green Party agreed to come together to make a majority. The last step was taken when members of the Green Party voted to join the coalition in return for a lowering Ireland’s carbon emissions by seven percent a year for the next 10 years, increasing the carbon tax, and adding resources for public transit, cycling, and pedestrians.
Critics to the left of the Green Party said the agreement did not commit the government to allocating enough funds for major changes, according to the Times.
The lyrics of Hamilton capture the essentials of getting to 51.
"You need the votes" "You need to convince more folks" "Winning is easy, governing is harder"
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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