Principle Over Party

Consider this your official summons.

Principle Over Party.

This is a slogan I’ve become known for, based on the idea that when it comes to the ballot box, the principles of democracy must be more important than our party allegiance.

But why, though? Why can’t we care more about party allegiance? Aren’t political parties how we get to our preferred policy outcomes? How are we supposed to enact the changes we want to see, on everything from immigration to education to national security to the economy, if we are not aligned with a political party who has the muscle to move the needle? 

Because, dear gentle reader (OK yes, I’ve been watching Bridgerton – please read that in the voice of Julie Andrews), without democracy, we have nothing.

Democracies that fail generally do so gradually. They don’t collapse like a bridge struck by a cargo ship, in a catastrophic accident in the overnight hours.

They die slowly. And they usually do so, according to Yale political scientist Milan Svolik, “at the hands of elected leaders who enjoy robust support from voters.” Too many Americans think that our nearly 250 year old democracy – currently the oldest in the world – is immune from authoritarianism. Or they think, “If Candidate _________ is an authoritarian, then I am fine with it, because they have the policies that benefit me.”

We think authoritarians show up sporting a tiny mustache wearing a military uniform. But they usually wear no such costume.

One study found that only 3.5% of Americans would be willing to abandon their preferred candidate if the candidate violated democratic principles. An astonishingly low figure. 

There is no policy aim that is worth sacrificing American democracy for.

The ancestors who came before us – the men, women, and yes, actual children, who fought and marched and worked for hundreds of years to help us achieve the democracy we have today – they would be aghast that 96.5% of us are unwilling to tick a different box on a ballot in order to preserve what they won on our behalf. 

When George Washington willingly gave up power after his time as president, James Madison wrote a draft of a farewell address to the nation, and Alexander Hamilton provided an extensive rewrite.

In his farewell address, Washington cautioned us about the “disorders and miseries, which…gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.”

In other words, don’t seek safety for yourselves in the power of an individual. Because those who seek that power only want to elevate themselves and take away your freedom.

Washington went on to say that the spirit of partisanship “agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms,” it, “kindles the animosity of one part against another,” and “foments… riot and insurrection.” 

And here is the part that always makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Party allegiance will, “become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”

And what are authoritarians but cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled people who are able to usurp the power of government for themselves, because they are popular?

Consider this your official summons. It’s time to put principle over party. It’s time to act with the courage that 96.5% of people may not have, and be willing to set aside your preferred policy aims to maintain the democracy that our forebears fought to bring to fruition. 

Governerds: Rise of the Resistance.

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