Politics and Our Better Angels

Here I am at the State Convention. 

The other day the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Russell M. Nelson, met with NAACP president Derrick Johnson, and together they called on the world to “demonstrate greater civility, racial and ethnic harmony, and mutual respect” while eliminating “prejudice of all kinds.”

This call for civility was particularly powerful to me, because the same news cycle reported on a singular lack of civility within the Utah Republican Party. Signatures to get an important issue on the Primary ballot were evidently “lost” in the county clerk’s office before being counted.

Such shenanigans have come about as certain factions feel that their side is right, and because they are right anything is justified in order to win.

I saw this first hand as I served as a delegate to the Utah Republican Conventions, both at the county and state level. I was elected to this position one evening at the local school gym. My mandate was to represent my neighbors by thoroughly researching all the candidates running for office and then voting for the ones to represent the party on the November ballot. Accordingly, I reviewed websites, attended meet and greets, listened to debates, and talked personally to candidates on the phone. I made a spread sheet of all the candidates and compared their positions and qualifications. I came to the conventions ready to cast my vote for the candidates I felt were most qualified.

At the conventions, though, I found a rancor that did not fit with this simple mandate I felt. I heard people say, “I won’t vote for that candidate because he doesn’t support the caucus system.” Or “Sure, he’s a good man, but he’s just a RINO—Republican in Name Only.” Or "He can't represent our state, he not really a Utahn." Some people seemed to judge the candidates by the “side” they perceived them to be on rather than their qualifications for office.

At the state convention, 4,000 delegates gathered, some driving for hours from distant parts of the state. We were all ready to vote for the two offices before us: US senator and US congress (for various districts). Then we spent over two hours arguing over rules for the state party. The infighting among the leadership was vitriolic and clearly those in power feared a coups. Thousands of ordinary delegates did not understand the fuss, but we were subjected to their anger and name-calling nonetheless. 

Then there were problems with the voting clickers. And endless talks by candidates who would end up getting fewer than 10 votes. 

We didn’t finish the voting until after 7 pm, by which time many of the delegates had left, so the voting was not representative. The very purpose of the convention had been derailed by factionalism.

We can’t choose the best candidates if we are so caught up in factionalism that we don’t vet the candidates according to their fitness to serve. 

Orin Hatch, who has served as US Senator for over 40 years, put it this way in a recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal:

I am more than the sum of my parts, and so is every American. Yet increasingly we sort each other into groups, making sweeping assumptions based on binary labels: Democrat or Republican, black or white, male or female. . . . Our tendency to use labels to box each other in is indicative of a much larger societal problem: the unleashing of identity politics. . . . If we allow [identity politics ]to metastasize, civility will cease, our national community will crumble , and the US will become a divided country of ideological ghettos. 

Ideas—not identity—should be the driving force of our politics. By restoring the primacy of ideas to public discourse, we can foster an environment that will allow democracy to thrive.

I’m glad I served as a Utah Republican Caucus Delegate. I’m glad I was able to learn about the candidates and cast an informed vote. 

But I am disgusted by the increasingly divisive nature of politics today—the anger between parties and within parties, between conservatives and liberals and between conservatives and ultra-conservatives.

Here is what I am going to do about it. 

Following the guidelines of the group Better Angels, my friend and I are going to host a group in which both sides of the political spectrum are equally represented. We will talk and we will listen and we will find ways we can work together to solve common problems. 

But more than that, every day I am going to listen to others. I am going to look for unbiased news sources, and lacking that, I will listen to all sides of the news so I can make my own decisions. I am going to check facts before I am outraged by them. I  am going to show respect for others. I am going to look for areas of agreement. I am going to try to find solutions rather than highlight problems.  I am going to try, as Abraham Lincoln urged in his first Inaugural Address, to be influenced by the “better angels of my nature.”