Our U.S. Government: The Triumph of Process Over Principle.

The term process is defined as “a series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result”.  The term principle is defined as “a basic truth, law, or assumption”.  The modern Republican Party brands itself as valuing principle over process; holding the Constitution to be sacrosanct.  The modern Democratic Party brands itself as valuing process over principle; achieving its goals through whatever means are necessary.  Invariably, when push comes to shove, Democrats will hold fast to their conviction while Republicans waver from theirs.  The inevitable consequence of this dynamic is that our Congress will dependably devolve into bureaucracy when a clash between process and principle occurs.  Thus we have dysfunction, gridlock, partisan bickering, sandbox feuding, and the current funding dilemma.   It is nothing short of farcical that one can count on a single hand the number to times over the last four decades that Congress has performed its duty and passed all of the government’s required appropriation bills.  

Polls have evolved (or devolved, if you will) to the point where one must consider the source before assigning any validity to the study; it is nigh on impossible to accurately gauge the prevailing sentiment of U.S. citizenry at any point in time.  If you shop long enough, you will find a poll that supports your position.  Who among us has a clear view of exactly what the public thinks?  Don’t count on the national parties; they obviously do not have a clue.  Don’t count on the media; they all have their own agendas.  Don’t count on your own senses; you can’t believe any of what you hear and only a portion (small) of what you see.  Ultimately, it takes a leap of faith for each of us to observe the events in our own personal space, run those events through our own mind’s filters, balance that against our own gut instincts, and then factor all the results together in order to get a sense of what is actually going on in our nation.   Needless to say, this is an imperfect process and one that is handled much more astutely by some than by others.  Very damn few are correct very often.  My record is like most folks; very poor in guessing correctly which way the winds are blowing.  But if you watch and listen to our learned political leaders, they are chock full of absolute certainty about the voice of America.  As soon as they detect a shift in the wind, they move in that direction.  Past records and videotape be damned; there is no documentation on this planet that is sufficient to get an obfuscating politician to own up to a flip-flop on a significant policy issue.  A dying mackerel on a hot Florida day on a wooden wharf with a large hook firmly planted in its mouth has nothing…absolutely nothing…on these elected elites.

Now if each Party adhered to their primary motivation (at least according to my logic), the outcome of the current government funding impasse would be entirely predictable.    Not so.  It seems that while the Democrats continue to hold their discipline and remain faithful to the rule of process, the Republicans predictably begin to fret over the public perception and look for a compromise (process) to provide a way out of the current standoff.  This is a pattern that we have witnessed so  many times before or, as Yogi once famously said, it is “déjà vu all over again”.  The backbones of Congressional members must be made out of the most malleable substance in the universe and if it could be somehow extracted, it would make an incredible road-surfacing element.  But that lack of principle, that unwillingness to stick to your guns when the heat gets turned up, is the very edge that the Democrats hold over the Republicans and thus permits them to tie our entire government into knots of dysfunction. 

I have so many times before called for statesmanship and civility in government.  I have lamented the absence of real debate in legislative problem solving.  I have moaned about the lack of courage that prevents any leader of one party from offering entreaties to those across the aisle.  Ultimately, I have decried the very thing that I now condemn the Republicans for not possessing…principle.   At the end of the day, principle must trump process.  Compromise must be achievable on process; but never on principle.   And because the modern Republican Party lacks the cajones to place all their cards on principle over process when they get into these political showdowns with Democrats, we always end up with a solution that features process.  And process, taken to its extreme, is nothing more than bureaucracy by another name.  

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There is certainly a place for both principle and process in our government; both are fundamental and necessary elements of a nation’s administration.  But let us consider for a moment two opposing football teams who each have one clear advantage over the other.  One features a formidable stable of running backs and can ultimately wear the defensive line down with continual pounding; resulting in eventual touchdowns and effective time management.  The other team has a high-flying passing game that features a skilled quarterback and athletic receivers; relying to a large extent on big plays that gobble up huge chunks of yardage and lead to many scoring opportunities.  For either team to simply abandon their game plan to the other team’s strength, while ignoring their own prominent assets, borders on the foolish.  That, in my opinion, is how the Republican Party is conducting its business.  President Trump, coming from a position outside of the Party as he does, is not conditioned to play the game in this fashion.  Rather, when he is pushed, he pushes back.  When he is smacked in the mouth, he doesn’t glance around to see who is looking; he just smacks back.  Unfortunately, while there is an innate honesty to Trump’s behavior, the problem with it is that his actions and his reactions are not always or entirely motivated by principle.  The genesis of his behavior seems to lie somewhere in between principle and process; being rather independent of either’s influence or tethered to neither. 

I suppose that until the Republican Party finds a leader who will implacably place principle over process and gamble the entire house on that premise, our government will continue to be ruled by process.  And in very real and practical terms, as long as the Democrats continue to use the Federal Judiciary as a tool for achieving their policy agendas, as long as the Resist Trump movement remains alive and well, and as long as many of the archaic rules of Congress remain in place, the Democratic Minority will continue to limit the ability of their opponents to achieve their policy initiatives.  The Democrats are game-planning based on their strengths and the rules of the game; the Republicans are game-planning based on how they figure the Democrats will play and how they wish the rules were written.  This is not a recipe that will result in a very successful implementation of the Republican’s agenda.  Perhaps if the Republicans ever achieved a 60-vote Senate majority, along with control of the House and the Presidency, they might be sufficiently emboldened to actually do what they say they want to do.   But the likelihood of that occurring in today’s environment is…well, the Patriots are in the Super Bowl again, aren’t they?