CARLTON FLETCHER: Politics today: My party, right or wrong

There is a yellow one that won’t accept the black one that won’t accept the red one that won’t accept the white one …

— Sly & the Family Stone

Those talking heads and always-the-smartest-person-in-the-room boors who have all the answers tell us that the most damaging fallout from the extreme partisanship that has bogged down our federal government is Congress’ inability to move necessary legislation forward.

They point to such political idiocy as sequestration to prove their point.

I think there’s a much deeper-seated problem that’s arisen from the “my party, right or wrong” ethos that has rendered our political representatives useless and filtered down to the general public, turning ideologues into extremists who’ve shunned reason in favor of party rhetoric.

The them vs. us nature of today’s party politics has made Americans mean.

No longer are opposing viewpoints to be tolerated, nor are they simply to be out-debated. Those who espouse such blasphemy are to be defeated, crushed — their bodies left in a ditch for the buzzards to pick over.

People in this country no longer “agree to disagree.” They first try to prove their varrying views by outshouting each other. Then, if their opponent remains unvanquished, they call in the big guns: dig into the deep pockets of party-appropriate “think tanks” and political action committees, hire the Carl Rove-like lunatic fringe to create smear campaigns or, in extreme cases, resort to intimidation and violence.

There’s no room for compromise in this modern-day take-no-prisoners political landscape. Allowing for the possibility that the “other side” might have a valid point or two in its argument is loser talk, a sign of weakness. There’s no room for original thought, and any who embrace such must listen more closely to the appropriate media mouthpieces whose purpose is to inform you as to your thoughts on any given topic.

We disagree with someone’s policies or politics? They’re stupid. And in America, it’s perfectly fine for someone who flunked his GED classes to classify even the president of the United States as an “idiot.” First of all, he’s one of them. And, second of all, the blowhards on the radio and TV and in the newspapers said so.

The spirit of America is not dead. It surfaces in the wake of each new man-made or natural disaster. It allowed Southwest Georgians to forget racial and socio-economic differences in 1994 when flood waters ravaged the region. It dismissed cultural indifference when Superstorm Sandy devastated the Northeast.

And it rekindled itself with a passionate fervor nationwide in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington on 9/11.

Sadly, though, it takes such disaster to remind Americans that, ideology aside, we are all in this together. Maybe it’s the fact that Mother Nature and terrorists are not respecters of wealth and class. Their targets are any who are unfortunate enough to find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time, in their pathway or crosshairs.

We can — and, in all likelihood, will — hold onto and be driven by that new American meanness that accepts no quarter from perceived enemies who are, in reality, folks just like us who happen to have slightly different political beliefs. If we do, the political impotency that pervades in the halls of government will persist, and we will continue to founder.

Not to be all Pollyanna-ish, but we could respect the folks whose ideas differ from ours. If we actually listened to them and considered their merits, we might be able to work with them to find solutions that we all could live with. We might even discover that our refusal to listen to each other and work together for common goals are what have been holding us back for as long as most of us will remember.

Or, we could just redouble our efforts to demolish our perceived opponents. What we seem to have forgotten is that, despite what our chosen propogandists tell us, the choice is still ours to make.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ABH_Fletcher.