Russell Muirhead: The Promise of Party in a Polarized Age, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pagg. 316, s.i.p.
Risvolto
At the root of America’s broken
politics is hyperbolic partisanship. It distorts perceptions, inflames
disagreements, and poisons the democratic process. Citizens pine for a
time when liberals and conservatives compromised with one another—or
they yearn for a post-partisan future when the common good trumps
ideology and self-interest. Russell Muirhead argues that better
partisanship, not less partisanship, is the solution to America’s
political predicament. Instead of striving to overcome our differences,
we should learn how to engage them.
The political conflicts that provide fodder for cable news shows are
not simply manufactured from thin air. However sensationalized they
become in the retelling, they originate in authentic disagreements over
what constitutes the common welfare. Republicans vest responsibility in
each citizen for dealing with bad decisions and bad luck, and want every
individual and family to enjoy the benefits of good decisions and good
luck. Democrats ask citizens to stand together to insure one another
against the worst consequences of misfortune or poor judgment, and
especially to insure children against some of the consequences of their
parents’ bad decisions or lack of opportunities. These are fundamental
differences that fantasies of bipartisan consensus cannot dissolve.
Disagreement without parties is disempowering, Muirhead says. The
remedy is not for citizens and elected officials to learn to “just get
along” but for them to bring a skeptical sensibility even to their own
convictions, and to learn to disagree as partisans and govern through
compromise despite those disagreements.
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