"Politics is the art of the possible"

German chancellor Otto von Bismarck famously pointed out, "Politics is the art of the possible".  Any successful politician has to learn the arts of negotiation and compromise - not to mention the Pareto principle, otherwise known as the "80/20 Rule".  If he can get 80% of what he wants with a tolerable amount of effort, and getting the final 20% of what he wants will consume an inordinate amount of time, energy and resources, he's often better advised to take what he can get and let go of the rest.  To use another well-known idiom, "the best is the enemy of the good".

However, when we view the current debate over the border wall, many of the passionate partisans on both sides are ignoring all those well-known pragmatic realities.  They want it all, they want it their way, and they want it now - and to hell with opposing opinions.  That, in a nutshell, is why US politics and politicians can't achieve anything meaningful these days.  They're too busy insisting on "my way or the highway", and too focused on denying the opposition any victories at all, even partial ones.  For too many of them, it's all or nothing.

I find this very disturbing on many levels, but particularly because reasonable people should be able to compromise along the lines of the 80/20 rule.  If one side wants something badly enough, and is willing to fight for it, what's wrong with the other side saying, "OK, we'll concede most of what you want, although we insist on these limitations:  but only if you give us most of what we want on this other issue."  The second party could then say, "OK, but we want these restrictions on it."  By a process of back-and-forth negotiation, both sides could end up with a win . . . but not in US politics today.  For both major parties, it's all or nothing.  They won't talk to each other, they won't listen to each other - and the country is the poorer for it.  Both sides are equally bad.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just as bad as Ann Coulter, and vice versa.  Both come across as intolerant, histrionic harpies, and I wish they'd both shut up for a while.  (I know, I know . . . fat chance!)

This is one of President Trump's weaknesses, too.  His personal style is abrasive and combative - not surprising for a New Jersey/New York businessman, to be sure, but not ideal in a politician.  I support his call for a border wall, and would even be prepared to pay higher taxes, if necessary, to build it;  but I'm not in favor of destroying bipartisanship in order to accomplish that.  (I accept that he's not alone in that destruction, of course.  Both sides are equally guilty of it.)

I've noted before in these pages that US politics is descending perilously close to the sort of division that sparked the American Civil War.  I don't know if we can get back to rationality and reasonable discourse before we end up in a second . . . certainly, events such as the Covington affair and the brutal, savage reactions to it suggest that it's likely to be a steeply uphill battle.

I think we have to accept that extremism has taken root in Congress and the Senate, and is unlikely to be uprooted from those institutions until it's been uprooted in our society as a whole.  That being the case, reasonable men and women will have to accept that they're in a permanent minority.  The "screaming classes" will insist that if we don't support their side, we must automatically belong to the unmentionable other side, and are therefore their enemies.  The only way to avoid that is to avoid political discourse altogether - and fierce partisans will try to deny us the right to not be involved.  They won't accept neutrality.  To them, that's a weakness;  one they must eradicate from national discourse.

We live in troubled times, and I don't have answers for it, no more than anyone else has.  The best advice I can offer is to keep our heads down, and don't be or become extremists ourselves, on one side or the other of the political divide.  Remember Bismarck.  "Politics is the art of the possible."  Let's strive to achieve the possible, and ignore the rest.  Remember the 80/20 Rule.  Let's strive to achieve the 80% while avoiding the over-the-top, very costly final 20%.  Let's be pragmatic, be reasonable, and do our best to survive as individuals, as families, and as communities.

Finally, if the fiercely partisan extremists won't let us do that, let's become equally extreme in our refusal to tolerate them.  Let them spout their nonsense to all and sundry, but not to us, and make it clear that we won't permit them to radicalize us.  It may come to something like another civil war - which God forbid - but let that not be because we helped it become reality.

Peter