Partisanship and Divisiveness

I’m sick of partisanship and divisiveness in politics. That is, I’m sick of politicians using the words. GOP Senator Chuck Hagel is the latest to use the terms as he recently stated “…we can’t hold ourselves captives to this raw, partisan, political paralysis.” This, right after he accused Rush Limbaugh of fostering such divisiveness, saying that “they try to rip everyone down and make fools of everybody but they don’t have any answers.” Such a statement makes one wonder if Chuck has ever listened to Rush Limbaugh’s show, but that’s a topic for a different post. Of course the statement also makes one wonder if Chuck understands the meaning of the word “irony”.

Divisiveness and partisanship became political buzzwords used primarily by the Democrat party to describe George W. Bush after the 2000 elections. They’ve been co-opted occasionally by Republicans trying in vain to out-Democrat the Democrats, but to this day they’ve been most successfully wielded by the Democrat party.

Of course their use is patently ridiculous and would be laughable if it didn’t work on some people. The words have essentially come to refer to anything done by Republicans that Democrats don’t agree with, as in “Bush wants to do such and such, and we Democrats don’t want to do that, and so Bush is being divisive.” At the risk of stating the obvious, it takes two to be divisive. One can’t accuse the other of being divisive without being divisive themselves. Likewise, the word “partisan” as an accusation is largely meaningless when majorities in both parties vote down party lines.

Use of the words these days is purely for political purposes and for fooling those foolish enough to believe them. If you want to know who’s trying to manipulate you and who thinks you’re fool enough to fall for it just look for those who use these words the most.