That being said, we all know that there are a great deal of challenges facing the United States. There is the looming China, the brazen Iran, the falling dollar, the trade deficit, Iraq, and a host of other issues. But those are all factors influenced by our relations with other countries. We have another challenge facing us at home that is just as threatening as any of these other very real threats.
I fear we are killing ourselves with partisanship. To be frank, I can be as partisan as anyone. I believe in free markets, traditional values, a strong defense, punishing criminals, a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and the list could go on. Yet it is my goal to be well-reasoned and open to criticism (I can easily fail at this, but that is the objective).
Unfortunately, as a country it seems our partisanship is acting as a virus that is overpowering our immune system of reason.
Take this one example: In 2005 Gallup did a survey of over 1000 U.S. adults and asked them who has been the United States' greatest president. The results:
- Ronald Reagan (20%)
- Bill Clinton (15%)
- Abraham Lincoln (14%)
- FDR (12%)
Upon further review, 42% of Republicans named Reagan, and 31% of Democrats named Clinton. I am quite a big fan of The Gipper; I even did my Master's degree work on him. But we are still a bit too close to him (in terms of time) to fully assess his impact, let alone label him "greatest United States president". If we are too close to him, we are certainly too close to Clinton.
The big picture issue I have with these results is not that they show a poor understanding of history among the populace (which they do--how can one leave Washington out of the top three?). The big issue is these results indicate that we, as a society, seem all too willing to let our partisanship drown out reason. Rather than really consider the impact of Washington, FDR, Lincoln, Truman, Jefferson, Ike, Teddy, and the like, we spout our partisanship.
I love politics. I love the competition and the intrigue. I love the intense battle that it represents. But at the end of the day the rules of political warfare must be governed by this general principle: everyone must be looking out for what they think is best for the country. The Left and Right can disagree and duke it out in debates and well-crafted messages, but the rule must be followed that America always come first.
If we as a society are willing to insert our partisanship into a simple question like "who is our greatest president", what are we to make of truly difficult questions? Are we simply going to insert our partisanship on questions like what to do about Iran, or how to manage our trade deficit, or how to balance liberty and security?
This is not to say that we should always have milk toast positions. What it is to say is that when the rubber meets the road we need to have the ability to reason that is free from the virus of blatant partisanship. It is certainly a fine line, but what we must all fight against is the knee jerk reaction to say that Reagan was the best president ever or that Bush is the worst. We cannot draw those conclusions from reason (at least not yet).
5 comments:
Well said. I can't disagree with anything you said. I think Lincoln, Washington, FDR and Jefferson would be in my top 4. I'm not sure about the order. I don't know if Bush would make my bottom 5. It's still too early to tell. It's not looking good for him so far. Harding, Nixon and both Johnsons would be down there.
Here's some rankings by scholars
I forgot that LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act back when Democrats were the white man's party. That's a pretty good thing. But, he escalated the Vietnam War, so I'll place him somewhere in the middle.
Don't forget Andrew Jackson. Since I respect checks and balances and the Constitution, and disagree with genocide, I cannot place Andrew Jackson anywhere but in the bottom five. (Although, he's incredibly fun to teach). Of course, danny you are correct...Andrew Johnson must be down there too, in the bottom two.
Basically if you're a Democrat, and you're from Tennessee, and your first name begins with an A, you're probably trouble.
braves,
I'm afraid that most historians would disagree strongly with your assessment of Jackson. On average, historians rate him somewhere between our 6th and 10th best president.
True, no one can excuse the Trail of Tears of the Indian Removal Act. If you base your entire analysis on that, you will surely put him at the bottom.
But that ignores everything else he did, which was wholly positive: created the modern presidency, empowered the people in the democratic process, preserved the Union and guided it through the Nullification crisis, ushered in the era of Jacksonian Democracy, encouraged the rotation system of office-holding (an attack on bureaucracy), checked the power of monied interests during the Bank War, and nearly single-handedly avoided economic devistation by issuing the Specie Circular.
Jackson has stood the test of time in the top-10 list of U.S. presidents. Almost no one puts him anywhere near the bottom.
This historian ranks him near the bottom, but I rank any President near the bottom that does not respect the checks and balances that our democratic republic is based on.
I don't agree with many historians...Robert Remini has done a fantastic job in securing Jackson in the top 10 presidents for at least the next 50 years.
Created the modern presidency -->
He used the veto liberally, but I give the creation of the Modern Presidency award to McKinley and TR.
Empowered the people -->
I'll give this to him.
Preserved the Union and guided it through the Nullification crisis -->
If it were up to Calhoun and Jackson, we would have had a Civil War right then...and the North may have lost, with the British likely helping the South. Henry Clay preserved the Union. Hothead Jackson didn't understand diplomacy.
Ushered in the era of Jacksonian Democracy - encouraged the rotation system of office-holding -->
This is true, but his spoils system generally provided cush positions for his good friends.
Checked the power of monied interests during the Bank War, and nearly single-handedly avoided economic devistation by issuing the Specie Circular -->
He just pushed off economic devestation to his FRIEND and successor, Martin Van Buren. Poor Van Buren, his pal Jackson hung him out to dry.
Overall, Jackson was uncool, and Thomas Hart Benton, awesome senator from Missouri, was incredibly brave to stand up to Jerkson.
What would our America look like if each President had one "freebie" where they did not have to listen and follow the dictates of the US Supreme Court? Madness.
Btw, Jackson's just a fun topic to talk about...especially argue about. It's fantastic.
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