Can the Debate Wait?
Written by Dan McDonald
Our
government is in shut down mode. Some things run along as if nothing is wrong.
But beneath the daily news shows that simply notice the debates there are the
tens of thousands of government employees not being paid, and yet expected to
continue working at their jobs. They live in no man’s land while the right and
the left make their stands, sometimes because they simply must. The end isn’t
as sure as we might suppose. Will one side blink? Will a grand compromise occur
behind the scenes? Will a bit of face saving secrecy be followed while the
appearance of defeat is suffered? Or will the unthinkable happen when the
failure to reach compromise doesn’t take place and each side hardens until at
last we discover that the breakdown of a civilized order we thought would not
take place, has taken place?
I have
to admit that as I age, my tendency is to become less argumentative and more
interested in finding a way to build general consensus. I am not sure this will
happen in our present situation.
One of
the most followed new elected persons in the House of Representatives is
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, often simply described by her AOC initials. She is
energetic, outspoken, a self-defined Socialist advocating a Scandinavian model
of Socialism. She is also youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives.
You might admire her or you might regard here as a threat to America. One new
Republican Congressman, Dan Crenshaw, has expressed his desire to debate Ocasio-Cortez
concerning her proposals. These two new representatives seem to represent the
divisions of our fractured nation state. Crenshaw, the special forces soldier
who has lost much of his eyesight due to his service in war, and Ocasio-Cortez
looking for a way to move away from our continual wars. Crenshaw, a citizen
connected to a region where the oil industry is part of the picture, and AOC,
an advocate of green energy. It seems, in some ways, that these two newly
elected representatives might do well to represent their positions in a debate.
In some ways they would well represent the divided of ideas separating right
and left.
I feel
like an American traditionalist torn apart in our present times. I am part
rugged individualist progressive in the mode of Theodore Roosevelt, part
pragmatic New Deal progressive in the likeness of Franklin Roosevelt, part
Conservative get back to our roots Ronald Reagan; and part dare to hope
progressivism of a Barack Obama. I would like to ask Ocasio-Cortez and Crenshaw
to dare to do something original before they debate.
I
would propose the two first term representatives host each other in the
districts they represent. I don’t expect it would change either Representative’s
basic governmental philosophies. Still, I think the visiting of each other’s
district might be in some ways productive.
Ocasio-Cortez
would take Congressman Crenshaw to some places in her district. She might take
him to a diner or a restaurant where she thinks Congressman Crenshaw could get
a feel for her district. She could take him to a place where she feels well
represents some of the good her district offers to the rest of America. She
could also take him to a place that needs a sense of hope to encourage people
to discover a way to grow out of the economic or societal doldrums that have set
in. Congressman Crenshaw could then return the favor by hosting AOC in his
Houston area district. Perhaps each Congressional representative would better
understand how their political perspectives relate to their personal political
theories. Such an experiment might change nothing, or might change something. I
think I would expect a minimally realistic hope that at least some empathy for
the other person’s congressional district might occur. Perhaps there might be
the sort of realization that former Speaker Tip O’Neill understood about life
when he would say that all politics is local. Perhaps something about the Bronx
would help Congressman Crenshaw understand Ortega-Cortez better, and something
of seeing Crenshaw’s Houston district would help AOC better understand Dan
Crenshaw’s politics. They would still have their own ideas and political commitments,
but would it hurt or help each other if they took the time to spend some time
with the other representative in each other’s district?
I
think this way, because I was once a kid growing up in a farm area. For most of
my life, I thought of New York City as a place foreign to my way of life. Then
one day, as I wanted to see something other than the way in which I lived, I
decided it was time to visit New York City. My first visit was for three days.
A brief conversation at a sports restaurant and bar with a cordial waitress
helped insure me that New Yorkers could be kind and compassionate. I went to
New York my first time expecting a wholly other worldly experience of that big
eastern city. I returned realizing that New York City was a multitude of small
communities connected by subways, street systems, and bus routes.
I
returned to this city that I discovered fascinated me the following summer. I
decided to visit the city for three weeks. I decided I would see at least two
things in each of New York City’s five boroughs. In the Bronx, I first visited
the Bronx Zoo. I learned the zoo had helped pioneer some of the breeding
programs for animals threatened with extinction. The zoo had a number of bison.
There are some bison herds in my home state of Oklahoma. An information board
described how a breeding program by the Bronx Zoo in the early twentieth
century helped to restore the bison herds in Oklahoma that had been all but
wiped out. It was an amazing thing for me, now a resident of Oklahoma, to
realize that some or many of our bison in Oklahoma had a Bronx connection.
Later
in the day I went from the zoo in search of an Italian restaurant in an area of
the Bronx’s version of a “Little Italy.” On the way to the restaurant I got my
directions turned around and found myself blocks away from the Little Italy I
was seeking. I was in an area where I seemed a conspicuously white looking
person in an African-American area of the city. As a rural Midwesterner in my
growing up times, it was a different world than I had known. I was out of my
comfort zone, although nothing negative actually occurred. I wandered trying to
get back to the area where I thought I would find a nice Italian restaurant in
the Little Italy section of the Bronx. Instead I found an area, where people appeared
to be speaking mostly Spanish. I began to realize that in a few blocks within
the Bronx, a seemingly whole different world existed if your life had always
been lived in rural or suburban white neighborhoods. I don’t think I was ready
for the experience at the time, even though upon reflection it was encouraging
that nothing really negative had occurred. I had simply found myself outside of
my comfort zone, and the people I saw seemed to be enjoying being in the place
of their comfort zones.
Finally
I was standing near Fordham University, a place more obvious on my New York
City map. From there I could begin to more easily figure out how to get to a
Little Italy restaurant not far from Belmont Avenue, where once upon a time a
group of guys from that are formed a band called Dion and the Belmonts. It was
a rainy, Monday evening. The restaurant was not busy. The phone rang. The owner
picked it up and began conversing in Italian. This was New York City. This was
in the borough of the Bronx. Why would I think a political representative of
this district would somehow be a carbon copy of a representative from the oil
patch states, or from my original rural life in downstate Illinois? Wouldn’t it
somehow be strangely appropriate if before two representatives debated one
another on issues, they each hosted each other in their districts? They would
still have different political solutions for national politics, but just
perhaps they would be more interested than before in realizing that what one
district needed might not be what another district needed.
