Expectations

Two things I've heard people say they admire about politics are, to be blunt, idiotic. The first is direct language, and the second is ideological consistency.

Officeholders who want to make a positive, constructive difference are going to speak diplomatically. They have to thread the needle between too many different, opposing groups. Politician-speak is not incredibly pleasant, but neither is it avoidable. Someone who seeks office and promises to tell the simple, direct truth in all cases is like someone who promises to run a nursery in which there will never, ever be even the slightest odor of poop. The promise is, on a moment's reflection, dumb, and what they're promising to eliminate is a necessary and manageable part of the enterprise.

The second idiotic expectation is ideological consistency. Any office-seeker who promises to be a "consistent conservative voice," or a "consistent progressive voice," is like a mathematician who promises that the solution to every math problem will be an even number. Math solutions are sometimes odd numbers, sometimes irrational numbers, sometimes zero, and the proper next move for government sometimes appears progressive, conservative, libertarian, or any one of a dozen other political flavors.

There's a study waiting to happen about the turn against cognitive complexity in American political culture in 2012. Already I've seen reams of political commentary lamenting the persuasive force of the claim that refusing to compromise, or even listen, is somehow a form of strength. In fact, that's a glaring, crippling weakness, and even more tragic when it's self-inflicted. And the puzzle, for which we desperately need a solution, is why so many people embrace it; what particular fear or narrative or lingering trauma so twists their decisionmaking that they're receptive to it.