By David K. Shipler
It is time
to draw a new political spectrum, one that doesn’t go from liberal to
conservative. A useful alternative is to put Absolutists at one end and Opportunists
at the other. In both Egypt and the United States, we are seeing struggles
between these extremes, while people in the middle—principled yet open to
conciliation—find themselves on eroding ground.
It is distasteful to compare Egypt
with the United States. We Americans are accustomed to watching with
patronizing dismay as emerging democracies falter, pick themselves up, stumble
forward, or slide backward into some variation of the authoritarian system they
have just thrown off. We think we have something to teach them, and we do. But
they have something to teach us, too, often in the form of a cautionary tale.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which
dominated elections, made the classic error of newly minted leaderships: It
thought that winning the vote meant that they could ignore those who voted
against them and could govern without compromise, without regard to minority
rights or interests. The Brotherhood adopted a constitution rigged against the
secular, displayed tolerance for intolerance toward the Coptic Christian
minority, marginalized the political opposition, and indulged in xenophobic
prosecutions of foreign non-profits that were trying to help Egyptians
construct a pluralistic democracy—yes, trying to promote democratic
institutions!
In short, the Absolutists held sway—for a time.
Absolutists are like marbles thrown into the gears of democracy. They halt and
damage the mechanisms of political pluralism. They rob from governing all that
is supple and fluid. The state becomes brittle. It’s worth remembering that what
is brittle tends to break.
The United States has its Absolutists,
of course. Mostly they’ve been at the edges of politics, relegated to
insignificance at both ends of the traditional spectrum. But now, from the
right, they come to Congress from districts drawn to make sure that no
Republican primary will nominate anyone suspected of moderation. And once in
Washington, they have shown as much iron determination, as much unyielding
devotion to principle, as the Muslim Brothers have in Cairo.
Such invidious comparisons are
unattractive, unfair, and overdrawn—I know. But only because the United States
has what Egypt does not: a tempered democracy, a seasoned political culture and
a superstructure of institutions to balance and check and impose measured
judgments. In among these hard pillars of democratic tradition flow the soft
values of negotiation, compromise, and regard for the common good—or so it has
been until recent years.
Absolutists have been dominating
Congress. As the majority in the House, and as the minority in the Senate,
Absolutist Republicans have slowed and halted the workings of government.
They have exercised their
prerogatives in the Senate, through the filibuster, to obstruct a wide swath of
President Obama’s perfectly qualified nominees to key agencies. And why?
Because these nominees are corrupt? Incompetent? No. Because the agencies they
lead would follow policies that don’t suit the extreme right. So obstreperous
have Absolutist Republicans become that Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid
has been driven toward the heretical option of limiting filibusters.
In the House, Absolutist
Republicans pass measures they know cannot be enacted—repealing Obamacare,
separating food stamps from farm assistance—and yet refuse to consider compromises
worked out carefully across the aisle: immigration reform, for example, as
passed by the Senate. Nothing is negotiable to the Absolutists, despite pleas some of their Republican
brothers and sisters that the party will fail to win Hispanic voters without conciliatory
change on immigration, as bill passed by the Senate.
A New York Times editorial the other day summed it up nicely: “These actions show how far the House has
retreated from the national mainstream into a cave of indifference and
ignorance.” Substitute “the Muslim Brotherhood” for “the House” and you’d have
had a good analysis of Egypt.
The Republicans look as if they are
still fighting the last election, still opposing everything that Obama proposes
because Obama proposes it. Let’s hope the President doesn’t declare that the
sun will rise tomorrow.
Of course both Absolutists and Opportunists
come in many forms. Absolutists may be political, religious, moral, or simply
selfish. Opportunists may be gutless, amoral, or simply selfish. There are
Absolutists and Opportunists on both the left and the right of the traditional
political spectrum.
And then there are the negotiators,
the conciliators, the people who respect others’ views, who listen well, and
who try to find compromises that will work for most of the country most of the
time. Most Democrats at the moment tend to fit this profile, because their
constituencies are diverse. Obama, too, has tried to hold this center space
between the Absolutists and the Opportunists—sometimes to the great disappointment
and anger of his supporters who want more principle and more backbone.
It’s a delicate dance. It would be
good to believe that most voters in both the United States and Egypt prefer
that middle part of the spectrum where constructive governing can be accomplished.
That cannot be done in the streets.
