Beware of the fool’s gold of 'consensus'
We hear a lot of calls these days for bipartisanship, or seeking consensus in our politics.
Recently, I’ve come across a couple examples of this at both the state and local level, with one being a lot of noise coming from Harrisburg about the new House of Representatives majority ramming through their rules, and the other concerning a local group shutting down any input or information that doesn’t please every single group member.
The actual circumstances of both examples aren’t important, but each represents a different side of the bipartisan coin.
In the first, an elected majority has decided to exercise its option to move ahead with a decidedly partisan agenda which will yield results. In the second, self-appointed leadership has decided that their goal is to achieve a mind-numbing consensus, or bipartisanship, that will sap their group of vitality and ultimately lead to failure.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, known as the “Iron Lady” and the longest serving prime minister of the 20th century, warned us about the foolishness of choosing consensus by calling it “the negation of leadership.”
She stated that consensus is, “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?'”
To expect agreement between two groups of people who hold diametrically opposed views of America is beyond naïve; it is dangerous.
Who stands for consensus? Well, a surprising number of Americans seem to. In a 2021 poll conducted by YouGov, 60% of those who were surveyed wanted their elected representatives to work together in a bipartisan and consensual mode to forward legislation, even though only 40% thought that policies passed as a result of this bipartisan approach were good policies.
If you think that doesn’t make sense, you are very observant, but what those numbers really show us is that we have a fair number of Americans who are in the ”why can’t we all just get along” mode and to whom conflict avoidance should be a primary goal for governing.
The quest for bipartisanship also has a generational component. Gen X’ers and millennials (those born between 1965-1996) tend to be more prone to consensus or bipartisan governance, and it’s no coincidence that the same groups tend to be more liberal in their outlook.
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According to a Pew Research Service survey conducted during the first year of the Obama administration, 64% of millennials and 55% of Generation X’ers approved of Obama’s performance. In Pew's survey conducted during the first year of the Trump administration, only 27% of millennials and 36% of Gen X’ers approved of Donald Trump’s performance. After all, Trump was an old meanie and Obama was super cool, right?
The liberal generational attitude toward consensus government can probably be easily explained by the society that the X’ers and millennials grew up in, which was one of plenty and a technological boom built upon the work of their predecessors, with no military draft and very little conflict in which they would be called to fight.
It was also a time increasingly dominated by a booming liberal media and a huge increase in kids attending universities, those cauldrons of leftist doctrine.
In short, soft-living produces soft people, who think that having no one mad at them is preferable to achieving tough goals. After all, they all grew up in a country where there was really never any penalty for their mediocrity, because they inherited a strong country and they all assumed it would be that way forever.
Unfortunately, the party seems to be about over. All of this feel-good consensus mush has brought us a president who was sold to millions of inattentive softies as good ol’ moderate Joe, who was going to “bring us all together."
Instead, we have a divisive, arrogant and incompetent lifelong political hack who constantly derides and demonizes half of our population and who is happily presiding over a crumbling economy, rising crime rates, uncontrolled illegal immigration, all amid an increasingly dangerous world brought on by his weak and bumbling foreign and energy policies.
Maybe these hard times are a blessing in disguise, and the pain will actually be felt by all of those “I’m OK, You’re OK” consensus-loving squishes who give us such horrible leaders.
Dwight Weidman is a resident of Greene Township and is a graduate of Shepherd University. He is retired from the United States Department of Defense, where his career included assignments In Europe, Asia, and Central America. He has been in leadership roles for the Republican Party in two states, most recently serving two terms as Chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party. Involved in web publishing since 1996, he is the publisher of The Franklin County Journal. He has been an Amateur Radio Operator since 1988, getting his first license in Germany, and is a past volunteer with both Navy and Army MARS, Military Auxiliary Radio Service, and is also an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
This article originally appeared on Chambersburg Public Opinion: Generation X'ers, millennials are 'consensus-loving squishes'
