by Peter Wehner
Professor Weiner makes the additional point that the media inevitably call any argument in Congress “bickering,” and that form of thinking has infected public opinion. We tend to think of the job of Congress as legislating and passing bills, so when it doesn’t, we assume the system has failed. “I would describe the job of Congress as representation and deliberation, such that deciding not to pass a bill is as ‘productive’ an action as deciding to pass one,” he says. Some things will not and, indeed, should not pass—not because of venality or institutional failure but sometimes based on the merit and because of public opinion.
“There is no instance I can recall of a persistent majority in America not eventually getting what they want,” according to Weiner. “Our constant resort to corruption as an explanation for any outcome we do not like exacerbates this problem. Increasingly, our opponents are not just wrong but corrupt and stupid because our own opinions are self-evidently right. The fragmentation of media just makes it worse.”6
What we’ve lost sight of, it seems, is the understanding that conflicting points of view are not failure. Congress exists to legislate, of course, but also to facilitate debate and ultimately accommodation. It’s an arena for contained conflict.
We can’t eliminate political passions, then; what we need is to find a way to govern them. Well-functioning political institutions are essential to that task—but they are hardly sufficient. Democracy, after all, is about much more than procedures and structures. Underneath the procedures and structures there has to exist a certain civic ethic. To survive our system of government requires that the citizenry prize and embody certain democratic virtues, foremost among them moderation, compromise, and civility.
This troika has to once again become a part of our social fabric, the habits of the democratic heart. That begins with reacquainting ourselves with what these virtues are, and are not, and reminding ourselves of why they matter.
THE DEMOCRATIC VIRTUE OF MODERATION
At the outset of the Trump presidency, it was clear that it would be unpredictable in many ways, but there was one thing that could be reasonably counted on: moderation, an ancient virtue, would be viewed by many people with contempt. After all, the most temperamentally immoderate major party nominee in American history ran for president and won because of it. Victory spawns imitation, and the Trump template is likely to influence our politics for some time to come.
Moderation, then, is out of step with the times, which are characterized by populist anger and widespread anxiety, by cross-partisan animosity and dogmatic certainty. Those with whom we have political disagreements are not only wrong; they are often judged to be evil and irredeemable.
The difficulty is that in such a poisonous political culture, when moderation is the treatment we need to cleanse America’s civic toxins, it invariably becomes synonymous with weakness, lack of conviction, and timidity. For many, moderation is what the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre called a “tender souls philosophy.”
This is a serious problem, as Aurelian Craiutu argues in Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes, in which he profiles several prominent twentieth-century thinkers.7 Mr. Craiutu, a professor of political science at Indiana University, argues that the success of representative government and its institutions depends on moderation. We therefore need political leaders to once again make the case for political moderation—but that requires untangling some misconceptions.
Moderation does not mean that truth is always found equidistant between two extreme positions, nor does it mean that bold steps aren’t necessary to advance moral ends, nor that political actors eschew strong and principled convictions. Moderation takes into account what is needed at any given moment; it allows circumstances to determine action in the way that weather patterns dictate which route a ship will follow.
But there are general characteristics we associate with moderation, including prudence, the humility to recognize limits (those of others and our own), the willingness to balance competing principles, and an aversion to fanaticism. The most notable “philosophers of moderation,” from Aristotle to Montaigne to Burke, stressed the role of moderation in taming the passions. What we need to strive for is proportionality, balance, the golden mean. Meden Agan, “nothing in excess,” is the inscription of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. When that is ignored, catastrophe often follows.
It’s worth noting that the American Revolution—unlike the French and Russian Revolutions—was characterized by moderation. In important respects it was a revolution to be sure, and as such was a radical break—most especially in arguing that liberty be made the end of government. But as Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, the revolution in America “was the result of a mature and reflecting preference for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence. It contracted no alliance with the turbulent passions of anarchy, but its course was marked, on the contrary, by a love of order and law.”8
The political theorist Martin Diamond, in his lecture “The Revolution of Sober Expectations,” put it this way:
The makers of the American Revolution did not think themselves in possession of the simple and complete political truth, capable of instant application as a panacea for government. They claimed possession of only half the truth, namely, the self-evident truth that equal freedom must be the foundation of all political society. And in the name of that equal freedom they made half a revolution. But, soberly and moderately, they left open the question of institutions of government. These they knew would have to be forged from old materials, perhaps worked and reworked, and with a cool awareness that the new American institutions would be subject still to perennial human frailty and folly.9
The “half revolution” that began in 1776 reached its completion a decade later, in the framing and ratification of the Constitution, according to Diamond. The “noble sentiments” of Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, combined with the “theoretic wisdom” of Madison, the chief designer of the Constitution. The American Revolution would succeed in ways in which others had failed.
Moderation accepts the complexity of life in this world and distrusts utopian visions and simple solutions. The way to think about moderation is as a disposition, not as an ideology. Its antithesis is not conviction but intemperance.
Moderates are wary of absolutism and turning politics into a Manichaean struggle pitting the forces of light against the forces of darkness. This approach allows us to remain open to facts that challenge our assumptions, and it makes us more likely to engage in debate free of invective.
“There are truths to be discovered, but truths complex and many-sided,” in the words of Harry Clor, author of On Moderation. “The best way to get at them is by engaging contrary ideas in a manner approximating dialogue.”10
Here I want to address head-on a charge that is often bandied about: moderates lack courage. That claim is easily put to rest by people like the twentieth-century French journalist and philosopher Raymond Aron. He was a man of deep, reasoned convictions who possessed a sense of proportion. A nonconformist, Aron was fearless in taking on the leading intellectuals of his time, including his friend Jean-Paul Sartre. (Parisian students in 1968 avowed that it was “better to be wrong with Sartre than right with Aron.”) Aron strongly defended liberal democracy when denigrating it was fashionable.
For Aron, political moderation was a fighting creed. Allergic to ideological thinking, he worked to conform his views to evidence. He retained his intellectual and political independence throughout his life. Aron believed that history teaches us humility, modesty, and the limits of our knowledge. He was also skilled at the art of dialogue, engaging those he disagreed with critically but civilly. Aron put it this way: “Freedom flourishes in temperate zones; it does not survive the burning faith of prophets and crowds.”11
Even before Mr. Trump set foot on the political stage, America was becoming a bit more like the Sahara or the Arctic Circle than a temperate zone. Moderation
was passé in both parties, and no politician would defend it as a political virtue. So perhaps in retrospect it was almost inevitable that someone like Mr. Trump, who is “passion’s slave,” would rise up. Yet the business of a government, the philosopher Michael Oakeshott said, is “not to inflame passion and give it new objects to feed upon, but to inject into the activities of already too passionate men an ingredient of moderation.”12
I’ll readily concede that moderation is a difficult virtue for people to rally around, since by definition it doesn’t arouse fervor or zealous advocates. But in a time of spreading resentment and rage—when truth is increasingly the target of assault, when dialogue is often viewed as duplicity, and when our ability to deal with our deep differences sometimes seems almost beyond our reach—moderation isn’t simply a decorous democratic quality; it is an essential democratic virtue.
THE DEMOCRATIC VIRTUE OF COMPROMISE
If moderation is a disposition, then compromise—the settlement of differences through mutual concessions—is its practical manifestation. And like moderation, compromise is out of favor with a lot of people these days, at least with many of those who are most politically engaged and make up the base of the Republican and Democratic Parties. (Polling evidence suggests Republicans are more opposed to compromise as a concept than Democrats.)
The opposition to compromise can be explained by several factors, including hyperpolarization in our politics, which creates an atmosphere in which compromise is viewed as betrayal; the belief that our political opponents are determined to destroy America, meaning that compromise amounts to treason; and the emergence in politics of what is referred to as the “permanent campaign,” meaning the next campaign begins as soon as the last campaign ends. This encourages what the scholars Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson refer to as “the uncompromising mindset,” one that is conducive to campaigning but disastrous when it comes to governing, which requires give-and-take and deal making.13
In addition, opponents of compromise, like the Tea Party movement, which was a significant political force early in this decade, believe that compromise has harmed the country. The critics of compromise believe it is in almost every instance synonymous with lack of principles.
In some cases, of course, it is. Some people compromise on principle rather than being willing in principle to compromise. And it’s impossible to judge the merits of compromise without knowing what was given and what was gained. The details make all the difference. It’s also possible to become so enchanted with the idea of compromise that we undervalue or, in the name of compromise, erode the principles that ennoble politics. But as with moderation, there are a lot of wrong ideas about compromise that need to be unknotted.
For one thing, the premise that one’s political opponents are out to destroy America is not only ungracious but paranoid. It’s true that some people are driven by ill will and a malicious contempt for the United States, but that’s hardly representative. The starting point should be that those with whom we disagree differ over the means to the end, but the end we seek is essentially the same: a better and more just society.
That doesn’t mean that conservatives and liberals don’t place different weight on different values—for example, respect for authority as against those whose impulse is to challenge authority, or emphasizing equality of opportunity over equality of outcome. But the burden of proof has to be on those who claim that those who hold a different ideology than they do are intent on hurting America, and it’s generally not one they can meet.
As for the claim that compromise is for the fainthearted, John F. Kennedy, in his book Profiles in Courage, answered it this way: “Compromise does not mean cowardice. Indeed it is frequently the compromisers and conciliators who are faced with the severest tests of political courage as they oppose the extremist views of their constituents.” Kennedy went on to point out that lawmakers who have contempt heaped on them for compromising are often doing what they are meant to do: “Engaged in the fine art of conciliating, balancing and interpreting the forces and factions of public opinion, an art essential to keeping our nation united and enabling our Government to function.”14
Undergirding the case for compromise is the recognition that none of us is perfect and very few political issues are uncomplicated, with only good arguments and the angels lined up on one side and only bad arguments and demons lined up on the other.
Compromise is the result of “our insurmountable lack of perfect knowledge,” one political theorist told me. None of us has all the answers.
The nineteenth-century leader of the Whig Party, Henry Clay—who served in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, and was a secretary of state under John Adams—was one of the most influential members of Congress in American history. Known as “the Great Compromiser,” he played a vital role in formulating compromises on some of the great sectional issues of his time: the Missouri Compromise (1820), the Tariff Compromise (1833), and the Compromise of 1850. He offered up this defense of compromise:
All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based. . . . Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises.15
Since none of us is above the frailties of our common nature, reflexive disdain for compromise is both unwarranted and unwise.
But there is a still more positive case that can be made on behalf of compromise.
In an essay for National Affairs magazine, Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution writes in praise of compromise, saying that “in our constitutional system, compromise is not merely a necessary evil but a positive good: an indispensable source of political discipline, competition and stability.” In encourages incremental progress, accommodation, and reform that has bipartisan investment. It also rejects the seductive appeal of the absolute.
Rauch argues that compromise is part of the Madisonian framework—“the most essential principle of our constitutional system.” He adds, “Those who hammer out painful deals perform the hardest and, often, highest work of politics; they deserve, in general, respect for their willingness to constructively advance their ideals, not condemnation for treachery.”16
This observation can be best illustrated by studying the Constitutional Convention, which led to the ratification of the Constitution. How this series of events came to pass is among the more extraordinary stories in human history.
“It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle,” Washington wrote to Lafayette on February 7, 1788, “that the Delegates from so many different States (which States you know are also different from each other in their manners, circumstances and prejudices) should unite in forming a system of national Government, so little liable to well founded objections.”17
Compromise was key to this miracle. For example, the Constitutional Convention was deadlocked and on the verge of being derailed until the so-called Grand Compromise—offered up by Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth—reconciled the interests of small and large states. (Each state’s House members would be elected by the people and based on state population, while each state would be represented by two senators chosen by the state legislatures.)
“After the Great Compromise many more issues had to be resolved, but by now a spirit of accommodation had developed,” according to the scholars John J. DiIulio Jr. and the late James Q. Wilson.18 The electoral college was the result of compromise; so was determining how Supreme Court justices were picked and the length of time a president could serve. And then there was the thorniest issue of all, slavery.
The southern delegates would never have supported the new Constitution if it meant the abolition of slavery. And so compromises were made in terms of representation (the South wanted slaves counted as full persons to increase white southern representation in C
ongress; eventually slaves were considered three-fifths of a person); in terms of delaying the prohibition on the importation of slaves (until the year 1808); and in dealing with escaped slaves (those who fled to nonslave states would be returned to their masters if caught).
Slavery was a moral obscenity—but the delegates concluded that, in the words of Madison, “great as the evil is, a dismemberment of the union would be worse.” What the more enlightened founders hoped was that the Constitution would put in place the elements to end slavery. Frederick Douglass, the former slave who became a great abolitionist leader, would later say, “Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.”19
In her splendid book Miracle at Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen captures the drama and suspense, the intense arguments and the despair, and the moments of high purpose and nobility. She also captures the voices of the delegates—including some of the most notable names in American history (Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and Franklin, as well as some lesser-known ones like John Dickinson, James Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris)—who gathered in secret sessions from May through September 1787, not to revise the Articles of Confederation, which was the stated purpose, but to write a new constitution.
“The situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth,” is how eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin described it. And what a political truth they found. The governing charter they created has become the longest-enduring written national constitution in the world and among the greatest political achievements ever.
But it was not just human intellect that carried the day in Philadelphia; it was the product of a certain kind of human character. Ms. Bowen describes it this way:
The Federal Convention, viewed from the records, is startlingly fresh and “new.” The spirit behind it was the spirit of compromise, seemingly no very noble flag to rally round. Compromise can be an ugly word, signifying a pact with the devil, a chipping off of the best to suit the worst. Yet in the Constitutional Convention the spirit of compromise reigned in grace and glory; as Washington presided, it sat on his shoulder like the dove. Men rise to speak and one sees them struggle with the bias of birthright, locality, statehood—South against North, East against West, merchant against planter. One sees them change their minds, fight against pride, and when the moment comes, admit their error.20