In Defense of Partisan Bickering

Illustration for TIME by Alex Nabaum

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Another name for the much derided "politics as usual" is democracy. Things get disagreeable because people disagree. Ideology is a good thing, not a bad one--and partisanship is at its worst when it is not about ideology. That's when it descends into trivia and slime. Ideology doesn't have to mean mindless intransigence or a refusal to accommodate new evidence or changing circumstances. It is just a framework of basic principles. A framework is more than just a list: all the pieces should fit together.

A politician ought to have an ideology. For that matter, so should a voter. Although ideology is sometimes dismissed as a substitute for thinking, it more likely is evidence that you've thought things through. Why is there a huge farm bill and no bill for struggling autoworkers? Why did we invade Iraq in search of nuclear weapons, but not North Korea? Hillary Clinton's description of her beliefs, quoted above, sounds more like a charity fund-raiser gift bag--a little of this, a little of that--than a coherent philosophy. Her competitors are no better.

Many or most of the decisions that an elected official must make on your behalf aren't even known when you must decide whether to vote for him or her. An ideology functions like a pledge or a promise, and it allows you, the voter, to judge the politicians seeking your vote in two different ways: their politics and their character. Do you share his or her political principles? And does he or she stick to them as new issues arise? Without some kind of ideology, the politician is asking voters to buy a pig in a poke.