It is no secret that the success of our republic revolves around the ballot box and the jury box. Those who would undermine the spirit of the American Revolution understand this, and those two essential institutions remain under constant assault.
There is also a spiritual component to politics that cannot be denied—unless you are among those who refuse to recognize spiritual things at all. Total agreement about religion and politics is nearly impossible because faith is an individual characteristic, as distinct as a fingerprint.
People often confuse faith with religion. Religion is not faith, though faith is an integral component of religion. I tend to think of religion as spiritual politics: the way we humans organize our limited, and often vague, awareness of spiritual things into a shared belief system. The purpose of political organization is to avoid chaos, and my faith tells me that God is not the author of confusion. If the spirit of truth and love reigned supreme in every heart and mind, political organization would be unnecessary. But the egotistical pride that permeates human nature makes that impossible—at least in this world.
Faith is personal. Religion is communal. The more clearly we distinguish between the two, the easier it becomes to understand both the limits and the protections of religion written into our Constitution and the First Amendment. The great minds who converged to create our system of governance nearly 250 years ago included language that simultaneously protected government from religion and religion from government. That is not to say they intended to exclude individual faith from the process.
What set our system of governance apart from others of that time was the novel idea of power flowing both bottom-up and top-down. The Founders recognized that, without elaborate safeguards, top-down systems invariably give way to domination and oppression. Separation of powers was one of those safeguards. They also recognized another crucial protection: requiring the consent of the governed. That is why the integrity of the ballot box and the jury box is so important. They provide outsiders a rare opportunity to exercise authority over insiders.
The spirit of the American Revolution gave us a Constitution designed to create tension until moderation and cooperation emerge. It concentrates enough power to support an orderly society while placing restrictions that protect individual liberty and promote personal responsibility. It is an adversarial system of self-government that can seem chaotic at first because it was designed to give participants ample opportunity to air grievances and opinions while obliging them, in the end, to negotiate and cooperate with those who differ. That delicate balance only works if enough people have faith in the system to make it work—and are willing to accept the outcome.
Unfortunately, many have unwittingly embraced something closer to the spirit of the French Revolution, with its perpetual personality conflicts and factional feuds. Its modus operandi is intimidation and manipulation instead of negotiation and cooperation. Its insatiable craving for power—and constant demand for loyalty—takes precedence over any real desire for justice or fairness. It does not seek reconciliation with its adversaries, only capitulation. It should not surprise anyone that the guillotine remains the foremost symbol of the French Revolution.
When the Republican Party was the minority party in Alabama, we criticized Democrats for the loyalty oath required to vote in their primary. We also criticized the “Radney Rule,” which allowed them to deny ballot access to anyone who had supported another political party during the previous four years. We proudly proclaimed our inclusiveness. We welcomed those who wanted to participate in our primary with open arms while decrying the arrogance of Alabama’s powerful Democratic Party.
Even so, during the decades before the Republican takeover, the Alabama Democratic Party was not particularly cohesive. It was made up of divergent factions: conservatives, moderates, progressives and Black Democrats. As members of the minority Republican Party, we could often peel off enough votes to block legislation we opposed. Both political parties were relatively weak, and I do not believe that was a bad thing. It gave legislators room to cooperate and negotiate in order to represent all their constituents.
That began to change with the Republican tsunami in 2010, when the conservative and moderate wings abandoned the Democratic Party en masse, resulting in a Republican supermajority. It was heartbreaking to witness the infighting that followed as the Alabama Republican Party transformed into a supermajority party more powerful than the Democrats had ever been in my memory. Before long, internal posturing and backbiting intensified, and the most fervent partisans began demanding that we do the very things many of us had once criticized Democrats for doing.
The political parties that dominate our system of governance sometimes remind me of rival street gangs. We might be better off without them, but as long as one party holds power, we need another to slow it down. Generally speaking, the party out of power is more receptive to fresh ideas and collaboration, while the party in power is more consumed by infighting and power struggles than by serving the public as a whole. Many of the most loyal partisans in both parties look at independent thinkers with contempt because they refuse to “pick a team.”
Which brings me to the reason I started writing this piece in the first place: the recent move to close party primaries, coupled with the arbitrary denial of ballot access based on perceived party allegiance, is one more example of a political party expanding its power to control the governing process—in a manner I believe runs contrary to the spirit of the American Revolution.
