We Are Not Each Other's Enemy

Athens and Sparta were the two most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. Between them, they had defeated the Persian Empire and proven that a free people could defend themselves against the greatest military force in the world. They were both Greek, both proud, and both capable of extraordinary things. Then they turned on each other.

The Peloponnesian War lasted 27 years. Both sides won battles. Both sides suffered devastating losses. Entire generations of young men were killed. Cities were destroyed. Alliances were broken and reformed and broken again. When it was finally over, both Athens and Sparta were so weakened that neither could ever again reach the heights they had once shared. Within a few decades, a kingdom from the north named Macedon simply walked in and absorbed them both. Two great powers, so consumed by destroying each other, had left the door wide open for someone else to walk through it.

I think about that a lot when I watch American politics today.

Turn on cable news for twenty minutes and you would think the entire purpose of the Republican Party is to destroy the Democratic Party, and vice versa. Every election cycle is framed as a battle for the soul of the nation. Every policy debate is treated like a siege. Every opponent is a villain. The language of war has completely taken over the language of governance.

And for what?

Here is what I know from serving McHenry County as your County Clerk, the people who walk through my office door are not ideologues. They are neighbors. They want there roads fixed, their kids educated, their votes counted fairly, and their government to actually show up when they need it. A Democrat and a Republican standing in line at the same polling place have more in common with each other than either one has with the cable news host yelling at them from a studio in New York.

We have been conned into thinking that the destruction of the other party is victory. It is not. Victory looks like safe neighborhoods. Victory looks like an economy where working people can actually get ahead. Victory looks like kids graduating high school with real skills and real hope. None of that gets accomplished by grinding the opposition into dust. It gets accomplished by doing the hard, unglamorous, sometimes boring work of governing.

America was not founded on the promise that one tribe would eventually crush the other. It was founded on the radical idea that people who disagree could still build something together. That is a harder thing to do. It requires patience, good faith, and a willingness to sit across from someone you fundamentally disagree with and say, "Okay. What can we actually get done, together?"

I am not naive. Real differences exist. Policy matters. Elections have consequences. I'm not about to relinquish my beliefs, but there is a canyon of difference between vigorous debate and the kind of scorched-earth warfare that leaves everyone worse off, including the side that "wins."

Athens and Sparta eventually stopped fighting. Two great powers who had spent nearly three decades trying to destroy each other looked up one day and realized they needed each other more than they needed the fight. That realization came to late for it to matter much.

Let's not wait that long.