By Alexander Lomax
So many articles, musings, and rants have been based on the concept of the importance of reaching across the aisle. The two party system has a whole world of flaws, but is actually functional when the two parties are able to agree on something, ANYTHING, for the betterment of society.
While many of us on the left weren’t expecting much in the way of bipartisanship from the Trump administration, I don’t think many people predicted how much he would warp the entire concept. Instead of Democrats vs. Republicans, it was George W Bush’s “Either you’re with us or you’re against us” on steroids. Either you kissed the feet of the Dear Glorious Leader and backed away (never turning your back on him) whilst chanting about his everlasting greatness, or you were insulted like you were back in grade school and cast into a sea of ostracism and rage tweets. Somehow our hyper-partisan culture became even more grossly perverted.
In a recent and rather heartening KTAR article, it states that President Biden is considering both Cindy McCain and Jeff Flake for ambassadorships.
It would be quite the olive branch to the reasonable slice of the GOP; a throwback to the times where Senators from different parties would drink scotch and smoke cigars together, actually attempting to work towards shared goals. Both have a spirit of pragmatic bipartisanship and realized early on that a Trump presidency would be corrosive to the fabric of our society (and they were correct).
The fact that it would enrage Trump and tick off that more corrosive wing of the party is an added bonus, but not the most important one.
People should be judged on their merit, not on their party and their ring-kissing. Cindy McCain and Jeff Flake both represent the positive, independent-minded ethos of this great state. Both have shown incredible diplomacy during their careers. Both would be the right choice. And perhaps, with Biden leading by example, it could ring in a renaissance of bipartisanship; a return to those days of scotch and cigars, except sans the scotch and cigars.
Well, a man can dream at least.