Can we unite?

We are a divided country. Have been for more than two decades, depending on where you pick your starting point.

After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, we saw the country unite for months. It was reflected in then-President George W. Bush’s poll numbers, which had him around 90% in the aftermath of the tragedies of that ignominious day.

By 2004, when Bush ran for his second term against John Kerry, that number had dissipated to a 50.7%-48.3% re-election by popular vote. The Electoral College was competitive 286-251.

We’ve been closely divided ever since. Control of the U.S. House and the Senate swing back and forth; Presidential elections remain close; and on so many issues, we remain at odds with each other.

Last week, I led a discussion at a State Chamber leadership retreat at Fairfield Bay where we discussed the current political climate and what it was going to take for our elected officials to quit squabbling all the time and work on solutions to problems that plague the country. What could be done to isolate the extremism in the two major political parties so a more moderate centrist Republican-Democratic coalition might govern?

It dawned on me that in my professional lifetime, which spans a healthy 30 years in politics, I’ve actually seen government work as it was intended. I remember the days at the national level when GOP President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil would cut a deal over a beer and avoid a government shutdown, or concede on military spending for domestic spending offsets, or even strike an immigration reform measure that didn’t include building a wall or mass deportation.

At the state level, I’ve seen Republicans and Democrats come together over the past 35 years to address education reform (remember Lake View?) and create a workable health care solution for lower income citizens through the private option, now known as AR HOME.

After our leadership discussion, a young woman in her early 30s approached me and shared this thought: She said she had never seen government function like it was intended in her lifetime.

She’s right.

She has only seen in-fighting and demonizing political warfare at the national level. In Arkansas for the last decade, Republicans have been able to do anything they want due to their supermajorities over Democrats, who don’t have leverage. Thus, culture wars — several of which attempt to solve problems that yet to exist — tend to dominate the state legislative headlines.

Not all Republicans want to dive into these social issues, they tell me, but they do because it fans their primary base. I remember a few years ago when we passed a law to prohibit sanctuary cities in Arkansas even though none existed and no one was talking about creating one. But by God, we fixed that problem. So much for local control.

When Democrats dominated the state legislature, I don’t recall culture war battles or major divisions that we predictably see coming nowadays. Democrats weren’t perfect, and they rarely cut taxes or reduced government waste and spending. They certainly controlled the agenda, but seniority — not partisanship — tended to dictate most matters.

In 2012, Republicans gained a very small minority in the Arkansas House of Representatives for the first time since Reconstruction. Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe was still head of the executive branch. The tight margins led to a lot of compromise between the two parties as it was the only way bills were going to pass.

In Washington, tight margins like we now see should also lead to much compromise and across-the-aisle workmanship, but it doesn’t. The power structure is different. Whichever party controls whichever chamber gets to have a majority on committees and chairmanships, and that party gets to set the legislative agenda. The stakes are higher for control.

It will take leadership willing to power share and willing to work across the aisle on issues ranging from health care to defense to immigration to budget reforms and more.

The framers of the Constitution designed the system to work in checks and balances, and to allow this moderation of centrism to prevail when party power is close. But the rules that Congress adopts for itself — along partisan lines and by the smallest of margins — keeps what the founders built on a shelf.

When Republicans control a chamber, they’re going to flex their political muscle for control. Democrats will do the same should the election give them control of a chamber where they don’t currently have a majority.

I told the young lady who wanted to see government work that she had to find a way to communicate to her elected officials her desire for compromise, power sharing, and bipartisan solutions, but she’s just one voice in a sea of cacophony that is hard to declutter. There’s a lot of noise out there. She didn’t seem hopeful that her solo voice would be enough to make any kind of difference. That attitude of despair is completely understandable.

I’m not sure what the solution is today, but I know this: I’ve seen government work; self-governing has to work for our republic to succeed; and our leaders at every level need to understand that a failure to do so will lead to our failure as a nation.

Do today’s leaders really want that on their conscience? Do they really want that on their tombstone? Will their obituary read:

“Here lies Politician A. He could have showed courage and led the country to solve its problems. Instead, he was too busy scoring political points to win re-election and stay in power.”

It seems to me that the system doesn’t need to change. But the political players and their rules need a serious rethinking.

Editor’s note: Roby Brock is the Editor-in-Chief of Talk Business & Politics. The opinions expressed are those of the author.