by Robert M. Traxler

Negativity is the easy way out. Ever notice how the good folks on the ends of the political spectrum see things? Left or right, the 5% who are the most dedicated zealots only see things that are, shall we say, less than positive?

In a recent conversation with a liberal friend, the subject of President Richard Nixon came up and his comment was “Nixon was a crook.” Arguably he is correct; however, when I pointed out that he (a 1960s liberal) should have loved President Nixon because he ended the Viet Nam War, stopped the military draft, instituted wage and price controls and landed a man on the moon, his answer was ”I don’t care, he was a crook.”

My friend is incapable of ever seeing the good in anyone with whom he politically disagrees. A conservative will tell you President Barack Obama is the worst president our nation ever elected, cite the economy recovering, Wall Street doing extremely well,  overall personal income increasing (OK, mostly the 1%) and the great expansion of Second Amendment rights (concealed carry laws being vastly expanded), the answer will be “I don’t care, he is a total disaster.”

Not everyone is without fault, but the vast majority of people have some good in them. A narrow-minded skeptic will never see the good and always dwell on the negative. We should always ask ourselves to find the silver lining in the dark cloud; life is too short to always dwell on the darkness. Extremists on both sides of the political divide are never satisfied; the left gets the Affordable Care Act and is angry that it is not single payer; the rights gets some tax cuts and are mad they are not expansive enough. The left is angry the judicial system is too draconian the right is angry it is not severe enough.

Our democracy is firmly based on the art of compromise; the United States has a true genius for compromise, three equal branches of government that need to agree on a course of action before it becomes or remains law. The founders of our nation did not wish a king or tyrant, so they developed a form of government in which the decision process was spread over a number of branches of government who must hammer out a compromise, a system of give and take that has served us well for over two centuries. Most Americans feel compromise is a good thing and are open to a give and take process; the good folks on the extreme ends of the political spectrum however feel it is a sin, sellout, retreat or even a  crime.

The question to ask is whether the folks to the left of Karl Marx or the folks to the right of Ronald Reagan will ever change and embrace compromise. The answer is mostly age dependent: the younger you are the more likely it is you will change. Ever notice television programming is targeted to those of us who are below age 50? It is, and for good marketing reasons; brand loyalty is for the most part set in stone as we age, as are their political beliefs, and advertising will not work on them. The folks infected with a terminal case of negativity who have reached the point of their lives when disagreement is a personal affront will not compromise, and we should realize it and understand it, but not condemn them for it.

A liberal person will be wasting his time trying to sell me Marxist, Leninists socialism and a conservative person is wasting his breath on a liberal of my age trying to sell American democracy. Liberals and conservatives long past 50 years of age have beliefs set in concrete. Both groups need to understand that compromise is an art, and is vitally necessary for any form of representative government to function properly; they do not need to like it but they need to understand it.

Hate on both sides of the political process is a bad thing; understanding honest disagreement is on both sides is a good thing. Hate expressed about a person’s looks, weight, legal occupation, religion, ancestry or what portion of the country or community they hail from is narrow-minded, childish and just plain dumb. Folks who hail from the east coast or west coast will say you and I are stupid, dumb and ignorant for no reason other than our zip code. Fully understanding why we see disagreement as a reason to advocate for harm to come those Americans who disagree with us is above my pay grade, or perhaps below civil discourse.

Our primary system is ensuring that we only have candidates from the left or right of center; the days of conservative Democrats or liberal Republicans are long gone. The use of compromise may be a rare art form, but it is necessary for our democracy to continue to be successful.

The most obvious failure of political compromise in our history left more than 640,000 Americans dead.  Let us disagree but not hate, in the end we are all Americans; however the haters on the left and right will disagree with even that.