Whenever the U.S. holds a national election, there is much evaluation, haranguing, and prediction. We are reminded often that midterms always have a different character than presidential elections, but that knowledge is thrown out the window in the fever of gloating and sorrow. The most popular prediction this time, and the one I have often subscribed to, is the sense that our course will be “more nothing”. Or that perhaps it will get even more nothinger. As if it were even possible.

I certainly have my own feelings about the election and my own analysis. However, what might be more constructive than wading into the weeds of a particular election is to describe a characteristic about governance that is troubling and needs to be named.

For many politically engaged people, our minds get tricked by the political process into a simple paradigm of

regression – status quo – progression.

We advance forward, we are stymied, or we are pushed back.

The very nature of our society is built on a structure, not of advancing a movement, but of advancing laws. We put forth new legislation that can either add new laws or rewrite or eliminate existing laws. This requires action, motivation, and movement.

So a person can advance a cause by subtracting the law. We can see progress through regression.

We may also see individual progress or progress for a political party while seeing regression for the culture.

In this way, the legislative process is naturally progressive, in that it always requires new action–even if that action is to eliminate previous action. This sets up a strange cognitive dissonance for us. In any of these actions, our mind is tricked by the legislative process itself, which is naturally progressive, to see action and advancement, even when the action may have a regressive result.

This has made the truth of the last four years hard to describe, for there has been a lot of action and little discernible progress. We want to call Congress “do-nothings” and claim that Washington is mired by gridlock where nothing gets done, but the nothing itself (filibusters, holding up judicial appointments, blocking legislation in committee) requires action. Action for which Republicans are rewarded for doing something; for progress. For many people, the last four years have seemed very active: it is the Democrats that have “done nothing”.

One of the common refrains I heard last night is “now the president will have to come to the table.” To Democrats, the president has spent the last 6 years sitting at the usual negotiating table by himself. Perhaps we should be more specific to each other with regards to the actual location of said table. Maybe our problem is just that the parties can’t find the table! Perhaps the President and Speaker ran out of fancy stationary.

Or maybe there is no incentive to negotiate. In June, a Pew poll showed mild increases in political polarization. Buried in the report was a deep divide between the “consistently liberal” and “consistently conservative” over compromise. They found that 82% of consistently liberal want their elected officials to seek compromise, while only 32% of consistently conservative favored it. If compromise is not something we bring to the negotiating table, it is hardly going to be something we could even call negotiation. Without any give-and-take from both parties, our options are limited to winner-take-all or something worse than nothing: everybody loses.

| We have encouraged our politicians to say to each other: either I win and you lose or else I lose and you lose.

This is what we should be speaking to. Not the fear that Democrats want to take your guns or that Republicans want control of all of the lady parts. And please don’t call for a rise of the moderates who just love being needed. We need to name the difference between acting on behalf of the party and acting on behalf of the people. We need to name the difference between advancing agenda and advancing the country.

And for the love of Pete, we must stop calling a really active Congress “do-nothings” because they are doing something. It just isn’t something that looks or feels like help or progress. Name that and talk about that instead.

While you’re at it, name a few of the things we need to be doing, like making jobs with a living wage and dealing with global climate change. Feeding the hungry in our midst and raising our commitment to ending world hunger in the next decade. Protecting the weak and raising the education level of the populace. Reducing the stress that is literally killing us and providing for the health and safety of all people. These are liberal values. But each is also a conservative value. And all are human values.

Let’s talk about this and quit our yapping about gridlock because these guys are certainly going to do something. We should make that something match our needs and dreams.