To be honest with you, Nikki — you’re my friend, but consensus is the opposite of leadership,” Mr. Pence said, criticizing Ms. Haley for saying there needed to be congressional consensus between Republicans and Democrats before the federal government could play a role in restricting abortion. “It’s not a states-only issue. It’s a moral issue.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/
08/23/us/abortion-pence-haley- debate.html
Nice sound bite, unless you consider how a democratic (or republican) government works: by consensus. Inflexible leadership is the deterrent to governing. It proposes a high-minded position, then expects the rest of the government to follow. That doesn’t work in any bi-partisan body. It’s all about compromise, as the esteemed legislator Henry Clay would say about the legislator:
[F] from the nature of the government and its operations, and from those with whom he is dealing, it is necessary upon his part, in order to secure what he wants, to grant something to the other side, he should be reconciled to the concession which he has made in consequence of the concession which he is to receive, if there is no great principle involved, such as a violation of the Constitution of the United States. Henry Clay 1850 Compromise Speech Washington, D.C. – February 6, 1850
For thirty years Henry Clay kept the United States from Civil War by proposing compromises regarding how slavery should be treated in new territories as they became part of the United States. Finally in 1852 “The Great Compromiser” died and within a decade the United States was in Civil War. Eulogizing Clay, his successor in compromise, Abraham Lincoln, said,
Our country is prosperous and powerful; but could it have been quite all it has been, and is, and is to be, without Henry Clay? Such a man the times have demanded, and such, in the providence of God was given us. But he is gone. Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence, trusting that, in future national emergencies, He will not fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security.https://
Today compromisers are considered weak and ineffectual, especially by the Republican Party. It has adopted the dictatorial style of Donald Trump, who believes he won the 2020 election. Never deterred by judicial decisions, Trump has insisted he won the 2020 Presidential Election, since hours after the polls closed on November 3, 2020. During the interval from then to today, the President has had ample opportunity to give a concession speech, as all defeated Presidential nominees have in our nation’s history, but he cannot compromise over a defeat, even with all available evidence to the contrary.
And what of the 69% of Republicans who still believe the election of 2020 was stolen? They, too, have failed to compromise, even when the facts are against them. And 74% continue to insist that the former President is innocent of all charges, despite his accumulating indictments on a variety of charges.
The stance of arguing from a weak foundation of evidence has been modeled by the former President and imitated by those who admire him. Compromise with their initial judgment on the issue is unthinkable. They can not see any merit in the opposing view of the case. They are paralyzed by their own stubbornness.
When a jury hears testimony on both sides of a case, they are under oath to follow the evidence and put aside their prejudices. If they become hung, failing to reach consensus, they are enjoined by the judge to persist until they find agreement. If they continue to be unresolved, they fail to carry out their duty as a jury, and they are dismissed.
Based on this procedure, it appears that at least two-thirds of Republicans would be incapable of serving on a jury. They would defy the facts of the case in favor of their initial view of the suspect. To do otherwise they would have to compromise. To this segment of the population, “compromise” is a dirty word.
The same for the Republican candidate Mike Pence. For him the decision on abortion could only be a ban prior to six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. In the Republican Primary debate, Nikki Haley proposed a federal law banning abortion after sixteen weeks, arguing that was the only way a consensus could be achieved in the present Senate. That is what aroused Pence to say, ” . . . consensus is the opposite of leadership.”
This is the attitude of a failed leader in a three-branch government, where the President cannot govern by fiat. As noble as it might sound, it is the opposite of governing, it is dictating, a style Donald Trump admires. And it is increasingly the style of government favored by a two-thirds majority of the Republican Party.
It is not a style of leadership, it is utter stubbornness, a trait Mr, Trump has honed to a point. The failure of the Republican Party to repudiate the former President, and the failure of two-thirds of voting Republicans to accept the defeat of the former President is pure stubbornness and an aversion to the process of governing in a democracy. It is indeed a moral issue, as Mr. Pence argues, because compromise is the ultimate moral principle of governing in this country.