Riley Parr: Overcoming factions to pursue what matters

History will view the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment of President Trump earlier this year as many things. One of those things will be the embodiment of what George Washington warned about in his farewell address in 1796: the danger of factions.

For these purposes, it matters little whether you think Trump should have been removed from office on Jan. 21, 2017, or whether you think the Democrats have been trying to remove Trump from office since Jan. 21, 2017. Here’s what does matter: In the 200 years following Washington’s farewell speech, only Andrew Johnson has stood before the Senate facing trial following impeachment. In the last 22 years, two presidents—Bill Clinton and Donald Trump—faced the possibility of removal from office.

It’s somewhat ironic that Chris Matthews—loud, bombastic, more than a little polemical, and the closest thing to a liberal Rush Limbaugh—retired on March 2. On my bookshelf sits his 2013 book, “Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked.” He and I agree on very little politically, but on this point, we align: Something has changed in the American psyche over the last 25 years, and it hasn’t made us stronger. That, or something had been brewing that finally made its way to the surface.

Some 42 years after Washington warned of factions and their detrimental effect on liberty, Lincoln foreshadowed what would nearly result some 20 years later when he said, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

We have not, to use Lincoln’s phrasing, reached the point of suicide. Despite various protestations from all ideological corners that the sky is falling, it remains firmly in place, though it does seem to recently have more of a reddish hue than in the last 40 years.

Undoubtedly, we have changed as a nation since Washington uttered those warnings about factions nearly two and a quarter centuries ago. But the genius of the Founders is that they enshrined governing principles designed to combat human nature—and human nature, though it might vacillate in certain circumstances, will continue as it mostly has existed for all of human history until the sky really does fall.

What further proof need we consider that the underlying structure still stands stronger than the impeachment proceedings themselves? The House acted as expected, and the Senate followed suit, to be sure. But they both operated within the defined parameters provided by the Constitution.

Now, Trump’s opponents have the opportunity this fall to engage in the greatest exercise of a free society: Persuade their fellow citizens of the righteousness of their cause (or at least the pitfalls of four more years of a President Trump) and elect a different leader.

Still, we are divided. And not just ideologically or politically. Politicians come and go, as do various tides of –isms. Instead, what may well be the greatest challenge we face is the inability to separate people from the ideas they hold. Because you voted for Trump, you must be morally bankrupt. Or, because you are a Democrat, you must have no redeeming qualities. Our leaders, on both sides of the aisle, have done nothing to help stem such thoughts from festering.

As the late Justice Antonin Scalia said, “I attack ideas, not people.” Some, on both sides of the political spectrum, will undoubtedly still feel personally affronted when their views are challenged. But for the sake of our future, we must overcome our personal factions so we can focus on that which actually matters: pursuing the means that best provide for liberty and prosperity.•

__________

Parr is a student at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis and is executive director of the Indiana Young Republicans and president of the IU McKinney Federalist Society. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

Click here for more Forefront columns.