Keira Sarmiento

The most recent government shutdown, the longest at 43 days, was a result of Democratic politicians disagreeing with Republicans on a spending bill. This is just one effect of uncompromising politics.

If there’s anything most people have learned as kids, it’s that you can’t always get what you want.

For some reason, our government forgot about it.

After 43 days, the longest government shutdown in history came to an end. In those 43 days, 42 million Americans relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for groceries worried for their families as funding for the program ran dry. More than 670,000 government workers were forced to take time off work, and approximately 730,000 continued to work without pay.

Why? The Democrats and Republicans were unable to compromise with each other.

For some reason, the parties are adopting the practice of “my way or the highway.”

I consider myself an optimist. I like to see the good in things. However, it’s so unmotivating to see how stubborn our politicians are!

It wasn’t always that way. In our country’s early days, the Federalists compromised with Antifederalists and added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. 

We also have this little thing called the Great Compromise. Large states sought to have Congress’s representatives in government proportionate to their population. In contrast, small states wanted the same number of representatives per state, and the House of Representatives and the Senate were established to accommodate both preferences. Amazing!

It would be hard to imagine such an agreement occurring in today’s political world.

Current politics is very polarized. According to the Pew Research Center, between 2016 and 2022, both Democrats and Republicans increasingly viewed the opposing party as closed-minded, dishonest, immoral, unintelligent, and lazy. That’s a lot of negative adjectives.

Something I found particularly amusing is that the percentage of Democrats and Republicans who viewed the opposing party as closed-minded was 83% and 69%, respectively. At this point, it seems like everyone is closed-minded. No wonder Congress can’t get anything done! From 1975 to 2020, there has been a trend of decreasing number of laws passed.

Other recent events also reflect hostility between the parties. Some are more lighthearted banter, such as the war of words that occurred on the social platform X between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump. While the war caught attention back in August, I’d argue it still exists after Newsom recently posted a picture of Donald Trump as a pig. 

On the other hand, a more grave sign of polarization between parties is political violence. One of the events that shocked the nation was the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk. While the attacker’s political affiliations aren’t known, Kirk’s death is one in a long list of attacks against political leaders in recent years. These events are no joke, and should be a signal to the government about people’s discontent and the increasing hatred between those with different viewpoints.

I suppose there is something to be said about how many laws continue to be passed despite the hostility between parties. However, it’s essential to note that most of these are executive orders, meaning that little to no compromise is being made.

Millions of dollars lost for SNAP programs, hundreds of thousands unemployed, and political violence are all caused by the fact that people can’t agree with or respect those with differing views from them. 

All I can say is that politicians need to learn how to compromise. They need to be okay if things don’t go their way.