There’s a toxic dynamic that stands in the way of conflict resolution. It’s as common as it is difficult to overcome. And it’s currently driving national political debate.
I call it pissed off by proxy, and as an attorney and publisher I’ve encountered it many times.
A woman or man comes in my office because they’re breaking up with someone and the division of assets is going badly. This is not the person I know at all, they tell me. Why won’t she/he be reasonable?
Or a business owner cancels advertising, stops distribution and vows never to do business with Watermark again because of a reporting inaccuracy or a perceived slight in coverage. When word gets back to me and I contact the owner (they rarely bring their often legitimate complaint to me personally), the door is slammed shut at least for the moment.
In both cases, the pigheaded party is not responding to the situation; they are instead reacting to the intense anger of someone close to them. They’re pissed off by proxy. If they don’t stand up, and in dramatic fashion, they risk looking like a wimp.
In the case of the breakup it’s usually a new partner, possibly the person who created the rift in the first place, who’s going to set things straight. In the case of the advertiser it can be a business partner, or a group of employees or high-profile patrons. In either case, the outrage is expressed and the pressure is applied from a safe, cowardly distance.
When someone’s pissed off by proxy, there’s no room for reason or negotiation. They want to prove how tough they are, so they become inflexible. Conflict resolution takes a back seat to posturing and ego.
Pissed off by proxy is always unpleasant and counterproductive. But when it happens in national government, the results can be catastrophic.
Consider the current debate on raising the national debt ceiling. Clearly it’s necessary: Congress has spent money, and now it must either cover that debt or default. Most experts believe default will send the fragile global economy into freefall; not because the United States can’t pay its debts, but because it lacks the political will to govern itself responsibility.
Nonetheless, a few dozen U.S. Representatives members of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party are holding this process hostage. They’re pissed off by proxy, determined to prove they’re tough to a small number of influential constituents and pundits. They’d rather risk a deeper recession than compromise on a radical plan for game-changing tax and spending cuts.
Conservative influence peddler Grover Norquist knows the pissed off by proxy dynamic well and exploits it to maximum advantage. He has secured pledges from 41 senators and 236 House members that they will not increase taxes. If any reconsider that pledge, even to close the most offensive tax loophole, Norquist will brand them cowardly turncoats and work for their electoral defeat.
This flies in the face of responsible representative government; a process that by its very nature requires compromise.
How did things get this way? How did a small group of arch-conservatives become the tail that wags the dog of political discourse? The biggest culprit is not Grover Norquist, its gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is the process whereby the majority party draws voting districts to ensure that they remain in power. They do this by lumping the opposing party’s voters in a few oddly shaped jigsaw puzzle districts to secure a majority for themselves in the surrounding districts.
Historically, both parties are guilty of this abuse of power. The results can be striking. Consider the I-4 corridor, where most Watermark readers reside. In Pinellas, Hillsborough, Polk, Osceola, Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties there are 200,000 more Democrats than Republicans. Yet we are represented in Congress and the state legislature by 45 Republicans and 13 Democrats. That’s not a typo.
I live in Winter Park, a suburb of Orlando with just 25,000 residents. In order to accomplish the above, Republicans have divided the city into four separate U.S. congressional districts. One, stretching all the way from Winter Park to Jacksonville and represented by Corrine Brown, has a whopping 40 percent more Democrats than Republicans. The surrounding districts are all held by Republicans.
But the problem is much greater than lopsided representation. When a district is drawn to favor one party, the election is usually decided by the primary. That’s good for party extremists, observed the Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell. Not for the moderate majority.
We are electing people who are pissed off by proxy, pressured to advocate their party’s most extreme positions rather than find solutions that would benefit all their constituents. As a result, things are going to hell in a handbasket.
By a whopping majority, you and I voted to end gerrymandering last year when we supported the Fair Districts amendments to the Florida Constitution. The future depends on their implementation.
This is a pivotal time. Redistricting takes place only once every ten years. It’s going on now, and the plan will be announced in early 2012. Speaker of the House Dean Cannon has carved out $30 million from our cash-strapped state budget to challenge results he doesn’t like, meaning those that do not safeguard the Republican super-majority.
If the plan is late, or if it includes squiggly lines and districts with large Democratic majorities, we must be prepared to fight as well. Our right to fair representation and effective government is at stake.
