We Cannot Escape What Others Think of Our Divisiveness

As I sift through newspaper headlines from around the world, it amazes me how tuned in other lands and peoples are about our American system of government. While I admit that a two-party system is easier to keep track of than the twelve parties that comprise the current Knesset in Israel or the twenty-four minor parties that fight for chairs in Turkey's parliament, I have often wondered why people on the other side of the globe should keep track at all. I can understand following which party is put in charge of America, much like we can generally name the current British Prime Minister - at least, until Tony Blair stepped down, anyway- but it surprises me how many people in other countries follow the ideology of our two major parties and the political process.

My family was in Florence, Italy, the night of the U.S. presidential election in November, 2008. We were staying at a small, family-run hotel and I had grown to know the young man running the front desk quite well during our three day stay. He and I stayed up all night together watching the election returns on Italian television. During our conversation, he was able to articulate quite clearly, albeit in broken English, what Europeans thought of George W. Bush and, by extension, the Republican party. That evening, his biggest concern wasn't whether John McCain would win, but whether the American government would work together if Obama won. It surprised me how atuned he was to the divisiveness among Americans, both in Congress and among neighbors. Five major parties currently comprise the Italian government. I had the impression that this young man had given up any hope that they would ever again unite behind one common idea for the betterment of his country.

My first encounter with world impressions of American party politics occurred in 1977, as a twenty-one year old army sergeant shipping across West Germany to a new duty station near the former East German border. I found myself in a train with a young woman who struck up a conversation about American politics. At the time, the only thing I knew about American politics was that Jimmy Carter was my new Commander-in-Chief and Walter Mondale (my Senator from Minnesota) was the new vice president.

She spoke at great length about the problems she believed the new president would create for Western Europe, because Democrats simply didn't take the Soviet threat serously enough. During the coldest snap of the Cold War, most of Western Europe supported the stronger line taken by Republicans - with the exception of the French (there is always the exception of the French). The slogan Better Red Than Dead was only popular among the most radical fringes in countries that had a buffer between themselves and the barbed wire. The people on the streets of Berlin and other cities pushed up against the Soviet bloc knew exactly what they wanted in American politics.

I voted for Jimmy Carter and didn't much give a damn whether she liked him or not. Frustrated and bursting with the testosterone of a warrior, I finally got up my nerve to ask why she thought it was OK for a German to criticize an American president. I attacked her as if I was defending my dog. (As the Carter presidency unfolded, I discovered that my dog might have done a more defensible job...but I digress.) "He's my president," I said. "You're not American. What gives you the right to criticize him from half a world away?" I was stunned into an embarrassed silence when she pointed at my Army uniform and said, "But he is not half a world away. He is right here on the train with me."

Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, make no mistake, the things you stand for are condensed and understood in a way that makes sense to people like that young German woman or that young Italian man sharing a glass of wine with me. Like everything else, we are known by the company we keep. When the fringe wingnuts in either party make the news in Warsaw, Americans just six inches on either side of common ground are summed up as divisive and uncooperative. Perhaps it is only because so many multi-party parliaments around the world are exactly that - hopelessly divided and gridlocked. So, when we hear Republican and Democrat party leaders talk about catering to the base, let's stop and ask ourselves what that base really looks like. To the rest of the world, it does make a difference.

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