There was a time, after the end of World War II, when it seemed that politics, with the exception of the inanity of the Cold War, was a civilized pursuit with contending parties losing gracefully and acting as the ‘loyal opposition’ until they had a chance to change roles in the next election.
As I look at events around the globe currently, it appears to me that we are regressing and going back to a ‘winner take all,’ and ‘to the victor belongs the spoils’ system of politics that was preeminent during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
And the sad thing is that no country seems to be immune from this malady, not even my native country which for a large part of the mid to late twentieth century was the beacon for rational politics for the rest of the world.
Loyal opposition is usually a term that refers to the parties in opposition in legislatures of parliamentary systems of government, who may oppose the actions of the sitting cabinet while remaining loyal to the formal source of the government’s power, such as a monarch or constitution. The definition, though, could also be applied to the losing parties in elections in non-parliamentary states, like the United States. I remember as a child, even during the Jim Crow era when the dominant political parties of the South implemented policies that kept certain groups at the bottom of the food chain. Despite having opposing views on many issues, the parties worked together for the most part to keep the country as a whole solvent and moving forward, in the end, crafting bipartisan legislation that granted civil rights to people who had been denied such rights for hundreds of years.
Here in the United States, that seems to be a thing of the past. Things are so partisan that whoever wins has to be kowtowed to or you’re in jeopardy. We now have politicians, company CEOs, media, and even some think tanks, who just a few short months ago were adamantly opposed to the party that assumes office on January 20, are making a pilgrimage to the lair of the head of the winning party to make peace.
Some media are even beginning to try and normalize behavior that is far from normal and which they lambasted in the not so distant past. Even before the formal change of government, we’re treated to a daily diet of threats, recriminations, and capitulation. Statements and actions by politicians that would have been called ‘stupid’ or ‘dangerous’ before November or now basically ignored or in some really scary instances rationalized.
As Rex Hupple wrote in an editorial in USA Today on January 5, 2025, we need to ‘declare war on stupidity,’ but that can only happen if you have a loyal opposition that speaks out in opposition to the ruling party while remaining true to the Constitution.
We’re not alone in this either. South Korea, one of Asia’s beacons of democracy for a couple of decades now, found itself in crisis in December when the president temporarily declared martial law in a fit of pique because the opposition party, that controls the legislature blocked things he wanted to do.
When he was impeached, and the Constitutional Court upheld it, instead of complying with the law and leaving office, he borrowed a page from the playbook of another wannabe autocrat and barricaded himself in his residence surrounded by supporters in the military and from the public, and refused to step down. He even borrowed flags and slogans (in English) from a similar campaign in another country that I won’t name, but which everyone who follows international news will know.
In the case of Korea, it’s not the opposition party that’s being disloyal, but the party in control of the executive branch, but the principle, or the erosion of the principle, is the same. We have too many politicians in too many countries who no longer believe in the system unless they are in total control without opposition, and are willing to do almost anything to achieve that state.
I’m not a fan of going backwards. We should always move forwards. But, in doing so, there are some good things from the past that we should hang on to. The concept of a loyal opposition is one of them. | NWI
