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Governing Is the Goal
by Kathy Goodman & Janet Singer
The most common analogy applied to politics is that of a game. We have two teams (Republicans wearing red and Democrats in blue) battling each other to “win.” It is often framed as a zero sum game, where one side must be declared a winner, which leaves the other side the loser. During election season, with our two-party system, this analogy is inescapable, as each team announces its “champion” who will battle for the ultimate prize—winning elective office. We argue about what is in the rule book and whether someone is breaking those rules. The media reports breathlessly on the “horse race” as new polls come out, and ESPN-type analysts sit around desks picking apart one team’s “ground game” and the other’s ad strategy. At the end, we have a binary result—one team won and one team lost.
So when our team wins, we may think we are automatically entitled to everything our team stands for. And when we get less than we want, we may become disillusioned with the whole process. After all, what is the point of joining a team and working that hard, if when you win, you don’t get the prize you thought you were getting? And so you think about sitting out the next cycle, thinking it doesn’t matter anyway—nothing ever gets done.
Of course, a campaign is only one part of politics. The reason to participate in a campaign is to have a hand in governing. To lump the “governing” part of politics in with the “election” part of politics is a mistake. Governing is not a zero sum game. It is, in fact, not a game at all. It Is the serious business of looking at the world we have and trying to move it closer to the world we want.
In November 2020, Democrats “won.” They went to Washington and introduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act to secure voting rights. They introduced the so-called “human infrastructure bill” to invest in and support American families and workers and deal with climate change. They introduced sweeping legislation to deal with issues of racial justice, gun safety, abortion rights, ethics reforms and to kill the filibuster. And none of that legislation passed.
However, a bipartisan infrastructure bill that dealt with more “traditional” infrastructure issues—fixing roads and bridges, expanding high speed internet access to rural and tribal communities, and modernizing drinking water systems—did pass. Millions of jobs will be created and millions of Americans’ lives will be improved as a result of that legislation. An African-American woman, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is now sitting on the Supreme Court, and tens of thousands of young girls of color suddenly feel more empowered. The Child Tax Credit was expanded for a period that lifted millions of children in this country out of poverty.
Democrats did all of that. But somehow, we get the message that none of that “counts”—it wasn’t enough. If we didn’t get everything, we got nothing. What is the point of winning, we wonder, if nothing ever changes? And more people get disillusioned. But when Republicans held all the power in DC, they passed a tax cut for the wealthy, put extreme right-wing justices on the Supreme Court, and used their power to support those who were subverting democracy on January 6.
We need to stop thinking of governing as a game where if we don’t get everything we want, we just pick up the ball and go home. Instead we need to celebrate all of our accomplishments and use them to inspire us to continue the fight. We should never stop advocating for that more perfect union, but when we fall short of our goals, that should only drive us to work harder to make progress.
Winning elections is a necessary part of politics, but governing is the goal.
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