Calling For the End of Partisanship

Day 584, 11:06 • Published in USA USA • by ProggyPop

Let’s just say that I never thought I’d be the one to write this sort of article. I was one of the most partisan people in this game. I’m one of several people that Emerick would finger as the USWP wrecking crew; we polarized elections and really started the trend of hardcore campaign staffs. This was back in the September-October mayoral elections (we had mayors!) and Mcgivey, Peregrine and I (as well as some other old-time USWPers) got together and really distributed resources, campaign teams, and candidates. While we didn’t vote-bomb (a tactic that I’ve never really felt comfortable with), we did start PMbanking and we mopped up those elections.

I was a partisan fighter for a long time. I was a two month USWP Party President, a staunch USWP advocate, and a rabid partisan. I helped take down the Uncle Sam administration, I attacked the Libertarians. I even pushed the USWP to develop ideology. Yes, I’m on the top 5 list of being “guilty” of partisanship.

But then something happened. Somewhere between April to now I’ve stumbled upon a variety of relevations. Through these new understandings, I now realize that partisanship is by far the dumbest thing to ever happen to the eUS. Furthermore, fighting over Congress is also par for dumb activities. The fact is that eUSA needlessly fights amongst itself for a sliver of power that is fairly worthless. The reason why we are not a completely dominant world power is because of our lack of solidarity and our meaningless internal squat.

Everything is better in list form, so here’s a list of my revelations.

1) There is no ideology in Erepublik- There simply can’t be. Ideology in the real world is a set of beliefs that a person holds. Those beliefs reflect that individual’s world view. But “beliefs” are not such a broad concept; ideology is more about how we process political and social factors and how we interpret them. Ideology is what makes a conservative look at health care and say “individuals need more of a role!” and liberals say “we need a government run public plan!” There’s a fundamental disagreement about how to view the world.

So while it’s true that people view the e-world differently, there’s no way they can form ideology. Why not? Because the main essential world truths are absent in Erepublik. There is no death. There is no real poverty. No illiteracy. No genocide. No accumulation of wealth. No racism. No bigotry. All of these world factors are completely absent in this game. All we have are XP, rank, gold, and skill. These tangible statistics don’t need to be interpreted through a worldview. Therefore, people don’t need to have ideology in order to make sense of the world.

2) Parties are social organizations with few legitimate differences- In real life America, one major criticism of the two-party system is that the parties have few differences. On the global political scale, that’s probably true. In America, there’s certainly enough of an ideological gap that the parties take up “distinct” ideological space. But the same can’t be said in this game. There just aren’t enough issues for the parties to differ on to create real ideological space.

The vast majority of people agree that the US should run bare-boned social welfare programs like MoW. So do they agree with our military spending. Free trade is an issue that cuts across party lines. Relations with foreign countries differ from one to the next. In the end, there are no defining issues that create tangible differences between the parties. No hot button issues like guns, gays, or God (which, by the way, is why Ajay Bruno is such a horrible joke). So if there’s no legitimate ideological differences, we can see that the parties are really just social clubs. Nothing more.

3) Because the parties are social clubs, it makes zero sense for the parties to fight- I mean really, what more is there to say here? Why on earth do parties fight? It’s really just personality clashes. Emerick vs. ProggyPop was a pissing match of two stubborn dudes. Claire vs. HarrisonRichardson is basically the same thing (except Claire’s not a dude…I think). Our fights are personal, not political.

4) Congress is powerless- Here’s the big revelation from my end. I was in Congress for months. I was the first Speaker. How can I say that Congress is powerless? Well, it is. The reason is that Congress can basically press a few buttons and that’s about it. If you think about what the US actually does, the vast majority of substantial activities relate to foreign affairs, military, and social welfare. Congress gets to do the following to relation to those tasks; approve of the expenditures, approve MPPs, approve war declarations. Oh, and they have some general impeachment and tax powers.

My point is this; big deal. The powers of Congress are basically meaningless compared to the power of the Executive Branch. We give the Executive Branch complete control over the military, foreign relations, and general social welfare. The President determines ALL of these positions. This has nothing to do with game mechanics…this is entirely about the power relations we’ve set up in this country.

The fact is that the game mechanics create weak governments to begin with. The most important things we can do are out of game functions and out of mechanics powers. In this country, we’ve given all of that to the President. So Congress can sit around and debate whether the VAT tax should be 3% or 5% or if we should sign an MPP with the Czeck, but it’s all irrelevant. Every day they have these discussions, the Executive Branch is coordinating military campaigns, foreign relations, and running the day to day operations of our country. Congress is basically a bunch of bystandards.

5) Partisan fighting over Congress is a waste of manpower- This is where we come full circle. I’ve explained why partisanship is stupid and Congress is worthless. So when we get fights over Congressional representation on the basis of partisanship, well that’s just plan dumb. Why on earth would we spend the time having fights between politically similar parties over politically worthless powers? Seriously.

The worst part is that we spend so much time and effort moving votes around, coordinating among our clubs, attacking each other, that we don’t really look at the world at large. While we fight for control over a worthless Congress, PEACE took over Croatia. What does more for our security and power; a stronger Conservative congressional delegation, or a free Croatia?

Here's My Challenge

I challenge all of you to give up your traditional notions of partisanship. Forget who runs Congress. It doesn’t matter. Sure the Executive Branch matters, but there’s no need to attack Harrison because he’s USWP or Claire because she’s a Libertarian. Look at people on the basis of merit.

But more importantly, I challenge all of you to drop partisan tensions entirely. Come together as a nation. Figure out what’s best for us to ensure our global power. Volunteer to help the Executive Branch. Come up with new strategies to protect our allies and our foreign interests. The sooner we move to a united country that focuses on global affairs, the sooner we can really become a true global powerhouse. Until then, we’re nothing more than a country on the borderline between power and weakness, caught up in our endless and pointless political squabbles.