The Art of the Compromise; Hold Your Nose and Close Your Eyes.

Politics is a Dirty Business; Don't Rip on People Who Play it Well for their Constituents. Respect Them, and Elect People Who Can Play the Game as Well as They Do.

I woke up on Sunday, and this was the first thing at the top of my feed on Substack.

On first glance this looks utterly corrupt, horrible and everything wrong with our government in one statement. This bill was HORRIBLE on many different levels, and the overwhelming majority of the American public agree (polling shows ~67% DISAPPROVAL of the bill). Peoples’ morals and standards should be so much higher than selling out for this.

This post is NOT about how truly horrible that bill is.

You know what though— Walsh is wrong. This is how our government is designed to work and has ALWAYS worked. It’s politics, not appreciating the most pious of moral superiority. Those on the positive side of the equation are like “Well, it cost us a lot, but we got it through,” while those on the other side of the equation are all “I can’t believe they sold themselves out like this!” Oh, boo hoo. Such a pity party.

You know what history says and most people end up remembering about it? It got passed.

What, you’d rather have a person or party being able to legislate by fiat, just because of straight party line numbers? The perception is always the same; they expect everyone to be in compliance when they are in the majority, and scream about corruption when they are not. That’s not really how a representative democracy works, yet seems to be this drift that the most activist, extremist members of both sides think and advocate; they count to a majority and say “HEY! WE GOT THE NUMBERS NOW TO DO WHAT WE WANT!” and then complain that what they want dissuades many people from many places across the country.

Lisa Murkowski is elected as Senator of Alaska to do one thing— represent the people of Alaska. That means getting the most she can from the federal government for them. That’s her job. That’s the ONE thing for which she should be considered on whether or not she is doing a good job for her constituents and whether they return her to Washington. From the sound of the article, she was able to do just that. Where the momentum in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill was to gut various programs, she was able to secure for Alaska exemptions and tax breaks to 1) benefit her state, and 2) get the bill through to the benefit of her party, who will be there in the future for her when she needs them. For the record, yes it is hypocritical she would focus only on Alaska and not put pressure to have those carve outs included for everyone; however, it certainly makes her look effective to her constituents who keep sending her back to Washington D.C. She can hang her hat on that when/if she runs again. To everyone upset at her, all I ask is what were you offering to benefit her and the people of the great state of Alaska to be on your side?

“But PurpleAmerica," you may say, “THIS IS DISGRACEFUL. THE BLATANT CORRUPTION! HOW CAN YOU ADVOCATE FOR IT!” First, I’m not advocating it. It would be great if every politician didn’t engage in this type of behavior. But that’s only as good as everyone plays by those rules; the second one person doesn’t, those rules go out the window. At that point, if you’re not playing by those new standards, you’re not doing your job. Second, EVERY politician engages in this to get what they want for their districts. In order to get the votes they need to help them in some way, they have to play ball on other things, usually that don’t impact their districts all that much, but helps others and gives them a chit they can cash in later when they need it. As if to demonstrate, there used to be earmarks like this all the time—it helped grease the wheels on passage, particularly among moderate members of both parties. Once they got rid of them, legislation ground to a halt and resulted in rank partisanship.

“But it’s NEVER been this bad,” I hear some of you saying. That’s where you’re wrong. IT’S ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY. Don’t believe me?

There’s a great song in Hamilton called “The Room Where it Happens” highlighting and describing this very exact thing, about ACTUAL events in our nation’s history.¹ Hamilton sells out having New York City as the nation’s capital so that they can get his U.S. Treasury Bill passed and keep the banking sector centered in New York.

Among some of the great lines in this song that describe the process? Get ready:

No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in the room where it happens

No one really knows how the parties get to "Yes"
The pieces that are sacrificed in every game of chess
We just assume that it happens
But no else is in the room where it happens

Maybe we could solve one problem with another
And win a victory for the Southerners
In other words
Ho ho
A quid pro quo
Wouldn't you want to work closer to home?
I suppose. 
Let's see how it goes. 

The art of the compromise
Hold your nose and close your eyes
We want our leaders to save the day
But we don't get a say in what they trade away
We dream of a brand new start
But we dream in the dark for the most part
Dark as a tomb where it happens
I've got to be in the room (room where it happens)

This is why it won all those awards. Damn it’s good at actualy describing, well, politics and history.

Not enough? Well there was this Oscar winning movie called “Lincoln”² which is all about how “Honest Abe” got his hands dirty in order to get the 13th Amendment passed. You may recall it. Sure, he righted an immeasurable wrong, but how he got others, not all in their best interest, to actually vote in favor of it is the whole story.

And if that’s not enough, let’s take something a little more recent in time. Obamacare. Democrats have held up Obamacare as an important piece of legislation and have defended it time and time and time again. Remember how it got passed? A little think called the “Cornusker Kickback” which helped solidify enough Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster by essentially bribing Democratic Senator Ben Nelson. There were other provisions benefitting some holdout legislators as well, but Nelson was specifically targeted because he was a Dem representing a relatively Republican state, and would pay a huge price in 2010. Those benefits to Nebraska would be stripped from the final bill but at that point they only needed 50 votes. However, bring up Obamacare today, and Democrats’ collective memory exhibits amnesia about all the hoops and obstacles they had to navigate in order to get it passed, and how they managed those.

Joe Walsh certainly remembers them. He was a member of the 2010 Tea Party wave that decried it as horrible! And in all that time in D.C. did Walsh ever get something passed requiring the aid of this method? Of course he did. It’s how he got things done too.

Democrats unloaded on Joe Manchin repeatedly, because he would waver on more liberal bills and his hemming and hawing watered them down (to the appeal of his state) and got pork for him to bring back to West Virginia. That’s actually effective legislating right there. And for bringing over his vote for the majority and helping secure important legislation when it was needed time and again, what did it bring him? The ire of every liberal Democrat who wouldn’t have ANYTHING without that vote, and now are one vote less on a lot they need because West Virginia went from a Dem Senator to a state that voted for the Republican by thirty points.

That’s one of the reasons the youthful idealism that elected Zoran Mamdani and got David Hogg to be Vice Chair of the DNC is so shortsighted. Yeah, they’re photogenic up and comers with big instragram followings. You know what they’re not? Good players at politics. It’s like they’re at a poker table and not spotting the sucker. They don’t know how to get anything done. Zoran went from a three term NY State Assemblyman with no real achievements to possibly running the largest city in the country; he’s going to be in for a rude awakening if he wins and people don’t do what he directs them to. These young naive neophytes seem intent on trying to get younger more idealistic people elected, which would only further the hole Democrats are in. For everyone’s love of Obama, he wasn’t great at it either³, and if not for a 60 vote Dem Majority and people around him like Rahm Emanuel who DID know how to get things done, his Presidency wouldn’t look nearly as rosy. I always find it amusing when people try to run on a platform of “Changing the System!” More often than not the system changes them.

It’s like learning the rules of the sport and watching it, and then being like “Why do they do play this game that way? Why don’t they do it this other way, which would revolutionize the sport!” People who say that think they’re smart but are just demonstrating their naivete. That is, until they actually start playing it and realizing the reason everyone did it that way was because it was the most effective way to do it. There is learning the rules of a game, and then understanding the best ways to work within them, usually referred to as “unwritten rules.” Those people never admit their stupidity, they always just conform to doing it that way. It’s called experience and on the job training.

People are bored with the likes of Charles Grassley and John Cornyn and Amy Klobuchar and Mitch McConnell, but those people really know how the place works, they know how to get things back to their states and that is why they keep getting re-elected by huge margins time and time again, often with only token opposition. Those old timers have seen everything, experienced everything and know how to work within the system. Biden knew it too—that’s why he was able to get so much done in the first two years of his term with the narrowest of majorities. You know who was great at it was LBJ— he had been in the Senate for so long he knew how to twist arms and give you the carrot or the stick if you needed it. That’s how he got Civil Rights and Medicare passed. You can create more change, get more good legislation through, and uphold your moral code better by swimming with the flow rather than trying to throw a wrench in the machinery of government and hoping everyone loves you for it.

So yeah, criticize Lisa Murkowski all you want. I actually happen to think that she’s a pretty good, effective Senator working well for her constituents in Alaska. Idealists? Sure they get all the attention for their loud, uncompromising ways, but hardly ever have the ability or credibility to push through legitimate legislation. A Tea Party idealist beat Murkowski in a primary back in 2010, and she won on a WRITE IN campaign as an independent. It seems a whole lot of people from both parties back in Alaska like her a lot. It’s pretty apparent to see why.

And that’s how you win elections. That’s how you play this game.

So instead of being enthralled with the fresh face, or the prom king, or the bomb thrower, or the former actor/football player/big name, pay more attention to the otherwise boring, methodical people who played the game at the local and state level, and who learned a thing or two. They’re the ones you want representing you, because they know how to do just that. They’re often boring as grass growing, have the fashion sense of your elderly aunt or uncle, and have the appeal of bureaucrats with average faces and a hokey demeanor, but they are some of your best, most reliable players.

Yeah, it’s not ideal. Yeah, it stinks of corruption and self interest. But you know what? It works. And, it’s a lot better than all of the alternatives, and ensures legislators are responsive to their constituencies. As Winston Churchill once opined, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

“Two things people don’t want to see being made; sausage and laws.” I’ve been around both all my life.

My great-great grandfather started a meat store when he came to America and was a well known person among the south side German population in the city. The store was passed down from generation to generation (my great grandparents actually lived above the store). Some of my earliest memories are being pushed around on a pushcart in the backroom by those who worked there. During deer hunting season when hunters would often bring their successes in to make venison, we would stop by and see them making “deer dogs” in the back. My first job? I was paid $1 to turn a sausage grinder for 10 minutes. As my uncle puts it, “You were 5 and whiny and we paid you the dollar to go home.”

As for politics, I went to school for it, worked on Capitol Hill seeing it, and have been engaged and around it ever since. It’s like Michael Corleone in the Godfather III, “Just when I think I’m Out, THEY PULL ME BACK IN!”

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

"When you got skin in the game, you stay in the game. 
But you don't get a win unless you play in the game. 
Oh, you get love for it. 
You get hate for it. 
You get nothing if you... Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it.” 

—Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton (as written by Lin Manuel Miranda)

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. The musical was based on historian Ron Chernow’s book about Hamilton, which Miranda picked up while on vacation and couldn’t put down.

2. The movie “Lincoln” was based on a section of historian Doris Kearnes Goodwin’s book, “Team of Rivals.” The book is great, but very lengthy and dense, so Spielberg shortened the scope to just Lincoln’s passing of the 13th Amendment, which was a story in itself as we all saw.

3. Ask John Boehner about the “Grand Bargain” that fell apart.