Strategic Factors: Constitutional or Utopian, Progress or Restraint?

The value of being conservative or progressive depends on the merit and persuasive gravity of the objectives that progressive or conservative goals would achieve at home and in U.S. foreign policy. If the achievement of progress or restraint morphs into provocative, anti-constitutional, one-party, identity-tribal, or single branch government ideology at home, it will be seen as hypocritical and divisive abroad and fail to bring strategic value.

Conclusions drawn in cognitive dissonance from ideologically-driven gridlock trend in Bush v. Gore litigation-style government that the late Chief Justice Rehnquist considered a case of bad judgment. Such extreme lengths to win boost irrational narrative-RPMs in our news cycles, spinning our constitutional wheels off the axles, or provoking ideological downdrafts that would ground the wings of freedom.

If progress happens by a constitutional, multi-party, multi-bloc electorate, however slow, the many coming together to do the right thing on issues facing the people of the nation, states, and localities will bring lasting stability. Constitutionally-timed governance gives a chance for diverse demographics to pioneer the puzzle-solving process that is non-monolithic, trends in competition, and tests solutions across the vertical and horizontal jurisdictions of federalism.

Within that context, the U.S.A. is big enough to accommodate different approaches. And when something works well in one state or locale, many will adopt similar meritorious approaches elsewhere. There will be flux, amendment, and correction as reality in practice reveals better policy-to-persons design. In that puzzle solving process, legislative statesmanship is an artful game of representation, not a gladiator game for shallow or vexatious politicians.

By working and learning at electoral professionalism both among the electorate and the candidates, and resulting governance, our constitutional republican democracy will progress and restrain itself rationally and positively. Finding reason for optimism is a practical art of statesmanship in a country dedicated to cohesion within the rule of law and the spirit of the laws sifted by human advocates and jurists.