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More than just two ‘cups of tea,’ but something stronger

by Kahlil Byrd - 11/04/16 6:00 AM ET

No matter your vantage, rollercoastering toward a Nov. 8 vote, this ugly presidential election season is less about winning and more about survival. Should Hillary Clinton overcome her email crucible, and House Speaker Paul Ryan be victorious in the looming leadership battle in the House, overactive imaginations of political nostalgists like myself will kick into overdrive. We hearken back to when powerful Democratic and Republican insiders would, over tea or something stronger, build bipartisan solutions to our greatest problems.

Clinton and Ryan have a hard path, and also share an orientation. They both love policy. And the process. Her site calls Clinton’s plan “Vision for America.” He totes around a policy tome called “A Better Way.” After Inauguration Day, these uncomfortably sworn in purists for their ideologies could spend 100 productive days in 2017 in concert, smoothing the legislative wrinkles of their competing ideas. This won’t happen.

{mosads}Our expectations are trapped on lower floors now. Americans haven’t experienced a Washington engaged in common sense two party negotiation for a long time. Partisans don’t drink together. They are at each other’s throats. Voters are relentlessly angry about it and demand to be heard.

Many of us remember when it wasn’t like this.

Hard wired into political junkies is the image of a president of one party finding a successful but difficult compromise with a powerful congressional leader from another. Thirty-five years ago, new President Ronald Reagan and Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill brokered uneasy detente. Now reformer, then New York Times Washington Bureau Chief, Hedrick Smith wrote in 1983 about Reagan and O’Neill’s after hours effort: “Fitfully, their capacity for cooperation has developed as each has gained respect for the other’s political ability. Periodically, their lieutenants talk about how well their chiefs get along, especially after 6 P.M. when the Speaker has suggested they put politics aside.”

This relationship endured through the passage of Social Security reform in 1983 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986. It found O’Neill at Reagan’s bedside after the assassination attempt, Reagan at O’Neill’s retirement party, and both swapping jokes at St. Patrick’s Day lunches through the 80’s.

2016 is not 1981. Our president and Congress used to negotiate. Compromise was not an expletive. “Regular order” was a normal feature of America’s representative democracy. Policy ideas flowed out from Members’ offices, through committees and onto the floor of the House or Senate for a vote. A conference committee and, then, to the President’s desk for signature. We passed a budget every year. Not just occasionally during crises.

In 2017, before or after 6 p.m., “regular order” will inevitably give way to rattling brinksmanship and political dysfunction. Bursting illusion, Washington will not suddenly become functional because Hillary Clinton and Paul Ryan see eye-to-eye on the virtues of policy wonkery. And powerhouse conversations behind closed doors will be utterly unsatisfying to a restless and trust-weary American public. This election is not helping.

Clinton/Berners and Trumpers–staring venom at each others’ candidate–articulate similar grievances: Slow growth economy; negligible job creation; rising debt and fiscal instability; slipping American position in the world; disconnected elected officials and wealthy elite; and the sense that their sons’ and daughters’ lives will not be as rich as the generation before.

If they survive, Clinton and Ryan must look for answers beyond themselves and their core supporters, and outward to the American people. Today’s kinetic energy emerges from outsiders–political entrepreneurs and citizens both angrily and productively engaged in the process. The new agenda must be larger and reach far beyond what sits in policy briefings of traditional Democrats and Republicans.

Distressed partisan voters, and Independents thumbing their noses at both major party candidates, want a different process from our leaders in 2017. A bias toward action and big problem solving. Deep listening on the key areas where people want the most progress. Cherry picking the best approaches from the Right and Left. Leaning away from the stale and insular, while scaling up the most effective programs and experiments. Progress made on bettering the lives of middle-class families. Real prosperity and safety. Now.

Beyond the Oval Office. Beyond quiet cloakrooms on Capitol Hill. Out where we live. That’s where the people and transformative policy ideas reside. That’s where President Clinton and Speaker Ryan must focus. Real change for the country will not arrive with tea service in the halls of power. It’s being discussed at the kitchen tables, in living rooms and at the offices of real people. If they survive, will these leaders come and find us in 2017?

Kahlil Byrd is a Republican, was cofounder and CEO of Americans Elect, and is founder of the Invest America Fund.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

Tags Hillary Clinton Paul Ryan