“If Mark Twain had had Twitter, he would have been amazing at it. But he probably wouldn’t have gotten around to writing Huckleberry Finn.” -Andy Borowitz.
I suspect many people never meet their congressional representatives face to face. Having done business in a border community between Iowa and Illinois for forty years, I’ve been lucky to meet personally with Senators Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley, both from Iowa; Congressmen Jim Leach and Dave Loebsack from Iowa; and Congresswoman Sheri Bustos from Illinois. All but Senator Grassley have since left their seats.
Despite skeptical preconceptions, I was impressed with each of these people. I assessed them as hard-working, smart, respectful, and genuine. If we were in a business setting, I would be comfortable working through constructive disagreement to solve problems with any of them.
But my skepticism persists. How can it be that I have such a high impression of them and such a poor impression of the institutions they occupy? I’m amazed that superficially easy problems appear unsolvable by the bright minds we send to Washington. In December I published Bad Sausage - by Joel E. Lorentzen - Uncommon Sense (substack.com) that argues the merits of divided government. One reader commented, “How on earth did the founding fathers do what they did???” Great question.
Our founding fathers had stark disagreements on the form and powers of a federal government. They dealt with a skeptical media and public. Yet they created a country durable enough to bring us here. I am not a historian, but I speculate they had two advantages compared to today.
First, they were motivated by having just escaped an authoritarian regime they universally resented. Progress through thoughtful compromise was implicit, lest they remain vulnerable to re-colonization.
Second, I theorize they communicated better. That may seem counter intuitive. Our founding fathers had no Twitter, no email, no fax machines, not even a typewriter. Travel between their locations took weeks and was potentially dangerous. To correspond, they had to write, and writing, I argue, was their advantage.
Imagine being one of the founders. To write, you must commit paper, ink, and time – all precious resources. Every step is an intense, tactile act. First select the appropriate paper. Parchment? Vellum? Rag paper? Open the ink and set it carefully near the paper. Roll up your sleeves to avoid smears. Dip and blot the quill. Position the tip in exactly the right spot to space the words. Press just hard enough to crease the surface and leave the ink trail. Write as many complete words as the ink allows, careful not to interrupt a word. Select each word with precision. Sequence them correctly. There is no backspace. Cross-outs are unprofessional. Do-overs are expensive.
To deliver the letter is costly, uncertain, and potentially risky. Do I trust the King’s Service? Private courier? If it takes a week to get there, a week for the recipient to answer (if they are there at all), and a week to deliver back, should I expect a response in a month?
They had to think deeply before they wrote. They wrote respectfully so the recipient would read it. They wrote clearly so their points were understood. Importantly, they also read and acknowledged what they were sent. This investment made each correspondence a forward projection of their essence; their goodwill in disagreement, and their desire and willingness to resolve.
Their letters seeded the rarer and even more expensive opportunities to meet in person, where compromises were hammered out and resolutions documented. Then, back to pen and paper with the Federalist Papers, 85 articles over a year, to convince dubious citizens that a federal government of the people could work.
I acknowledge that I am romanticizing the period. I know there was vitriol and violence. But given that, there was also progress. Starting with the Articles of Confederation, it took thirteen years for the original colonies to negotiate and ratify our Constitution. If that seems a long time, ask yourself, “With all our advantages, what have we accomplished of similar significance this century?” Comparatively, our challenges are pedestrian. Immigration and border security are not hard problems; scaling Social Security and Medicare to their funding sources is not a hard problem; scaling the federal government to its funding source is not a hard problem. Yet these divisive issues persist for decades with no progress.
Now, from outside it appears that protocols, party, and staff politics prevent our bright Congresspeople from interacting constructively. Communication focuses on over-powering the opposition, not engaging them. Committee meetings are highly scripted, and our representatives seem just clumsy actors. The staff-produced legalize of legislation is barely interpretable. Floor debate is recorded and rarely viewed. Negotiations play out on Twitter and media soundbites, completely lacking convincing argumentation. The infrequent op-eds are stilted sales gimmicks, deflecting opposition as either uninformed or evil.
Do any of our representatives write down their genuine, nuanced thoughts to personally engage a political rival? They should. “Writing is telepathy,” according to Stephen King in On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft. They would understand each other as well-meaning individuals as opposed to props of their party.
Writing forces clarity. The words must make sense when you read them back to yourself. When shared through writing, ideas become more malleable, more convincing, and ultimately, better. Especially if the words are read, answered, and reconsidered in good faith with common motivation. Writing exposes you. The act of writing attaches writers to their words in an ethereal sense, as if part of their identity flows through their fingertips into the document. We’ve all experienced the warmth of receiving a hand-written note we didn’t expect. In the same way, receiving something thoughtfully written to you breaks down barriers. A constructive intimacy is assumed. Engagement follows.
Perhaps constructive dialogue occurs invisibly to me. Perhaps they meet personally over coffee to overcome impasses. If so, it would be great to hear about it. But I fear what I suspect is what is. Very smart people working very, very hard frustrated by a culture that inhibits such personal exchange.
Nevertheless, individuals can make choices. Today, my border community’s districts are represented by Eric Sorenson in Illinois and Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa. They are not the show people for national media. They were work-a-day people who switched careers to help. I haven’t met either of them, yet, but expect I would like them both. They are of opposite parties. Will they write to each other to ideate on behalf of our community? Or to any other member on any other issue? Could they be convinced to try? I hope so. It would be refreshing to see some common sense break out.
I agree; "Writing forces clarity." Unfortunately, I feel writing and writing clarity are becoming watered down as time goes on; handwriting by word processors, clarity and precision by abbreviated texts, and now writing by AI bots. I believe technology is critical for increasing productivity and speed. I fully embrace and adopt technologies. However, will society become too reliant on technology to form thoughts and craft arguments that further reduce the willingness and ability to debate one-on-one?