Discard the principle vs. compromise distinction

Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework," has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.

One of the most basic conflicts in politics, and in life in general, is whether to stand by your principles or be open to compromise. Woodrow Wilson is known as a president who stood by his principles regarding America's need to join the League of Nations, an organization he proposed for all of the participants in World War I in his famous 1918 Fourteen Points.

That dedication ultimately killed Wilson because his passionate defense of his principles led to a stroke during a speech in Pueblo, Colo. The Republican-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee refused to confirm Wilson's treaty because it failed to meet a number of members’ reasonable demands.

Abraham Lincoln, according to the late Harvard historian David Donald in “ Lincoln Reconsidered,” was the quintessential pragmatist who said, "My policy is to have no policy." He did what he needed to do in order to preserve the Union, including issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 at a time when it served our interests to discourage England and France from joining sides with the Confederate states halfway through the Civil War.

Parents are confronted with the tension between principle and compromise regularly in raising their children. Some parents rigidly follow moral principles and raise their children to be honest and fair and develop a strong conscience; other parents encourage their children to be empathetic, caring and open to offering people breaks. In the 1950s, these two styles would have separated fathers and mothers, whereas today things are much more complicated.

It is time to discard the binary choice between principle and compromise. Indeed, Donald's Lincoln is a case in point. For although Donald argued that Lincoln was in the "pragmatist tradition" of American history, he insisted that Lincoln was committed to a range of basic moral and political principles, notably the leading concepts of liberty and equality in the Declaration of Independence. The philosopher John Dewey epitomizes the pragmatist tradition, since he rejected the traditional "Quest for Certainty" in Western philosophy that included the individualist standpoint for obtaining knowledge associated with the "father of modern philosophy," the 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes.

In American politics today, the right-wing Freedom Caucus is the most devoted to principles, especially principles about limited government. Yet so devoted are its members to their principles that they have caused great disruption not only in the Republican Conference but in the House of Representatives and Congress overall. The ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy for working with the Democrats to prevent the government from shutting down was a destructive act. If Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is able to lead an effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, then more damage will be done to the House, Congress and Washington politics overall.

Whether the topic is personal life, Washington politics or the wars between the Russians and the Ukrainians and the Israelis and Hamas (and the Palestinians), the old binary choice between principle and compromise must be rejected. There is plainly too much complexity in personal life, American politics and international affairs today to rest decisions solely on principle or compromise. The only principles that should be relied on should be subject to revision and negotiation.

Democrats, for example, must be open to raising the age for Social Security benefits. It is no longer tenable to be 100 percent against such a political change when people are living longer due to better health care and the vast majority of jobs are not in physical labor. Exceptions can be made, but 100 percent commitment to retaining a 67-year-old retirement age for full benefits (which reflects one change since 1935) is more a sign of electoral fear and self-protection than responsible politics.

A truce in Washington is needed between the advocates of principles and the advocates of compromise. We literally need some new words and phrases (at the very least language like "this vital principle is not an absolutist principle") to help us chisel away at the brutal polarization in Washington, which is much worse than the polarization in the country. According to Gallup, 43 percent of Americans in 2023 did not even identify as Democrats or Republicans. They identified as independents.

Overcoming the simplistic binary choice between principles and compromise should be one of the main themes of election 2024. It would benefit our country if someone running for president talked about this issue.