Leave winners and losers to the NFL or the NBA. Winners and losers have no place nor standing
in a system of self-governance.
When races are cast as races, we demand to know who
won. When polls are taken, our
competitive spirits are engaged. The
American psyche is hard wired to be competitive and in a competition winning is
the solitary goal. Lombardi is credited
for having said, “Winning is not the most important thing, winning is the only
thing.” Certainly the stories about
competitors who put sportsmanship above victory are celebrated but they are miniscule in number
when compared to the stories about the victors, the winners, the undefeated.
Last Saturday night, we Americans, including non-golfers,
were already gloating about the American Ryder Cup team who held such a
commanding lead that victory was ordained.
No shrift was given that the invading Europeans could go head to head
with a truly remarkable team of Americans and dominate the result. They did.
The Europeans not only retained the Cup, which a tie would have
accomplished, but they won the event outright.
Competition at its finest was on display. Individuals and teams vied for victory. The rules were fair; the result was
clear. Competition brought the best out
of some and the pressure of competition debilitated others.
During the days of summer, the boys of summer give us daily
doses of competition. Baseball, the
national pastime, is played for 162 games by each of 30 teams. In all of those teams, there are individual
players who excel and who fail, who win and who lose as each game moves toward
declaring a winner and a loser. Rules
won’t allow a game to end until the job of finding a winner and loser is
done. Millions of us watch these
competitions. The bile rises in our
throats when an ump makes a bad call.
Our hopes for ultimate victory stay sharp even when a team is 11 games
out with 12 games to play. The intense
desire to win does not abate until defeat is absolutely assured.
Competition is credited with the ability to find the ultimate good
through a fair test applied to competitors.
When Coke squares off against Pepsi, the product that is best will sell
the most soda. Right? When Apple and Microsoft vigorously compete,
the consumer wins through lower prices and better products. Right?
Saying yes is essential for any free marketeer. However, if winning is the goal with greatest sales or greatest profits as
the way to keep score, competition becomes marketing to get the highest
prices.
Companies analyze markets – retail markets are you and
me. They try to learn everything about
our behavior and spin their product stories to conform to our predictable behavior. That’s how
they compete. Having the best widget isn’t
critical, sometimes completely irrelevant, when the goal is to beat the competition. A competitor spins its stories so our self-image is enhanced over the image created by other competitors. They play to our prejudices. As for price, most companies work their
message so they can charge the highest price possible. Competition is one constraint on price but it
only works if consumers believe the products or services are exactly the
same. That’s why marketing tells stories
that exaggerate the differences – not stories about competing on a level field.
All of which brings me back to political competition. In nearly every form of media, contested elections are described in terms of competition. The language and image of a race is the
omnipresent metaphor. A race demands that
there be a winner, a victor. As a part
of our competitive spirit, we ascribe to the belief that, “to the victor goes
the spoils” – there is compensation for winning.
For democracy, the idea of winners gathering the spoils of victory
directly contradicts the promise of self-governance. The two party system is not part of the
constitution nor critical to democracy – it is an outgrowth of our affinity for
competition – for simplistic determination of winners and losers.
In a democracy, elected officials are chosen to serve – not to
be enriched by the spoils of victory.
Being elected to serve does not bestow a right to mandate laws that will
punish those who voted for a different candidate or who hold a different view. Failing to be elected does not bestow the
right to undermine and do grievous damage to the freedom ensured by
self-government.
We are, today, embroiled
in electing people who will serve us. It would be wrong to simply choose
winners. This is not a competition. If voters treat elections as a competition, voters
will be the losers. As we voters and
non-voters listen to ads, to stump speeches, to media coverage and to debates
(at every level), I hope we won’t let the competitive adrenalin drown the
responsibility of self-governing. As we decide about the best way to steward our right to vote, I hope we'll value each candidate’s
capacity for service above helping any team to win.
--td