In public discourse, in politics, pragmatists and activists each have a role to fulfill. The activist spurs voters to polling places, brings about interest in causes and inspires concern for the outcome of such discourse. In this role, the activist may be as extreme or as unreasonable as they wish. The pragmatist’s role is to take the causes which the activist has spurred interest in and create reasonable and fair consensus solutions to them. In this role they must be at least nominally moderate. The activist is the campaign manager, the pragmatist is the candidate. It is therefore concerning that in recent years, the lines between the roles of activist and pragmatist have been so heavily blurred. Suddenly, an extremist conspiracy theorist is elected President of the United States or a far-left socialist defeats the House Speaker in waiting. Suddenly, we have violent brawls in the streets and shouting matches at Thanksgiving because such activists have abused their position as full-on leaders to stoke division amongst citizens. Electing activists over pragmatists is dangerous to the unity of this country and must cease to be the norm. 

Activists do nothing but divide, while pragmatists do nothing but unite. Pragmatists are always far more popular than their activist counterparts and always are more effective at reaching a deal. For the Democrats, this has always been evident. Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia managed to push Medicaid expansion through the Republican controlled Virginia Legislature by making some tough deals with Republican lawmakers. As a result of his labor, his deal-making, 400,000 more people have access to Medicaid in the state of Virginia. Stacey Abrams made similar deals when she was Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. She made deals on redistricting, on budgets, rather than try to futilely oppose whatever Republicans proposed, because she knew whatever deal she cut, whatever painful concessions she had to make, would be better than what the GOP would have otherwise forced on her. On the Republican side, Governor Brian Sandoval comes to mind. He has been Governor of Nevada since 2011 and he has constantly been forced to deal with a Democratic controlled Legislature. Despite this, he has had almost every one of his campaign promises fulfilled. This is for the same reason that Northam was successful in Virginia, because he cut deals, because he negotiated with the opposition. Once one shuts down their opposition as unreasonable, as the activists do, they can get nothing done.  This is why we should value pragmatists over activists, they get their work done, and do so without everyone being infuriated at everyone else. 

Both parties are guilty of deciding activists are qualified for positions of government. On the Republican side, one must look no further than the President himself to find an extremist activist turned into political leader. He alone should be enough to prove the dangers of electing activists to office. He has abused his office and the power of his word to stoke hatred amongst political groups and divide the United States. This is obvious to all of us. As a result of Trump’s extremist tendencies, his party failed to pass healthcare reform, as he decided to use fellow extremist activists instead of moderates to determine the legislation, he failed to protect his party from losing the House, and he failed to get any meaningful immigration reform through. It is because he is an activist that he fails. On the Democratic side, look no further than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Unlike Trump, I have nothing wrong with Cortez personally, I think she is inherently a good person. However, her extremist political positions have already been damaging to her constituents. She has far too many overly lofty goals to be effective in Congress.  Far too much of her time will be spent attempting to pass Medicare for all, a Green New Deal and universal college for her to be effective in Congress. These policy goals will not pass under any circumstances and will make it impossible for her to work on issues relevant to her district, as fellow lawmakers are wary to work with an extremist. As one can see, activists like Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should have no place in government because they divide the nation and because they are weak in the hallmark of this representative republic, negotiation. Because activists have a very strong “my way or the highway” mindset, they cannot get deals done, they cannot pass legislation and ultimately, they cannot unify or lead. 

The danger of activists is, I hope, obvious to you. They cannot legislate and they cannot lead. Pragmatists lead, legislate and get stuff done. Pragmatists like Stacey Abrams should hold the offices of powe, not activists like Donald Trump.