Everyone has heard politicians promise to fight for us. It may sound active and exciting, but the fact is that the most successful politicians do less fighting and more horse trading in order to accomplish their goals.
These promises to fight typically come from the leaders of an executive branch — presidents or governors; both Donald Trump and Joe Biden love the word — or members of a legislative branch, at the federal or state level.
The tough-guy talk is understandable. A president or governor has to sound like he’s working tirelessly. At the legislative level, many of these elected officials plan to run for office again (and again and again), so they want their constituents to think of them as active, determined leaders of democracy.
Still, the use of the word “fight” inevitably leads to this question: in what way?
Is somebody who promises to fight for the people he represents going to start throwing punches at opponents? Will he resort to unethical means to get something done? Is he going to be a verbal fighter, hurling insults with no concern for the impact of his words?
An internet search of “Why do politicians say ‘fight’ all the time?” returned an interesting 2020 column from The Washington Post. The writer, Paul Waldman, observed, “The single most important bias in the news media is not in favor of any ideology, it’s a bias toward conflict.
“Fights, whether genuine or contrived, have all the dramatic elements that outlets look to build stories out of. In turn, both party’s bases are attracted to those whom they see engaging in those conflicts, rather than the people in Congress who are most effective at legislating.”
How true. There is a doctoral dissertation waiting for someone who compares the frequency of elected officials’ use of “I promise to fight for you” with that same group’s actual record of achievement. It may be that some of the greatest would-be political fighters haven’t won many of their bouts.
The political world ought to ease up on its Fight Club (the movie version, if you saw it, was one guy’s complete fantasy) and instead focused getting things done. This thought occurs after a news release from State Auditor Shad White, who announced that his office had returned more than $63,000 to various governments in March through public employee repayments or judicial orders of restitution.
“From big cases to small cases, we fight for the taxpayers every month,” White’s press release proclaimed. And it is true. The Audit Department typically is not shy about going after public money.
But White and his auditors are not “fighting.” They are doing the even tougher work of bookkeeping, research and analysis to figure out what went wrong and how much money got stolen.
Let’s face it, though: The Fight Club is here to stay. It sounds strong and positive. It sounds better than, “Just honest people doing our job,” even though that’s actually a perfect description — for some officials who claim to be fighting.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
