The Last “Fair Deal” Gone Down

Chris Voss

Chris Voss used to be the FBI’s lead international hostage negotiator, and famously got American citizens out of difficult scrapes with organizations like Daesh and Hamas. After retiring from public service, he reinvented himself as a consultant for large-scale corporate negotiations. Fairly early in his book Never Split the Difference, Voss describes one of his most persistently effective strategies. Confronted by hostile negotiators, he’ll offer: “We only want what’s fair.”

This appeal to fairness makes sense. From childhood, we’re conditioned to consider fairness in decision-making: we play baseball in Phys-Ed according to established rules because it’s fair. We don’t charge classmates exorbitant prices for lemonade, because that’s unfair. We accept fairness as a necessary stipulation for any exchange between equals, based on one simple premise: it’s fair to treat others how we’d want to be treated, if the positions were reversed.

However, the fairness criterion crumbles if we lack one important presumption: fairness exists between equals. If one negotiation partner doesn’t consider others equal, things crumble. We’ve witnessed the tragedy of grade-school losers abasing themselves to earn admission into some clique, because they believe the “cool kids” possess some innate superiority, which the losers cannot approach with self-respect. In that case, one can never relinquish enough to buy acceptance.

We’re witnessing the opposite of grade-school losers now, with this weekend’s passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. People who consider themselves naturally superior, who believe they’re the “cool kids” and not beholden to lesser rules, have changed their own definition of fairness. Mitch McConnell, who held a Supreme Court seat open an unprecedented eight months in 2016, wants to rush an appointment in 2020 just six weeks before the election.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Centrists and Progressives have responded by throwing Republicans’ own words at them. Besides McConnell, Lindsey Graham specifically insisted no SCOTUS seat should ever be filled during an election year. Ted Cruz went further, stating a willingness to hold the bench open forever if Hillary Clinton became President. Even Cruz’s own home-state journalists have called out Cruz’s inconsistency, which evidently bothers him not at all. Fairness only exists between equals.

Therein lies the problem. Fairness can only exist between people who consider themselves, in some fundamental way, equal. People who seek power don’t consider themselves equal to those they seek power over. One cannot seek power without having an inflated sense of one’s importance, in both the political arena and life generally; one must believe oneself gifted with rare insight, and the even rarer discretion to use that insight wisely.

This isn’t a partisan concern; Republicrats and Demoplicans share this self-righteousness. However, it does manifest in different ways. The Donkey Party believes they can foster equality between everyone else, that judicious application of political authority can rectify injustices based on race, class, sex (in various forms), and nationality. Admittedly, they often approach it high-handedly, as Bill Clinton’s draconian drug laws demonstrate; and they’re painfully willing to snuggle with moneyed interests.

The Elephant Party, however, doesn’t share this precept. Not only do they not regard themselves as equal with the general citizenry, they don’t regard citizens as equal with one another. They openly believe money indicates moral favor, that the rich are innately good people. Though they verbally disavow discrimination on race, sex, or poverty, their willingness to authorize police shooting dissidents in the face demonstrates where their loyalties lie.

Ted “Mr. Consistency” Cruz

Therefore, cries that the GOP demanding a hasty judicial appointment are “unfair” reveal the differences we plebs have from Senators. McConnell and Cruz not only believe themselves better humans than us pedestrians, they believe that persistent divisions between Americans reflect a moral order that rewards good people justly: the poor are obviously bad people, because they’re poor. Ipso facto, QED.

Appeals to fairness will never work with people who don’t regard themselves as equal, or us as equal with one another. Republicans believe social inequities reflect an underlying moral order, one which rewards the worthy in perfect proportion to their objective merits. Democrats believe social inequities reflect a drift away from moral order. Both believe capital-T Truth exists, but disagree on what that means.

This difference will persist, sadly. Democrats will attempt to compromise, whittling away their moral core, because they believe fairness exists. Republicans, meanwhile, have grown increasingly rock-ribbed since at least Dwight Eisenhower because they believe themselves above fairness. The parties, and their electoral bases, don’t share core principles. And that’s because, sadly, they don’t share a belief in human worth. Unfortunately, you can’t teach somebody to care about other people.