This would probably be well suited to a video, but I believe that I will do the argument better in writing. Compromise and negotiation are not what many people believe. There seems to be a belief that negotiation and compromise are bargains wherein 2 or more parties want something and if they do not meet in the middle then the negotiation is a failure and both sides should just walk away. There is a clear and instinctual understanding of this as being a fair and equitable approach to mutual arrangements. After all, everyone gets a little of what they want, right?

As logical as that argument sounds, it is actually a fallacy, especially in politics. Let's take conservatism as the prime example of how this form of compromise will create a consistent losing streak for what conservatives believe in. Conservatism, as a basis, is the conservation and maintenance of what is within a political system. It is rare for conservatives to argue in promotion of something new, even if it would promote the foundational principles they claim to believe in, as the desire to maintain what is is the primary goal of conservatism. How can you ask for more when you are already spending your political capital trying to protect what is? The truth is that asking for more is the only way to protect what is.

Let us follow a series of theoretical gun control propositions for the sake of visualizing this explanation. In this example, we are a country with zero gun regulations. There are a series of mass shootings, prompting left-wing politicians to advocate for gun control to mitigate criminal activity. In there words, they want to make it harder for criminals to get their hands on guns. Conservative politicians believe that being able to own a weapon to protect oneself is a human right. Rather than advocate for alternative legislation to ensure that even more Americans will have access to guns and training so that they can properly protect themselves, they simply choose to argue that we should defend the natural right to bare arms.

Negotiations proceed. Conservatives come to the table wanting gun ownership rights to be preserved, left-wingers come to the table wanting gun control. They meet in the middle, you still have a right to bare arms, but you need to go through a series of tests to gain access to those arms. Another shooting happens, the cycle repeats and this time the conservatives come to the table wanting the regulation to not get any more involved, meanwhile the left now wants harsher penalties and a limitation on the kinds of arms you can bare. They compromise so the penalties become a little harsher, but not as much as the left wanted, and the weapon choices available become limited unless properly licensed. Rinse, repeat, the cycle continues.

In politics, if you are ever negotiating to maintain a status quo, the quid pro quo nature of compromise adopted by the political leaders of meeting in the middle is guaranteed to move the standing policy in the direction of your opponents, with the only benefit to the people who support the original legislation being that the shift in law moves slower, in smaller increments than the opposition would prefer.

This isn't a universal law, but it tends to apply to the federal institutions of The House of Representatives and the Senate. Republicans, representing the conservative "movement" within our country is less of a movement and more of a conservative "status quo". As such, there is little action that ever will move the needle in a direction that their base would support, as they simply do not want to move the needle. Additionally, meeting in the middle compromise is often one of the worst solutions possible for all sides, as it leads to consistent mediocrity in terms of results.

To explain this, I will reference a case study that was role-played in my negotiations class in graduate school. The case was a 3 party negotiation, where we had to decide upon 3 key factors that each had 5 different options. Each of the 3 persons in the negotiation had a different factor that was most important to them, with their best option in that factor offering you 200 points, the middle option offering 100 points, and the worst option offering 0 points, the points representing profitability for the businesses. For the 2 less important factors, one would have a maximum score of 100 points, 50 middle, and 0 minimum for you, and the last would have 50 maximum, 25 middle, and 0 minimum. The case was designed so that each party in the negotiation would have different number 1, 2, and 3 options. Additionally, the rank 1 option for each party would have an inverse priority to the other parties: ie. My 200 option would be the 0 option of the other 2 members, meaning everyone would miss out on value by letting the others get their 200 option.

Now, if you do the math for this case, you can see that your total points for meeting in the middle on all 3 options is equal to 175 total points. I actually find this to be a generous amount. However, if you look at the maximum value of what each member's top option is, the option where the other parties in the negotiation get 0 points, it is worth 200 points to me. That means, if we all forego compromising and instead option to maximize the one part of the negotiation we cared most about, we would earn 200 points. Obviously 200 is more than 175.

Now, most negotiations in real life aren't as clear cut as that mock negotiation from my graduate course. However, it does a good job of representing how "meeting in the middle" across the board can lead to mediocre results for everyone. There are also times when you are negotiating where you cannot afford to give up any ground without losing something vital. For politics, this would be anything that provides allowances that infringe on the rights of the people. Any compromise that hinders the ability of people to engage in their natural rights is something that no citizen should be okay with and should be taken with utmost seriousness.

It is a shame and great loss for the American people that our only traditional party chooses to be status quo conservationists and not actively pursuing the ease and opportunity of utilizing these natural rights. This is also a problem that seeps down into the constituents of the Republican party. Like frogs in a boiling pot, they continuously allow their sense of fairness and compromise to allow themselves to lose ground and continue to vote back in the same foolish politicians who believe this form of "negotiation" works. The truth is, this is not negotiation, it is a complete lack of any true negotiation. This form of compromise is simply a settlement for a battle that the party is unwilling to put the effort and spine into defending, and the constituents continue to accept. The weight of these choices will fall upon them in their later years and hinder the lives of their children. I believe it is our duty to ensure that our generation turns the tide back and stops allowing our conservatives to only conserve the status quo and not pursue anything. It is time the conservatives became progressive in the direction of the traditional American spirit!

Anyhow, that's all from me for now, for more on the topic of the failure of conservatives to compete with the left, check out the post in the @ReturnToReason community here:

https://returntoreason.locals.com/post/602002/why-the-left-wins-derek-chauvin-asymmetrys