Baker’s State of the State Speech: Compromise Sorely Needed in Massachusetts
By NBP Editorial Board | January 30, 2017, 15:46 EST
Governor Charlie Baker in his State of the State Speech last week said: “Our obligation to the people we serve is too important to place politics and partisanship before progress and results.”
Governor Baker unfortunately was not describing what really happens in the Commonwealth. His statement was one of hope, a plea, an exhortation.
Not a statement of fact.
What characterizes Massachusetts politics is pure partisan politics. Massachusetts is the bluest of blue states. It is a one-party state. Massachusetts is run by the Democratic Party, which routinely puts power above principle. (And when it doesn’t, the principle is usually bad.)
Now it is elevating power above the law. In America the Left now turns to violent protest when it doesn’t get its way, and we have seen almost every day since President Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Governor Baker also stated: “Too much of what passes for political dialogue these days isn’t dialogue at all. It’s talking points. Character assassination. And deliberate misrepresentation.”
In Massachusetts, who engages in deliberate misrepresentation and character assassination? The Left!
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh recently implied that those who voted for Trump did so out of racist motives. In the Commonwealth, if one believes that the Judeo-Christian worldview clearly teaches that marriage should only be between a man and a woman and the importance of the traditional nuclear family, one is called homophobic. If one believes in the sanctity of human life, one is called against women’s rights and a misogynist. If one believes in the rule of law and is against sanctuary cities like the majority of Americans, one is called anti-immigrant.
The Democratic Party in Massachusetts exercises monolithic power in the Commonwealth. More than 75 percent of the state representatives and senators are Democrats, and many are not old-line liberals. They are militant leftists like Senator Elizabeth Warren and most of the Massachusetts congressmen. Thus, compromise, when it occurs, is rare and only on economic issues, not on vital issues for our youth like charter schools.
Governor Baker said the following: “Our Founders worried a lot about the tyranny of the majority.” Massachusetts is a picture book example of the tyranny of the majority. Massachusetts has 114 universities and colleges, and the Left is so entrenched in the Academy that a recent study showed that the ratio of left-to-conservative professors in New England was 28:1. And the Left’s worldview in the Academy works its way through the culture here in the Commonwealth.
In his message Governor Baker pleaded for compromise. He called compromise a sign of strength. And he is right. That is the way the Founders designed the American experiment 230 years ago. But that is not the way Massachusetts functions.
Baker stated: “It’s one thing to stand in a corner and shout insults at your opponents. It’s quite another to climb into the arena and fight for common ground.”
The media in Boston implied that Governor Baker was talking about President Trump and his team in Washington. But in Massachusetts those who shout insults are those on the intolerant Left.
May Governor Baker’s vision be translated into reality so that disagreements can exist without resorting to name calling and violent protests. Our Democratic leaders in Massachusetts need to heed Governor Baker’s words in his State of the State message, or our fragile society will divide even further, which is a prescription for trouble in the years to come.