My weekend Americanist kick continues.

Via Connecticut Local Politics comes this commentary by a new state rep back home in CT.

As a freshman legislator, I should probably be frustrated by the process, or the gridlock, or the struggle to get things done. Or maybe just by my low standing in the Chamber. But I’m not. I’ve been surprised, in fact, to discover that being productive and effective is largely a matter of effort. What is most frustrating, on the other hand, are the labels and assumptions we have to overcome to begin working at all. Me Democrat. You Republican. Liberal. Conservative. Moderate. Politician. [emphasis in original] That last label is the worst of all. Because I chose to run for office and to serve, colleagues or constituents can sometimes make negative assumptions about my motivations, my judgment, my effectiveness, and worst, my integrity.

This struck me for a few reasons. As an adolescent, I thought I’d run for office some day. As a DC resident, I constantly notice how the partisan divide pervades life in our nation’s capital. As one who aspires to a living from ideas and the written word, I’m conscious of a “gotcha” impulse in myself and others.

Whether in foreign policy, nation-building, democracy promotion or domestic reform, we should aspire to make politics less zero-sum - to the ends of better public policy-making and, moreover, building trust and respect. Democracy is nothing without those.