Breaking rank

Reader question:

In this sentence, “a Republican Senator is breaking rank with his party”, what does “breaking rank” mean exactly?

My comments:

It means this Republican Senator, whoever he is, is taking a different position from that of the Republican Party.

Supposing we’re talking about America, which I think we are, if a Republican Senator breaks rank with his party, then he probably supports the Democrats, their opponents, on a certain issue.

For example, suppose all Republicans oppose Obama Care, a Democratic plan championed by President Barack Obama to give everyone, say, health insurance. Then, if one Republican says he is for Obama Care, he is breaking rank.

Rank, as in rank and file.

When soldiers are gathered together before a march, they are told to stand in a certain neat way that is called rank and file. By rank, they are supposed to stand in a straight line side by side while by file they’re supposed to stand in a straight line one behind another.

In this situation, if a soldier steps out of line and go it alone, he’s literally breaking rank and file, i.e. moving out of his usual, designated position.

By extension and figuratively speaking, if someone breaks rank, or ranks, then he is stepping out of line and refusing to support the goal of his group or organization. Or, simply put, he’s in disagreement with the group.

That’s all.

That’s all?

Yeah, that’s basically it. We’re all supposed to support the goal of our own group, of course, be it as a member of a political party or a ping pong club. We’re duty bound to do so. So, yeah, if you break ranks and disagree with your own group, you run the risk of being called a rebel and being isolated within the group.

So, you see, breaking ranks carries risks. Beware of that and don’t do it – breaking rank with your fellows – every day. Don’t do it, that is, without good reason.

Other than this, there’s nothing to add on the subject.

So now, media examples:

1. Being a leader means making tough decisions. Six months ago when state Reps. Greg Smith and Bob Jenson abandoned their fellow Republicans and two of our party’s most basic principles -- protecting small business and growing private-sector jobs -- I committed to hold them accountable for their votes.

Smith and Jenson were the only two Republicans in the state Legislature to vote for the new taxes that were referred to voters as Measures 66 and 67. By doing so, they broke ranks not only with their fellow elected Republicans, their party and the majority of voters in their districts, but they also broke the faith that we had in their judgment.

Measures 66 and 67 are the two most devastating single tax increases in our state’s history. These increases will continue to cost this state substantial job losses in the middle of one of the worst economic crises our country and this state have ever seen.

If not for Smith and Jenson, these job-killing taxes would not have passed.

Smith sold his vote to the Democrats, receiving political favors in exchange, while abandoning his fellow Republicans, his caucus leadership and the most basic principles of our party.

Jenson voted for every major tax increase in the special session -- gas tax, health care tax, vehicle registration fees and more. But it was his vote on these two irresponsible tax increases that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

So who were Smith and Jenson representing when voting for these tax increases?

- The cost of breaking ranks with your party, by Bob Tiernan, OregonLive.com, March 19, 2010.

2. When Edward Snowden surfaced just days after releasing documents last week detailing the National Security Agency’s wholesale data-mining of Internet content and telephone traffic, the very thing he wanted to avoid happened: There was a sudden shift from a riveting focus on unparalleled threats to privacy — and the way the Bush and Obama administrations have largely gutted the Fourth Amendment’s constitutional protections from unreasonable search and seizure — to Snowden himself.

The media and members of Congress largely turned its magnifying glass on the putative criminality of the whistleblower and thus gave themselves permission to step more gingerly around the glaring elephant in the room: that the United States has poured billions of dollars into building a vast capacity to spy on U.S. citizens — and people around the globe — secretly, comprehensively and virtually without accountability.

Snowden, who seems clear about the personal consequences he will likely face for taking this action, felt driven by what he learned about this vast surveillance system to jump ship. By so doing, he not only brought more sunlight into yet another murky corner of the infrastructure of the ever-expanding U.S. global and domestic control — part of the dizzying flurry of recent revelations about drones, special operations and kill lists — he has taught us, just as Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg did, the critical importance of breaking ranks.

Successful nonviolent movements depend on people breaking ranks: questioning, demurring, disobeying, defecting and withdrawing support. In most cases, this entails a slow process in which a significant percentage of the population gives up its fidelity to the status quo and finds itself shifting. As the late social movement theorist Bill Moyer put it, the population may not agree with the movement’s answer, but it is beginning to question — and even gradually abandon — the traditional one.

This can be more than switching positions. In some cases it can herald a transformation of identity. To no longer support a policy, an institution or a whole system can signal a profound metamorphosis. We no longer identify with this policy. We no longer draw meaning or comfort from going along. At times we break ranks not only with a particular social issue but also from the system, and its assumptions and values, that created and sustained it.

This is one reason nonviolent change is slow. A population does not change its mind easily. It is a gradual process of trying on this new identity — of getting comfortable enough with it to face the external and internal blowback that comes from going AWOL psychologically, politically or culturally.

- Edward Snowden demonstrates the power of breaking ranks, WagingNonViolence.org, June 13, 2013.

3. U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford on Wednesday was one of just three Republicans in the House of Representatives to join Democrats in support of a move to close Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and potentially allow federal officials to transfer detention center prisoners to facilities in the United States.

Sanford told McClatchy afterward that he’d voted for closing the prison because he opposes the government holding people indefinitely – in many cases, Guantánamo prisoners are held for years without being formally charged with crimes.

“Indefinite detention is not consistent with the values that America was based on,” Sanford said in an interview. “I think if you look at the military tribunals . . . there was finality to the process: ‘We find you guilty in military tribunal, we’ll take you out back and shoot you, or we’ll let you go.’ It was not, ‘We’re going to hold you for the next 40 years.’ ”

A Republican majority – with help from 21 Democrats who broke rank with their party – defeated the proposal to close Guantánamo Bay on Wednesday.

- Sanford breaks Republican ranks, votes to close Guantánamo prison, TheState.com, May 18, 2016.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.