At the water’s edge?

Reader question:

Please explain this sentence: “America has a proud tradition of letting politics stop at the water’s edge.” Water’s edge? What’s that? What water?

My comments:

This means, in short, that Americans prefer unity when it comes to foreign policy.

In other words, they don’t like having domestic differences interfere with foreign-policy unity. By domestic differences, we’re talking about the two political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats who are always ready to strangle each other over how their country should be run. When it comes to foreign polity, both parties are usually able to put their differences aside in face of a common foe abroad.

Tribalism, in a nutshell. Anyways, the question remains for us: What’s that “water’s edge” about?

Well, that water’s edge refers to the country’s coastline. America, you see, is flanked on both sides by ocean water, the Pacific to the west and the Atlantic to the east. By letting politics stop at the water’s edge literally means stopping playing politics when it comes to dealing with other nations, across the seas.

America has land neighbors, too, of course, Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. But since America usually doesn’t have a whole lot of problem handling these neighbors, Canada and Mexico are ignored when they talk about stopping playing politics at the water’s edge. In other words, America is aiming at countries across the great seas, such as Russia, Europe, China, Japan and so forth.

Now, the expression “stopping politics at the water’s edge” is generally attributed to Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg (1884 – 1951). This explanation, from WiseGeek.com:

Imagine picking a fight with your spouse at a new acquaintance’s home, or even at your parents’ house, or the home of a friend. Manners prescribe that we do not do this, or “air our dirty laundry in public.” Personal disputes, like those we may have in our relationships, are generally held to have little place when we’re in public.

This same principle is implied in the statement, “Politics stops at the water’s edge,” first suggested by Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg about 1947. The idea was widely adopted under the Truman administration by the US. Vandenberg is recognized for abandoning his isolationist views of American foreign policy in favor of a more international view, and he worked in a bipartisan way to gather support for things like the creation of NATO. One of his principal statements was that American politicians should always present a united front to other countries, despite political disagreements on their own turf. To air these disagreements at events aimed at internationalism weakened America’s show of strength. Thus politicians visiting elsewhere took on the doctrine that politics stops at the water’s edge, since raising partisan disputes would not best represent the united front of a strong, whole America.

All right, here are media examples:

1. Back in the old days of American politics — the late 1940s — Arthur Vandenberg, a respected Republican senator from Michigan, coined the phrase that partisan politics should end at the water's edge.

What he had to say is instructive as the nastiness of the current partisan debate over the war in Iraq threatens to divide the country and embolden the enemy.

Here are Vandenberg’s words:

“To me, ‘bipartisan foreign policy’ means a mutual effort, under our indispensable, two-party system, to unite our official voice at the water’s edge so that America speaks with one voice to those who would divide and conquer us and the free world.”

Vandenberg went on to say that there should be full, open and honest debate of foreign policy within the country. But the goal of such debate, he said, was not to score political points, but to reach a position of unity that could be presented to the world.

Few would argue with that. However, over the past few weeks, it would appear that debate over the course of the war in Iraq has thrown the Vandenberg adage out the window.

Democrats, buoyed by public opinion polls that show American support for the war in Iraq dwindling, have launched a heavy assault against President Bush and his arguments used to persuade members of Congress to authorize the war and topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. Some Democratic opponents have stopped just short of accusing Bush of treason.

“Instead of providing open and honest answers about how we will achieve success in Iraq and allow our troops to begin to come home, the president (has) reverted to the same manipulation of facts to justify a war we never should have fought,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

- Remember when partisan politics stopped at the water's edge? USAToday.com, November 18, 2005.

2. Their concerns reflect a broader trend. While 56 percent of parents believe college will be increasingly important in the coming years, less than one third—29 percent—believe they will be able to afford to pay for their children to go. The prognosis is equally dire for secondary education. Not only do most Americans doubt whether our students will improve in science and math over the coming years—widely seen as key elements of national progress—but they also seem to be giving up on the idea of public education itself. Somewhat amazingly for a country that has long built its national identity on universal public education, fully one third of Americans say private not public education will be the best option for their children in 10 years.

To borrow an old line about politics, pessimism does not stop at the water’s edge. While America was once considered the indispensable nation, only three in 10 Americans now believe our global standing will be rising in 10 years; 43 percent think it will be declining. There is, however, general agreement about China’s rise to global preeminence. In fact, when asked to name a country that will be a superpower in 10 years, Americans were more likely to name China than the United States. Americans also foresee a less peaceful world. By 2024, 19 percent of Americans foresee armed conflict with China, 31 percent foresee it with Russia, and nearly half—45 percent—of all Americans foresee armed conflict with Iran.

Americans’ pessimism and uncertainty also extends to our ability to govern ourselves. Two-thirds of Americans doubt we will be more unified in the coming years. And while Americans are split on whether government as a whole will be any more effective in the future than it is today, there is more agreement that Congress itself will be less effective. Fifty-four percent of Americans also believe government will grow bigger in 10 years, with 38 percent of Americans believing America will have government-run health care. Just 18 percent of Americans believe Obamacare will exist with only minor changes in a decade. Two-thirds—67 percent—believe it will either exist with major changes or cease to exist at all. And two-thirds also believe a female president will be elected in the next 10 years.

- Americans Are No Longer Optimists, TheAtlantic.com, July 1, 2017.

3. One of Paul Ryan’s last acts as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was to tweet out a blog on his committee page that highlighted “[t]he American idea: the notion that the condition of your birth doesn’t determine the outcome of your life.” One of his very first moves as House speaker was to take immigration reform off the agenda during the remaining months of President Obama’s term. Ryan appears not only to be contradicting himself through these acts, but also ignoring the extent to which where you are born determines your outcome in life. If the newly minted speaker really cared about the American idea, he would be ensuring that equality of opportunity didn’t stop at the water’s edge.

In Ryan’s defense, the Ways and Means blog adds that the committee’s view of the American idea is that every American should have an equal chance at independence and success. But from the very beginning, the “idea of America” has been linked to providing opportunity to disadvantaged individuals not just at home but also abroad—through expanded immigration to the United States.

The Declaration of Independence attacked King George III on the grounds that “he has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.”

And when independence was on the verge of being secured, General George Washington emphasized that victory was particularly sweet for those who had yet to arrive to America. On April 18, 1783, his General Orders, at the cessation of hostilities between the U.S. and Great Britain, said of his troops: “happy, thrice happy shall they be ... who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.” Emma Lazarus’s sonnet engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty echoed a belief held ever since then: that the idea of America is wrapped up in the welcoming of huddled masses through its golden door, so that they can live a better life.

Today, an individual’s place of residence is more important than ever in determining their opportunity. That’s because some countries (including the United States) have seen significant economic and social advance, while other countries have witnessed far slower progress. The gap between the richest and poorest nations has fallen over the past 20 years, but it still remains close to historically unprecedented highs.

As a result, inequality within countries is simply dwarfed by inequality across countries—and that applies to both outcomes and opportunities. Take education, an important determinant of success in the work marketplace. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internationally comparable test of student learning in high school. According to Lant Pritchett, the average student in Peru scores the same on PISA as someone in the 6th percentile score in Denmark. The average student in Brazil is at the 9th percentile of Danish scores. The hardest working child in Latin America starts at a massive disadvantage compared to a student in Europe or the U.S. simply because of location. Students in the world’s poorest countries are even further behind.

- Paul Ryan’s Exclusionary Take on the American Idea, TheAtlantic.com, November 6, 2017.

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.