One of the standard rhetorical weapons used by opponents of a particular politician is to accuse him or her of being divisive.

The corollary for those who think politics has existed only during their lifetime is to argue that today’s politics are more partisan and more divided than ever before. Either group might claim that the most important principle of our country is “E Pluribus Unum.”

I’ve never bought into the first argument. Politics is a zero-sum game — on any particular issue that doesn’t result in a  unanimous vote, one side wins, which means the opposite side loses. That is how representative democracy works. If you don’t like the result, you need to convince others next time. Whether President Obama is divisive or not means nothing to me; the fact he’s wrong on nearly every issue is what matters.

As for the second argument, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute’s Christian Schneider interrupts with reality:

When Tom Barrett announced his candidacy in the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election, he wasted no time in labeling incumbent Gov. Scott Walker “divisive” and offering to end the state’s “civil war.” Kathleen Falk, an earlier entrant into the race, complained that Walker “has just torn this state apart.”

It is true that the battle over public-sector collective bargaining in Wisconsin has been tough-fought. It has simultaneously wrought bitterness, excitement, acrimony and entertainment upon a state renowned for its tranquil Midwestern politeness. But to now discover that the state is “divided” is like watching a half-hour of “The Artist” before realizing it’s a silent movie. …

In fact, Wisconsin has always housed deep divisions; only these fractures traditionally haven’t been accompanied by bullhorns and picket signs. For decades, the state has been divided between people who don’t pay for their own pensions and those who pay taxes to subsidize those individuals. Wisconsin’s citizens have been divided between those who pay union dues in order to elect officials who then negotiate better pension and health benefits and those who can’t afford to do so.

We now know the state has been divided between those who think it is appropriate to picket at elected officials’ homes and those who think it crosses the line. Before the collective bargaining imbroglio, some citizens may have thought it improper to publicly shower elected officials with vulgarisms; clearly, there are many who were just waiting for the opportunity. …

Now, the state is still divided, but more vocally so – by a minority of public workers, who have an intense interest in the current system, vs. those with diffuse interests. For those who support Walker, the fruits of his government employee benefit restricting will be realized in the future; for those who oppose Walker, the effect on their everyday lives is direct and immediate.

All of these divisions have been with Wisconsin for years; yet we couldn’t see them until they were banging a drum, dressed in a gorilla costume and blowing a vuvuzela.

Barrett’s apparent claim that unity is more important than anything else is not only disingenuous, but wrong on its face. Complaints of divisiveness are, to put it bluntly, the lament of the loser. I am aware of no Democrat who complained when Gov. James Doyle signed off on raising taxes by $2.1 billion in the disaster area that was the 2009–11 budget.