The challenges of bipartisanship are easy to spot. It’s casting a die for cooperation, a hope that with your differing neighbor you can find not just common cause but common decency. You have to bank on shared values and means to accomplish them, even on the rarest of occasions. Dig your heels in once or attempt to usurp the other side, and the very notion of bipartisanship melts like a block of ice being hurled into the sun.
Washington D.C. has largely been a trebuchet for those big blocks of ice as of late, and it’s the sun that seems to get all the work done. President Joe Biden and West Virginia senator Joe Manchin champion the old way of doing things, but in a world where people like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell delight in dishonest gamesmanship, how are you supposed to cling to principles that seem outdated and ineffective? Trying to play the “both sides” card, after all, has produced more harm than good lately.
“The First Step,” a documentary about CNN personality and former Barack Obama staffer Van Jones and his courtship of those very bipartisan tenets, does a good enough job of capturing that struggle. Jones is a polarizing political figure in part because he invites polarization. He’s very opinionated, has immeasurable clout and a wide platform, isn’t afraid to play politics to get things done, and has on more than one occasion said things at the chagrin of both the left and right. If anything, he seems to be a purposefully moderate force, able to find success with and piss off all spectrums of political thought. You have to hand it to him; he’s a rare guy in such a partisan space.
Jones is, first and foremost, a political operator, and it’s hard to mention any political operator these days without acknowledging the infallible nature of our politicians. They’re people with complexities and nuances, but they assume a public persona that’s open and inviting to criticism. Part of this very intimate documentary shines a light on Jones the person as he grapples with Jones the persona’s efforts to venture into Trumpland and work with Jared Kushner to advance a controversial criminal reform bill. Jones and Kushner, of course, don’t have much in common, but the two form a delicate alliance to advance the “First Step Act” designed at least accomplish some reforms to the long-flawed criminal justice system. No easy task, right?
At the same time, Jones attempts a personal bonding between two groups of those advocating for help with the drug crisis—one of largely progressive Californians and one of largely conservative West Virginians. By the time “The First Step” finishes, you have a lot more hope about the work Jones is doing to link everyday Americans than the uneasiness of his work to court Republicans. It’s an underlying theme as to how America works now, and how precious the margin for error there is for someone like Jones. You empathize with the insults he gets (some of them vulgar), the pains of having to balance all of this while his mother is dying, the solitude he seems to live in as he takes on a gargantuan task of being such an out-in-front public figure. Jones doesn’t shy away from letting documentarian Brandon Kramer capture his efforts, warts and all, including plenty of footage of detractors, at times quite fairly, speaking against his efforts.
How you feel about “The First Step” could ultimately come down to how much the documentary is able to sway you to Jones’ cause. If you believe bipartisanship to be a dead-end street in Washington, will you believe it to work with your neighbor? The factions of advocates from California and West Virginia don’t struggle to find empathy and common ground—they’ve all, in some way, been affected by the scourge of addiction. Politics differ, and optics matter when the group considers going together to Washington D.C. to meet with the Trump administration and other lawmakers. The documentary hits harder when its focusing on this process as it plays out when it’s showing that, indeed, we can still come together as citizens united in a common struggle to support one another. It isn’t always easy, but it’s a far easier gambit than trying to break into the noise and narcissism of Congress.
When we focus solely on Jones and the D.C. bubble, the film takes on a more precarious, more debatable thesis. It becomes less about the issues at hand and more about the fragile balance of getting laws passed, maintaining your beliefs and handling the pushback when people on your side don’t like what you do and how you do it. Jones choosing to align with Kushner and link with the Trump administration so openly, even to pass an ultimately impactful bill, comes with its own risks and downsides. Ultimately, the “First Step Act” is passed after some patented D.C. dealmaking and, as the documentary notes, does help release a large number of people early from prison and promote some positive changes in prisons. Though, major systemic changes still are desperately needed, changes that won’t come through bipartisan means. Jones is left successful but also still controversial. Is this just the nature of a true politician?
“The First Step” engages without patronizing and tries to provide a balanced portrait of Jones and his causes. That the film can at times lean a little too heavily into Jones and not enough into whether he’s ultimately successful or not is kind of the point. We’re supposed to be left a little uneasy with how this all shakes out, as is the nature of Jones’ work. The film lets you decide if Jones’ methods really stand on their own and if bipartisanship can really coalesce to make meaningful change happen. Perhaps that’s this documentary’s best strength; it manages to, in the end, not take a side. [B]
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