Problem: "the American public has become more consistent and polarized"
October 8, 2015 12:49 PM Subscribe
American Democracy is Doomed is a Vox long(ish)read by Matthew Yglesias summarizing the work of Juan Linz on constitutional crises in presidential democracies (previously), which combined with constitutional hardball and ideological polarization threaten to destroy American democracy (#nottheonion). As Yglesias describes the problem, it's primarily structural, an inevitable result of rules that have failed in every other country that has tried them. (We're 30 for 30 so far.) (All but the first link are pdf.)
Would love to see a parliamentary system here in the U.S., but I don't think it will ever happen. I'm going to sit back and have a Charlie Rangel smoothie in the meantime.
posted by longdaysjourney at 1:06 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by longdaysjourney at 1:06 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's okay. The Founding Fathers created a political mechanism that often gets stuck, but as long as the American system gets plenty of greasing, the wheels will continue to turn.
posted by clawsoon at 1:07 PM on October 8, 2015
posted by clawsoon at 1:07 PM on October 8, 2015
WOuld the US have as much deadlock as it does if some parties weren't supported by the state? (I'm not saying it wouldn't, I'm really asking...if the parties ran the parties and the government stayed out of all of them instead of just most of them, would that change things?)
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't find Jonathan Chait's counterargument very convincing - "the conservative movement’s control over the Republican Party is probably not sustainable" - and I don't find Ezra Klein's counterargument very comforting - the President gets to be an elected dictator, since Congress is too deadlocked to stop him/her, so at least stuff will still get done.
posted by clawsoon at 1:16 PM on October 8, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 1:16 PM on October 8, 2015 [13 favorites]
Yglesias says, about deadlocked parliaments, "It can get a little messy for a period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative and executive branches glare at each other unproductively."
He has forgotten Belgium.
posted by clawsoon at 1:27 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
He has forgotten Belgium.
posted by clawsoon at 1:27 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
WOuld the US have as much deadlock as it does if some parties weren't supported by the state? (I'm not saying it wouldn't, I'm really asking...if the parties ran the parties and the government stayed out of all of them instead of just most of them, would that change things?)
My feeling is that the officialization of the machineries of a couple of dominant parties is a function of the structural problems (albeit an often self-sustaining one) rather than the other way around. That is: All else being equal, we would tend towards two (and occasionally in moments of transitional crisis one or two more) "real" parties with their hooks in the institutions, even if we were somehow to push a reset button on the current parties.
posted by brennen at 1:27 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
My feeling is that the officialization of the machineries of a couple of dominant parties is a function of the structural problems (albeit an often self-sustaining one) rather than the other way around. That is: All else being equal, we would tend towards two (and occasionally in moments of transitional crisis one or two more) "real" parties with their hooks in the institutions, even if we were somehow to push a reset button on the current parties.
posted by brennen at 1:27 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've been making this exact argument for years. Only because America is, at this point, somewhat exceptional, I give us another ~30 years before major upheaval in our governance.
posted by Amplify at 1:27 PM on October 8, 2015
posted by Amplify at 1:27 PM on October 8, 2015
Meh. Gridlock means new laws can't be passed. But the old laws keep chugging along, and the government keeps governing, and life goes on, basically. I'm not sure the current ideological deadlock is impacting the average voter enough to even pay much attention. Not to say contentious issues - abortion, guns, climate - don't matter, but they are not issues that doom the whole system of governance.
And I think that polarization is not necessarily a bad thing. The GOP is now clearly on the side of the rich, the white, the socially and religiously conservative: all sectors on a fairly relentless demographic decline. It has become clear that they must resort to gerrymandering and voter suppression to keep what they've got. Time will sort that out, as long as enough progressive voters stay engaged.
On preview - what Chait said.
posted by jetsetsc at 1:30 PM on October 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
And I think that polarization is not necessarily a bad thing. The GOP is now clearly on the side of the rich, the white, the socially and religiously conservative: all sectors on a fairly relentless demographic decline. It has become clear that they must resort to gerrymandering and voter suppression to keep what they've got. Time will sort that out, as long as enough progressive voters stay engaged.
On preview - what Chait said.
posted by jetsetsc at 1:30 PM on October 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
Not to say contentious issues - abortion, guns, climate - don't matter, but they are not issues that doom the whole system of governance.
...climate...
....climate...
As a civilization-threatening factor, I don't think that belongs with the other two.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:33 PM on October 8, 2015 [45 favorites]
...climate...
....climate...
As a civilization-threatening factor, I don't think that belongs with the other two.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:33 PM on October 8, 2015 [45 favorites]
It's politicking over climate, not climate change itself, just as the mere having of abortions doesn't directly affect governance.
posted by kenko at 1:35 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by kenko at 1:35 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well, anarchy is better than no government at all.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:36 PM on October 8, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:36 PM on October 8, 2015 [16 favorites]
all sectors on a fairly relentless demographic decline.
Boy, this story's been told an awful lot.
posted by kenko at 1:36 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Boy, this story's been told an awful lot.
posted by kenko at 1:36 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
But the old laws keep chugging along, and the government keeps governing, and life goes on, basically.
That's ... not correct. Since 2011, the US has twice come dangerously close to defaulting on its debt, had one extended government shutdown, and we are on course to have both again by the end of the year. That we haven't actually fallen through the ice doesn't mean we're on solid ground.
posted by Cash4Lead at 1:38 PM on October 8, 2015 [43 favorites]
That's ... not correct. Since 2011, the US has twice come dangerously close to defaulting on its debt, had one extended government shutdown, and we are on course to have both again by the end of the year. That we haven't actually fallen through the ice doesn't mean we're on solid ground.
posted by Cash4Lead at 1:38 PM on October 8, 2015 [43 favorites]
Meh. Gridlock means new laws can't be passed. But the old laws keep chugging along, and the government keeps governing, and life goes on, basically
It also means old laws won't get reauthorized/extended either, so they may not keep chugging along. Remember, the fight over the Violence Against Women Act? It took a year for it to be reauthorized with its extended protections. Not to mention the never-ending budget crises. Yeah, we eventually pass continuing resolutions, but when every time we hit another budget crisis, we just look worse and worse.
It's about more than just making new laws but also just the day to day stuff which has been increasingly more contentious in some circles.
posted by tittergrrl at 1:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
It also means old laws won't get reauthorized/extended either, so they may not keep chugging along. Remember, the fight over the Violence Against Women Act? It took a year for it to be reauthorized with its extended protections. Not to mention the never-ending budget crises. Yeah, we eventually pass continuing resolutions, but when every time we hit another budget crisis, we just look worse and worse.
It's about more than just making new laws but also just the day to day stuff which has been increasingly more contentious in some circles.
posted by tittergrrl at 1:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
Gridlock means new laws can't be passed. But the old laws keep chugging along, and the government keeps governing, and life goes on, basically. I'm not sure the current ideological deadlock is impacting the average voter enough to even pay much attention.
What this means is that we can keep the lights on for the most part (except for when ideologues force a government shutdown), but we can never tackle any big problems that require any amount of political might. Climate, poverty, education, that sort of thing. The Obama administration made some very modest improvements to our healthcare system, and the Republicans are still trying to undo them. And that was under the best of conditions (the brief window of Democratic control of the Presidency and both houses).
posted by panama joe at 1:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
What this means is that we can keep the lights on for the most part (except for when ideologues force a government shutdown), but we can never tackle any big problems that require any amount of political might. Climate, poverty, education, that sort of thing. The Obama administration made some very modest improvements to our healthcare system, and the Republicans are still trying to undo them. And that was under the best of conditions (the brief window of Democratic control of the Presidency and both houses).
posted by panama joe at 1:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Well. I guess that about wraps it up.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:44 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octobersurprise at 1:44 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
climate - don't matter, but they are not issues that doom the whole system of governance
Actually, I suspect climate does doom the whole system of governance - not the political fight over climate, but the climate itself will literally create social disruptions on a scale that will make a national government unable to function.
posted by Naberius at 1:45 PM on October 8, 2015 [9 favorites]
Actually, I suspect climate does doom the whole system of governance - not the political fight over climate, but the climate itself will literally create social disruptions on a scale that will make a national government unable to function.
posted by Naberius at 1:45 PM on October 8, 2015 [9 favorites]
What's interesting from a comparative-politics perspective is that what's going on in the House these last couple weeks is about as close to a standard parliamentary no-confidence or ruling coalition collapse as the US gets.
But Klein's optimism seems deeply misplaced, especially the idea that increasing presidential power will lead to more stability. Quite the opposite, historically speaking. More likely is that America will eventually follow the path of all democracies that evolved their way out of kings and presidents: parliament eventually holds the purse-strings hostage long enough that the president/king is forced to capitulate to more direct parliamentary control over the machinery of government. The debt ceiling is precisely such a mechanism. Eventually there will be a majority in Congress sufficiently insulated from out-party disapproval that they can seriously threaten the country and enforce actual long-term concessions -- just as happened dozens of times, eg, in the UK over the previous few centuries. We may not like it because for now it is coming from the right, but one way or the other, this is the usual mechanism for displacing royalty or presidents in favor of the only long-term functional democracy, a unicameral parliament.
posted by chortly at 1:48 PM on October 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
But Klein's optimism seems deeply misplaced, especially the idea that increasing presidential power will lead to more stability. Quite the opposite, historically speaking. More likely is that America will eventually follow the path of all democracies that evolved their way out of kings and presidents: parliament eventually holds the purse-strings hostage long enough that the president/king is forced to capitulate to more direct parliamentary control over the machinery of government. The debt ceiling is precisely such a mechanism. Eventually there will be a majority in Congress sufficiently insulated from out-party disapproval that they can seriously threaten the country and enforce actual long-term concessions -- just as happened dozens of times, eg, in the UK over the previous few centuries. We may not like it because for now it is coming from the right, but one way or the other, this is the usual mechanism for displacing royalty or presidents in favor of the only long-term functional democracy, a unicameral parliament.
posted by chortly at 1:48 PM on October 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
Gridlock means new laws can't be passed. But the old laws keep chugging along, and the government keeps governing, and life goes on, basically. I'm not sure the current ideological deadlock is impacting the average voter enough to even pay much attention.
This stuff is sure impacting anyone who is not solidly in, let's say, the top 20% economically. People are getting poorer, services are getting shittier, our infrastructure is getting worse, and the people whose lives are ticking away in poverty and precarity have no meaningful way of intervening in the system.
To my mind, the driver of American politics is racism, and when it's advantageous to the majority of whites and their allies to be gridlocked, we're gridlocked; when it's to their advantage to be collaborative, they're collaborative. The one thing that has come out of all these situations is good, solid attempts to disenfranchise and immiserate Black people, Native people and Latin@ people.
posted by Frowner at 1:48 PM on October 8, 2015 [32 favorites]
This stuff is sure impacting anyone who is not solidly in, let's say, the top 20% economically. People are getting poorer, services are getting shittier, our infrastructure is getting worse, and the people whose lives are ticking away in poverty and precarity have no meaningful way of intervening in the system.
To my mind, the driver of American politics is racism, and when it's advantageous to the majority of whites and their allies to be gridlocked, we're gridlocked; when it's to their advantage to be collaborative, they're collaborative. The one thing that has come out of all these situations is good, solid attempts to disenfranchise and immiserate Black people, Native people and Latin@ people.
posted by Frowner at 1:48 PM on October 8, 2015 [32 favorites]
In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity under presidential government — but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s."
If by "break down" you mean "elected a government the CIA disliked". Maybe this is what is missing from this analysis. Our sample consists almost entirely of countries that had a super-presidential veto in the form of the Marines or CIA.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:59 PM on October 8, 2015 [46 favorites]
If by "break down" you mean "elected a government the CIA disliked". Maybe this is what is missing from this analysis. Our sample consists almost entirely of countries that had a super-presidential veto in the form of the Marines or CIA.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:59 PM on October 8, 2015 [46 favorites]
It's a long story, but fundamentally Flanders, the Dutch Flemish-speaking...
FTFY, my mother is a native Belgian from near Bruge. I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't correct that.
And it points out how the language continues to divide the country. The Belgians in the northern half keep getting told that they speak Dutch and every time they hear it, they cling tighter to their native language say, "We don't speak goddamn Dutch. We can't understand Dutch. We speak FLEMISH!"
posted by VTX at 2:01 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
FTFY, my mother is a native Belgian from near Bruge. I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't correct that.
And it points out how the language continues to divide the country. The Belgians in the northern half keep getting told that they speak Dutch and every time they hear it, they cling tighter to their native language say, "We don't speak goddamn Dutch. We can't understand Dutch. We speak FLEMISH!"
posted by VTX at 2:01 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
How do you fix a system where a significant group of the population is insane? The crazification factor will always be with us, though at least in this election cycle they're not even bothering to use dog whistles anymore.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 2:06 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 2:06 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
So what's the solution (other than fantasies of crushing the enemy)? Wouldn't a parliamentary system result in extreme cases of ideological whiplash as the opposition came into power, especially with the same underlying ideological polarization and disagreement? The main problem seems the core controversy in government is no longer spoils but ideology, and the country as a whole just doesn't have a base level of agreement about that anymore.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 2:10 PM on October 8, 2015
posted by cosmic.osmo at 2:10 PM on October 8, 2015
Being an asshole is not a mental illness.
posted by LindsayIrene at 2:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 2:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [17 favorites]
One option for fixing the system is to aggressively get people out to vote, allocate resources for voter education, reduce the power of billionaires, and apportion districts such that they make sense for democracy instead of one party. But we won't do any of that.
posted by rockindata at 2:13 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by rockindata at 2:13 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
There's a saying that a week is a long time in politics. So a decade is an unimaginable eon.
Anyone remember 2005? It was grim. The Republicans were in solid control of all three branches of government. People were writing books about the "emerging Republican majority". Bush wanted to toss out Social Security. Democrats couldn't even console themselves that the last election had been stolen.
Now we have gridlock and ever-increasing craziness in the GOP, but the "emerging Republican majority" has vanished. Not only are the demographics going more and more to the Democrats, but the GOP has engaged in a massive, suicidal plot to undermine itself among every constituency but old white guys. 2025 is not going to look good for those guys.
The biggest structural problem is not, I think, the legislative/presidential impasse; it's the fact that liberals stay away from the polls in the midterms. That gave us the GOP House in 2010 and enables the constant atmosphere of crisis. The GOP can prevent economic progress, then scare the voters because the economy isn't what it should be. Plus, the fact that the GOP keeps winning the midterms means that it never has to confront its increasing out-of-touchness. Things are not going to change till the GOP starts losing midterms too.
posted by zompist at 2:17 PM on October 8, 2015 [23 favorites]
Anyone remember 2005? It was grim. The Republicans were in solid control of all three branches of government. People were writing books about the "emerging Republican majority". Bush wanted to toss out Social Security. Democrats couldn't even console themselves that the last election had been stolen.
Now we have gridlock and ever-increasing craziness in the GOP, but the "emerging Republican majority" has vanished. Not only are the demographics going more and more to the Democrats, but the GOP has engaged in a massive, suicidal plot to undermine itself among every constituency but old white guys. 2025 is not going to look good for those guys.
The biggest structural problem is not, I think, the legislative/presidential impasse; it's the fact that liberals stay away from the polls in the midterms. That gave us the GOP House in 2010 and enables the constant atmosphere of crisis. The GOP can prevent economic progress, then scare the voters because the economy isn't what it should be. Plus, the fact that the GOP keeps winning the midterms means that it never has to confront its increasing out-of-touchness. Things are not going to change till the GOP starts losing midterms too.
posted by zompist at 2:17 PM on October 8, 2015 [23 favorites]
The move from dog whistles to straight up explicit xenophobia, anti-science, and anti-women stances seems to be opening a lot of people's eyes, who in other cycles would have said "doesn't matter - both parties are the same." Today's parties are not remotely the same, and that fact's increasing obviousness won't blow up the system, though I really think it will weaken the GOP's support.
Maybe I'm too optimistic from the (admittedly incremental) success of the ACA, and the sea change in national attitudes towards gay marriage, but I think the tide could well be turning on over-use of incarceration, gun control, and the environment. All of which I chalk up to the long-discussed demographic tilt away from what are now core GOP values. None of that is revolutionary, just incremental progress.
posted by jetsetsc at 2:17 PM on October 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
Maybe I'm too optimistic from the (admittedly incremental) success of the ACA, and the sea change in national attitudes towards gay marriage, but I think the tide could well be turning on over-use of incarceration, gun control, and the environment. All of which I chalk up to the long-discussed demographic tilt away from what are now core GOP values. None of that is revolutionary, just incremental progress.
posted by jetsetsc at 2:17 PM on October 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good. There is no civility, only politics.
posted by entropicamericana at 2:21 PM on October 8, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 2:21 PM on October 8, 2015 [13 favorites]
Actually, based on what I've heard Britons say about England since Thatcher, and given Harper in Canada, it's pretty obvious that parliamentary democracy also inevitably fails. And English style parliamentary democracy in today's America would essentially mean that the Republicans would have no checks on their power.
So the solution probably is there is no solution. Maybe a repressive autocracy could continue for a long time- the Saudis and the Kims don't seem like they're going to go anywhere, short of an external invasion. Sucks to be a citizen, but at least there's continuity.
posted by happyroach at 2:30 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
So the solution probably is there is no solution. Maybe a repressive autocracy could continue for a long time- the Saudis and the Kims don't seem like they're going to go anywhere, short of an external invasion. Sucks to be a citizen, but at least there's continuity.
posted by happyroach at 2:30 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
But voiced in another register, my outlandish thesis is actually the conventional wisdom in the United States. Back when George W. Bush was president and I was working at a liberal magazine, there was a very serious discussion in an editorial meeting about the fact that the United States was now exhibiting 11 of the 13 telltale signs of a fascist dictatorship.
Only a reporter, totally untrained in history and historiography would assert that there are "13 tell-tale signs of a fascist dictatorship." There have only been two fascist dictatorships in history and you cannot assert that there are 13 signs of everything.
Journalism is killing us with its glib assertions based on shit a few dudes read before they showed up at an editorial meeting. The core value of that profession is that they believe that they can figure out the key aspects of everyone else's profession in the week between assignment and deadline by calling a few folks, getting their opinion and rewriting it.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:30 PM on October 8, 2015 [34 favorites]
Only a reporter, totally untrained in history and historiography would assert that there are "13 tell-tale signs of a fascist dictatorship." There have only been two fascist dictatorships in history and you cannot assert that there are 13 signs of everything.
Journalism is killing us with its glib assertions based on shit a few dudes read before they showed up at an editorial meeting. The core value of that profession is that they believe that they can figure out the key aspects of everyone else's profession in the week between assignment and deadline by calling a few folks, getting their opinion and rewriting it.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:30 PM on October 8, 2015 [34 favorites]
The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good. There is no civility, only politics.
There was that thread on the influence of Classical Antiquity on the modern world.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:32 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
There was that thread on the influence of Classical Antiquity on the modern world.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:32 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Also I have met Yglasias and I know his whole crowd because I lived exactly next door to Ezra Klein for 5 years and I went to their parties. I met Klein in 2005, when he was 21 years old. Let me assure you they are not the folks you think they are. Ezra and Matt are nice guys. Smart and doing detailed analysis? Well you learn that when you meet them they are not particularly smart, but they got a job telling everyone else what the truth was.
The only guy that impressed me was Brian Beutler. Super smart, has the sources, and has JUDGEMENT which is what these folks have always lacked.
Seriously, if you knew these folks personally . . .
American journalism is the scourge of the earth. The fucking pits.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:38 PM on October 8, 2015 [24 favorites]
The only guy that impressed me was Brian Beutler. Super smart, has the sources, and has JUDGEMENT which is what these folks have always lacked.
Seriously, if you knew these folks personally . . .
American journalism is the scourge of the earth. The fucking pits.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:38 PM on October 8, 2015 [24 favorites]
The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good. There is no civility, only politics.
We did have a civil war once, and a sitting vice president did kill a former secretary of the treasury in a duel, but yeah today is totally different and we're all doomed.
posted by Colby_Longhorn at 2:41 PM on October 8, 2015 [15 favorites]
We did have a civil war once, and a sitting vice president did kill a former secretary of the treasury in a duel, but yeah today is totally different and we're all doomed.
posted by Colby_Longhorn at 2:41 PM on October 8, 2015 [15 favorites]
- The real debate over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries in America, like everywhere else, has been between socialism and fascism.
- Nevertheless, for various reasons this debate was masked for most of the latter half of the 20th century. What screened it off was a broad consensus within the viable electoral-political parties that we are all basically liberals. Republicans (and before them, Dixiecrats) were liberals who adopted fascist ideas about racial purity and fascist terror tactics against people of outcaste races, Democrats (and, once, northern Republicans) were liberals who moderately supported social welfare measures to ameliorate the effects of liberal market rule.
- Very, very few people actually like liberalism. Most people who aren't sheltered by relative wealth and privilege within the liberal market system understand that the liberal idea that formal equality in the market is the essence of freedom is on the face of it wrong. This is because most people live at the pointy end of the liberal market, where we have to sell our labor cheap, buy our food and shelter dear, and spend all of our time under the actual domination of the capital-holding classes — making our abstract freedoms a dead letter.
- Maybe the polite fiction that we are all liberals only held up for so long because the United States was so rich for so long, and because due to the threat of actually existing socialism the capital-holding classes were willing to share some of that wealth in the interests of keeping the masses from turning Bolshevik or whatever.
- With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the completion of the Reagan/Thatcher neoliberal counterrevolution, and the end of the United States's overwhelming economic power, money has stopped flowing to common people, and so we're once again feeling the pain of being at the pointy end of liberal market freedoms.
- This is why socialism isn't a dirty word in America anymore, but also why open fascism in the form of Trumpism, Tea Partyism, and #bluelivesmatter bullshit has come to the surface.
- As such, we would be experiencing deep political turmoil regardless of what version of electoral democracy we used. I've got a crush on the Westminster system too — I'm with Yglesias there — but the turmoil in the U.S. isn't due to the electoral system, it's due to us all, aside from a few wealthy "centrists" who subscribe to liberalism because it personally benefits them, waking up to the fact that we are not all liberals, do not share common goals for the country, and have very good reasons to loathe each other.
- I don't think the socialists are going to win this one. Outside of rich cities, and especially in the old Confederacy, Americans are on the whole openly barbaric fascists. In the cities, people are quieter about their fascism — but go look at that article (currently on the metafilter front page) about how white people in cities are quietly, politely fascist.
- Again, this has nothing to do with the electoral system and everything to do with the electorate. perhaps we could tweak the electoral system in ways that allow us to keep pretending we're all liberal, and thereby keep the game running a little while longer. But the underlying fact remains that, despite our liberal parliamentary organizations and overall liberal media, we are not a liberal nation. We are a nation with a few bright spots of socialism lost in a terrifying sea of fascist barbarism.
- And changing how our parliamentary institutions work will never meaningfully change that.
If the conservatives fail (along with the more moderate within their party) to win the White House for 8 more years, then the liberals, ie the Dems, will gain full control of the Supreme Court...and that will change many things in our nation.
posted by Postroad at 2:44 PM on October 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by Postroad at 2:44 PM on October 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
If by "break down" you mean "elected a government the CIA disliked". Maybe this is what is missing from this analysis. Our sample consists almost entirely of countries that had a super-presidential veto in the form of the Marines or CIA.
No. What the CIA did in Chile was horrible but it was effectively inconsequential. They piggybacked on a coup, not initiated one.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:47 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Smart and doing detailed analysis? Well you learn that when you meet them they are not particularly smart, but they got a job telling everyone else what the truth was.
I'm a political scientist (in training). The Vox piece would get an A-. Nice recap, nothing original.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:49 PM on October 8, 2015
I'm a political scientist (in training). The Vox piece would get an A-. Nice recap, nothing original.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:49 PM on October 8, 2015
Oh heeeeyyyyy: Kevin McCarthy Drops Out of House Speaker Race
posted by Panjandrum at 2:51 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Panjandrum at 2:51 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
I mean, of course the United States is going to collapse. All systems of government have collapsed, present company only temporarily excluded.
And, although the point depends on how you count, arguably the US government is already close to being the most longevous government in history. Maybe top 20 out of many thousands.
It would be a fallacy to say we're due to collapse for that reason. But the context is helpful I think.
MY's framing of his article as somehow audacious is odd -- maybe he's right that it is eccentric to claim that the US will collapse, but it's nonetheless pretty obvious.
What's less obvious -- and less secure on the merits -- is that it will collapse for exactly this reason. If you bet that someone will die, you can give decent odds. If you bet that someone will die of pituitary cancer, you'd better know something. And now we get to the particular speculative theory MY is peddling. Is this sort of an interesting piece of scholarship? Sure. Should you put all your money on the pituitary? That would be premature.
posted by grobstein at 2:52 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
And, although the point depends on how you count, arguably the US government is already close to being the most longevous government in history. Maybe top 20 out of many thousands.
It would be a fallacy to say we're due to collapse for that reason. But the context is helpful I think.
MY's framing of his article as somehow audacious is odd -- maybe he's right that it is eccentric to claim that the US will collapse, but it's nonetheless pretty obvious.
What's less obvious -- and less secure on the merits -- is that it will collapse for exactly this reason. If you bet that someone will die, you can give decent odds. If you bet that someone will die of pituitary cancer, you'd better know something. And now we get to the particular speculative theory MY is peddling. Is this sort of an interesting piece of scholarship? Sure. Should you put all your money on the pituitary? That would be premature.
posted by grobstein at 2:52 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, take heart. Since 1791, France has had multiple systems of government that have collapsed, yet that nation-state still exists to this day. Can the U.S. do any less than its sister country? I know not who will be the Napoleon of the Second American Empire (Teddy Roosevelt was the First's), but the next American Republic is gonna be bigger and better than ever, baby.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:56 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Apocryphon at 2:56 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as yuuge farce.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:02 PM on October 8, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:02 PM on October 8, 2015 [11 favorites]
"The real debate over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries in America, like everywhere else, has been between socialism and fascism."
and all this time I thought capitalism had something to do with The Way Things Are
posted by Postroad at 3:09 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
and all this time I thought capitalism had something to do with The Way Things Are
posted by Postroad at 3:09 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's a good question. Not every change of government results in strife, although I think the prior for strife is extremely high (and France is not exempted from this, even post-Revolution).
A slightly counterintuitive numerical fact is: each of our lives lasts for a significant fraction of the history of the United States. For example, the US is ~240 years old now. If you lived to 80 during US history so far, you were around for > 1/3 of the whole of US history. That's a lot!
Looking forward, if you expect to live for ~50 years from now, you will be alive for an additional ~20% of the lifetime of the US. I think these time scales are long enough that its worth planning for big risks that we can ignore at the day-to-day scale.
What is the probability that the US is only half way through its lifetime? Consider that if the US continues for more than 500 years, it will be to scale with the current British system, the Roman empire, probably any Chinese dynasty (but I'm rusty on that and you might want to concatenate dynasties) -- more or less any long-lived institution except the Catholic Church.
It is surely not certain that the US will last this long. Is it 50% certain? I don't think so. Okay -- so now we're just haggling over price! What are the odds for a 25% continuation? Etc.
posted by grobstein at 3:10 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
A slightly counterintuitive numerical fact is: each of our lives lasts for a significant fraction of the history of the United States. For example, the US is ~240 years old now. If you lived to 80 during US history so far, you were around for > 1/3 of the whole of US history. That's a lot!
Looking forward, if you expect to live for ~50 years from now, you will be alive for an additional ~20% of the lifetime of the US. I think these time scales are long enough that its worth planning for big risks that we can ignore at the day-to-day scale.
What is the probability that the US is only half way through its lifetime? Consider that if the US continues for more than 500 years, it will be to scale with the current British system, the Roman empire, probably any Chinese dynasty (but I'm rusty on that and you might want to concatenate dynasties) -- more or less any long-lived institution except the Catholic Church.
It is surely not certain that the US will last this long. Is it 50% certain? I don't think so. Okay -- so now we're just haggling over price! What are the odds for a 25% continuation? Etc.
posted by grobstein at 3:10 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
Gridlock means new laws can't be passed. But the old laws keep chugging along, and the government keeps governing, and life goes on, basically. I'm not sure the current ideological deadlock is impacting the average voter enough to even pay much attention.
You might want to take a look at Illinois to understand the consequences of gridlock. For example they are not paying out lottery prize money but are still selling lottery tickets.
posted by srboisvert at 3:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
You might want to take a look at Illinois to understand the consequences of gridlock. For example they are not paying out lottery prize money but are still selling lottery tickets.
posted by srboisvert at 3:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
pretty obvious that parliamentary democracy also inevitably fails.
Electoral representative democracy is rendered obsolete and pernicious by journalism in a mass media milieu.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 3:13 PM on October 8, 2015
Electoral representative democracy is rendered obsolete and pernicious by journalism in a mass media milieu.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 3:13 PM on October 8, 2015
and all this time I thought capitalism had something to do with The Way Things Are.
I mean, yes? Fascism isn't a particularly cohesive ideology, but all versions of fascism are about the merger of capital's power and state power under the leadership of a strongman. The liberal idea is that you can use state power to maintain liberal market freedoms without merging state and capitalist power. Which would be fine, if liberal market freedoms were worth a good goddamn to people who lack the money to live off their investments and have to work instead.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:17 PM on October 8, 2015
I mean, yes? Fascism isn't a particularly cohesive ideology, but all versions of fascism are about the merger of capital's power and state power under the leadership of a strongman. The liberal idea is that you can use state power to maintain liberal market freedoms without merging state and capitalist power. Which would be fine, if liberal market freedoms were worth a good goddamn to people who lack the money to live off their investments and have to work instead.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:17 PM on October 8, 2015
Our government was designed by our Founding Fathers such that it could not work without some degree of compromise from all sides.
The problem is that now one of our political parties believes that compromise—any compromise—is a sign of emasculation.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 3:22 PM on October 8, 2015 [12 favorites]
The problem is that now one of our political parties believes that compromise—any compromise—is a sign of emasculation.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 3:22 PM on October 8, 2015 [12 favorites]
These pieces seem to assume that our current state of polarization wasn't intentional. If you can't quite muster the votes to outright eliminate government, your next best tactic is to grind the system to a dead standstill.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:25 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 3:25 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
One day, perhaps even soonish, the current system will end, or change beyond all recognition. Odds are, it won't be this time. More likely, after another loss or two in the presidential elections, combined perhaps with an unexpected victory for the Democrats in a midterm, will force the Republicans to change their orientation similar to what the Democrats did after the 1988 election. But, there are a number of unlikelier but possible scenarios, including Yglesias'.
We shall see what unfolds.
posted by JKevinKing at 3:29 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
We shall see what unfolds.
posted by JKevinKing at 3:29 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Man, I would kill for more of Ironmouth's insights into these peoples' minds.
Historical change is always weirder and more unpredictable than you think it'll be, even if you take into account the idea that it will always be weirder and more unpredictable than you think it'd be. But if I were forced to write a speculative history of the 21st century, I'd say that what's shaping up is a long messy struggle between the U.S., China, and Russia on the one hand, and the free world on the other.
But that's just woolgathering.
Also I had no idea that Ezra Klein was so young.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:37 PM on October 8, 2015
Historical change is always weirder and more unpredictable than you think it'll be, even if you take into account the idea that it will always be weirder and more unpredictable than you think it'd be. But if I were forced to write a speculative history of the 21st century, I'd say that what's shaping up is a long messy struggle between the U.S., China, and Russia on the one hand, and the free world on the other.
But that's just woolgathering.
Also I had no idea that Ezra Klein was so young.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:37 PM on October 8, 2015
Joanne Herring: Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?
Charlie Wilson: Well, tradition mostly.
--Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
posted by lazycomputerkids at 4:10 PM on October 8, 2015 [8 favorites]
Charlie Wilson: Well, tradition mostly.
--Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
posted by lazycomputerkids at 4:10 PM on October 8, 2015 [8 favorites]
There have only been two fascist dictatorships in history
The real debate ... has been between socialism and fascism.
I have long considered Communism-As-It-Has-Been-Practiced as "Fascism with a Socialist Face'.
It must be noted that with a Parliamentary System in the U.S., the Republicans would already be running everything (with only internal squabbles between billionaires, like the current one over the Speakership). Which may be why other English Speaking Nations are right now ahead of us in Right-Wing Governments.
When you consider how the GOP has preserved itself through Voter Disenfranchisement, please note that the country operated within the Original Intent of the Constitution for its first 60+ years with only white males having the right to vote (and the only thing screwing that up was some do-gooders feeling guilty about slavery), and it could probably do so again.
And if you look at the percentage of non-military government jobs in the workforce, Grover Norquist's goal of "reduce Government to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" is not that far off (it's down to where it almost fits through the bathroom door). And the most common attitude among the richest and most powerful is not 'liberal' but 'libertarian'... they resent having to pay into the Political System at all (either in their laughingly low taxes and campaign contributions buying politicians) to get everything they want. Of course the endgame there really is a modern form of Feudalism, substituting the title "CEO" for "Lord", which is neither impossible nor that improbable, if it is sold as 'every landowner becomes a Feudal Lord'.
As I grew up and took my mandatory American Government classes, I was constantly finding major flaws and possible radical improvements (none of which I ever shared with my teachers, wisely), and during a brief period between Watergate and Reagan, I believed we had an opportunity to do a Full Constitutional Makeover and end up with something much better. But that brief period passed and honestly I'm surprised we haven't fallen much more quickly into chaos.
Also yes, American Journalism has suffered terribly since it was taken over by the Blogging Class during the last 15 years.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:12 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
The real debate ... has been between socialism and fascism.
I have long considered Communism-As-It-Has-Been-Practiced as "Fascism with a Socialist Face'.
It must be noted that with a Parliamentary System in the U.S., the Republicans would already be running everything (with only internal squabbles between billionaires, like the current one over the Speakership). Which may be why other English Speaking Nations are right now ahead of us in Right-Wing Governments.
When you consider how the GOP has preserved itself through Voter Disenfranchisement, please note that the country operated within the Original Intent of the Constitution for its first 60+ years with only white males having the right to vote (and the only thing screwing that up was some do-gooders feeling guilty about slavery), and it could probably do so again.
And if you look at the percentage of non-military government jobs in the workforce, Grover Norquist's goal of "reduce Government to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" is not that far off (it's down to where it almost fits through the bathroom door). And the most common attitude among the richest and most powerful is not 'liberal' but 'libertarian'... they resent having to pay into the Political System at all (either in their laughingly low taxes and campaign contributions buying politicians) to get everything they want. Of course the endgame there really is a modern form of Feudalism, substituting the title "CEO" for "Lord", which is neither impossible nor that improbable, if it is sold as 'every landowner becomes a Feudal Lord'.
As I grew up and took my mandatory American Government classes, I was constantly finding major flaws and possible radical improvements (none of which I ever shared with my teachers, wisely), and during a brief period between Watergate and Reagan, I believed we had an opportunity to do a Full Constitutional Makeover and end up with something much better. But that brief period passed and honestly I'm surprised we haven't fallen much more quickly into chaos.
Also yes, American Journalism has suffered terribly since it was taken over by the Blogging Class during the last 15 years.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:12 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Who would win in a slap fight: Matt Yglesias or Ezra Klein?
posted by gehenna_lion at 4:36 PM on October 8, 2015
posted by gehenna_lion at 4:36 PM on October 8, 2015
That Yglesias article is incredible! For the first time in a while it feels like I learned something new about America.
It's kind of stunning that corruption and racism may have kept American politics stable for so many years, by creating self-interested, non-ideological (or at least ideologically non-conformist) blocks in both parties that made it easier to compromise.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:39 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's kind of stunning that corruption and racism may have kept American politics stable for so many years, by creating self-interested, non-ideological (or at least ideologically non-conformist) blocks in both parties that made it easier to compromise.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:39 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
re: socialism with a fascist face, I found Trotsky's discussion in his History of the Russian Revolution of why the October Revolution was called in the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee rather than in the name of the soviets themselves quite telling. In this section, he talks about how:
When push came to shove, the Bolsheviks wanted power (in fact, the merger of state and capital power under the direction of a charismatic strongman), and simply used the rhetorics of socialism as a convenient lever for achieving that power. Fascism with a socialist face.
(hopefully I'm not like alienating people by outing myself as decidedly not a Trotskyist. I mean, I too thought the dude was pretty cool... until I read his actual writings...)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:51 PM on October 8, 2015 [12 favorites]
- They couldn't trust the soviets to the task, because they couldn't maintain secrecy or (Bolshevik) discipline in organizations that weren't totally controlled by the Bolsheviks, but,
- They couldn't just declare the Revolution in the name of the Bolshevik party itself, because even fellow travelers thought that power should flow bottom-up from the extant democratic soviet organizations rather than top-down from the vanguard party, and so
- they instead used the Military Revolutionary Committee, an organization authorized by the soviets but totally controlled by the Bolsheviks. Trotsky says that they would have declared it in the name of the party if they could, but they couldn't, so they used this other organization that looked from the outside like an expression of the will of the soviet, but from the inside was just an organ of the Bolshevik party.
When push came to shove, the Bolsheviks wanted power (in fact, the merger of state and capital power under the direction of a charismatic strongman), and simply used the rhetorics of socialism as a convenient lever for achieving that power. Fascism with a socialist face.
(hopefully I'm not like alienating people by outing myself as decidedly not a Trotskyist. I mean, I too thought the dude was pretty cool... until I read his actual writings...)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:51 PM on October 8, 2015 [12 favorites]
An orderly transition of power is the glue that holds it all together, which is why I don't find it to be totally crazy to think that there might be a crisis in American government in the future. I don't buy into the idea of some sort of apocalyptic collapse, but all that stood between us and what, who knows? was Gore's decision to concede. Given how polarized things are, it's not hard to imagine another close presidential election and do you really see a tea party republican conceding to a democrat?
posted by feloniousmonk at 4:52 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by feloniousmonk at 4:52 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
But there are mechanisms in the American constitution that deal with these sort of situations, right? It seems like the main problem is that no one knows if large segments of the population would support a resolution obtained in a legal but extremely unsatisfying way. (I'm thinking here of Yglesias' scenario where "...neither party secured a majority of electoral votes and a presidential election wound up being decided by a vote of the lame duck House of Representatives.") That is, American democracy is designed better than, say, Guatemala's, but there's a lack of outrageous precedents because it has been stable for so long.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:07 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Kevin Street at 5:07 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, take heart. Since 1791, France has had multiple systems of government that have collapsed, yet that nation-state still exists to this day. Can the U.S. do any less than its sister country?
Reading American Nations (gloss here)
has convinced me that some kind of Balkanization is more likely - I doubt anyone really has the heart to refight the Civil War.
I hope.
posted by Alter Cocker at 5:20 PM on October 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
Reading American Nations (gloss here)
has convinced me that some kind of Balkanization is more likely - I doubt anyone really has the heart to refight the Civil War.
I hope.
posted by Alter Cocker at 5:20 PM on October 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
Remember back in 2008 when people couldn't legally marry, serve openly in the military and legal marijuanna was something only crazy hippies would ever vote for. While congress is gridlocked on the budget and other issues, a bi-partisian bill on sentencing reform appears set to pass and there is momentum for a broader criminal justice reform bill.
posted by humanfont at 5:21 PM on October 8, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by humanfont at 5:21 PM on October 8, 2015 [11 favorites]
I am learning so very much about parliament! Thanks mostly to listening to Mike Duncan's Revolution podcast this past month. And here today, it's mentioned many times. The world really is deeper than I like to think - there's always another layer down to discover.
posted by rebent at 5:22 PM on October 8, 2015
posted by rebent at 5:22 PM on October 8, 2015
There have only been two fascist dictatorships in history and you cannot assert that there are 13 signs of everything.
I thought there had been three: Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain? Or does one of those not count?
posted by Aizkolari at 5:30 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
I thought there had been three: Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain? Or does one of those not count?
posted by Aizkolari at 5:30 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
I thought there had been three: Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain? Or does one of those not count?
It's a pretty big question in theory and historiography, what constitutes fascism, what Griffin calls the "fascist minimum", but still no real consensus; Griffin's is probably the best.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's a pretty big question in theory and historiography, what constitutes fascism, what Griffin calls the "fascist minimum", but still no real consensus; Griffin's is probably the best.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
We could halve the problem here by getting rid of (or greatly reducing) gerrymandering.
Moore's Corollary ought to be that the more transistors on a chip, the more the politicians get to choose their voters.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Moore's Corollary ought to be that the more transistors on a chip, the more the politicians get to choose their voters.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
This observation (about the President) isn't really very new or very controversial. When we wrote a new constitution for Iraq (about 12 years ago) it was a parliamentary system, with most power vested in a prime minister. There is an office of the president, consisting of three people (the idea was that one would be Sunni, one would be Shiite, and one would be Kurd) and they are involved in legislation to some degree.
Likewise when MacArthur wrote the Japanese constitution after the war, he based it on the British system. It has two chambers, but the Upper House is largely symbolic. The Lower House has all the power, and there is a prime minister. (The Emperor fulfils the role of head-of-state so there's no president.)
The American system definitely has its flaws, but we've muddled along for 230 years under it and you have to admit we've done some pretty great things during that time. (Yes, yes, yes, we've also done horrible things. Give me a break.) I don't think it's going to collapse in the immediate future for this reason. (I'm more concerned about the National Debt.)
Having said all that, there is one major innovation introduced in the US Constitution which is universally recognized as having been brilliant: the Supreme Court. And that idea has since been adopted by many, many countries all over the world. (Including the EU.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:02 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Likewise when MacArthur wrote the Japanese constitution after the war, he based it on the British system. It has two chambers, but the Upper House is largely symbolic. The Lower House has all the power, and there is a prime minister. (The Emperor fulfils the role of head-of-state so there's no president.)
The American system definitely has its flaws, but we've muddled along for 230 years under it and you have to admit we've done some pretty great things during that time. (Yes, yes, yes, we've also done horrible things. Give me a break.) I don't think it's going to collapse in the immediate future for this reason. (I'm more concerned about the National Debt.)
Having said all that, there is one major innovation introduced in the US Constitution which is universally recognized as having been brilliant: the Supreme Court. And that idea has since been adopted by many, many countries all over the world. (Including the EU.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:02 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Speaking of strange presidencies, that office in France has to take the cake. The office was created for DeGaulle, and they gave it all the powers that DeGaulle wanted, and let the prime minister take care of all the stuff DeGaulle didn't care about.
Well, DeGaulle is long dead, but the office continues and the office of French prime minister has to be one of the most thankless and unpleasant forms of public service in history.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Well, DeGaulle is long dead, but the office continues and the office of French prime minister has to be one of the most thankless and unpleasant forms of public service in history.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
VTM: It's a long story, but fundamentally Flanders, the Dutch Flemish-speaking...
FTFY, my mother is a native Belgian from near Bruge. I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't correct that.
And it points out how the language continues to divide the country. The Belgians in the northern half keep getting told that they speak Dutch and every time they hear it, they cling tighter to their native language say, "We don't speak goddamn Dutch. We can't understand Dutch. We speak FLEMISH!"
This depends on whom you ask. The written language and what is used on TV are standard Dutch, albeit with a few regional differences (think US vs. Canadian English). If you have to pick your language on an ATM or a website from Belgium, the choice is "Nederlands."
It's true that what many, if not most, Flemings speak at home is far removed from standard Dutch. When I went to, say, Bruges or Hasselt and spoke standard Dutch, everyone understood me and replied in turn. When they talked to each other, they would speak in, say, West-Vlaams or Limburgish, which were unintelligible to me -- and which are unintelligible to one another.
This question touches on a thorny issue, as the claim that Flemings speak "Flemish" and not "Dutch" was often used to delegitimize the Flemish Movement's call for Dutch-language public services, or even for university teaching in Dutch: "You Flemings can't understand each other, why not just migrate over to French?" -- forgetting that the jump from West-Vlaams or Limburgish to Dutch is much shorter than that to French.
There were some Flemings, like the Bruges poet Guido Gezelle, who promoted Flemish "particularism" rather than adapting to the northern Netherlands standard Dutch (in part because Flemings were overwhelmingly Catholic, while the Netherlands were seen as a Calvinist country) but this tendency withered away in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
I find today that most Flemings I know tend to say that they speak Dutch -- or rather, that they speak Dutch and their local dialect -- while many French-speaking Belgians still refer to what is spoken up north as "flamand," to the chagrin of many Flemings.
My PhD dissertation was about the French-speaking elite in Flanders.
Sorry for the derail!
posted by dhens at 7:22 PM on October 8, 2015 [12 favorites]
FTFY, my mother is a native Belgian from near Bruge. I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't correct that.
And it points out how the language continues to divide the country. The Belgians in the northern half keep getting told that they speak Dutch and every time they hear it, they cling tighter to their native language say, "We don't speak goddamn Dutch. We can't understand Dutch. We speak FLEMISH!"
This depends on whom you ask. The written language and what is used on TV are standard Dutch, albeit with a few regional differences (think US vs. Canadian English). If you have to pick your language on an ATM or a website from Belgium, the choice is "Nederlands."
It's true that what many, if not most, Flemings speak at home is far removed from standard Dutch. When I went to, say, Bruges or Hasselt and spoke standard Dutch, everyone understood me and replied in turn. When they talked to each other, they would speak in, say, West-Vlaams or Limburgish, which were unintelligible to me -- and which are unintelligible to one another.
This question touches on a thorny issue, as the claim that Flemings speak "Flemish" and not "Dutch" was often used to delegitimize the Flemish Movement's call for Dutch-language public services, or even for university teaching in Dutch: "You Flemings can't understand each other, why not just migrate over to French?" -- forgetting that the jump from West-Vlaams or Limburgish to Dutch is much shorter than that to French.
There were some Flemings, like the Bruges poet Guido Gezelle, who promoted Flemish "particularism" rather than adapting to the northern Netherlands standard Dutch (in part because Flemings were overwhelmingly Catholic, while the Netherlands were seen as a Calvinist country) but this tendency withered away in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
I find today that most Flemings I know tend to say that they speak Dutch -- or rather, that they speak Dutch and their local dialect -- while many French-speaking Belgians still refer to what is spoken up north as "flamand," to the chagrin of many Flemings.
My PhD dissertation was about the French-speaking elite in Flanders.
Sorry for the derail!
posted by dhens at 7:22 PM on October 8, 2015 [12 favorites]
As far as I know, there's no way in the Constitution that provides for fixing "the executive is making executive orders well beyond his authority." You might say the judicial, but they can't act without a specific wounded party and a case.
posted by corb at 7:23 PM on October 8, 2015
posted by corb at 7:23 PM on October 8, 2015
Impeachment.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:25 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by tonycpsu at 7:25 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
(hopefully I'm not like alienating people by outing myself as decidedly not a Trotskyist. I mean, I too thought the dude was pretty cool... until I read his actual writings...)
It's cool, man.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:26 PM on October 8, 2015 [25 favorites]
It's cool, man.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:26 PM on October 8, 2015 [25 favorites]
Impeachment doesn't erase the precedent or the executive order, though.
posted by corb at 7:36 PM on October 8, 2015
posted by corb at 7:36 PM on October 8, 2015
Precedents aren't really a thing in the executive branch, and were a President impeached due to improper use of executive orders, the inauguration of the new President would surely solve that.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:42 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by tonycpsu at 7:42 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well everybody's act is part of the show
And no one's job is more important
The audience is kind of like the country you know
Keeping an eye on their performance
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:05 PM on October 8, 2015
And no one's job is more important
The audience is kind of like the country you know
Keeping an eye on their performance
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:05 PM on October 8, 2015
Nah, America won't "end" in any kind of obvious way. There will still be presidents and legislators and elections for hundreds of years. The system will just be co-opted by corporations and other large governments, until all the serious contenders for president support the policies of the elite, the legislators all mysteriously vote for the interests of the elite, and the military turns into a support system for defense contractors rather than having anything to do with defense. The state governments, which are weak by nature, will fall to corruption and infighting one by one ... a few will last for many decades, while others will essentially disappear and cede all their responsibilities to corporations. The justice system will continue unimpeded right up until it needs someone to actually enforce a big decision against a powerful player. The bureaucracy will keep operating on autopilot -- bills will still get paid, contracts procured, citizens' complaints heard -- but with no meaningful guidance from elected officials. Or some say this has already happened....
posted by miyabo at 8:41 PM on October 8, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 8:41 PM on October 8, 2015 [9 favorites]
Stupid Sexy Flanders.
posted by stevis23 at 8:48 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by stevis23 at 8:48 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Everyone always thinks they're living in the end times but somehow the world never actually ends. Why is that? Are we naturally self-centered and assume that that our existance is so pivotal that everything will change while we're around?
Would you say the US is more likely to collapse than it was in the 1960s? The 1930s? The 1860s?
The US is an extraordinarily stable country in an extraordinarily stable time. The chances are good that everyone old enough to read this thread right now will be long dead before the United States as we current understand it ceases to exist.
posted by The Lamplighter at 8:59 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Would you say the US is more likely to collapse than it was in the 1960s? The 1930s? The 1860s?
The US is an extraordinarily stable country in an extraordinarily stable time. The chances are good that everyone old enough to read this thread right now will be long dead before the United States as we current understand it ceases to exist.
posted by The Lamplighter at 8:59 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
Everyone always thinks they're living in the end times but somehow the world never actually ends. Why is that?
Well, once upon a time some level-headed people decided not to launch nuclear missiles when they thought they were supposed to.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:25 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
Well, once upon a time some level-headed people decided not to launch nuclear missiles when they thought they were supposed to.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:25 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
There will still be presidents and legislators and elections for hundreds of years.
Man, I want some of what you've been smoking.
posted by Token Meme at 9:27 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Man, I want some of what you've been smoking.
posted by Token Meme at 9:27 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Isn't the country/world already a totally different place than it was even 10-15 years ago? I mean, why does it always seem like there's some extreme change looming at any given moment? It seems as if history just goes its way and there are some things you can predict or defend against, and other times things happen and the country has to work with what it's got. I'd imagine 9/11 was one of those events that, while it could have been prevented, wasn't prevented, and therefore changed the country and world in one day. It's hard to manage so many pieces and factors involved in the world. I have hope that things won't be doom and gloom forever, there have always been ups and downs, but I fundamentally think it's a better place than it was when my parents were kids.
posted by gucci mane at 9:59 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 9:59 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
Remember back in 2008 when people couldn't legally marry..marijuanna...a bi-partisian bill on sentencing reform appears set to pass...
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? Does this LOOK like the "Government successfully functioning" thread? No. It is the "Oh noos, America is DOOMED!"thread. So no more of that. Nor do I want the Olds to point out we've been hearing proclamations of America's immediate inevitable decay and doom since the 60s. Not here, not now.
So then, if we want stable polities, there's really only one system that beats out feudalism for long-term cohesion, and that's extended family bands of hunter-gatherers. Obviously after the debt limit crisis occurs, we'll end up as nomadic bands, grubbing a meager existence out of the radioactive ruins of Albuquerque.
I've read lots of "Apocalypse World" and 1970s Harlan Ellison. I'm ready.
posted by happyroach at 12:50 AM on October 9, 2015 [7 favorites]
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? Does this LOOK like the "Government successfully functioning" thread? No. It is the "Oh noos, America is DOOMED!"thread. So no more of that. Nor do I want the Olds to point out we've been hearing proclamations of America's immediate inevitable decay and doom since the 60s. Not here, not now.
So then, if we want stable polities, there's really only one system that beats out feudalism for long-term cohesion, and that's extended family bands of hunter-gatherers. Obviously after the debt limit crisis occurs, we'll end up as nomadic bands, grubbing a meager existence out of the radioactive ruins of Albuquerque.
I've read lots of "Apocalypse World" and 1970s Harlan Ellison. I'm ready.
posted by happyroach at 12:50 AM on October 9, 2015 [7 favorites]
Yes, first thing lets do, let's kill all the journalists! No, wait, that's not how that goes.....
posted by valkane at 2:55 AM on October 9, 2015
posted by valkane at 2:55 AM on October 9, 2015
As far as I know, there's no way in the Constitution that provides for fixing "the executive is making executive orders well beyond his authority." You might say the judicial, but they can't act without a specific wounded party and a case.
Wounded party? Well, how about the House of Representatives?
..........
The US is an extraordinarily stable country in an extraordinarily stable time. The chances are good that everyone old enough to read this thread right now will be long dead before the United States as we current understand it ceases to exist.
I get what your saying, and I hope you're right. The thing that has me legitimately worried is how many people today sincerely want to all but eliminate government, especially the Federal government. And, how many elected representatives support that idea.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:00 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wounded party? Well, how about the House of Representatives?
..........
The US is an extraordinarily stable country in an extraordinarily stable time. The chances are good that everyone old enough to read this thread right now will be long dead before the United States as we current understand it ceases to exist.
I get what your saying, and I hope you're right. The thing that has me legitimately worried is how many people today sincerely want to all but eliminate government, especially the Federal government. And, how many elected representatives support that idea.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:00 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
The biggest structural problem is not, I think, the legislative/presidential impasse; it's the fact that liberals stay away from the polls in the midterms. That gave us the GOP House in 2010 and enables the constant atmosphere of crisis.
It also gave control of a number of statehouses to the Republicans, which enabled the monkeyshines with redistricting and voter suppression (not to mention a host of other unsavory laws, like Indiana's recent ill-considered attempt at a so-called "religious freedom" bill) that we're seeing now.
2020, however, is a Presidential year, so hopefully if the Democrats are a bit less feckless -- possibly a forlorn hope, I admit -- we may see the tide roll back some.
posted by Gelatin at 6:12 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
It also gave control of a number of statehouses to the Republicans, which enabled the monkeyshines with redistricting and voter suppression (not to mention a host of other unsavory laws, like Indiana's recent ill-considered attempt at a so-called "religious freedom" bill) that we're seeing now.
2020, however, is a Presidential year, so hopefully if the Democrats are a bit less feckless -- possibly a forlorn hope, I admit -- we may see the tide roll back some.
posted by Gelatin at 6:12 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
2020, however, is a Presidential year, so hopefully if the Democrats are a bit less feckless -- possibly a forlorn hope, I admit -- we may see the tide roll back some
Please don't fuck up the first term Hillary.
Please don't fuck up the first term Hillary.
Please don't fuck up the first term Hillary.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:16 AM on October 9, 2015
Please don't fuck up the first term Hillary.
Please don't fuck up the first term Hillary.
Please don't fuck up the first term Hillary.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:16 AM on October 9, 2015
Would you say the US is more likely to collapse than it was in the 1960s? The 1930s? The 1860s? [emphasis mine]
How can a probability be greater than one?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:19 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
How can a probability be greater than one?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:19 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
The problem is that now one of our political parties believes that compromise—any compromise—is a sign of emasculation.
Yeah, but how much of their agenda have they really been able to pass? Just about none of it. Meanwhile, you have Sanders arguably pulling H. Clinton to the left, and the fact that income inequality is even on the agenda this election season is pretty amazing. Then you have former Speaker of the House contender McCarthy's admission that the Benghazi!!! committee's purpose was solely to damage H. Clinton politically, which will make the inevitable Congressional Republican witch hunts (see: B. Clinton's tenure in office) a bit harder for the political press to pass off as legitimate.
Republican shenanigans seem increasingly like rearguard actions by a party that knows its agenda is unpopular. Unfortunately it seems a prisoner of the media bubble it has created, in which somehow one more vote to repeal Obamacare would be the one that worked.
posted by Gelatin at 6:36 AM on October 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yeah, but how much of their agenda have they really been able to pass? Just about none of it. Meanwhile, you have Sanders arguably pulling H. Clinton to the left, and the fact that income inequality is even on the agenda this election season is pretty amazing. Then you have former Speaker of the House contender McCarthy's admission that the Benghazi!!! committee's purpose was solely to damage H. Clinton politically, which will make the inevitable Congressional Republican witch hunts (see: B. Clinton's tenure in office) a bit harder for the political press to pass off as legitimate.
Republican shenanigans seem increasingly like rearguard actions by a party that knows its agenda is unpopular. Unfortunately it seems a prisoner of the media bubble it has created, in which somehow one more vote to repeal Obamacare would be the one that worked.
posted by Gelatin at 6:36 AM on October 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
To be clear, the claim that American democracy is doomed is not an apocalyptic scenario. The main response to Juan Linz is that the US has also had several constitutional crises due to its structure, starting with the Civil War.
I think Bruce Ackerman gives the best picture in "The New Separation of Powers:
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:39 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think Bruce Ackerman gives the best picture in "The New Separation of Powers:
Rather than all out war, president and house may merely indulge a taste for endless backbiting, mutual recrimination, and partisan deadlock. Worse yet, the contending powers may use the constitutional tools at their disposal to make life miserable for each other: the house will harass the executive, and the president will engage in unilateral action whenever he can get away with it. I call this scenario the “crisis in governability.”Would anyone deny that this is exactly the world we currently inhabit?
Once the crisis begins, it gives rise to a vicious cycle. Presidents break legislative impasses by “solving” pressing problems with unilateral decrees that often go well beyond their formal constitutional authority; rather than protesting, representatives are relieved that they can evade political responsibility for making hard decisions; subsequent presidents use these precedents to expand their decree power further; the emerging practice may even be codified by later constitutional amendments. Increasingly, the house is reduced to a forum for demagogic posturing, while the president makes the tough decisions unilaterally without considering the interests and ideologies represented by the leading political parties in congress. This dismal cycle is already visible in countries like Argentina and Brazil, which have only recently emerged from military dictatorships. A less pathological version is visible in the homeland of presidentialism, the United States.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:39 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
My dad says that society collapsed in 1992 and no one has noticed. I mean, he's serious. I think what he's getting at is that economic changes radically remade the world to the point where many of the things that he values (stable, strong unions, for example! not having drones! welfare for the vulnerable! ) are pretty well gone to the point where people have trouble even imagining what it was like to take them for granted.
I think the world keeps ending. It's not that it ticks on and on, it's that it ends over and over. And it ends unevenly.
Take for instance: I have a friend whose mother is....not that great, actually. She's very charming but she is a very damaged person who has a lot of trouble keeping things together. My friend grew up in stable housing and had a poor but basically functional childhood thanks to welfare. Welfare's gone. My friend - who is a woman of steel and fire - has triumphed over homelessness and life chaos but still has a job that is held in contempt socially and renders her pretty vulnerable. There have been many, many times over the years I've known here where a social safety net would have made an enormous, enormous difference to her and there was just nothing, and I know because I went with her to various offices.
What keeps happening is that the social worlds of vulnerable people end. "Vulnerable" is creeping up the ladder so that you have to be a lot richer to be safe.
Social conventions end. The idea that we don't just keep running these perpetual war bombing campaigns...I mean, as shitty as the Reagan eighties were, the idea it would be just accepted that we'd perpetually be at war with Oceania...or rather, perpetually be bombing places! Or the idea that we'd have an official torture doctrine - that was something the Soviets did! Our national self-concept has so radically altered since my childhood, and it's certainly for the worse. We were a lousy country then, but at least our ideal was better - we thought the ideal America would never torture or assassinate, even if the real America did so, and now we think that the ideal America tortures and assassinates because that's for the greater good and accept that we torture and assassinate for convenience.
All you have to do is look at the SF of the 1970s, for instance. There's a lot more assumption that the welfare state will just get shittier and more joyless and coercive (a la Ursula Le Guin's short story "Atlantis" or Tom Disch's 334) than anything else.
Right now, Hobbesian war of all against all, intractable homelessness and refusal of state services are all so normal as to be invisible and we've forgotten that as recently as, say, 1974, even the dystopian futures weren't this bad.
The point is, "collapse" doesn't mean people fighting in the streets for the last dented can of cat food.
posted by Frowner at 6:44 AM on October 9, 2015 [24 favorites]
I think the world keeps ending. It's not that it ticks on and on, it's that it ends over and over. And it ends unevenly.
Take for instance: I have a friend whose mother is....not that great, actually. She's very charming but she is a very damaged person who has a lot of trouble keeping things together. My friend grew up in stable housing and had a poor but basically functional childhood thanks to welfare. Welfare's gone. My friend - who is a woman of steel and fire - has triumphed over homelessness and life chaos but still has a job that is held in contempt socially and renders her pretty vulnerable. There have been many, many times over the years I've known here where a social safety net would have made an enormous, enormous difference to her and there was just nothing, and I know because I went with her to various offices.
What keeps happening is that the social worlds of vulnerable people end. "Vulnerable" is creeping up the ladder so that you have to be a lot richer to be safe.
Social conventions end. The idea that we don't just keep running these perpetual war bombing campaigns...I mean, as shitty as the Reagan eighties were, the idea it would be just accepted that we'd perpetually be at war with Oceania...or rather, perpetually be bombing places! Or the idea that we'd have an official torture doctrine - that was something the Soviets did! Our national self-concept has so radically altered since my childhood, and it's certainly for the worse. We were a lousy country then, but at least our ideal was better - we thought the ideal America would never torture or assassinate, even if the real America did so, and now we think that the ideal America tortures and assassinates because that's for the greater good and accept that we torture and assassinate for convenience.
All you have to do is look at the SF of the 1970s, for instance. There's a lot more assumption that the welfare state will just get shittier and more joyless and coercive (a la Ursula Le Guin's short story "Atlantis" or Tom Disch's 334) than anything else.
Right now, Hobbesian war of all against all, intractable homelessness and refusal of state services are all so normal as to be invisible and we've forgotten that as recently as, say, 1974, even the dystopian futures weren't this bad.
The point is, "collapse" doesn't mean people fighting in the streets for the last dented can of cat food.
posted by Frowner at 6:44 AM on October 9, 2015 [24 favorites]
I don't understand the assertion that a parliamentary system would result in the Republicans controlling everything. The Republicans have only won the popular vote in 1 out of the last 6 Presidential elections.
posted by Asparagus at 6:58 AM on October 9, 2015
posted by Asparagus at 6:58 AM on October 9, 2015
My friend - who is a woman of steel and fire - has triumphed over homelessness and life chaos but still has a job that is held in contempt socially and renders her pretty vulnerable. There have been many, many times over the years I've known here where a social safety net would have made an enormous, enormous difference to her and there was just nothing, and I know because I went with her to various offices.
This is so true and terribly sad, both for individuals and society as a whole. We have everything to gain from people being able to live stable lives, and everything to lose by keeping people vulnerable.
I too have managed to create a stable home for myself and two cats – and a decent job that's respected. In France. There is NO way in hell I'd have been able to do that without the help of a socialist government. None. To start with, I'd have died of a burst ovarian cyst 16 years ago because I wouldn't have gone to an ER in time; I'd have waited it out, afraid of spending money I didn't have, and bled to death. As it was, going to the nearby Finnish hospital an hour later was pushing it. (I was living in Helsinki at the time. Down the block from the Women's Hospital, heh.) But beyond that black-and-white example, there is also:
- being able to request "intermediate" housing: funded by employer taxes, overseen by the government. Rent-controlled, privately-managed, eligible for government aid.
- government aid towards the first month of rent
- government aid as guarantor for my rental contracts: without any family to act as guarantor, this is a lifesaver
- health care, health care, health care.
I broke my arm two weeks ago. Right wrist, both forearm bones, also split their length; three pins to hold everything together while I heal. Right in the middle of my salaried job and move to the new apartment.
Additional cost to me: zero. Effect on job: zero, though not ideal, obviously. Paid medical leave fully taken care of. And that's WITH a major health coverage fuckup (very long and complex story, it's all okay). I live alone, have for 11 years now. Even on bad days, I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have stability; to know that if ever my job gets untenable, I can quit and find another without losing everything; to know that if (when) I break a bone, I will be taken care of, not ruined...
posted by fraula at 7:10 AM on October 9, 2015 [16 favorites]
This is so true and terribly sad, both for individuals and society as a whole. We have everything to gain from people being able to live stable lives, and everything to lose by keeping people vulnerable.
I too have managed to create a stable home for myself and two cats – and a decent job that's respected. In France. There is NO way in hell I'd have been able to do that without the help of a socialist government. None. To start with, I'd have died of a burst ovarian cyst 16 years ago because I wouldn't have gone to an ER in time; I'd have waited it out, afraid of spending money I didn't have, and bled to death. As it was, going to the nearby Finnish hospital an hour later was pushing it. (I was living in Helsinki at the time. Down the block from the Women's Hospital, heh.) But beyond that black-and-white example, there is also:
- being able to request "intermediate" housing: funded by employer taxes, overseen by the government. Rent-controlled, privately-managed, eligible for government aid.
- government aid towards the first month of rent
- government aid as guarantor for my rental contracts: without any family to act as guarantor, this is a lifesaver
- health care, health care, health care.
I broke my arm two weeks ago. Right wrist, both forearm bones, also split their length; three pins to hold everything together while I heal. Right in the middle of my salaried job and move to the new apartment.
Additional cost to me: zero. Effect on job: zero, though not ideal, obviously. Paid medical leave fully taken care of. And that's WITH a major health coverage fuckup (very long and complex story, it's all okay). I live alone, have for 11 years now. Even on bad days, I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have stability; to know that if ever my job gets untenable, I can quit and find another without losing everything; to know that if (when) I break a bone, I will be taken care of, not ruined...
posted by fraula at 7:10 AM on October 9, 2015 [16 favorites]
Dialogue On Democracy, Part 1
A. It’s time to accept a simple and yet profound fact: democracy is a failed experiment. People throughout the Western world — well, hold on: let’s just confine this discussion to America. Democracy in America is a failed experiment. Americans have demonstrated conclusively that they are too ignorant, thoughtless, and selfish to be trusted with self-governance.Dialogue on Democracy, Part 2
B. Ignorant, thoughtless, and selfish! What a trifecta! Hyperbole much?
B. I’m going to do you the honor of assuming that you are not going to argue for confining the franchise to white males who make more than $100,000 a year….Dialogue on Democracy, Part 3
A. Much obliged.
B. But this is going to be an argument for a New Aristocracy, isn’t it?
A. Yep.
A. There’s nothing to be afraid of — but yes (since you’re wondering) my conviction that democracy is a failed experiment does stem, in part, from my reading of the neoreactionaries, especially Moldbug. But I’m not with him all the way — for instance, as you can tell from my earlier comments, I have a good deal more respect for the U. S. Constitution than does Moldbug, who has commented, “The basic nature of constitutional government is the formalization of power, and democracy is the formalization of mob violence.” Nah. But in many other respects his diagnosis of where we’ve gone awry is spot on.posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:12 AM on October 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
B. Is it? I don’t think so. In fact, hearing that your thoughts have been shaped by Moldbug’s does more to discredit them than anything else you’ve said.
man, I wish we could get it together to formalize some mob violence all over Moldbug's face.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:45 PM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:45 PM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think the world keeps ending. It's not that it ticks on and on, it's that it ends over and over. And it ends unevenly.
This is John Michael Greer's thesis pretty much exactly.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:35 PM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is John Michael Greer's thesis pretty much exactly.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:35 PM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Another piece about Linz's work: America’s Fragile Constitution. The Founders misread history and established a dysfunctional system of government. A case for a little less reverence.
posted by homunculus at 4:55 PM on October 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 4:55 PM on October 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
The way I think about the Constitution (broadly considered as our whole system of government, rather than the document in particular) is a little like:
I think the bar that a government has to meet to be worse than a collapsed government is very high. For example, it seems like it might be better to live in Saddam's Iraq than today's.
posted by grobstein at 7:25 PM on October 13, 2015
We are all in a car, zooming down the highway at 70mph. The car has been running for about 200 years, and no one alive knows exactly how it works or why it keeps running. But we can't stop the car and we can't get out.This is melodramatic, I think, but a bit right also and suggests an attitude of caution about some stuff. Of course I don't think that every reform has to be avoided because otherwise the civil order will collapse. But the changes we can make are constrained by a continuity that has more to do with tradition and luck than reason.
Unfortunately, the car has all kinds of problems. Conditions in the car are unpleasant and dangerous for many of the passengers. And for all we know, the engine could be on its last legs, and even those of us relaxing in the front with our feet on the dash might be about to get lacerated, crushed, and burned to a crisp.
Maybe we should try and fix or modify the car.
Still.
This is the only car we have, we don't know how it works, and it's going 70mph. What if we turn a screw and the front-right wheel falls off? Can we risk it?
I think the bar that a government has to meet to be worse than a collapsed government is very high. For example, it seems like it might be better to live in Saddam's Iraq than today's.
posted by grobstein at 7:25 PM on October 13, 2015
The idea that tinkering is dangerous ignores our own version of the Ship of Theseus problem. The whole administrative state is like a massive hemi-engine strapped to the top of that 200 year old jallopy. The most important part of our constitution is the way rules and regulations get made (they're the things that steer our economy, not Congressional legislation, which is why the Republicans can afford to be so irrational without running the government off the road.) Yet not a single jot or iota in the original document spells out that relationship.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:34 AM on October 14, 2015
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:34 AM on October 14, 2015
Oh yes, you are right, it is very much to point that we have already made changes, and the move towards Presidential administration is the big one here. That's why I specified I was talking about "Constitution" qua system of government, sort of the British sense, not qua original scheme as written down in 178X.
In fact, I think the sort of argument I'm making would counsel against proposed radical changes that would (purportedly) take us back closer to the original Constitutional scheme and away from the modern administrative regime, e.g., a robust non-delegation doctrine, a dismantling of the Federal Reserve, a constitutional convention, limits to Presidential directive power over federal officials, etc.
Consult my monograph on whether could Obama legally appoint as First Dog Bo without the advice and consent of the Senate.
posted by grobstein at 8:25 AM on October 14, 2015
In fact, I think the sort of argument I'm making would counsel against proposed radical changes that would (purportedly) take us back closer to the original Constitutional scheme and away from the modern administrative regime, e.g., a robust non-delegation doctrine, a dismantling of the Federal Reserve, a constitutional convention, limits to Presidential directive power over federal officials, etc.
Consult my monograph on whether could Obama legally appoint as First Dog Bo without the advice and consent of the Senate.
posted by grobstein at 8:25 AM on October 14, 2015
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
America's political system isn't going to collapse. It's going to muddle through. (Ezra Klein, Vox)
There’s a Chance American Democracy Is Not Doomed (Jonathan Chait, NYMag)
posted by Punkey at 12:58 PM on October 8, 2015 [23 favorites]