How American Politics Went Insane
June 22, 2016 1:41 PM Subscribe
Jonathan Rauch: Trump, however, didn’t cause the chaos. The chaos caused Trump. What we are seeing is not a temporary spasm of chaos but a chaos syndrome.
Chaos syndrome is a chronic decline in the political system’s capacity for self-organization. It begins with the weakening of the institutions and brokers—political parties, career politicians, and congressional leaders and committees—that have historically held politicians accountable to one another and prevented everyone in the system from pursuing naked self-interest all the time. As these intermediaries’ influence fades, politicians, activists, and voters all become more individualistic and unaccountable. The system atomizes. Chaos becomes the new normal—both in campaigns and in the government itself.
Our intricate, informal system of political intermediation, which took many decades to build, did not commit suicide or die of old age; we reformed it to death. For decades, well-meaning political reformers have attacked intermediaries as corrupt, undemocratic, unnecessary, or (usually) all of the above. Americans have been busy demonizing and disempowering political professionals and parties, which is like spending decades abusing and attacking your own immune system. Eventually, you will get sick.
Our intricate, informal system of political intermediation, which took many decades to build, did not commit suicide or die of old age; we reformed it to death. For decades, well-meaning political reformers have attacked intermediaries as corrupt, undemocratic, unnecessary, or (usually) all of the above. Americans have been busy demonizing and disempowering political professionals and parties, which is like spending decades abusing and attacking your own immune system. Eventually, you will get sick.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Eh, if someone wants to get together a new election thread to take the strain off the current one that's okay, but I don't think a big op-ed with a speculative fiction gimmick is a good way to go there or something we really need just as bonus election stuff rather than fodder for comments in the current thread. -- cortex
Counterpoint from Chait:
The more serious problem with Rauch’s argument is this: Virtually every breakdown in governing he identifies is occurring primarily or exclusively within the Republican Party. Democrats have not been shutting down the government, holding the debt ceiling hostage, overthrowing their leaders in Congress, revolting against normal deal-making, or (for the most part) living in terror of primary challenges. Rauch is right that Sanders has encouraged unrealistic ideas about a revolution that would make compromise unnecessary, but the signal fact is that Sanders lost. And Sanders’s notion of a purifying revolution, while thrilling to a handful of left-wing activists, has no influence over Democrats in Congress — arguably not even with Sanders himself, who votes more pragmatically than his stump rhetoric would indicate. The disconnect implies a fatal flaw in Rauch’s analysis. Since he identifies causes of illness that afflict both parties equally, while the symptoms have manifested in only one of them, what reason is there to trust his diagnosis?
Indeed, the more closely we look at the composition of the two parties, the more obvious it is that only one of them truly exhibits the tendencies he describes. Over the last decade, writers like me, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, and Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have written about the growing asymmetry between the two parties. The GOP, but not the Democratic Party, is fully identified with an ideological movement. The almost-all-white Republican Party is far more ethnically monolithic than the polyglot Democratic Party, and more ideologically monolithic, too — more than two-thirds of Republicans identify themselves as conservative, while fewer than half of Democrats call themselves “liberal.” (Self-identified moderates and conservatives comprise a majority of the party’s supporters, albeit a shrinking one.) Democratic voters rely on news sources that, whatever their unconscious bias, strive to follow principles of objectivity and nonpartisanship. Republican voters mostly trust Fox News and other party organs that merely amplify the party’s message.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:46 PM on June 22, 2016 [25 favorites]
The more serious problem with Rauch’s argument is this: Virtually every breakdown in governing he identifies is occurring primarily or exclusively within the Republican Party. Democrats have not been shutting down the government, holding the debt ceiling hostage, overthrowing their leaders in Congress, revolting against normal deal-making, or (for the most part) living in terror of primary challenges. Rauch is right that Sanders has encouraged unrealistic ideas about a revolution that would make compromise unnecessary, but the signal fact is that Sanders lost. And Sanders’s notion of a purifying revolution, while thrilling to a handful of left-wing activists, has no influence over Democrats in Congress — arguably not even with Sanders himself, who votes more pragmatically than his stump rhetoric would indicate. The disconnect implies a fatal flaw in Rauch’s analysis. Since he identifies causes of illness that afflict both parties equally, while the symptoms have manifested in only one of them, what reason is there to trust his diagnosis?
Indeed, the more closely we look at the composition of the two parties, the more obvious it is that only one of them truly exhibits the tendencies he describes. Over the last decade, writers like me, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, and Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have written about the growing asymmetry between the two parties. The GOP, but not the Democratic Party, is fully identified with an ideological movement. The almost-all-white Republican Party is far more ethnically monolithic than the polyglot Democratic Party, and more ideologically monolithic, too — more than two-thirds of Republicans identify themselves as conservative, while fewer than half of Democrats call themselves “liberal.” (Self-identified moderates and conservatives comprise a majority of the party’s supporters, albeit a shrinking one.) Democratic voters rely on news sources that, whatever their unconscious bias, strive to follow principles of objectivity and nonpartisanship. Republican voters mostly trust Fox News and other party organs that merely amplify the party’s message.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:46 PM on June 22, 2016 [25 favorites]
when I read this yesterday, I felt like Rauch was offering a false choice between orderly corruption or mob rule democracy by trying to frame it as, "yes, professional politicans working in the party machines are not elected and a degree removed from democracy. They're open to corruption and captive to wealthy donors. But if they weren't there then the alternative is CHAOS AND MADNESS. We can't let the people select their own representatives because they'll just elect populist demagogues, and we need to rely on the establishment elite to pick reasonable voices (who are also all establishment white guys and their approved proxies)"
I don't know, maybe propose a new system to let professional politicians be incentivized by the popular support of their party rather than their fundraising mechanisms?
posted by bl1nk at 1:53 PM on June 22, 2016 [8 favorites]
I don't know, maybe propose a new system to let professional politicians be incentivized by the popular support of their party rather than their fundraising mechanisms?
posted by bl1nk at 1:53 PM on June 22, 2016 [8 favorites]
The desperate reach for a "both-sides" argument does rather undermine the article.
posted by Artw at 1:57 PM on June 22, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by Artw at 1:57 PM on June 22, 2016 [8 favorites]
This could be easily read as: OH NOES us white folks now have to compete on a more even political playing field! How will we ever win again against those dusky hoards who threaten to take our power? If we just return to the era of horse-trading and backroom dealing, we can leverage whats left of our grip on the levers of establishment power and still dictate favorable government outcomes for at least another generation or two. A defense of Republican intransigence masquerading as a diagnosis of systemic dysfunction, now that, finally, a whole mess of previously marginalized Americans are beginning to exercise more of their rightful influence within the system.
posted by Chrischris at 2:09 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Chrischris at 2:09 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
Everyone seems to attribute the Trump situation to something about the electorate or the parties. While there are good points to be made about both, it seems to me pretty clear that Trump happened mostly because the media tells us what we want to hear.
A couple years ago, the polls began. It was Trump vs. Rubio vs. Bush vs. Cruz vs. Christie, etc. Trump won those polls. Why? No one knew who the hell any of those people were. Sure, they had heard the Bush name, but they didn't know who Jeb was. They knew who Donald Trump was. So in those polls, people chose the name they knew. Trump was winning those early polls with 15-18% of the vote. Everyone else was a few points below. No one knew who any of those people were. The person with the most name recognition won. Unfortunately, the media did not ignore those polls and wait to report on polls until people had some idea who they were even choosing from. Instead, we had headlines telling us that Trump was winning those polls. In this society, winning begets winning. Once Trump began as the winner, it was much easier for him to maintain that status. Had the media ignored the results of polls that were really just "who have you actually heard of?", then this whole circus likely would not have happened.
If Clinton loses in the fall to Trump, then polls will come out shortly thereafter about who the Democratic nominee in 2020 will be. Clinton, Biden, and Sanders are probably the most known names. They will likely not be included in such polling because they are so old and unlikely to run. Elizabeth Warren is probably the biggest name out of the rest, but most people don't know who she is. So it will be a list of some senators and governors that no one has ever heard of. Let's suppose that Kanye West gets included in those polls. Who do you suppose will "win" those polls? I would suspect Kanye West would very likely get 10-15% against a group of people that no one knows. The media could then report him as the winner, thus giving him credibility he would otherwise really never be able to achieve.
I am sure the same thing would have happened in 1990 if you polled the general public in a Bill Clinton v. Paul Tsongas v. Bill Richardson v. Dick Gephardt v. Warren Beatty poll. Warren Beatty would have won because no one knew who those other people were. The difference is that the media would not have reported on Warren Beatty's winning a poll like that because they would have known that it was not based on any merit and that publicizing the results would have been irresponsible. The balance between the media giving-the-people-what-they-want and giving-the-people-what-they-need has shifted to a very dangerous place.
posted by flarbuse at 2:10 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
A couple years ago, the polls began. It was Trump vs. Rubio vs. Bush vs. Cruz vs. Christie, etc. Trump won those polls. Why? No one knew who the hell any of those people were. Sure, they had heard the Bush name, but they didn't know who Jeb was. They knew who Donald Trump was. So in those polls, people chose the name they knew. Trump was winning those early polls with 15-18% of the vote. Everyone else was a few points below. No one knew who any of those people were. The person with the most name recognition won. Unfortunately, the media did not ignore those polls and wait to report on polls until people had some idea who they were even choosing from. Instead, we had headlines telling us that Trump was winning those polls. In this society, winning begets winning. Once Trump began as the winner, it was much easier for him to maintain that status. Had the media ignored the results of polls that were really just "who have you actually heard of?", then this whole circus likely would not have happened.
If Clinton loses in the fall to Trump, then polls will come out shortly thereafter about who the Democratic nominee in 2020 will be. Clinton, Biden, and Sanders are probably the most known names. They will likely not be included in such polling because they are so old and unlikely to run. Elizabeth Warren is probably the biggest name out of the rest, but most people don't know who she is. So it will be a list of some senators and governors that no one has ever heard of. Let's suppose that Kanye West gets included in those polls. Who do you suppose will "win" those polls? I would suspect Kanye West would very likely get 10-15% against a group of people that no one knows. The media could then report him as the winner, thus giving him credibility he would otherwise really never be able to achieve.
I am sure the same thing would have happened in 1990 if you polled the general public in a Bill Clinton v. Paul Tsongas v. Bill Richardson v. Dick Gephardt v. Warren Beatty poll. Warren Beatty would have won because no one knew who those other people were. The difference is that the media would not have reported on Warren Beatty's winning a poll like that because they would have known that it was not based on any merit and that publicizing the results would have been irresponsible. The balance between the media giving-the-people-what-they-want and giving-the-people-what-they-need has shifted to a very dangerous place.
posted by flarbuse at 2:10 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
I've just started Rauch's article, and already I'm getting eyesocket pain from all the eye-rolling at the rampant Both-Sides-Do-Itism. I can actually believe the Duck Dynasty guy getting nominated, but Kanye? Please. There's no reason why Clinton wouldn't get renominated; Democrats really don't go for stunt candidates.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:10 PM on June 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:10 PM on June 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
If only there were other democracies with less severe public corruption problems from which we could learn. Oh well.
posted by 1adam12 at 2:18 PM on June 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 2:18 PM on June 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
The joke is that this is just Ian Malcolm's monologue from Jurassic Park with "dinosaur" search-and-replaced with "Trump," right?
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:20 PM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:20 PM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
I couldn't get past the title.
Wake me up when the opinionists figure out better adjectives to describe their subject matter in ways other than comparing said subject to mental illness.
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:23 PM on June 22, 2016
Wake me up when the opinionists figure out better adjectives to describe their subject matter in ways other than comparing said subject to mental illness.
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:23 PM on June 22, 2016
I like dusky hoards
so much easier than sunlit stockpiling.
posted by lalochezia at 2:27 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
so much easier than sunlit stockpiling.
posted by lalochezia at 2:27 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
How can you call something a syndrome without identifying other examples of it in the world or in history? If you don't have examples, you don't have a syndrome, you have some stuff.
posted by howfar at 2:27 PM on June 22, 2016
posted by howfar at 2:27 PM on June 22, 2016
bl1nk, 1adam12: This is my take as well. It's well-established in the political science literature that American-style FPTP/presidential systems are less stable. PR and parliamentary democracy tend to be much better. Europe has its problems right now, but compared to the US, it's looking pretty good.
posted by kevinbelt at 2:28 PM on June 22, 2016
posted by kevinbelt at 2:28 PM on June 22, 2016
I got as far as, As the presidential primaries unfold, Kanye West is leading a fractured field of Democrats. Then my gag reflex kicked in.
posted by Splunge at 2:28 PM on June 22, 2016
posted by Splunge at 2:28 PM on June 22, 2016
The biggest obstacle, I think, is the general public’s reflexive, unreasoning hostility to politicians and the process of politics. Neurotic hatred of the political class is the country’s last universally acceptable form of bigotry. Because that problem is mental, not mechanical, it really is hard to remedy.
versus
Over the last decade, writers like me, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, and Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have written about the growing asymmetry between the two parties. The GOP, but not the Democratic Party, is fully identified with an ideological movement. The almost-all-white Republican Party is…
You're all the same.
posted by polymodus at 2:30 PM on June 22, 2016
versus
Over the last decade, writers like me, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, and Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have written about the growing asymmetry between the two parties. The GOP, but not the Democratic Party, is fully identified with an ideological movement. The almost-all-white Republican Party is…
You're all the same.
posted by polymodus at 2:30 PM on June 22, 2016
Neurotic hatred of the political class is the country’s last universally acceptable form of bigotry
That and making fun of hairy backs.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:35 PM on June 22, 2016
That and making fun of hairy backs.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:35 PM on June 22, 2016
Shut it, Gaston.
posted by Artw at 2:38 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 2:38 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Rauch article is dumb, but I've got some huge alarm bells ringing in my head the day that the Democrats in Congress borrow imagery from the Occupation to do a sit in to extend the PATRIOT act and then Republicans turn off CSPAN (to defend civil liberties?) only to be punked by Twitter/Periscope.
posted by ethansr at 2:43 PM on June 22, 2016
posted by ethansr at 2:43 PM on June 22, 2016
Take polarization. Over the past few decades, the public has become sharply divided across partisan and ideological lines. Chaos syndrome compounds the problem, because even when Republicans and Democrats do find something to work together on, the threat of an extremist primary challenge funded by a flood of outside money makes them think twice—or not at all.
Ah, yes. The veritable plague of moderate Democratic incumbents getting challenged and knocked out of the primaries by far left ideologues and their seemingly bottomless coffers of campaign cash!
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:45 PM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
Ah, yes. The veritable plague of moderate Democratic incumbents getting challenged and knocked out of the primaries by far left ideologues and their seemingly bottomless coffers of campaign cash!
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:45 PM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
...and maybe just maybe David Cameron set in motion World War III, by making the most reckless bet of the century?
posted by ethansr at 2:46 PM on June 22, 2016
posted by ethansr at 2:46 PM on June 22, 2016
"American democracy is doomed" by Matthew Yglesias makes a similar argument, but from a structural perspective. Put simply, Presidential systems are susceptible to unsustainable and destabilizing gridlock in ways that Parliamentary systems aren't, and sooner or later one of these crises might take down our entire system of government.
"American democracy, R.I.P.?" by Daniel Drezner is a response to Yglesias's structural argument.
posted by andoatnp at 2:46 PM on June 22, 2016
"American democracy, R.I.P.?" by Daniel Drezner is a response to Yglesias's structural argument.
posted by andoatnp at 2:46 PM on June 22, 2016
What Happens When One Party Doesn’t Care About Governing?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:47 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:47 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
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