In an op-ed in the New York Times Greg Weiner laments the sorry state of American government:
We have become a de facto parliamentary system in which competing parties battle for executive power. The problem is that we have acquired all the vices of such a system but none of its virtues.
A parliamentary system typically has the effects of discouraging demagogues and ensuring competence, by seasoning leaders on the journey from the backbenches to the ones at the front. By contrast, three presidents who served before Joe Biden — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Mr. Trump — arrived in the White House as either newcomers or latecomers to national office. Parliamentary systems also feature vigorous debates with real consequences. Governments rise and fall on the basis of their legislative agendas. Debates in Congress are largely stagecraft, with actual governing being relegated to a vast executive branch empowered to turn vague laws into detailed policy.
He proposes no solutions.
One aspect of the failure of our government that is conspicuous by its absence in Dr. Weiner’s account is the judicial branch. For decades both the legislative and executive branch have been eager to let the Supreme Court do the heavy lifting. I don’t think that can be attributed, as Dr. Weiner does, to the arising of an ersatz parliamentary system. I think there are multiple causes.
The first is that the Congress is far too small for a country the size of the U. S. Some hold to the “cube root rule”. Using that as your gauge the U. S. Congress is the least representative legislative body of any OECD country. To fit the rule the Congress must be half again as large as it is now. I’m skeptical and think the so-called rule is a post hoc observation. By that standard France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are all over-represented.
The second is that federal elective office has become far too cushy a gig. Why give up a lifetime sinecure? The way to maneuver without leaving any fingerprints which might cause you to lose that sinecure is by having some other branch of government do the heavy lifting for you.
The third is the most serious and that is that I think the American consensus has broken down. I see no consensus on practically any subject, including the benignity of the United States. It has been known since the time of Plato that consensus is a requirement for republican government. Throughout history all multi-ethnic, multi-confessional empires have been autocracies.
The reforms that would be required to remedy any of those are so numerous and so extensive it’s hard for me to imagine any peaceful resolution. That suggests we will either continue our drift towards tyranny or break up into none-too-friendly regions.
True consensus can only be discovered, not manufactured (although once discovered, it can be extended).
If I were to try to restore consensus-finding to the national discourse, it would be along the lines of “if we don’t hang together, we shall surely hang separately.”
Networked opponents become impossible to steamroll. Our technology has networked/is networking everything. If we don’t find consensus, we are lost.
“Us/them” framings may be technologically obsolete, but they are also baked by necessity into the categorizing function of human analogical intelligence. Since we can’t turn that off, the escape path involves expanding the “us” category to include all possible values of “them,” and problem-solving together from there. Which again means seeking consensus.
That NO ONE with a prominent media or government voice is shouting this from the rooftops must mean something. What, I am not sure.
What a spectacle.
A consensus requires a racially and culturally homogeneous population. So does any sort of representative democracy, parliamentary or not. What consensus existed in America was never very strong, because even though the country was overwhelmingly White, it was not ever culturally uniform, even during the early colonial era. What consensus existed was strongly local, almost walking distance. As the White population shrinks in proportion to the others, dissension and discord will become worse. Eventually you get a dictatorship. The covid crisis has shown how easy it will be to set one up.
Lee Kuan Yew (Der Spiegel, 8/8/05): “In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with your race and religion.”
He was explaining why Singapore had an authoritarian, top-down government. He was also describing our future.
Bob, would you agree that other people disagree with you?
If so, isn’t my above statement [THAT you and I agree this disagreement exists] a consensus?
One that is independent of the human factors you describe?
Consensus is easy to find.
Unfortunately, divisions are even easier to find, in addition to being sexier and more attention-grabbing.
That’s a tough challenge.
I don’t think that can be the foundation of a new consensus for the simple reason that for at least 20% of the people it isn’t true.
That two groups hate each other isn’t usually raised as a basis for agreement.
BTW, if you didn’t get the joke, “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” is a column that has been running in the Ladies Home Journal since 1951.
Hah! I was unfamiliar with the column.
The 80-20 rule you describe, Dave, holds true only so long as our economic inequalities don’t give rise to, er, more kinetic arguments. Right?
Sure, the wealthy are generally better off during extreme social disorder. But networked populations also have vastly different technological targeting capabilities then non-networked populations, making that insulation far less certain than it once was. I’d rather not see those capabilities tested in a real breakdown.
That’s what I meant in my first comment. I suspect the game has changed.
As far as consensus mutual hatred goes, it’s not actually as much of a problem as it seems, because it’s an icebreaking first step along the path TO a foundation.
Consensus THAT we hate each other doesn’t necessarily mean consensus that we must fight to the death for dominance. It also frames a set of common problems that can be jointly attacked:
Why do we hate each other? What can we do about it? Have we been fooled into hating each other?
Lending a clarifying urgency to the joint frame possibilities is “Well, if we can’t work it out, we could always just declare total war.” Played well over time, this carrot and stick consensus game de-escalates tension and co-opts opponents. I should write it up sometime.
More broadly, iterative consensus-seeking is a winning strategy for building social cohesion/function within an unbounded, untrustable information environment. But that’s another story.
Long-term social strategies arise from pointing the iterative consensus cannon directly at the mechanism of human decision-making itself: in what ways does human decision-making NOT vary from person to person? What stable societal effects arise as a result? How can society be designed within the constraints of those effects?
And so on.
I think Shakespeare shows what mutual hatred usually leads in Romeo and Juliet — an escalating tit for tat that ends when everything is gone.
Now I don’t believe that all consensus is gone. There is still consensus to identify as American. The problem is there is little agreement on what that means.
The danger zone will be when groups start prioritizing other competing identities long before American.
Historically, the public school inculcated a consensus view. Indeed, that was the purpose for which they were created. I am concerned that the views they are presently inculcating are not conducive to societal comity.
One of the risks presented by our networked society is that fomenting massive disorder doesn’t require as many people as it used to.
I don’t believe that or at least I think that the number of people living and working here who do not “identify as American” is large enough to promote discord.
Consensus used to be the American creed – and maybe it still is, but it’s definitely weakened in my view.
Where I live we supposedly are almost exactly split 50-50. In real life, not in blogging life, I think we all mostly get along pretty well as far as i can tell. Our values are not all that different. Nobody hates anyone because of their political beliefs. Almost no one actually. We all love the great American holidays, the foods, the fairs. We support the police, the military, etc. No one hates you just because you are gay, people mostly dont care.
I think in some places we have fallen apart but in most we arent really that political and we get along fine.
Steve