Broken Government

[Dill]

(09-24-2020, 07:33 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Here is why I see amending the constitution or starting over as the way forward. The current division in the country doesn't bother me. People talk about us being more divided than ever, which may or may not be true, but we've always had divisions. There is nothing politically that will fix it. However, the ability for the government to function as it should has become an issue due to this division. One of the largest reasons for this is the discovery of how reliant upon norms our system has been.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

I am not bothered by division in principle. In fact, checks and balances won't work without it. So I don't want to fix "division."

I agree that the division we have now makes government unable to function, but that is because of the nature of the division--it is now between liberal and illiberal voters. "Illiberal" here means what it means in other places where democracy is under siege, like Hungary and Turkey--grievance driven pluralities/majorities who reject rule of law in favor of a "strong" nationalist (as opposed to "national") leader. Such voters reject the norms you refer to, and elect leaders who publicly "perform" their violation to cheering masses. Like journalistic standards, democratic norms appear to them largely as "bias," partisan restrictions on their leaders' actions which favor liberals.

But in the US case, the primary cause of this rejection of democratic/liberal norms lies in civil society, outside government, where a competing set of norms, originating decades ago in opposition to integration, has been cultivated in a system of churches, schools, media and think tanks, rewarding politicians who push their agenda. And in consequence of this rewarding, the two major parties no longer contain BOTH liberals and conservatives, as was the case until the Gingrich revolution. 

(09-24-2020, 07:33 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I've said it before, and I'll say it again, norms are the guardrails of democracy. I forget what democratic theorist that came from at this point, but someone far smarter than me said it. The norms, the unwritten rules of our political system, kept our democracy afloat. As those guardrails have been torn down from repeated ramming by wannabe tyrants over the years, we see the holes in this system. What we need to do is rebuild them and reinforce them with constitutional and/or statutory law. The norms that can so easily be violated with no remorse from those doing it and no repercussions from the voting populace need to become stronger than norms. We need to codify them in ways that can't be so easily ignored and cannot be so easily undone.

So I totally agree with you about the "guardrails of democracy," including that they have been or are in the process of being torn down.

I also grant that this tearing down has partly resulted in legislation and executive behavior which has further worked to government dysfunction. The office of the presidency was created for people who had deeply internalized democratic norms, and so could be trusted with the immense prerogative of that office because their own values would prevent them from abusing the power entrusted to them to increase their own wealth and favor friends.

But I am not sure that "holes in the system" can be repaired by legislation. I am not sure what "starting over" would look like, or if possible given that the party of "no" still gets to vote.

I don't believe we can really "codify" norms from the top down the way we can, say, add restrictions to a president's war powers. Rather, there has to be some counterweight in civil society to re-affirm those "guardrails," to explain them, make sure they are taught in schools.  And this cannot be an easy task, as the project itself will be characterized as a wholly ideological imposition of liberal propaganda on the populace. Another "hoax." 

I very much agree with you that these norms have to be strengthened. If they can be ignored we have lost our country.