My blog-reading lately has somehow formed a debate between optimism and pessimism about our current political situation.
Over at Balkinization, Sandy Levinson quotes a late-1980s essay about the Iran/Contra mess by Theodore Lowi, arguing for the side of pessimism.
“[We must] recognize that the Iran-Contra affair and the Cincinnati are reflections of a constitutional problem: What is there about the White House that makes its occupants do bad things? Pressure to produce results for the American people has made diplomacy and the presidency natural enemies. Each recent president has been pushed close to or over the brink of personal disgrace by one or more efforts to directly alter the history of a weak country that we have the military power to wipe out but lack the power to change.
For something written over 15 years ago, there’s quite a bit of relevance to our current situation, isn’t there? That Lowi’s essay still seems timely makes his argument that the problem is structural, rather than simply a matter of the personal failings of any particular president, seem credible.
Levinson writes:
…Might we might say that the seeds of the present constitutional crisis were laid by spineless Democrats who refused to take seriously the prospect of impeaching Ronald Reagan and who refused to raise a ruckus when President George H. W. Bush engaged in his infamous Christmas pardons of 1992 that effectively shut down the investigation of Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh into the culpability of Secretary of Defense Caspar Winberger and Bush himself? And, of course, Bush pardoned Abrams as well, who is now back in service in George W. Bush’s administration. No doubt, some of these Democrats are still around, opposing Sen. Russell Feingold’s mild-mannered suggestion that the President at least be censured for manifest contempt for the law. And so it goes…..
So there’s another structural problem: the utter unwillingness of Democrats to stand up to Republicans. Democrats in power seem unwilling to go on the offensive. It’s quite possible that the Democrats will manage to lose, and lose badly, in 2006, despite polls showing that Bush has become almost as popular as bacon-wrapped steak at a PETA convention.
The (liberal) Girl Next Door makes another case for pessimism, asking “when is it time to panic”? She’s got a good point, I think.
I’ve been a member of the “let’s not panic” school, but what is it, precisely, I’m waiting for? My tendency is to believe that as long as political parties respect the results of major elections, then democracy is basically safe. But we’ve had one recent presidential election stolen by the Republican party – in a blatantly racist manner, to boot – and virtually no one in the US noticed or minded, not counting the Irrelevant Left. Tom Delay’s Texas redistricting made it explicit: Elections are decided by politicians and courts, not by voters. But as long as we still get to move through the empty gestures of voting, most Americans think things are fine. After all, we’re the Greatest Democracy On Earth!®
From (liberal) Girl Next Door’s post:
I don’t want to panic before it is warranted, but I sometimes wonder if we will recognize the last straw. Don’t we remember that in Germany, the Nazis took control of government, not in a violent coup, but by passing laws that gave them increasing power and control over the people and the news they received? We keep hearing that it’s not time to panic just yet, but if history has a lesson for us right now, it’s that panicking too late won’t do a damn bit of good. Do we really, as a country, want to sit idly by watching evil become a way of life? Most of us judge the German people not as victims, but rather as willing accomplices. Will we judge ourselves the same?
Time to hear from the opposition, arguing that there’s light at the end of the cliche. Bernard Weiner of The Crisis Papers argues Bush Is Going Down, pointing out that even Republicans are increasingly failing to support Bush’s agenda. (The link consists mostly of quotes from various conservatives admitting that the Iraq invasion has been a disaster, both in terms of the military situation there and in terms of how the Iraq war has warped domestic politics). It would certainly be nice to believe that the Republican coalition is crumbling.
Next up arguing for optimism, The Count, declaring himself a “cynical optimist,” argues that the American people can and should be trusted.
Our tradition of democracy should not be underestimated. Just as it is very hard to bring democracy to a country with no history or even desire of it, such as Iraq, it is equally hard to go the other way and impose a dictatorship or imperium on folks with many centuries of democratic traditions and a strong desire for it. A few folks have talked about Germany’s pre-World War II silde into Nazism, but that’s a scare tactic. Germany never had a real democratic tradition and the Weimar Republic became the butt of all jokes. Indeed, it took total war and the first-hand evidence of what Hitler did to shake up the collective conciousness of Germans. The extreme political and religious (more on this group in the next installment) wingnuts will continue to exist on the fringe. Yes, they are opportunistic bastards who, like the camel trying to enter the tent, try to inch their way in through every concievable method. But, big BUT, their extreme fringe views will always come out as repugnant in the end. Some of us may see it sooner, we may have to endure years of it, we may, sadly, suffer from it (in the short term) but once the critical mass is reached, they, their ideas, and their works will always be beaten back under the rock from which they came from.
That’s what the poll numbers are saying to me. These fringe malcontents are starting to “awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve” (from Admiral Yamamoto in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! A good line even if he didn’t actually say that.) In reality, from the time Yamamoto spent in Washington D.C. as a Japanese naval attache, he did learn that the American people are just and decent and who can wreak terrible wrath on their oppressors… they just need to be awakened… and they’ll wake on their schedule, not ours. It is, however, our job to continue to speak out and (like Deanna Troi) point to the obvious. Seriously, who here actually thinks that the American people would actually allow a Theocracy (for example) to come into being? No, no matter the scare mongering of one side or the fondest, most wishful thinking of the other side will that ever happen. I do believe in the American people.
It’s a complete coincidence that I read the Count’s essay right after I read (liberal) Girl Next Door’s, but it could have been written as a direct rebuttal – even addressing the Nazi comparison.
So which side do you think wins the debate?
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Seriously, who here actually thinks that the American people would actually allow a Theocracy (for example) to come into being?
Personally, it wouldn’t shock me all that much if they allowed the government to… well, do just about anything it wanted, so long as it was marketed to them in a comforting and nonthreatening way. I think the American people are so easily distracted, so willing to roll over as long as there’s still new shit to buy, and becoming as a whole so utterly devoid of critical thinking skills, that frankly I’m never really that sure where this sort of optimistic “trust-the-American-people” thinking comes from. The structure of our government was built in a very different philosophical era from the one we’re in now — it remains to be seen, frankly, whether an enlightenment government can withstand a postmodern culture. And a country doesn’t have to have an official uniform-wearing dictator to nonetheless turn into some new, more postmodern shade of corporatist/fascist.
So yeah, I guess I fall on the pessimistic side. Of course, I also have a hangover today. So maybe it wasn’t the best day to try to answer this question. ;)
I don’t think either side is right. I think we have a system that works beautifully at maintaining the privilege of the dominant classes, without having to resort to the kind of overt oppression that would be grounds for panicking, or create a backlash that brings it down. We’ve reached a sort of equilibrium level of injustice. Bush doesn’t *need* to become an American Fuehrer, because the current system gives him everything he wants. And while there’s a small chance of the Republicans losing some seats this year, all that will do is put a different set of Republicans in power.
I think the pessimists are right.
The optimists’ arguments are well thought out and two years ago I would have agreed with them. But now, I believe that despite the tradition we have of talking about freedom, most of the American people are too lazy and self-interested to care about maintaining actual freedom. The only way they’ll notice is if the white middle/upper-class is inconvenienced. And by the time that starts happening it’ll be too late.
I hope to God I’m wrong.
All political systems work to maintain the power of the dominant class. This is not an observation; it is an axiom.
Ever notice how so many people discuss the “american people” in the third person. I can’t say for sure that those commenting here are american, but isn’t it a bit ironic to be degrading a class system in such an eliteist tone? Most american people don’t care/don’t know, but I am better than that because I do.
I agree that it falls somewhere in the middle. We have a lot of outspoken people, most of whom speak out because their opionions are outside the “norm” they know that, we know that, and yet we rarely here from the “norm”. I think if the ship got too far off course the “norm” would become outspoken as well.
I also have a bit of a problem with socialism and wanting “fair” to mean equal outcome has always bothered me. Of course the majority is going to vote in the best intrest of the majority, isn’t that part of what democracy is supposed to be?