Emergency - or Business as Usual?

"The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves," warned Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan in a now famous article a little over a week ago. What Kagan called "the warning signs" of this crisis," he wrote, "may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial."

Indeed, it seems like "business as usual" in Washington, where the Democrats are fighting among themselves about the fates of the Build Back Better "Reconciliation" bill (which represents the President's legislative agenda) and the "bipartisan" Infrastructure bill, and fighting with Republicans in the perennial (and utterly unnecessary) soap opera about raising or suspending the federal debt limit. These "distractions of politics" may well be very entertaining, perhaps, for some. For most of the country, however, all this will likely do is simply confirm the widespread conviction that Congress can no longer do its job, that democratic government is increasingly unable to meet the needs of its citizens - even when what Congress is failing to do is what voters overwhelmingly want done. If government cannot do what it needs to do and what voters want it to do, is it any wonder that confidence in government is so low and that the viability of our political system seems in such jeopardy? As David Brooks asked in The New York Times, "Have we lost faith in our ability to reverse, or even be alarmed by, national decline?" De facto, for the likes of Senators Sinema and Manchin and all that much more so for most Republicans, the answer seems to be Yes, resoundingly so.

The crisis Kagan has warned about is connected, of course, with the Trump phenomenon in American politics. "Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for president in 2024," Kagan insists. And "Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary." Many Americans have too easily reassured themselves, Kagan contends, that, because Trump failed to overturn the 2020 election, the system has survived unscathed. The system's framers, however, "did not establish safeguards against the possibility that national-party solidarity would transcend state boundaries because they did not imagine such a thing was possible. Nor did they foresee that members of Congress, and perhaps members of the judicial branch, too, would refuse to check the power of a president from their own party."

I have long been convinced that surprise calamities - like 9/11 in my lifetime and Pearl Harbor in my parents' time - were surprising not because there were no warning signs but because humans always find it hard to imagine what hasn't happened before. Likewise with the Trump phenomenon, it may be that many have failed to grasp its unique dangers. The Trump movement is historically unique, Kagan argues, not because of the passions that animate it, which "are as old as the republic and have found a home in both parties at one time or another," but because "for millions of Americans, Trump himself is the response to their fears and resentments. This is a stronger bond between leader and followers than anything seen before in U.S. political movements."

Hence, the traditional workings of the American political system (even when they worked better than they do now) are inadequate to this current crisis. "The American liberal worldview tends to search for material and economic explanations for everything, and no doubt a good number of Trump supporters have grounds to complain about their lot in life. But their bond with Trump has little to do with economics or other material concerns," according to Kagan. Again according to Kagan, "the most important thing Trump delivers is himself. His egomania is part of his appeal. In his professed victimization by the media and the “elites,” his followers see their own victimization. That is why attacks on Trump by the elites only strengthen his bond with his followers."

Kagan "wonders whether modern American politicians, in either party, have it in them to make such bold moves" as would be required to safeguard the next election, "whether they have the insight to see where events are going and the courage to do whatever is necessary to save the democratic system."

it is this current crisis, this existential emergency, which makes it suddenly so dangerous to adhere obsessively to past political forms like the filibuster and the cowardly chimera of "bipartisanship." It is likely the case, as Kagan implies, that responding to the material needs and cultural concerns of die-hard Trump supporters would not change many votes. It is however, arguably the purpose of government to do precisely that - not just for Trump voters, obviously, but for the majority of their fellow citizens whose needs and concerns need to be addressed promptly. It would be preferable, of course, to debate the substance rather than the cost of Build Back Better. It would make much more sense for Congress to debate, negotiate about, and vote on each of that bill's programs (child care, Medicare reforms, climate change, etc.) separately. But that is not possible because of the filibuster and the need to push everything through under the ridiculous senatorial rubric of "reconciliation." That said, however, the political imperative remains to accomplish something (undoubtedly something less than the utopian $3.5 trillion maximum). It is imperative both for its own sake, since these are things that need to be done and ought to have been done a long time ago, and also to begin the process of rebuilding confidence in our country and its form of government among the majority of non-Trump voters who need a reason to remain that way. 

Susan Glasser sums it up well in The New Yorker. "It’s about the central premise of Biden’s Presidency, the thing he sold America on: that government could actually get things done. That democracy works, that competence and calm could produce better outcomes than the chaos and craziness of the past four years. Biden’s success in getting things through Congress would be not just a policy victory but a vindication of the idea of his Presidency." 

More than Biden's presidency, it would be a much needed - very much needed right now - vindication of constitutional democratic government.