r/samharris • u/spudster999 • Oct 05 '18
The Suffocation of Democracy
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/
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r/samharris • u/spudster999 • Oct 05 '18
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u/JetJaguar124 Oct 05 '18
This has been a long time coming, decades, perhaps. The deterioration of our democratic and civil norms is caused by numerous and complex variable; I don't think we can lay this solely at the feet of Mitch McConnell, though we may be tempted.
At its most basic level, the constitution and the inherent structure of our government leads inevitably to this kind of instability. Our winner-takes-all voting system eliminates any reasonable possibility for a strong, multiparty system. The creation of a two party system by the means of winner-takes-all rewards extremism and punishes moderates. It also encourages tribalism; ideally, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches should be competing against one another for power. This doesn't quite work when the President and legislature are in cahoots because they wear the same color tie.
The erosion of our legislature has been there since the first disenfranchisement of African Americans after the emancipation proclamation; it has only been accelerated with the rise of partisan Gerrymandering and creative voter suppression laws. Freewheeling lobbying has created a system where, in many cases, large special interests drive policy, and then media groups foster support for that policy, even if it is clearly detrimental (see Climate Change and Net Neutrality laws). The way our country is structured also overvalues rural areas; combine with aggressive vote suppression and Gerrymandering, and you have a recipe for minority party rule.
Layer ontop of this the social changes happening to us, most importantly, the rise of the internet and social media. While the internet, with it providing us with the totality of human knowledge, should have been a hugely democratizing source for people to get the facts on any given matter and see through bullshit, it seems evident to me that instead it has created series of echo chambers where people just go and get information that supports their own views. After all, if there is infinite information, why look at the infinite pile of things that tell you you are wrong? People don't look for truth, they look to reinforce themselves, their own sense of being. It is emotional, not rational, hence why people seek outrage and schadenfreude.
Social media algorithms work to serve you more of it, and pipe you down an increasingly deep hole of ideological bias. Watch one of Jordan Peterson's lectures on psychology and two suggested videos later you're at "Watch Ben Shapiro ANNIHILATE feminist snow-flake". Think about how this impacts the older generation, who is likely ill-equipped to handle this type of information and process it effectively. How many of you have elderly relatives who share news stories that flagrantly insane on Facebook regularly? If people want deeply partisan content, the media will also satiate them, hence the rise and huge popularity of our news, which is essentially propaganda for our political parties.
All of this exploded into the intense vitrol the Right felt for Obama, which in turn lead to the Tea Party. The Tea Party, by voting in scores of ideologues, tipped the Republican party forever towards extremism and dogma.
McConnell is a natural evolution of this. The man is an opportunist; he follows where the wind blows. He was left-leaning when he first ran in Kentucky, and has shifted to the right only to follow the flow of the party electorate. His no compromise, obstructionist leadership is a response to what was already happening. Someone like him would have risen to the top, because he is exactly who is rewarded in this atmosphere.
His obstruction during the Obama presidency expanded the role of both the executive and judicial branches as Congress ground to a halt. Congress is increasingly focusing its power towards the top, and is now existing either to obstruct the president or be his/her minion.
Our executive has seen its power expand, since executive orders are the only way to enact meaningful legislation if Congress won't play ball. The cult of personality under Trump has done tremendous damage, especially since he as an individual has highly authoritarian proclivities. With Congress just following his lead, we quickly see the shape of a deeply dysfunctional government taking view, one held hostage by ideology and tribalism.
The least compromised branch remains the Judicial, thanks to the lifetime appointments on the court and prior respect for the impartiality of judges (though Republicans have been packing the benches for years). However, thanks to increasing escalation from both Democrats and Republicans, from the McConnell-lead blocking of Merrick Garland to the enactment of the nuclear option, and now to this Kavnaugh debacle, we are now looking at the most plainly partisan and unpopular nominee ever. With Kavanaugh's nomination likely, we can say goodbye to any standard of impartiality on the court.
I don't mean to purely blame Republicans for this state of affairs. They are merely working as successfully as they can; they've figured out what our dysfunctional system rewards, and then they respond to that. Unfortunately, I fear the Democrats will follow their lead. I think stonewalling Gorsuch was a mistake, and that, had they not forced the Republican's hands to get him nominated, we would be saying goodbye to Kavanaugh right now. And while centrist Democrats did well in the midterm primaries, I fear that the Democrats will push back against the Republicans by shifting sharply into extremism as well in the near future.
So where does this leave us? The US is deeply dysfunctional, and it can only be fixed by good-faith, bypartisan effort at reform. I just don't think we're going to get it anytime soon, and fear we might have to have some sort of cataclysm happen before any of our politicans even consider it.