July 4, 2016
The long article of this title by Jonathan Rauch is available in the current "Atlantic,"with multiple reviews now available. It is an important recent history of how we have gotten to this election, specifically represented by several "political revolutionaries" Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders and the one who represents the culmination of this movement, Donald J. Trump. Rauch's extensively researched article is a welcome relief from the extreme partisanship that is exacerbating the, mostly still repressed, animosity of this election, as it is a history of a movement that goes back a century, which like most based on eliminating great evil, rarely anticipate the adverse consequences of the new system.
My wife and I have a common response to anyone in political life who appends her proposal with the word, "commonsense" as is meant to connect with those who dismiss all complex thought about underlying causes of existing rules and what may follow if altered. Rauch explores this in this paragraph:
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Using polls and focus groups, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse found that
between 25 and 40 percent of Americans (depending on how one measures)
have a severely distorted view of how government and politics are
supposed to work. I think of these people as “politiphobes,” because
they see the contentious give-and-take of politics as unnecessary and
distasteful. Specifically, they believe that obvious, commonsense
solutions to the country’s problems are out there for the plucking. The
reason these obvious solutions are not enacted is that politicians are
corrupt, or self-interested, or addicted to unnecessary partisan
feuding. Not surprisingly, politiphobes think the obvious, commonsense
solutions are the sorts of solutions that they themselves prefer. But
the more important point is that they do not acknowledge that meaningful
policy disagreement even exists. From that premise, they
conclude that all the arguing and partisanship and horse-trading that go
on in American politics are entirely unnecessary. Politicians could
easily solve all our problems if they would only set aside their craven
personal agendas.
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While Rauch uses the term "Politiphobes" this itself is unfortunate as the word "phobic" has over the last few decades come to mean "rejection" or "opposition" as in xeno or homo "phobic." Phobic had been a root that meant a visceral emotional reaction that led to avoidance and thus antipathy. Those he describes do not have a fear of politics, but a distaste that causes them to accept more readily any candidate for office who has the credentials of ignorance and lack of contamination by the machinations of political life.
Rauch himself in his early support for same sex marriage made use of the term "homophobia" implying that to oppose this government-sanctioned union at a time when those such as both Clintons did, were touched by this disease, and so he could he make his case with assumption of mental disorder of opponents inherent in his choice of words; one that with the new connotations ultimately became a part of our vocabulary.
Rauch is looking back on the proverbial smoked filled room, now seeing the excrescence of the alternative, with fondness. He is asking us to rethink the decades long effort to finally successfully end the practice of members of congress cementing their seats with special earmarks, federal funding of agencies or projects in their districts, as a way of building party solidarity. He acknowledges the waste, although "small" but now sees it a part of the complex of seniority, cooperation,, voting for personally opposed laws for the sake of the party, that builds party loyalty.
His premise, although not specifically articulated in this article is that the conflicts of a complex country such as ours are real, and that politics, specifically party politics, is the best way to address them. Well, compared to the conflict that came to a head in 1860, with a loss of some seven million men (if extrapolated to current population) and then the long resurgence of Jim Crow pseudo-slavery, even if had been done through political compromise over decades with payment to slave holders, would have been far preferable. To do this, Rauch implicitly argues would have taken a solid two party system to underlie our national government.
Politics, and the practice thereof by those who are called "politicians" is, according to Rauch and this reviewer, a potentially noble career. Rauch is making the case that the "smoked filled room" needs to be rehabilitated, even including the secret deals that incentivized party members to take a hit for the larger values of the group. He implies that in a two party system their different agendas will be subordinated to the most vital exigencies of the country, and out of this will come --- if not an ideal society, one better than what we seem to be approaching.
