There is a difference between laws and norms. Laws have been codified but norms are customs and expectations.
Norms are what keep social order, and they are breaking down.
Enough Americans voted for change that America is going to see change. Pollster Peter Hart discovered something that the news media did not notice back in the late summer when nearly everyone was praising the Clinton well managed Democratic convention and they were condemning the Trump mess.
Trump's dark convention speech said that this was a time of crisis for our country, with crime rampant, terrorism everywhere, jobs fleeing, the economy in shambles, America disrespected, and things generally terrible in America. Hillary's speech concluded said not to let anyone tell you that America is not great, that there are problems but we are working through them and making progress. Trumps speech was favored by 49 to 21 over Hillary's speech among independent voters.
People wanted change, and it is happening both where people notice and where people likely do not. Political order is maintained because there is a consensus of belief and behavior that certain things have legitimacy and that there is a reasonable way to do things, even though it is not codified into law. An example would be an elementary school principal who does a fire drill on the first day of the school year and then the third day of school year and then two more times in the course of the year. The goal is to familiarize school children with what to do in the event of a fire alarm. There might be state law requiring fire drills some minimum number of times per year or "as necessary". But if a school principal disagreed with a controversial policy, for example of requiring racial integration at the school, no law prohibits the school principal from doing a fire drill six times a day every hour on the hour. Such behavior would utterly change the purpose of fire drills from something to protect school children into a political protest to block the educational mission of the school. The school function persists not because of cleverly crafted laws but because norms and customs define reasonableness. There is a social consensus.
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| Big filibuster increase |
It has broken down. Some of the norms and customs that have made American government possible have dissolved. The people most affected have resisted but the complaints have been noted as partisan whining, not breaches of fundamental norms:
By the Senate, filibusters skyrocketed from rare to routine, turning what was once an emergency behavior on a deeply held belief into standard practice. The adjacent chart shows the rise in filibusters. They have been increasing since the 1970's, done by both parties, but it increased substantially in the past seven years to stop legislation supported by Obama.
By the House, in its willingness to hold the government hostage to shutdown and default on interest payments to win a political victory.
By presidential candidates, boycotting journalists who ask probing questions, something done both by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
By the electoral college, revealing that the electors are principals, not agents and that a presidential vote for an elector is a suggestion rather than a scoring mechanism.
By much of the media, in overt favoritism to candidates.
By Trump, in refusing to reveal his tax returns, by condemning leaders in his own party, by condemning a specific religion as suspicious per se, by saying members of an ethnic group are prejudiced against him per se, by lacking public office background, by thriving notwithstanding scandalous behaviors, by condemning the media who covers him, by showing support for a traditional American adversary, Russia, by bypassing curated media and communicating directly with voters by twitter and FaceBook, by threatening to investigate and jail his political opponent, by refusing to hold press conferences, by saying that the White House will assign seating for the White House press corps, by skipping daily security briefings saying he doesn't need or want them.
The success of the Sanders campaign and the Trump electoral college victory demonstrated that there is appetite for shaking things up and Trump shows every intention of doing so. The danger to this is that there are no secure guardrails or boundaries on the change in norms and expectations--other than the political support Trump wants. The principal who disrupts the school with hourly fire drills need not stop if parents are rallying in support of him. Trump is currently thrilling his media supporters and cowing his Republican teammates. It would be dangerous for a Republican congressman or senator to tangle with Trump, at least right now. Trump has abandoned the legitimacy that comes from inertia and expectation and tradition and replaced it with the legitimacy of widespread popular support among conservatives.
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| Popular revolt in Boston |
The check on Trump will be the public. The writers of the Constitution had little faith in the wisdom of that public, which is why they created a complicated Republic, not a democracy. Crowd rule has little respect for minority rights. Crowds have the legitimacy of the enthusiasm and will of their majorities. And they can happen anywhere.
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| Popular revolt in Boston |
A familiar topic in the American North is the popular resistance to school integration in the American South. Note illustrations here from Boston in 1973-1975, a time I witnessed first hand.
The rule of law became fragile. Crowds were in the street and they were angry, motivated, and people in the streets drew energy from the people around them. Popular revolts based on race are not reserved for places with a tradition of the enslavement of blacks, Black Codes, and Jim Crow. This is not just a red-state problem or a lost-cause racism of the south problem. It is the nature of democracies and it can happen anywhere. The popular uprising of Shay's Rebellion in western Massachusetts was motivated by the difficulty of an economically backward part of the state to pay taxes. Boston was the epicenter of the Abolition movement. The Boston Busing revolt took place in the sole state in the union to vote for George McGovern in 1972, the most liberal, Democratic, and educated state in the union.
Readers with the time to consider a big, deep scholarly books should examine Francis Fukuyama's The Origin of Political Order and Political Order and Political Decay. A shorter way of getting some of the same insights is to read Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a book many readers would have encountered in high school.
All three of these books can be summarized this way: the political order is fragile in republics.
1 comment:
“Fragile Democracy...or Fragile Political Liberalism?”
I’m onboard with the data cited in this Upclose post, but not with the conclusion that democracy is fragile. When two political movements (Sanders and Trump) successfully marshal voters to oust the established political order, that seems like a colossal feat of the democratic process. When a movement does so by democratizing the internet and breaking the chains of establishment corporate media, that appears to me as a triumph of First Amendment free speech and press, i.e. the cornerstone of any genuine democratic system. As the abortion rights, gay marriage and political correctness movements have demonstrated, “social” liberalism is ascendant, holding its own through bruising battles.
It is “political” liberalism that has proven fragile. Social liberalism is too fluid and dynamic to be harnessed as left politicians would like. As gay marriage activists taught us, both Democrats and Republicans had be dragged to acknowledging their rights. Both the Clintons and Obama did not come willingly, they were latter day converts. Social liberalism, the LGBT movement and Planned Parenthood can take a punch, but in 2016, political liberalism and its left media bulwark had become so ill defined and confused in their messaging that they could not. The success of social liberalism is rooted in very specific policy goals and affirmative messages demanding rights and recognition. What was left of political liberalism after Clinton and the DNC had vanquished Sanders was an almost policy-less ethnic identity coalition rooted in negative messaging crying racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia against white deplorables.
Political liberalism has to be more than demands for refuge, trigger warnings and safe spaces. It will remain fragile until it reinvents itself, as Trump reinvented the Republican party, by geting centered on affirmative policy goals.
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