We have an election coming up. Oh, you noticed. Chances are, and I might be projecting here, you
can’t wait for it to be over. I am a
political junkie and I want it to be over.
Somehow, this time around, we seem to be talking about something other
than what we have grown accustomed to.
I, in this blog, called Donald Trump
a “black swan.” This was not, at the
time, a derogatory term; it just referred to the fact that Trump and what he
promised to represent was on no one’s radar.
He was an “unknown, unknown,” at least as a presidential candidate.
But here we
are with less than a month to go and the unfolding of events has become more
and more bizarre. At first, the
bizarreness was amusing; not so much anymore.
Things have become ugly. My
personal exposure to this has been what I see on social media such as Facebook
and television media.
I understand the level of
“unfriending” is up significantly.
People can’t just disagree politically and leave it at that. It has gotten to the point that one sees those
with whom one disagrees as less likeable or even less human. In my case, if I were to be of such a mind, that
would include family members. This can’t
be healthy.
And what
happens after the election? Does the bipolar
nature of our politics become even more so?
Will it become even more impossible for us to congregate in order to
hatch out public policy? It seems that will
happen. To the extent it is already the
case, one can determine that it is probably the chief reason the Trump
phenomenon occurred in the first place.
Our political
parties, one in particular, has opted for the position that it will not
compromise with the other. Ironically,
that particular party boasts that it defends the original intent of our
founding fathers. And yet central to the
system our founding fathers left us is one that depends on congregating,
collaborating, and compromising (the three c’s). And it is that party, for political purposes,
that has refused to even be seen as compromising, much less doing it.
But this
reflects these politicians’ political situations with their constituents. Due to the Tea Party and others, any
politician who appears soft on the issues these voters think are important is
subject to being ousted by a primary challenger, one who promises he/she will
not compromise. The term, “primaried”
has been coined to describe the process.
So they “cannot” compromise since their number one objective is to
politically survive the next election.
What is the
result? If one is talking about Congress
being unable to arrive at policy decisions, the political system becomes
dysfunctional. By the way, such a
reality is a policy in itself, one of inaction.
The problem is that that policy is not what is intended or satisfying
anyone.
Early in this blog, I referenced the
work of Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr.[1] They introduced a theory that described the
sort of actions a political system had to accomplish in order to remain healthy
and even survive. The theory is given
the name, structural-functionalism, and the things that have to be done are
known as functions. One of the functions
the theory identifies is rule making and another is interest aggregation.
When
Congress does not pass laws that are perceived as needed by the electorate – or
worse, an issue is not addressed, e. g., job losses due to foreign competition
or non-enforcement of trade agreements – the system is not fulfilling the rule
making function. And when a portion of
the electorate refuses to compromise, the interest aggregation function is also
short-changed.
Here are two basic
functions not being fulfilled and, a la
Almond and Powell, the system seems to be in serious trouble. This, according to the theory, can eventually
lead to the system collapsing and ceasing to exist. We’re not there yet, but does the outlook
indicate healthier times ahead? I’m
afraid not. Whoever wins, his or her
party, it seems, will have to win all organs of government – the presidency and
both chambers of Congress – in order to get things done.
Is it time to give up on
our founding fathers’ plan and shift to another one, perhaps a parliamentary
system? If so, I, for one, would be
heartbroken. The entire federalist
model, one that grew through our colonial times and was refined through the
centuries – is it finally at an end?
“Say it ain’t so.”
[1] Gabriel Almond and G.
Bingham Powell, Jr., Comparative
Politics: A Developmental Approach, (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1966).
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