Bernie Sanders and "democratic backsliding"
A few themes have been developing of late on In Tenure Veritas. (a) Read Levitsky & Ziblatt's How Democracies Die. (b) There is a high likelihood that, even if a Democratic nominee defeats Trump in November, not only will Trump refuse to concede, he will have the full backing of the entire Republican Party. (c) I have been reassessing Sanders' chances at the Democratic nomination.
Right now, Bernie Sanders, who is not even formally a Democrat, seems to have a relatively high likelihood of winning the Democratic nomination for president. Is he a lock? No. Miles to go, and all that. Crazy things can and do happen. See: The 2020 Iowa Caucus. However, if you had to place a bet today, the safest bet would be Sanders.
Let's put that together with Levitsky & Ziblatt. According to their argument on democratic backsliding, it works like this: an authoritarian, demagogic executive consolidates power because of a process called "ideological collusion." Whatever checks and balances there are in the system cease to function because the authoritarian demagog's party decides that they have more to gain, policy-wise, by ceding power to the authoritarian. Whatever they lose by ceding the existence of a functioning democracy is outweighed, they believe, by the policy gains of collusion. The result, though, is that the office of the executive is granted unprecedented levels of unchecked power.
Consider the powers of the presidency in the American political system, as it now exists. A president can now nullify congressional directives on spending by simply declaring a "national emergency," however specious. A president can do anything at all, including suborn a foreign government through US foreign policy, in his reelection efforts. Those are but two examples, but the presidency as it now stands is powerful on a level that one could scarcely have comprehended just a few years ago. I teach American politics at the University level, and as far as I'm concerned, throw out your civics text. It's worse than worthless.
William Barr's actions just this week demonstrate "the new normal."
Now, flip that around.
Whatever policy gains are to be had in the act of collusion with an ideologically like-minded authoritarian become policy losses when confronted with an ideological enemy.
Consider Bernie Sanders. Not just as he is, but consider him from the perspective of one willing to cede democracy itself in order to empower an authoritarian for the sake of extreme conservatism (such as it now is) using the logic of Levitsky & Ziblatt.
From the perspective of one willing to engage in ideological collusion with an authoritarian demagog for the sake of the policy gains under an unchecked Trump administration, how terrifying is the concept of an unchecked Sanders administration?
Get this straight. Bernie Sanders is an ideological extremist. He is way, way, way out there. This is a guy who thinks that the Boston Marathon bomber should be allowed to vote, from prison. While "authoritarian" is not the right word for that particular brand of insanity, Bernie Sanders is insane. A vote is power. Power over me. Once you commit multiple murders in acts of terror, you don't get that power over me, especially while we are keeping you locked up because we have declared you a danger to me. Bernie Sanders is insane. This is one, tiny example. I could devote many posts to the complete insanity of Bernie Sanders, his lack of understanding of policy, politics, and everything about the world, but the guy is insane.
And I'm far from a Trump fan.
Look at him from the perspective of an ideological conservative, and Bernie Sanders is a nightmare. Imagine him with the powers just given to Donald Trump-- a not-quite-all-powerful executive.
From the perspective of an ideological conservative, that's an apocalypse scenario. Bernie Sanders as President in a checked system would have been bad. Bernie Sanders as President in an unchecked system becomes... something else.
So, if you are a conservative right now, having just torn down the checks and balances of the political system, throwing away the norms of democracy for the policy gains provided by an authoritarian executive, what goes through your mind when you think about the idea of a Sanders administration, so-empowered?
Stop it at all costs. All costs. See (b) above.
Does that mean the current Republican Party would have been willing to let Trump lose to, say, Amy Klobuchar? Well, Klobuchar has done a lot to keep up with the leftward movement of the party, and bluntly, I'm not sure at this point. One of the conversations that I keep having, with a range of academics, is that a lot of us know that Trump won't step down peacefully, regardless of what happens in November. What Levitsky & Ziblatt show us, by implication, is that candidates like Sanders increase the incentive for the entire GOP to continue to back Trump when he declares that the entire race was "rigged," that there was "massive voter fraud," and whatever other lies he tells in the eventuality that he loses.
Trump will probably win. The economy is strong, most incumbents win, the impeachment helped him, just like I kept telling you, regardless of how few Democrats wanted to listen, and Trump has both foreign governments and the DoJ working on his behalf for his reelection efforts in a way that no president ever has in the past. Add to that the fact that the Democrats never learned firearm safety, so they are studiously looking for every possible way to shoot themselves in the feet by nominating someone like Sanders, and Trump will probably win.
Definitely? No. Crazy things can always happen. In fact, in the modern world, I'm not sure that sane things can happen.
But if Trump does "lose," the party engaged in ideological collusion to eliminate the checks and balances on the presidency, by the same logic, has every incentive to stand by him when he refuses to step down.
You might not be hearing this in the open from very many scholars because people want to treat this as a fictional scenario that just barely borders on conceivability, but this is what we're saying behind closed doors. But hey. "In tenure veritas."
Right now, Bernie Sanders, who is not even formally a Democrat, seems to have a relatively high likelihood of winning the Democratic nomination for president. Is he a lock? No. Miles to go, and all that. Crazy things can and do happen. See: The 2020 Iowa Caucus. However, if you had to place a bet today, the safest bet would be Sanders.
Let's put that together with Levitsky & Ziblatt. According to their argument on democratic backsliding, it works like this: an authoritarian, demagogic executive consolidates power because of a process called "ideological collusion." Whatever checks and balances there are in the system cease to function because the authoritarian demagog's party decides that they have more to gain, policy-wise, by ceding power to the authoritarian. Whatever they lose by ceding the existence of a functioning democracy is outweighed, they believe, by the policy gains of collusion. The result, though, is that the office of the executive is granted unprecedented levels of unchecked power.
Consider the powers of the presidency in the American political system, as it now exists. A president can now nullify congressional directives on spending by simply declaring a "national emergency," however specious. A president can do anything at all, including suborn a foreign government through US foreign policy, in his reelection efforts. Those are but two examples, but the presidency as it now stands is powerful on a level that one could scarcely have comprehended just a few years ago. I teach American politics at the University level, and as far as I'm concerned, throw out your civics text. It's worse than worthless.
William Barr's actions just this week demonstrate "the new normal."
Now, flip that around.
Whatever policy gains are to be had in the act of collusion with an ideologically like-minded authoritarian become policy losses when confronted with an ideological enemy.
Consider Bernie Sanders. Not just as he is, but consider him from the perspective of one willing to cede democracy itself in order to empower an authoritarian for the sake of extreme conservatism (such as it now is) using the logic of Levitsky & Ziblatt.
From the perspective of one willing to engage in ideological collusion with an authoritarian demagog for the sake of the policy gains under an unchecked Trump administration, how terrifying is the concept of an unchecked Sanders administration?
Get this straight. Bernie Sanders is an ideological extremist. He is way, way, way out there. This is a guy who thinks that the Boston Marathon bomber should be allowed to vote, from prison. While "authoritarian" is not the right word for that particular brand of insanity, Bernie Sanders is insane. A vote is power. Power over me. Once you commit multiple murders in acts of terror, you don't get that power over me, especially while we are keeping you locked up because we have declared you a danger to me. Bernie Sanders is insane. This is one, tiny example. I could devote many posts to the complete insanity of Bernie Sanders, his lack of understanding of policy, politics, and everything about the world, but the guy is insane.
And I'm far from a Trump fan.
Look at him from the perspective of an ideological conservative, and Bernie Sanders is a nightmare. Imagine him with the powers just given to Donald Trump-- a not-quite-all-powerful executive.
From the perspective of an ideological conservative, that's an apocalypse scenario. Bernie Sanders as President in a checked system would have been bad. Bernie Sanders as President in an unchecked system becomes... something else.
So, if you are a conservative right now, having just torn down the checks and balances of the political system, throwing away the norms of democracy for the policy gains provided by an authoritarian executive, what goes through your mind when you think about the idea of a Sanders administration, so-empowered?
Stop it at all costs. All costs. See (b) above.
Does that mean the current Republican Party would have been willing to let Trump lose to, say, Amy Klobuchar? Well, Klobuchar has done a lot to keep up with the leftward movement of the party, and bluntly, I'm not sure at this point. One of the conversations that I keep having, with a range of academics, is that a lot of us know that Trump won't step down peacefully, regardless of what happens in November. What Levitsky & Ziblatt show us, by implication, is that candidates like Sanders increase the incentive for the entire GOP to continue to back Trump when he declares that the entire race was "rigged," that there was "massive voter fraud," and whatever other lies he tells in the eventuality that he loses.
Trump will probably win. The economy is strong, most incumbents win, the impeachment helped him, just like I kept telling you, regardless of how few Democrats wanted to listen, and Trump has both foreign governments and the DoJ working on his behalf for his reelection efforts in a way that no president ever has in the past. Add to that the fact that the Democrats never learned firearm safety, so they are studiously looking for every possible way to shoot themselves in the feet by nominating someone like Sanders, and Trump will probably win.
Definitely? No. Crazy things can always happen. In fact, in the modern world, I'm not sure that sane things can happen.
But if Trump does "lose," the party engaged in ideological collusion to eliminate the checks and balances on the presidency, by the same logic, has every incentive to stand by him when he refuses to step down.
You might not be hearing this in the open from very many scholars because people want to treat this as a fictional scenario that just barely borders on conceivability, but this is what we're saying behind closed doors. But hey. "In tenure veritas."
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