About to Go Live on C-SPAN
Political historian and author Eli Merritt discusses his book “Disunion Among Ourselves” and what it can teach us about today’s polarization
Heads up that at 9:15 am ET today I will be interviewed by Tammy Thueringer on C-SPAN about my book, demagoguery, demagogues, and political polarization.
Here’s the link: https://www.c-span.org/video/?537132-5/eli-merritt-discusses-book-disunion-ourselves
Eli, that was *SO GOOD*! I'm so glad you let us know--I enjoyed that conversation a great deal. The way you talk about the polarization and lack of unity in our country right now is so lucid. Thanks.
Loved your CSPAN speech. Thoughtful and articulate. Hope you do more. And I agree with most of your points. Two things I do disagree with.
1) The problems that you articulate are incivility, demagoguery, and dysfunctional partisanship. To me, those are symptoms, and not the problem. The core problem is a weakened constitution that allows the executive branch to act like a fiefdom, well beyond its constitutional boundaries.
Political power is a fixed pie. If one branch expands its authority in an unchecked manner, that means every other political institution loses influence and as a result, our political culture changes. In this country’s case, here are the impacts of a greatly expanded executive branch.
• Congress fails – why legislate when the President can just sign an executive order (see immigration)
• Supreme Court fails – usually gets bullied by the executive branch (as was the case by FDR). In today’s climate, the legitimacy is questioned by the party in charge because the SC dares to keep checks/balances thru the framework of the constitution, so it is perceived to be a failure and gets berated for crushing bad precedents.
• Political parties fail – Turn more into political interest groups, subject to the whims of democratic urges and only looking out for their own interests, as you point out.
• Local / State institutions fail – Too bureaucratic compared to the power of the federal executive branch. People turn to King president for solutions.
• Local media fails – many explanations (mostly financial), but one reason is that fewer people care about local politics
• Local voter turnout fails – much stronger voter turnout in federal elections than local elections, the opposite of what the founders would have intended
• Citizen empowerment declines – An unchecked executive branch produces unchecked rules and regulations that erode the spirit of voluntary association and transactions, the cornerstones of American society.
All this creates an environment that encourages more democracy at the federal level, and reinforces itself in a loop. Democracies, left unchecked by a weakened constitution, produce demagogues, incivility, and dysfunctional institutions.
2) Electoral college – there was mention of reform in your conversation. But the EC is fine in its current format, it forces the candidates to speak to both urban and rural concerns in swing states,….the type of concerns that are present throughout the country. It acts as mechanism to moderate and center the candidates. The problem recently in American politics, is what you said – the primary system changes of 1972 (Dems) and 1976 (Repubs) infused democracy into a system that doesn’t do well with the “will of the people.” The old way was run by elites, and there are weaknesses there. But at least the elites would moderate and center their candidates. Example, Trump would not have been selected under the pre-1970’s system in 2016.
Thank you for letting me get this off my chest😊