Joe Knippenberg has some sober thoughts today over at NLT. I wish to concentrate only on one aspect. Joe writes:
Third, our political and economic elites are going to have to rebuild public trust in our institutions. I don’t have a magic prescription here, but a little less clever talk, a little less pandering, and some genuinely sober action are surely good places to begin. If there is a human nature, courage will be recognized and admired, even by people who don’t see much of it.
May I attempt to sprinkle some pixie dust and produce a magical prescription. As Jay Cost has been writing all year (for example, here) the weakness of our political parties represents a major defect in our electoral system.
I draw heavily from the introduction to James Ceaser's Presidential Selection, written at the height of the 1970s reformist atmosphere. Ceaser rightfully worried that the overly democratized selection system that was the likely result of those reforms would result in a system more responsive to the people's immediate desires (as opposed to long term interests) and provide feeble protection against demagoguery. Without going into tedious detail, the weakness of parties and the rise of candidate-centered election results in unchanneled ambition, personalized appeals ("what can I do for you" rather than "what can my party do for you"), a decline in serious deliberation and, finally, a more bitter and negative politics.
We could apply some salve to this bitterness by changing our election finance law to allow more coordination between parties and candidates. Also, we could move toward caucuses over primaries for candidate selection or, failing that, both parties could erect some sort of "super-delegate" system wherein party leaders have a greater say in presidential selection. Even better, have both caucuses and super-delegates. On the local level, elimination of initiative, referendum and term limits would buttress party-in-government (which has the coincidental acronym PIG).
Many will object that this moves our system away from open democracy. Yes, slightly so, although I'd point out that the system is still fundamentally democratic (it is essentially status quo 1960 plus the Voting Rights Act). James Ceaser (drawing from Herbert Storing) would remind us, though, that electoral outputs matter as much as electoral inputs. We should be concerned with what kind of government and what kind of candidates our electoral system produces. The evidence right now suggests that the current system is seriously lacking. The solution is not more democracy but smarter democracy.
I should add on a more policy (and frankly partisan) oriented note that the sheer size of government creates serious problems. Our government is so big and unwieldy that it is virtually impossible for anyone to govern well.
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