Some thoughts on the rolling collapse of the the American political order

Already Lost – Rainer Maria

1. The Republicans have already won.  This entire ‘debate’ is taking place on terrain to simply continue funding the government at the level of the sequester.  Remember the sequester?  The thing that was so ludicrously stupid that it would force reasonable people to make a deal?  Yeah, that’s the new normal.

2. There is no silver bullet.  This is because the crisis is only marginally about the details.  You can shut down the government, you can refuse to increase the debt ceiling, you can refuse to fund executive agencies, etc.  There is no institutional design that inhibits this stuff completely.  If you have a powerful (and large) enough group of folks who prioritize conflict over governmental functions, the government won’t work. Which means that for all the particular details, the underlying issue here is simply a crisis of legitimacy for our political community writ large.

2a. In particular, the problem is not gerrymandering.  On the list of things that contribute to the current position of the GOP, gerrymandering is like 20th.  It IS a factor, but the effect of it is massively overstated by people.  I encourage you to note that the Republicans are basically unified in their suicide pact – including all the ones from districts that they didn’t construct.

The Laws Have Changed – The New Pornographers

3. The Republican position is insane, but that doesn’t make it unconstitutional.  This may seem obvious but it’s a point that people seem to miss all the time.  See, for example, this column from William Saletan, where he says: “Sorry, Republicans. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes a single house of Congress to retroactively veto U.S. law by refusing to fund the rest of the government.”  Nothing the Republican are doing falls outside of the constitutionally-delegated powers of the government.  We have a system that is explicitly designed to require a buy-in from many different parties in order to work.  They are refusing to buy-in. That’s terrible policy, but it’s absolutely allowed by the constitution.

4. Have I mentioned that their position is insane? There has been a lot of talk about hostage-taking. And honestly, I’m not even sure it’s an analogy at this point. I think that this is literally what is taking place. Except it’s even more sick because the hostages are their own family members. Basically they’re saying: if you don’t let me buy this Camaro, I’m going to murder our children. And you can’t possibly be insane enough to risk our children getting murdered, can you?  You monster!

5. The psychology of this is terrifying. See this story. Key quote:

“We aren’t going to be disrespected,” said Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.“

Any time people involved in an argument start talking about how they have been ‘disrespected,’ that’s a pretty sure sign that disaster is soon to follow. This is helpful to explain the ‘Calvinball’ aspect of all this (though I object to calling it Calvinball because Calvinball is fun). By definition, any concession less than a 100% capitulation isn’t enough because it doesn’t truly represent genuflection. Which means it can’t quell any of the rage. Which means that you simply have to articulate further crazy demands. If what you crave is respect from people you loathe, nothing will ever be good enough.

6. Executive unilateralism isn’t all bad. It’s helpful to note how much people who normally are very concerned about expansions of executive power are flipped on this issue. They want the platinum coin, they want the constitutional option (basically: for the executive branch to simply ignore the debt ceiling). As someone is far more amenable to the importance of a strong presidency, that does seem to me like it might be the best way out of a bad situation.

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