NOVEMBER 9, 2016

Popular dissatisfaction with the way our existing political system works—or, rather, does not work— explains the traction that political outsiders like Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson get in the campaign for the 2016 White House election. It has to be evident to any student of civil studies, as it is to the people who are at the receiving end of the political process, that the current system is fatally flawed in spite of the fact that it is built upon the revered fundament of the U.S. Constitution and its amendments. It simply does not produce the results that the nation needs in the competitive race for global leadership and that its people are looking for and deserve.

I wrote about this in my book ‘NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, A First Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism’. Unfortunately the book has drawn no attention from the national media or the political establishment.

Given the level and breadth of the dissatisfaction with Washington, it should come as no surprise that initiatives to drive for change in the political system pop up everywhere. They all have something in common in that they pick a limited focus on one aspect of malfunction that for their constituency epitomizes the problem. Examples of such initiatives are the drive for open, nonpartisan, primaries; electoral districting reform; campaigns to root out corrupting influence of big money in politics; automatic voter registration; and easier and unfettered access to the polls. All of these initiatives have merits and potential to contribute to a better working political machinery but they all are limited in scope and purpose.

Organizations like ‘No-Labels’, the ‘Independent Voter Network’, the ‘Bipartisan Policy Center’, ‘Common Good’ and ‘Third Way’ all contribute to the presentation of proposals for implementation of these  improvements of the political system, but it all seems to be piece-meal and presented from a narrow single focus perspective on what’s wrong. I will argue that a comprehensive approach to the problem requires the identification of all of the flaws in the existing system, the building of a consensus on how to eliminate these flaws, a prioritization of the steps to be taken in the amelioration process, and a plan for implementation of the chosen solutions.

The current American culture of instant gratification works against an orderly process of dealing with the shortcomings. Our election cycles are very short and if something cannot be achieved before the next election, it is unlikely to get a lot of effort. Yet, to turn the battleship around will require cooperation of every institution of our political system and—consequently— a lot of time. There clearly is no single silver bullet. The way our political system functions has been built, on the fundament of the Constitution, over centuries by tradition and regulation and is not easily reversed or undone.

The flaws that I detect in our current political system all fall into one of four broad categories:

1.       The influence of ‘big money’ and ‘special interest groups’ in politics

2.       The two party system

3.       The election system

4.       The absence of a ‘national strategy’ requirement in the Constitution

In my book I elaborate on each of these four categories and I propose solutions for each of the perceived shortcomings. The space provided in this column does not allow me to repeat these here. I refer you to my book.

One thing is clear: the campaign for the White House that has now been the topic of the day in the media for about as long as we can remember, with more than a year to go before it will be decided, will not resolve any of the systematic problems. The President of the USA simply does not have the powers he/or she would require to tackle any of the systematic problems. So, if the supporters of Bernie Sanders think that his election would make a decisive difference, they will be sorely disappointed if he, against all odds, would make it into the White House. And so will the supporters of Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina or Ted Cruz.

I will admit that it makes a difference for many of us who will be the next occupant of the White House, but the difference will mostly be in how we feel about the President, not in what we can expect from the President when it comes to unshackling and reviving the American political system. As long as we have only two parties who pretty much cancel each other out and are both supported and kept in power by big money; as long as we keep sending our elected officials back on the campaign trail as soon as they have been elected; as long as we don’t have term limits, open primaries and a constitutional requirement for a national strategy; we can only expect tinkering at the margin, no breakthrough change in effectiveness of federal governance.

Someone will emerge triumphant from the 2016 national elections on November 8, but when the flag waiving will have subsided and the confetti has been swept up from the floor, the winner and his/her supporters will quickly find themselves frustrated by the intransigency of the existing political system.