What is government for?
The United States of America has more than 330 million people living within its borders and it can’t rely on people’s comity, the market, religious institutions, or businesses to serve all of their interests, and serve them well, efficiently, and equitably. It needs an organizing system, a ‘higher power’ if you will, to keep it all together and moving forward. In America, that system consists of laws (including a constitution) and institutions that each provide stability to the structure. The purpose, of course, is to preserve the sovereignty and security of the nation, but right behind that, to advance the prosperity of the community at large as a complement to the collective pursuits of the individuals that, together, form this community. It is, in fact, pretty well described in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States: “In order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Sometimes, the system fails us. This is one of those times. Today, you would think that government is there for the purpose of providing a job and a soapbox to 435 politicians in the House of Representatives and 100 more in the Senate. And to allow them to spend their days being busy to get re-elected. It does not help that they keep themselves organized in only two parties that no longer reflect the diversity of creed and aspiration within the American population. It does not help that these parties and their leadership, not the individual lawmakers, dictate what causes get advanced and what causes get smothered before they get to the floor of the House or the Senate. Because of the relative parity of the two parties and the rules of order of the two chambers of Congress, nothing of substance gets advanced, everything smothered.
The bottom-line is that, for decades now, the existing political system has failed to offer durable solutions to the most pressing issues confronting the nation and its people. As a result, the most prosperous nation on earth has not found a way to keep its fiscal house in order; to upgrade and secure for the future a social safety net that protects vulnerable people from poverty and despair; to offer (all of) its people affordable education and healthcare of universal quality and universal accessibility; to articulate and maintain an immigration policy that allows it to draw on the best globally available talent and serves equally the needs of the economy, of a greying population, and of national security; to invest in an infrastructure for the future; to articulate a comprehensive approach to combat the challenges presented by climate change; and to combat the rise in racist and extreme anti-democratic sentiment.
In this four piece essay on the impact of the 2020 election, I have explored if, in the aftermath of the Trump defeat and the Democratic takeover of control of the Senate, there are any chances for a break in the impasse and I have come to the conclusion that such chances are slim. The voters have handed the reins to a 78 year old veteran without giving him a mandate in the form of a resounding defeat of Trumpism in Congress. His task is clear: He needs to give the American people what they need most now, control of the Covid-19 virus and revival of the pandemic ravaged economy and he has less than 2 years to do it or run the risk (near certainty) of annihilation in the 2022 midterm election, handing control of Congress right back to the GOP which is still under the spell of Trump.
Some conditions work in his favor. Vaccines against Covid-19 virus are available in increasing numbers and variations, and mask wearing and social distancing have become a way of life for most Americans. After a year of hesitation and denial, the conditions for getting the pandemic under control are in place and leadership from the top of the government is now assured. Also, both parties are ready to stimulate economic revival with a large additional relief package (even though there are significant differences of opinion about how large it should be). What is lacking though is a political landscape that is conducive to effective governance. The GOP smells blood in the water after making gains in both chambers of Congress in 2020 and gathering 74 million voters behind the top of their ticket. They will do just about anything to regain control of Congress in 2022, which would render the Biden administration handcuffed for the remainder of its first term in office. The Democrats smell blood in the water as well as they see the GOP fracturing in a populist, QAnon conspiracy inspired faction fighting for control of the party with a traditional republican, conservative, faction. Under these conditions, only an open, irreparable, split between the factions in the GOP can provide a chance for a centrist coalition of moderate Democrats and traditional Republicans to emerge as a dominating force in Congress that would allow the Biden administration to govern other than by executive order. If the next election would be 4 years away, that might happen, but with midterm elections now only 21 months away, I think we can rule out that scenario from coming into play.
Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, spelled it out in a tweet on January 29:”As difficult as it will be to get the pandemic under control and the economy growing again, it will prove far more difficult to make our politics functional, civil, rational, and safe again.”
The political system as it exists in America today is broken, and we know it. In this series of essays, I have outlined where it fails us and I have shared many of the thoughts brought forward by supporters of democracy on how to fix it. It comes down to making the process more democratic by getting all people engaged and making sure that voters get to pick their politicians rather than politicians, through gerrymandering, getting to pick their voters. It should not be that complicated. The problem is obvious and the solutions to the problem are known, available, and workable. The only issue is that it is no longer indisputable that the people, all of them, want democracy to function.
There is no cure for that. You thought that four years of an anti-democratic experiment would have killed that beast, but many of our fellow citizens have thought, and are still thinking, differently.
America believed, with good reason, that the 2020 election would be exceptionally consequential. In one way it was. It removed a blatantly anti-democratic President from office. But it failed to create conditions for a re-set of the political system necessary to give America a government that is tooled and empowered to provide the nation with real and lasting solutions to the main challenges it faces and have been swept under the rug or kicked down the road for too long.
It is now clear that the 2022 and 2024 elections are going to be no less consequential than the election of 2020. God have mercy on America.
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