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The Atlantic: How American Politics Went Insane

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Intensely interesting article that I feel does quite a bit to explain the increasing polarization and ineffectiveness of our once-lauded political systems. It's a little pro-handshake/pork/favors/et cetera, but highlights well how those lesser evils maintained order and sanity. In some sense, many of our reforms have led to a much greater crisis. Highlights:

Trump, Sanders, and Ted Cruz have in common that they are political sociopaths—meaning not that they are crazy, but that they don’t care what other politicians think about their behavior and they don’t need to care. That three of the four final presidential contenders in 2016 were political sociopaths is a sign of how far chaos syndrome has gone. The old, mediated system selected such people out. The new, disintermediated system seems to be selecting them in.

Congress has not passed all its annual appropriations bills in 20 years, and more than $300 billion a year in federal spending goes out the door without proper authorization. Routine business such as passing a farm bill or a surface-transportation bill now takes years instead of weeks or months to complete. Today two-thirds of federal-program spending (excluding interest on the national debt) runs on formula-driven autopilot. This automatic spending by so-called entitlement programs eludes the discipline of being regularly voted on, dwarfs old-fashioned pork in magnitude, and is so hard to restrain that it’s often called the “third rail” of politics. The political cost has also been high: Congressional leaders lost one of their last remaining tools to induce followership and team play. “Trying to be a leader where you have no sticks and very few carrots is dang near impossible,” the Republican former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott told CNN in 2013, shortly after renegade Republicans pointlessly shut down the government. “Members don’t get anything from you and leaders don’t give anything. They don’t feel like you can reward them or punish them.”

The biggest obstacle, I think, is the general public’s reflexive, unreasoning hostility to politicians and the process of politics. Neurotic hatred of the political class is the country’s last universally acceptable form of bigotry. Because that problem is mental, not mechanical, it really is hard to remedy.

In March, a Trump supporter told The New York Times, “I want to see Trump go up there and do damage to the Republican Party.” Another said, “We know who Donald Trump is, and we’re going to use Donald Trump to either take over the G.O.P. or blow it up.” That kind of anti-establishment nihilism deserves no respect or accommodation in American public life. Populism, individualism, and a skeptical attitude toward politics are all healthy up to a point, but America has passed that point. Political professionals and parties have many shortcomings to answer for—including, primarily on the Republican side, their self-mutilating embrace of anti-establishment rhetoric—but relentlessly bashing them is no solution. You haven’t heard anyone say this, but it’s time someone did: Our most pressing political problem today is that the country abandoned the establishment, not the other way around.

 

[Slayven]

A black man got elected

 

[jmdajr]

I read all that. Direct primary's have been a disaster.

 

[The Technomancer]

It begins with the weakening of the institutions and brokers—political parties, career politicians, and congressional leaders and committees—that have historically held politicians accountable to one another and prevented everyone in the system from pursuing naked self-interest all the time. As these intermediaries’ influence fades, politicians, activists, and voters all become more individualistic and unaccountable. The system atomizes. Chaos becomes the new normal—both in campaigns and in the government itself.

I think this is something a lot of progressives, specifically this year, lack perspective on. Even with Democratic control of the house, the idea that all Democrat senators and congressmen would support all progressive legislation unilaterally is frankly naive. There always has been wrangling to get less "progressive" (or less "conservative") members of your party on board with whatever initiative is being pushed right now, and I think this article is right that the structures of negotiation even internally have broken down. Oh sure, you can get everyone on board with a bunch of the big symbolic votes, but government is built on the smaller stuff

 

[Atilac]

A black man got elected

And the opposition convinced half the country his policies were socialist and not moderate.

 

[Torokil]

In 2024 the republicans will crown a Duck Dynasty guy at the GOP Convention (formally known as gathering of the jugallos)

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Our most pressing political problem today is that the country abandoned the establishment, not the other way around.

I understand why someone would take an "order at any cost" approach, but I am loathe to accept the notion that America exists to serve the political elite.

 

[kirblar]

The UK has shown this isn't a problem unique to the US.

 

[Stinkles]

A black man got elected

9/11 also split the country into people who wanted a measured, rational response and cattle whipped into a froth of blind vengeance by the most cynical politicians in history, using the patsy they placed to destroy the middle east and ruin the region and the world for decades to come. And all because they thought they knew what they were doing.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should be in prison.

 

[akira28]

All you need is one side to be willing to shit their pants and the other side to be willing to refuse to lead, but instead play games to prove themselves righteous, then you have bedlam. Luckily only a third of the democrats fit that description, a lot of them do lead.

This guy though, I didn't like his article or his radio interview. It seemed like he wanted to spread the entire shit show that was the Republican response as a general problem with politics, and blamed the demonization of lobbyists and porkbarrel politics for what we have today. "We held them accountable so they had no other choice but to shit the bed and shut down the government and try to destroy the country and the economy." Not buying that.

 

[jellies_two]

Australia has a dose of this now with a hung parliament and a rabble of independents including an unreconstructed racist from 1999 crowing about her vote, and getting into the senate.
Someone commented you don't have to run focus groups to find out what many average people are thinking: you just ask her.

 

[The Technomancer]

Specifically, they believe that obvious, commonsense solutions to the country’s problems are out there for the plucking. The reason these obvious solutions are not enacted is that politicians are corrupt, or self-interested, or addicted to unnecessary partisan feuding. Not surprisingly, politiphobes think the obvious, commonsense solutions are the sorts of solutions that they themselves prefer. But the more important point is that they do not acknowledge that meaningful policy disagreement even exists. From that premise, they conclude that all the arguing and partisanship and horse-trading that go on in American politics are entirely unnecessary. Politicians could easily solve all our problems if they would only set aside their craven personal agendas.

This is so spot on it hurts

 

[Abstrusity]

You know...what if we just let them bring back pork-barrel spending...openly?

I mean, didn't they ban that sort of thing years ago, and it's never /quite/ been the same, since?

That could very well be the carrot, in this scenario.

 

[Wilsongt]

We need more duels in Congress. Give everyone paint ball guns with each red or blue dye. The most abundant color around wins. Splatoon style.

 

[akira28]

Can't do pork barrel with the shysters in the GOP congress today. You would never know what was hidden in the pork. They have a hard enough time now with hiding regressive attachments in non-related popular legislation. Making it easier for them to sneak goodies to people isn't the only path available.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

This is so spot on it hurts

Theyre not wrong. The NRA dominates many politicians.

 

[B-Dubs]

Theyre not wrong. The NRA dominates many politicians.

The issue is not every issue is gun control and people do actually have differing views on it. The NRA doesn't buy out members of Congress, they get their own people elected and threaten to use their influence with voters to get anyone who goes against them in a tough primary battle.

 

[Measley]

A black man got elected

Bingo.

 

[The Technomancer]

Theyre not wrong. The NRA dominates many politicians.

Sure. But there's a real trend towards viewing national politics in a way that is simplistic, that is only concerned with things like "universal healthcare" and disinterested in the actual complexities of such a proposal and why even liberal politicians might not all 100% be on board with one implementation or another. I mean, its a position I support with all of my being but I would never ever describe it as a "no brainer" the way I increasingly see people doing so. Figuring out what the hell universal healthcare looks like is a real big brainer!

Its not just that people want easy answers. That's always been a thing. I think more than ever people believe the easy answers exist

 

[Nivash]

Australia has a dose of this now with a hung parliament and a rabble of independents including an unreconstructed racist from 1999 crowing about her vote, and getting into the senate.
Someone commented you don't have to run focus groups to find out what many average people are thinking: you just ask her.

It's just as bad in Europe with the rise of the far right - worse in some places. Brexit is the most obvious example, but it really grew out of massive anti-establishment and anti-"other" sentiments common across all of the continent. A terrifyingly large amount of people seem to quite frankly be fed up with the world in general. They want to go back to something that, in most cases, never really existed or - barring that - simply let it all burn out of spite.

I'm actually worried that it's some kind of damaging cultural shift in large segments of western society in general. It's just too wide-spread at this point to be a fluke or passing trend. It's as if politicians and other civic leaders have simply failed to give a lot of people a future to believe in and the people who feel left behind have finally started to act out. In my mind at least, it started with 9/11 and accelerated with the 2008 financial crisis, but at its core it seems to be about everyone being convinced that we're heading for disaster. We don't agree on what disaster that is - climate change and resource depletion says one, immigration and cultural collapse says another, corrupt elites and automation says a third - but it's been a long, long time since I saw anyone of influence genuinely promote belief in a brighter future with any success.

EDIT: To give credit where credit is due, I think Sanders actually did a good job selling a vision of a brighter future. Personally, I don't think he could ever had achieved it because the way he suggested doing it (when he went into detail at all) was simply unrealistic. Clinton was focused on preserving things as they are with Obama. Trump likes to talk about "making America great again", but even that wording - "again" - is as regressive as his ideas. His vision is one of shutting down and shutting out while looking inwards. The other GOP candidates tried to basically tap into that same sentiment, they were simply worse at it than Trump.

Sanders is really the only candidate in this year's primaries that actually looked forward in a real way, and I say that as someone who still prefer Clinton as president.

 

[Geist-]

I really, really hate both political parties in the US, and that is the main reason I have never joined a political party. That and the Dem primary is open in my state. But the current Republican party scares me so much. It's gotten to the point where I can see the country imploding if any of the crazier GOP politicians get any serious influence in the country's politics.

And I hate that I feel this way. That my only choices are either bad or completely batshit insane. That I have this feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach everytime I see a US political headline. That so many millions of people are so ignorant of how politics actually works and are willing to hurt our country because of petty partisan rivalry's.

If I didn't feel some obligation to the country of my birth, I would have fucked off as soon as I was able. I might still, depending on how Clinton's inevitable presidency turns out and if the Dems manage to make some headway in retaking the House and state legislatures.

And what's really sad is that this might not even be any worse than usual. This might be the norm for US politics. And that makes me so bitter inside that we will never make any real progress on any of the real issues facing our country, or the credible fears that our future has. Sometimes I wish I never started learning more about politics. I can see why so many people remain ignorant when the truth is so gut wrenching.

 

[The Adder]

I understand why someone would take an "order at any cost" approach, but I am loathe to accept the notion that America exists to serve the political elite.

The point of that statement is that the political elite get to keep being the elite in exchange for making sure the wheels keep turning. Without them we have a bunch of yahoos accountable to no one because they make their bones off of populist rhetoric and uncompromising pigheadedness.

That's how I read it, at least.

 

[Log4Girlz]

The middle class has been left out of prosperity. In the last ten years the economy in the US doubled, does the average American see any of this new wealth.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

The middle class has been left out of prosperity. In the last ten years the economy in the US doubled, does the average American see any of this new wealth.

Exactly. And the pundits love to jerk off to jobs numbers and wealth rates but the rest of us ain't seeing that shit. And some folks are angry with the "establishment" and want change at nearly any cost.

There's a reason Sanders campaign did so well. Many Americans want a paradigm shift. Same with Trump but with a huge racist tone.

 

[ApharmdX]

That was an interesting article. I'm not sure I agree with the premise, however.

I'm actually worried that it's some kind of damaging cultural shift in large segments of western society in general. It's just too wide-spread at this point to be a fluke or passing trend. It's as if politicians and other civic leaders have simply failed to give a lot of people a future to believe in and the people who feel left behind have finally started to act out. In my mind at least, it started with 9/11 and accelerated with the 2008 financial crisis, but at its core it seems to be about everyone being convinced that we're heading for disaster. We don't agree on what disaster that is - climate change and resource depletion says one, immigration and cultural collapse says another, corrupt elites and automation says a third - but it's been a long, long time since I saw anyone of influence genuinely promote belief in a brighter future with any success.

No one is selling that brighter future because there aren't many (any?) buyers left. I think your fears are right, that it's actually a cultural shift in the West, and not just a temporary movement. A lot of it is being driven by economics. Not all, but a lot. Average people in the West have a lot of uncertainty that didn't exist to this extent a few decades ago. Also, America in particular is struggling with remaining relevant as a controlling actor on the world stage. Most of the change in the world in the 21st century has happened despite our actions rather than because of us.

 

[BriGuy]

A black man got elected

A white man got a blow job.

And Newt Gingrich.