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Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Uncivil Society

The post-Cold War era in American politics has been a weird one in our history. It’s had many characteristics, but the most interesting (and troubling) to me are the twin phenomena of an ascendant and arrogant bipartisan ruling class, and the populist reaction against it.

Now, neither of these phenomena is weird in and of itself in American history. What is weird is the inability of either major party to win decisively and dominate Congress and the presidency for any length of time. We see instead the trading of the presidency and congressional majorities back and forth, resulting in gridlock.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 20, 2022 at 12:56 PM

    "What is weird is the inability of either major party to win decisively and dominate Congress and the presidency for any length of time." All by design. -sammy

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 20, 2022 at 2:04 PM

    Washington warned against the party system. He was ultimately afraid of the situation we have now where people put party before country.

    Unless it is a libertarian party, one party rule will devolve into a totalitarian state. Gridlock is usually a good thing. Of course there is the old adage that we have the party of stupid and the party of evil. Bipartisan just means stupid and evil agree.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. FidoSeptember 20, 2022 at 4:38 PM

      Power corrupts. The libertarian party is not immune.


      The division of power into the "three branches" of government was meant check corruption in any one branch, but it fails to defend against simultaneous corruption in all three.


      All law is just ink on paper, if the public does not enforce it.

      Delete
    2. wirecutterSeptember 20, 2022 at 4:48 PM

      Fuck the Libertarian party. I gave up completely on them when they had Bill Weld, former governor of Massachusetts and gun grabber, running as VP in the 2016 presidential election.

      Delete
    3. FidoSeptember 21, 2022 at 1:24 AM

      Yeah, me too. I really liked the idea of the NAP, but the "party" has forced everyone to talk about "big L" and "little l". Now Larken Rose has me thinking I'm a "voluntaryist". "I'm so confused": as soon as everything resolves to an "ideology", "special cases" find holes in it. Yet in any one situation, I seem to be able to find ethics, honor, and morality, if not ideology.

      "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is."

      Delete

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