The future of the United States as a viable political entity is today in the hands of the GOP. Not, as you might think, because of the way they are using the filibuster to stymie any Congressional action that might start to fix our problems. The filibuster abuse is only a symptom, an illustration of a fundamental weakness in the way our system of government is constructed.
The Founding Fathers carefully crafted a multi-part government with checks and balances, based as much as possible on the Enlightenment philosophy of the supremacy of reason. Although they had hoped to avoid factions, factions - political parties - did quickly coalesce, but the system adjusted itself to this reality. It functioned, and despite some minor corrections, and some major ones (the Civil War in particular), it continued to function until recently - because all of the parts of the system, whatever their disagreements, by and large respected the supremacy of reason.
But our system of government was never designed for one of its parts going batshit insane.
Although it was no part of our formal Constitution, the two-party system has been the reality of our government since George Washington's second term. While the specifics of the parties have occasionally changed (Whig to Free Soiler to Know Nothing), ever since 1856 the Republican and the Democratic parties have divided, shared and traded power between them, and the mechanisms of government, especially of legislation, have developed in recognition of and accommodation to this way of doing business. We have majority and minority leaders in both Houses of Congress; legislative time, committee assignments, all are apportioned between the two parties. Independents and third party candidates, on those rare occasions when they get elected, have to caucus with one or the other of the two parties in order to have any say.
It's a system which worked, however awkwardly, clumsily, and inefficiently, for two main reasons:
- Both parties respected, at least to some degree, the idea that policy was shaped by reasoned debate - the supremacy of reason;
- The party in power understood that its power was temporary, that one day the other party would take over.
The Democratic party still holds to these two principles; the Republican party no longer does so.
We began to see signs of the GOP abandoning these principles in the Nixon years, but the first really absolute sign of this was, I would argue, when Newt Gingrich put forth his plan for the GOP to take over Congress. He violated the first principle with his Contract for America, which was a tissue of neo-conservative wishful thinking points disconnected from reality (though it did take some time for that to become obvious). He violated the second point with his intimation, and occasional outright claim, that only Republicans were fit to hold power.
(Gingrich was not the first to claim that, by any means, but with his ascendancy, and with the people he brought in to the House, some of whom moved on to the Senate, he set the tone for the way the GOP would operate from then on.)
The country, first in an inattentive mode, then in a credulous mode, and finally in a panic mode, let the GOP largely have its way. But by 2006 it was clear that the GOP's ideas and policies were bankrupt, were ruining the country, and that the Democrats should have their turn.
The GOP has been unable to accept this. Because they abandoned the first principle, the principle of reason, they could not examine, much less admit, where their policies were failing. And because they had abandoned the second principle, that power is temporary, they could not accept the idea that anyone else should have a chance to make things better. So they make mischief, very disruptive mischief, because that is what they stand for now.
The GOP's ability to make this mischief derives from the unwritten agreement I outlined above: We the People accept a two-party system of government as our working model, in return for which the parties accept those two principles.
The GOP has broken that agreement. But so long as we continue to accept the model which that agreement established, the GOP has the power to destroy the country, whether or not it rules. It is in this sense that the GOP controls our destiny.
There are several ways we can survive this. One is for the GOP to go so totally batshit that they fragment into units so small that none of them can really count even as the minority party. There are signs that this is happening; the Tea Party, largely a creation of GOP leaders seeking shock troops to help them in their drive for power, is becoming the monster that overpowers its creator. But while in the long run this may prove our salvation, it carries huge risks that the batshitters will, even for a moment, hold power, and even if not, they will make life very uncomfortable for reasonable people for as long as they can. (Picture either Rand Paul or Sharron Angle making mischief in the Senate.)
There are also ways to adjust the two-party structure. One that has been suggested often, here and elsewhere, is the removal or the diminution of the filibuster, perhaps the GOP's most powerful tool for mischief.
Democrats can also - and are, finally, starting to - make clear to the country that the Republican party has gone batshit insane and cannot be trusted to run a kindergarten sandbox, much less the richest, most powerful country in the world. This includes a two-part message: Obama and the Democrats accomplished more for the country in a shorter time than any administration since FDR, and did it in spite of the GOP; and, second, where we couldn't make things better for the country, it was because the GOP did manage to stop us. It's a tricky mixture, but it can be sold. It does, however, require that the country be in a mood to listen.
Ultimately, for better or worse, much of the solution does lie in the hands of the Republican party. It is still too large, commands the allegiance of too much of the country, to be marginalized and then removed from the scene, at least not any time soon.
There are some signs that some Republican leaders have some recognition of the hole they have dug for themselves and the nation. Lindsley Graham is suggesting that the Tea Party may soon fade away (or so he hopes). GOP senate leaders are treading very cautiously around their nominees in Nevada and Kentucky, having discovered they really are too batshit insane even for them. Some have even dared to challenge Rush Limbaugh (though that may be in part because Glenn Beck is fast replacing El Lardo as He Who Must Be Obeyed).
These few signs notwithstanding, I don't see that the GOP is anywhere near where it needs to be, for the sake of the nation. The occasional flashes of panic in their eyes are recognition of symptoms, not admissions of disease.
President Obama tried to warn the GOP of the trap it was falling into, when he met the House GOP caucus back in January. Needless to say, they were not in a mood to listen. But if we sometimes have trouble understanding why the president continues, after all this time, after all the failures and the snubs and the insults and the fake gestures, why he continues to try for bipartisanship, I think it is because he understands the point I have tried to make here: The GOP may not have the power to run the country, but they have the power to ruin it.
Happy Independence Day.