The Age of Ideologues: how do we resurrect pragmatism and good-faith governance?

[Trotsky]

In post-Reagan, post-Gingrich, and post-McConnell America, the Republican Party has increasingly advocated policy making (and obstruction of policy making) that is empirically indefensible, from financial deregulation and insistence on long-debunked trickle-down economics, to repealing of environmental and consumer welfare laws, to furthering voter ID laws that are known to be frivolous, based on nonexistent premises, and which only serve to disenfranchise voters.

This may be ultra-partisanship, outright corruption, or as more optimistic persons like @Jack V Savage believe, actual commitment to flawed ideology. This disregard for good faith governance was recently epitomized by the budget-busting 2017 tax cuts.

However, it was not always like this, and during the years of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon conservatives engaged in good faith reaches across the aisle to pass laws on topics like progressive taxation, environmental regulation, consumer protections, and labor organizing rights. Today, conservatives championing social programs, graduated tax brackets, and regulation of industry for the good of the American people would be nearly sacrilegious.


How do we recapture the pre-Reagan days of good faith governance that allows Democrats and Republicans to agree on meritorious policies that do not fit an ideological agenda of deregulation, upward distribution, or (if you are to represent that the Democrats are ideologues as well) social justice?

 

[bobgeese]

Term limits.


And btw, you’re right about republicans being responsible for this “obstruct everything” politics.

Specifically Bitch McConnell.

 

[Trotsky]

Term limits.

Well, Bob, I appreciate the suggestion. But I'm not so sure this is a viable solution, since this could be argued to make representatives less responsible to their constituents in theory and more empowered to make self-serving decisions since their time is limited anyways. I think that analyses of the prospect (and of the effect of term limits internationally) has not shown them to be an effective way forward.

 

[bobgeese]

Well, Bob, I appreciate the suggestion. But I'm not so sure this is a viable solution, since this could be argued to make representatives less responsible to their constituents in theory and more empowered to make self-serving decisions since their time is limited anyways.

However, it would take a lot of the financial incentive to becoming a politician out of the picture (and it may need to be accompanied by lobbying reform to do so), leading to more literal “public servant” types aspiring to be politicians.

Basically, we have the wrong type of people running the country. They are motivated by greed, rather then by doing their part to help.


PS, this will take a good amount of time to happen any way you do it.

 

[Jack V Savage]

In post-Reagan, post-Gingrich, and post-McConnell America, the Republican Party has increasingly advocated policy making (and obstruction of policy making) that is empirically indefensible, from financial deregulation and insistence on long-debunked trickle-down economics, to repealing of environmental and consumer welfare laws, to furthering voter ID laws that are known to be frivolous, based on nonexistent premises, and which only serve to disenfranchise voters.

This may be ultra-partisanship, outright corruption, or as more optimistic persons like @Jack V Savage believe, actual commitment to flawed ideology.

To be clear, I think there is an *underlying* actual commitment to flawed ideology. I don't deny that there is a lot of bad faith and bullshit put in the service of that real commitment. For example, I think Paul Ryan deeply believes that progressive taxation and post-market redistribution is immoral. He knows those are unpopular positions, which puts him at odds with democracy on the one hand (leading to support for voter-suppression measures which are justified with fake concern about fraud) and pressures him to lie on the other (for example, portraying the Bush and then Trump cuts as middle-class tax cuts or expressing phony concern about deficits to get popular support for safety-net cuts).

How do we recapture the pre-Reagan days of good faith governance that allows Democrats and Republicans to agree on meritorious policies that do not fit an ideological agenda of deregulation, upward distribution, or (if you are to represent that the Democrats are ideologues as well) social justice?

The problem is the existence of an alternative media sphere on the right combined with distrust for all nonpartisan sources of knowledge. If a Republican says something untrue or does something bad, there will be sources that back them up that supporters trust more than legitimate sources simply because they back them up. I really don't know how to fix that issue.

 

[Seano]

Abandon the identity politics that have torn this country apart, for starters.

 

[Fawlty]

Make politics boring again. Focus on policy, reject theater. This circus today is nothing new by the way. It comes and goes.

 

[Pupi]

@Trotsky, we are in a Schmittian moment. Have you ever read Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political and the Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy? Trumps goons see the world in that particular mindset: there is no reconciliation to have with enemies internal or domestic, because they are contradictions that post existential threats. It's very hard to argue with that perspective, just ask Weimar Germany.

 

[Deleted member 391673]

@Trotsky, we are in a Schmittian moment. Have you ever read Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political and the Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy? Trumps goons see the world in that particular mindset: there is no reconciliation to have with enemies internal or domestic, because they are contradictions that post existential threats. It's very hard to argue with that perspective, just ask Weimar Germany.

it's just the trump goons that can't reconcile with their opponents?

this left blames right and right blames left thing for everything is one of the reasons pragmatism and good-faith governance is so tough. along with 24hour news cycle, disinformation, misinformation, too-much-information, social media, etc.

 

[tinker_190]

In post-Reagan, post-Gingrich, and post-McConnell America, the Republican Party has increasingly advocated policy making (and obstruction of policy making) that is empirically indefensible, from financial deregulation and insistence on long-debunked trickle-down economics, to repealing of environmental and consumer welfare laws, to furthering voter ID laws that are known to be frivolous, based on nonexistent premises, and which only serve to disenfranchise voters.

This may be ultra-partisanship, outright corruption, or as more optimistic persons like @Jack V Savage believe, actual commitment to flawed ideology. This disregard for good faith governance was recently epitomized by the budget-busting 2017 tax cuts.

However, it was not always like this, and during the years of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon conservatives engaged in good faith reaches across the aisle to pass laws on topics like progressive taxation, environmental regulation, consumer protections, and labor organizing rights. Today, conservatives championing social programs, graduated tax brackets, and regulation of industry for the good of the American people would be nearly sacrilegious.


How do we recapture the pre-Reagan days of good faith governance that allows Democrats and Republicans to agree on meritorious policies that do not fit an ideological agenda of deregulation, upward distribution, or (if you are to represent that the Democrats are ideologues as well) social justice?

I'm gonna be 100% honest, I like where you're head is at in terms of the topic of discussion, but immediately blasting a specific party in your first paragraph isn't going to help start the conversation.

That being said, I think there is a huge structural problem that drives this, specifically that slowly over time more and more unilateral authority has been rested with the president. The real action should be in the House and Senate, where both sides need to work together to advance their policy, so each ideology has to give a little to get a little. There's also too much Federal power - state and local government can be much more flexible and reactive to the needs of their population

I also think this is driven by the de-centralization of media and the 24 hour news cycle, in which people can selectively shop around to get the news they want (yes, I am very guilty of this, I admit). Once news becomes a specialized product, the next move in a market with easy substitutes is to try to differentiate yourself, specialize and pick a niche - yes I know this is a hypersimplification of substitute effects on supply/demand, but you getwhat I mean.

 

[essie]

It's too late.

 

[tinker_190]

Abandon the identity politics that have torn this country apart, for starters.

This is also a very good point. You aren't willing to compromise when your sense of self is tied to a team

 

[Headkicktoleg]

It will require a complete overhaul of campaign finance.

There should be 1 general fund that is equally divided between all candidates for both the Republicans and Democrats

 

[Trotsky]

@Trotsky, we are in a Schmittian moment. Have you ever read Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political and the Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy? Trumps goons see the world in that particular mindset: there is no reconciliation to have with enemies internal or domestic, because they are contradictions that post existential threats. It's very hard to argue with that perspective, just ask Weimar Germany.

I have not read that, but I will, as what you're saying is pretty interesting

 

[Trotsky]

I'm gonna be 100% honest, I like where you're head is at in terms of the topic of discussion, but immediately blasting a specific party in your first paragraph isn't going to help start the conversation.

I don't think you can reasonably make this criticism of the Democratic Party (that they have no interest in good faith governance). You can say they're idealistic or divisive or whatever partisan insult you like, but they have been the sole advocate for common sense policy making in the areas of non-social policy.

 

[tinker_190]

I don't think you can reasonably make this criticism of the Democratic Party (that they have no interest in good faith governance). You can say they're idealistic or divisive or whatever partisan insult you like, but they have been the sole advocate for common sense policy making in the areas of non-social policy.

I was immediately tempted to go into various bills from memory that would have required debt financing, then explore debt/revenue ratios in relation to GDP growth, and then other policies dealing with wealth inequality and it's roots...

But then I realized, wait, the whole topic at hand is overzealousness around ideology in America in 2018, and it took less than 1 page of posts for this to return to partisan arguments. Maybe, then, the two party system in America is the root here? It would seem that it instantly pits the common person (I'm assuming your not a diplomat or senator or something, sorry) into a brutal dichotomy

 

[Trotsky]

I was immediately tempted to go into various bills from memory that would have required debt financing, then explore debt/revenue ratios in relation to GDP growth, and then other policies dealing with wealth inequality and it's roots...

But then I realized, wait, the whole topic at hand is overzealousness around ideology in America in 2018, and it took less than 1 page of posts for this to return to partisan arguments. Maybe, then, the two party system in America is the root here? It would seem that it instantly pits the common person (I'm assuming your not a diplomat or senator or something, sorry) into a brutal dichotomy

Well, yes, I think the two party single member district plurality system is fatally flawed. I think that, at this point, it's pretty obvious that parliamentary systems are democratically superior.

However, until the recent cycles the far-left hadn't been squeezed into the American dichotomy and was primarily situated against the Democrat Party, being the vanguard of the neoliberal consensus. It has only been in this post-truth, post-good governance era that the Democratic Party has become so blatantly and incontrovertibly superior to the GOP and that persons like myself have been forced to become de facto partisans.

 

[Neph]

I believe only absolute disaster can turn around the growing trend of discontentment with democracy, free speech and politics. I think it'll come too.

 

[superpunch]

Voter ID laws, the wall, etc. are an expression of "stop the bullshit". 10-20 million illegals. That's an insane amount of people. That's bullshit. Emotional responses to bullshit are normal.

A society with integrity would have enforced its laws long ago before this happened. That would have been reasonable. Reason was ignored by the left and now the left is shocked that the right isn't reasonable on illegal immigration anymore.

The same story for different issues on both sides, left and right. You mistake just not complaining and being quiet about bullshit for rational discourse. Instead of 50 years of rational discourse, we've had 50 years of silent bullshit on many issues. That's not rational discourse. It just sounds like it is because it's silent and "reasonable". That's actually "kicking the can down the road and not making a big fuss".

 

[tinker_190]

Well, yes, I think the two party single member district plurality system is fatally flawed. I think that, at this point, it's pretty obvious that parliamentary systems are democratically superior.

However, until the recent cycles the far-left hadn't been squeezed into the American dichotomy and was primarily situated against the Democrat Party, being the vanguard of the neoliberal consensus. It has only been in this post-truth, post-good governance era that the Democratic Party has become so blatantly and incontrovertibly superior to the GOP and that persons like myself have been forced to become de facto partisans.

This a priori assumption of policy superiority isn't doing anything but subtly trolling the right leaning people into arguing policy nuance with you, when you're trying to ask why compromise has failed. Is that not lost on you in your own thread?

Given your user name, and what you're writing, I'm forced to assume you are one of these far left individuals. Why choose Pepsi or Coca Cola when you really need a bottle of water? Furthermore, I disagree with your sentiment that we are in a 'post truth' era. In fact, I would contend that we have never had more truth. Anyone can publish anything online. Digital records make amateur investigation a possibility. In the 80s, if you wanted to read some bill presented to congress, you probably had to call someone and get a copy mailed to you, if that was even possible. Now, we are at a point where leaks spread in minutes online.

As far as the superiority of parliamentary systems, I suppose they are more reflective of pure representative democracy.