Democrats And Their Enablers Are Missing the Barn

There may be different seismic activity zones of various sizes, but the fault line of dysfunction is shot through through the whole of our political culture.

Shortly after the 2016 election (it feels like a lifetime ago), I saw a moment where a surprising cross-section of progressives, moderates, independents, and Trump-skeptical conservatives had suddenly come to understand the monstrosity the modern presidency had become thanks to the wielding of that office by Donald J. Trump. For a time, there was even a substantial uptick in the use and support of federalism, the checks and balances of our constitutional system, and Congress even considered significant legislation that would have significantly reeled back the power of the imperial presidency for the first time in decades. 

Despite the frustrations of the Trump era, I had clung to what I thought might prove to be a positive outcome amidst all the negativity and circus theater. I had hoped that maybe just maybe, a significant portion of Americans could come to understand that the presidency had grown far too powerful. For a fleeting moment, it seemed a desire was welling up in the hearts of Americans to reel back the power of the presidency so that every election would not feel like a make-or-break moment for the country. 

Unfortunately, that moment has been eclipsed by various groups who have completeley missed the barn. Specifically, the Democrats and their enablers have embraced an argument that falls short of a corrective response to Trumpian post-constitutionalism. Instead, they have continued to embrace their own form of post-constitutionalism. Their attack on the moors and norms of our republic amounts to little more than an equally histrionic and bombastic declaration that democracy stands on the brink of darkness, not because Trump and his enablers were abandoning constitutional values, but, essentially, because they weren’t abandoning them in the right way.  

Joe Biden was offered up as the “return to normal” candidate, the moderate politician the progressive wings of the Democratic Party acquiesced to nominate to bring the country together against a unique and existential threat in the form of Donald Trump. The Democrats had laid down their ideological vigor, their enablers argued, to come together in a “coalition of the decent” to allow all ideological and philosophical persuasions to check the box for the Democratic Party and send a message to the GOP who had become awash with nationalism and populism to the point of fraying the final threads of America’s constitutional order.

But this noble narrative flies in the face of how Joe Biden has governed and how the Democratic Party has behaved in the two years of Democratic control of the White House and both houses of Congress. The Democratic Party has not laid down their rhetorical weapons of political combat, nor have they set aside their increasingly radical vision for America. In fact, it is difficult to theorize a two-year span of progressive governance that could have been more calculated to push American voters back into the arms of a Republican Party that has shown signs of renewed normalcy yet still largely remains under the Trumpian spell.

As if this progressive governance were not irresponsible enough at a time of supposedly unique and existential concern, the authors of this conflagration are demonstrating the height of hubris by polishing up the same message of existential dread and expecting Americans to ignore the two years’ worth of consequences resulting from irresponsible governance and check the box for Democrats yet again, because “only they can save Democracy.”

I think it’s high time we put an end to this silliness. The facts of our nation’s systemic political dysfunction lie before us if we can but open our eyes to what stares us in the face. That neither party has taken steps to moderate themselves in answer to the marginal drift of the other demonstrates that the whole of partisan politics is shot through with dysfunction. This isn’t a question of one party or the other being a unique threat to the fabric of the nation. There may be various levels of seismic activity at different places on the partisan spectrum, but we’re talking about a single stretching fault line of dysfunction across the entire political culture.

The two political parties in our country are both suffering from institutional capture by marginal and extreme factions. And they maintain their control through a grotesque symbiosis. Neither party ever faces a full reckoning for their irresponsible and extreme behavior because they can always point to the foolishness and extremism of the other side. No matter who is in control of the government at any given moment, the current environment reinforces and enables the extremism of either side.

Donald Trump eschewed having the 2020 election cycle being a referendum of his governance. He did not want to answer to voters for his conduct in office. He didn’t want to debate what he had done on the merits. He wanted Americans afraid of Biden, of the Democrats, of Nancy Pelosi, of what progressive governance would look like.

Similarly, Joe Biden doesn’t want these mid-term elections to be a referendum on what he and his party have done with the wheels of governance. He doesn’t want to have to deal with the consequences of his choices. He can’t take a case to the American people for why America is better today than it was when he took office without stinking to high heaven. And so, he chooses to make Americans afraid of Trump, of Republicans, of Kevin McCarthy, of what he claims his political opponents will do to the state of American democracy.

The great lie we keep falling into is that if one or the other party can just win with enough resounding dominance in an election cycle, the other side will get a wake-up call. But the reality is this dominance becomes a catalyst for further dysfunction. Neither party can responsibly govern. Neither party has a healthy and responsible vision for the country. And so, when voters hand either party the reins of government, they heighten the hysteria, they drive people even more to the margins, they maintain and enable the power of demagogues and fear mongers because they have no self-restraint and push away and betray those who offered their votes to them in hopes for decency and normalcy.

And so I pray, and I encourage others to pray, not for the dominance of one party or the other in a vain hope for moderation through defeat, but for divided government. I will watch this coming election and hope that perhaps we can achieve a moratorium from the madness. And if we can gain that moratorium, I hope enough responsible voices can be convinced to engage rather than disengage from the ugly yet necessary reality of party politics. I hope that people can be convinced to engage politically based upon their values and beliefs rather than too-clever-by-half tricks and schemes where they engage with and enable irresponsible actors who don’t share their principles or vision for fear that the other side is so much worse.

We don’t need a “coalition of the decent” that indecently chooses which side of the dysfunction to ignore and enable, falling into feckless and soulless pragmatism. We need decent, self-respecting, and prudent individuals who will step forward and become the function that we need, who can breathe better politics into the political parties and institutions themselves, working tirelessly from within with a mind for institutionalism and proceduralism rather than hoping that election cycles can be blunt instruments that move the parties in better directions without rolling up sleeves and doing what needs to be done to renew and craft healthy institutions.

Strategic voting is getting us nowhere. Soulless allyship is getting us nowhere. Empty pragmatism that betrays our values is getting us nowhere. It’s time to take charge of the wheels and steer things to a better place instead of enabling the perpetual broadsiding that doesn’t do anything but sink us further into dysfunction.