The Disjunction That Was Promised

For the symposium on Sanford Levinson in addition to Jack M. Balkin, Democracy in addition to Dysfunction (University of Chicago Press, 2019).

Corey Robin

As a pupil of Steve Skowronek in addition to a scholar of conservatism, I’ve long agreed with 1 of the arguments Jack Balkin presents in addition to pursues inwards Democracy in addition to Dysfunction—that the Reagan regime is crumbling in addition to we’re heading toward a reconstructive presidency along the lines of realignments past. Like Balkin, I believe that the management of Donald Trump is improve viewed every bit a disjunctive presidency, similar to that of Jimmy Carter or Herbert Hoover, a symptom of the unraveling conservative lodge rather than the opening bid of a novel authoritarian populist regime or consolidation of the existing Republican regime.[1]

I’d similar to utilization the chance of my deep understanding with Balkin to explore 1 of the weaknesses of our shared position. As Balkin notes, inwards disjunctive regimes, the dominant political party coalition fractures. Tensions held inwards cheque inwards the early on days of the regime slacken during its terminate days; factions 1 time willing to compromise with each other on their path to powerfulness (think of the fusionism that fueled the modern conservative movement) at nowadays decline to cede ground. Presidents elected to handle these unruly forces aspect a hard challenge. Desperate to interruption out of the vise they’re inwards in addition to sensing the regime’s fourth dimension is up, disjunctive presidents essay to build a novel coalition, 1 less beholden to the existing poohbahs in addition to players inwards the party, based on novel in addition to unorthodox policies. Carter, for example, pursued deregulation in addition to tight money, courted evangelicals in addition to suburban professionals, in addition to distanced himself from unions. But because the foundation of disjunctive presidencies—the regime they were elected to handle rather than maul—is therefore tenuous, disjunctive presidents frequently rush dorsum to condom havens, placating the political party in addition to its interests with goodies similar a novel Department of Education. The combination of that force in addition to pull, toward in addition to away from the party, antagonizes everyone, provoking a strong challenge non from the forces of the novel (such every bit Reagan’s bid to supersede Ford inwards 1976) but from defenders of the faith. To wit: Teddy Kennedy’s master copy challenge to Carter inwards 1980.

We haven’t seen that sort of challenge yet nether Trump. Bill Weld notwithstanding, it seems probable nosotros won’t. Nor receive got nosotros seen the splintering of the political party similar to the crackup of the New Deal coalition inwards the 1970s. The enquiry is: why?

One possible explanation is the polarization that Balkin discusses throughout the book. With partisans cleaving ever to a greater extent than tightly to their parties, we’re non probable to encounter fragmentation. But that, it seems to me, exclusively restates the problem. Polarization can’t endure adduced every bit an additional characteristic of the electrical current disjunctive moment, with the breakdown of the Republican order, for it is antithetical to the thought of disjunction, to the scrambling of the electorate in addition to defections of political party politicians that nosotros encounter nether disjunctive regimes (think of exodus of Southern Democrats inwards the lead-up to 1980). Some elected officials receive got particularly inwards the nativist legislation, fund in addition to build the wall, in addition to therefore on), I’ve come upward to wonder if Skowronek’s thesis may receive got for granted the really affair it disavows. During the disjunctions of John Quincy Adams, Pierce/Buchanan, Hoover, in addition to Carter, at that spot was intense ferment inwards the opposition, focused on the creation of a novel political party or transformation of an existing one. Indeed, component subdivision of what made those presidencies disjunctive was this opposition, the appearance of a novel linguistic communication of contention against the existing regime. What toppled those regimes was non just their internal weaknesses but the willingness of a political agent to give them a shove.

The Democratic Party doesn’t seem willing to move at that spot yet. From the preeminence of Biden inwards the 2020 master copy to the wariness of political party leaders similar Nancy Pelosi to covert Medicare For All in addition to the Green New Deal, the Democrats practise non seem laid to brand a realignment. As a theater supporter of Bernie Sanders in addition to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose master copy crusade I canvassed for, I am the concluding somebody to diminish efforts to force the Democrats toward a realignment posture. But every bit hopeful every bit I am virtually these efforts, they are belatedly inwards coming. In damage of making a realignment, nosotros seem to endure inwards the belatedly 1840s or the mid-1960s. We receive got naught similar the organizational infrastructure, the political party organization, the intellectual in addition to ideological coherence, or political leadership nosotros need. I don’t encounter anything on the horizon similar the cadre of ideologues in addition to activists that made the New Deal or Reagan Revolution—which happened non inwards a minute of political free-fall, every bit a shallow reading of the Skowronek thesis mightiness suggest, but inwards the aspect of immense institutional intransigence among the persistence of the sometime regime.

That leads to a 3rd possible explanation for the failure of a disjunction to emerge. The 2 precedents that a left-wing every bit opposed to a right-wing reconstructive presidency would await to—those of 1860 in addition to 1932—featured non exclusively a full-scale political party opposition to the sometime regime but independent social movements of the sort nosotros don’t receive got today. There’s naught similar the abolitionist displace or displace of the enslaved to emancipate themselves—much less the half-century buildup of strikes in addition to worker self-organization that preceded the project upsurge of the 1930s. Yes, concluding twelvemonth saw the largest number of workers involved inwards strikes since 1986—and I’ve compared the potential of the instructor strikes inwards cherry-red states to the portents of realignment nosotros saw inwards Proposition 13—but workers don’t receive got the organizational capacity, or institutional retentiveness in addition to political lore their actions depend upon, that they once had. As of import every bit the breakdown of the sometime lodge in addition to rising of novel political party coalitions are to whatsoever reconstruction, it’s hard to imagine a left realignment without the breakout of the kinds of social movements nosotros saw extending from long nineteenth century to the curt twentieth, what the historian Steve Fraser has called “the Grand Army of the Triangle,” men in addition to women willing to take away a chance life in addition to limb for the sake of an terminate to their oppressions. That that Army of the Triangle drove, inwards succession, 2 realignments from the left, in addition to therefore disappeared with or was crushed past times a counterrevolutionary realignment from the right, leaves opened upward the enquiry of whether in addition to when we’ll encounter around other realignment from the left.

What nosotros seem to endure mooting at nowadays is a purely political reconstruction, shorn of the social movements that helped brand previous left reconstructions what they were. If that’s the case, the powerfulness of Sandy Levinson’s declaration becomes fifty-fifty to a greater extent than salient. Constitutional obstacles—whether inherent to the text, every bit Levinson argues, or the production of its ambient order, every bit Balkin suggests—become higher the to a greater extent than subject upon purely political forces nosotros are. All those veto points, which previous reconstructive presidencies confronted with the assist of social movements, cease to component subdivision every bit goads to farther reconstruction (just mean value of how buoyed FDR’s Second New Deal was past times the intransigence of the Court) in addition to revert to beingness obstacles. It’s hard to imagine how 1 could larn Medicare For All past times those veto points, a Green New Deal past times a Roberts Court, voting rights reform past times the states or the Senate, without a to a greater extent than fundamental upsurge. There’s speak right at nowadays of Court-packing or getting rid of life tenure for justices or eliminating the filibuster—reforms to the constitutional lodge Balkin mightiness advocate that would non require changes to the text—all of which would help. But that’s all they are right now: talk. Once the economical actors that oppose Medicare For All yet receive got the ear of the Democratic Party larn going (indeed, they already have), 1 time the noun agenda behind these constitutional reforms becomes clear, the speak may grow faint—and the absent forcefulness of those social movements volition endure felt.

Balkin’s analysis of political party polarization acknowledges, perchance unintentionally, the forcefulness of this argument. At the dawn of the Cold War, the American Political Science Association issued a lengthy denunciation of America’s political party system, decrying the fragmentation in addition to decentralization of the 2 parties, their ideological incoherence in addition to dissipation of programmatic force. As a solution, APSA recommended that the parties offering voters 2 clear option platforms, to which, depending on the political party they belonged to, elected officials would hew. In other words, APSA recommended polarization. But inwards a scheme with therefore many veto points, it’s hard for polarized parties to execute their programs—even when, every bit nosotros saw with the Obamacare repeal debacle, 1 political party controls all the elected branches of authorities (though this may endure to a greater extent than due to disjunction than constitutional factors). The number is gridlock. Though Balkin initially attributes the work of our contemporary minute to to a greater extent than contingent, Skowronek-like factors rather than to constitutional constraints, he seems eventually to concede Levinson’s claims. We’re at nowadays suffering, he says, because nosotros receive got “parliamentary-style parties inwards a presidential system.” What does that hateful if non that our constitutional lodge does non permit for what APSA called “a to a greater extent than responsible two-party system”—precisely the indicate that Levinson has been making throughout the text?

Though Balkin begins the majority suggesting Trump is a symptom of the breakdown of the Republican order, he drifts over the course of report of the majority to an option view: Trump is a demagogue whose strongman persona is proffered every bit a solution to the gridlock produced past times polarization in addition to oligarchy. As I suggested earlier, these 2 views—of a weakened Republican lodge in addition to heightened political party polarization—may endure incompatible. But I likewise wonder what’s missing from that analysis in addition to why. After all, inwards the ancient cycles of regime change, from monarchy to mob dominion or anarchy, at that spot is a critical stride that goes unmentioned past times Balkin or Levinson. Every cycle of regime alter begins with monarchy, which descends into tyranny, which gives means to a corrective aristocracy, which descends into oligarchy. But then, before nosotros reach the concluding stage of the cycle—mob dominion (or what Balkin mightiness telephone recall demagoguery)—there is democracy. Democracy, inwards other words, is the corrective inwards the cycle, the penultimate stage before the mob dominion that therefore leads the cycle to commence again. In Balkin’s account, however, oligarchy gives means to demagoguery (or mob rule), which therefore may or may non Pb to a novel awakening of democracy. I wonder if at that spot is non something to that reordering. That the Fe constabulary of oligarchy in addition to demagoguery seems today to a greater extent than existent than the classical cycle of oligarchy in addition to democracy—indeed, the classic American cycle of oligarchy overthrown past times democracy, which Balkin does invoke, albeit every bit a enquiry mark[3]—suggests 1 of 2 things: either the constitutional constraints that Levinson emphasizes throughout take away to endure to a greater extent than fully confronted or the missing presence of an independent social displace is to a greater extent than of a challenge than Balkin (and I) realize.

Corey Robin is Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College in addition to the CUNY Graduate Center. You tin sack reach him past times electronic mail at corey.robin at gmail.com

Notes

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[1] At the terminate of the book, Balkin does countenance the possibility of Trump managing something similar what McKinley achieved inwards 1896: beating dorsum a populist challenge from the left, extending the life of the Gilded Age regime past times around other several decades. Given the similarities betwixt that moment—rampant white supremacy, increasing nativism, in addition to plutocratic rule—and our own, it’s possible we’re inwards for around other such ordeal. Levinson in addition to Balkin, Democracy in addition to Dysfunction, 192, 196-197.

[2] Balkin mentions this reality inwards the view of the book—“It is much easier for Trump to ally himself with congressional Republicans than to endeavour a seriously populist legislative agenda, which would endure really costly in addition to would endure opposed past times members of his ain party”—but doesn’t consider how at odds it is with the disjunction thesis. Disjunctive presidents are disjunctive because they practise oppose their parties. Indeed, directly later this cite of Trump’s cleaving to the GOP, Balkin writes, “Trump represents the terminate of a cycle of politics rather than the futurity of politics.” Levinson in addition to Balkin, Democracy in addition to Dysfunction, 113.

[3] “The fundamental enquiry of constitutional in addition to political reform is how to save republican authorities inwards the aspect of a changing global economy. This is non the offset fourth dimension that the American experiment inwards republic has been threatened past times oligarchy, although the work arises each fourth dimension inwards a unlike form. The Jacksonians fought the fiscal aristocracy of their day, the early on Republican Party fought the Slave Power, in addition to the populists in addition to progressives fought the ‘malefactors of nifty wealth’ who dominated the province during its First Gilded Age. Now, inwards our Second Gilded Age, at that spot is no guarantee that the designing of success volition continue. Even so, Americans should organize themselves on the supposition that they receive got the powerfulness to defend republican authorities from oligarchy every bit they receive got done many times before.” Levinson in addition to Balkin, Democracy in addition to Dysfunction, 114.