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May 15, 2006
Ripe for a Demagogue
Throughout history, there have been moments of great crisis that were utterly unrecognized for what they were until after the crisis was passed. Instead, the crisis would be seen as something else: economic problems or partisan policy disputes, usually. But in these times, deep in the heart of the common people in the country in crisis, there is a growing sense that nothing is working right, and that the gaps in political discourse are unbridgeable. The people become, by degrees, more and more ready for someone to "just fix things". In other words, the country becomes ripe for a populist (and frequently nationalist) demagogue.
The canonical example of this is the rise of Adolph Hitler; who, it must be remembered, was after all just one of the many demagogues in Germany in the early 1930s. More recent examples include Jugoslavia's Milosevic, Venezuela's Chavez, Bolivia's Morales. Twentieth century examples besides Hitler include his contemporaries, Mussolini, Mao and Franco, the later Noriega and Castro and the earlier Lenin. Demagogues, it should be noted, are not always horrible people; in many cases they really do think that they are doing the best that they can to fix the problems that they see with their country. The problem comes in with two additional factors: unchecked power and insularity.
Unchecked power, which is the norm in all but a very few countries, allows the executive, sometimes with minimal interference, to push through whatever changes that he wants. Those changes almost always start with government "reforms" that serve to make that power unassailable by any but military means, and "security reforms" that serve to make rebellion essentially impossible. The resultant lock on power, and the perks of feeding from the essentially infinite public trough rather than having to earn money yourself, leads to isolation and then to insularity, so that the demagogue in power loses touch with the populace he initially set out to assist.
The US right now is in such an unrecognized crisis. The debate over illegal immigration, exacerbated rather than helped by the media's general refusal to separate legal from illegal immigration in any discussion, and most certainly exacerbated by partisan political tactics (hence Senate Minority Leader Reid's demands for President Bush to stake out a clear position, presumably so that Reid will know what he, Reid, is against), hides a much deeper issue. Americans are becoming convinced that their government is incapable of controlling the borders, incapable of competently prosecuting both the long war and the immediate campaign, and incapable of resolving any conflict because of partisanship. If the issue continues to heat up, expect to see an independent presidential challenge within the next couple of election cycles, at least as strong as the Perot challenge to outsourcing in the early 1990s, and most likely stronger.
Perhaps President Bush can navigate a way out of this mess; we'll see shortly. But even if he does, until the rampant partisanship and unbending buffoonery and constant corruption of the system is fixed, the crisis only waits for an issue to crystallize around.
Fortunately, the US and the other Anglosphere countries have, by and large, proven remarkably resistant to demagogues. Populism resonates from time to time, but has a hard time getting a solid foothold on power. This is largely because the Anglosphere countries tend to keep political power diffuse and to resist government changes (due, I think largely, to generally good governance for the last few hundred years). And it is in the end unlikely that the US will fall for an immigration demagogue. I wish I could say the same for Europe, but I fear that Europe is not only ripe for a demagogue, but susceptible to demagoguery.
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Comments
I, for one, long for viable third and fourth parties. It may be a fantasy, and an independent populist with a grab-bag of rants and simplistic proposals is more likely to happen.
Strong alternate parties can take advantage of the Electoral College system to prevent a winning majority by either Republicans or Democrats, and might be able to squeeze concessions out of one or the other. But these parties also need to have more than just presidential candidates -- they need to have leverage in Congrress as well.
Posted by: Roderick Reilly at May 16, 2006 12:32 PM
I think that the best way for a third party to really get hold of some offices would be to ignore the presidential elections, and go for first House, and later Senate, races only. This way, they leverage the money as much as possible, and can build up the vote percentages (hopefully) that would take them out of the political gutter (less than 15% and it's very, very difficult to get on the ballot).
The real way to change this is to change the electoral rules so that the House and Senate are elected differently, with one subject to partisan tensions as it is now, and the other cross-cut somehow to avoid them. (The current partisan atmosphere is mostly caused by the change in rules for Senate elections to direct elections, which over time made the Senate just a longer-serving House, rather than a hedge against factionalism.)
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.caerdroia.org/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 16, 2006 4:30 PM