“No America without democracy, no democracy without politics, no politics without parties, no parties without compromise and moderation.” So runs the string of assumptions on which the politics of American democracy hangs, according to the late political scientist, Clinton Rossiter.
Political parties are essential instruments of constitutional democracy. They organize inchoate impulses into governing principles and actions, for which they take responsibility in regular elections.
Yet from the beginning of the republic they have been deplored. In his farewell address, George Washington warned darkly of the “baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.”
James Madison, the leading framer, was well aware of the dangers posed by partisanship. The seed of parties, he said, is sown in the nature of man. They arise from differing ideologies, from an “attachment to different leaders,” or from differences in the kinds or amount of wealth that people accumulate.
There was no “cure for the mischief of factions” in direct democracy, he taught. That is why such regimes are inevitably “spectacles of turbulence and contention,” as “short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths.”
Yet from the Declaration of Independence, the United States has been committed to government by consent of the governed. Therefore it must control factions. There are only two ways to do it, said Madison. One is to entrust government to “proper guardians of the public weal” by adopting some form of representative government. The other is to “extend the sphere” to include a great variety of parties and interests that counteract one another. The Constitution uses both of these tactics.
Madison was a formidable political theorist. We are fortunate that his thinking dominated the convention that framed our Constitution. But the Constitution cannot alone prevent the calamity that threatens us now. Modern technology has made it easier to prey on the anxieties and prejudices of the people. Madison’s design cannot prevent a would-be demagogue from seizing power by using these techniques.
The founding generation trusted that George Washington would carry the regime through the perils of its infancy, and he did. But with Washington’s retirement, a great deal depended on the identification of capable and trustworthy candidates.
Who would nominate the candidates? Initially leaders in Congress improvised an answer, trusting the process to caucuses that met informally to nominate candidates. The caucuses were broadly resented as elitist, and they undermined the separation of powers. Gradually nominations were taken over by state conventions.
In 1824, Andrew Jackson got the most electoral votes, but not a majority, so the election was referred to the House of Representatives. There John Quincy Adams won. Jackson screamed bloody murder. Four years later, Jackson was nominated by the first national party convention and won an overwhelming victory in the general election.
Ever since Jackson’s masterful coup d’etat, party leadership has been a major weapon in the arsenal of successful presidents. Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were unabashed partisans.
But the danger of delivering the executive power into the hands of a demagogue continues to stalk us.
Many modern nations have included provisions in their constitutions designed to erect legal boundaries around parties. A good example is West Germany, whose constitution was framed in 1948 after the trauma of Nazism and World War II. Article 21 declares that political parties “participate in the forming of the political will of the people” and may be “freely established.”
However, it adds, “their internal organization must conform to democratic principles, and they must publicly account for the sources and use of their funds and for their assets.” In addition, if any party seeks to “impair or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany,” the supreme court may declare it “unconstitutional.”
Would a provision like this be useful in our Constitution? It is hard to imagine justices of the United States Supreme Court stepping into this thicket. And if they wouldn’t do it, who in our system could? The answer takes us back to party leaders. They must perform this service. Otherwise it won’t be done.
American politics is careening off-track. Both of our major parties are in the midst of struggles over their very souls. But there is a vital difference between them.
The Democratic Party must determine how far left it will go, what policies it will prioritize and fight for. Such jockeying is perfectly normal for a party in opposition.
Republicans are dealing with similar internal struggles, of course. A band of 20 House Republicans are pressuring the leadership to allow a bill on the “Dreamers” to be discharged from committee and brought to the House floor.
The discharge proponents have been inspired by their ideological opposites on the GOP’s hard right, who have used procedural hardball tactics to drive Republican legislation in their own direction. That was on display Friday, when members of the House Freedom Caucus voted down a massive GOP-written farm bill to secure a vote on conservative immigration legislation and block bipartisan alternatives.
But for the governing party, the crisis is far deeper. They are wrestling with a monster, a bully and a demagogue who aspires to govern alone. He cannot be stopped unless Republicans in Congress demand it.
It should be noted that the president’s principal nemesis, Robert Mueller, is himself a lifelong Republican, as is Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller’s inquiry from the Justice Department. This president is clearly not the master of his own house.
Maybe the dikes of constitutional democracy are holding after all. If we do survive this challenge, we will have to give major credit to our two-party system, and particularly, this time, to the Republicans.
Don Robinson, a retired professor of government at Smith College in Northampton, writes a regular column published the fourth Thursday of the month. He can be reached at drobinso@smith.edu.