Another Way of Putting It

So, to follow up on my last post, I concluded by saying:

Disagreements about policy are normal and will always be with us. But there ought to be areas that liberals and conservatives agree on, as well as disagree. The things I have cited above go to our whole system of government, law, and loyalty. And when they stop being priority, we have a very serious problem.

This article puts it much better that I could and offers a framework of understanding.  It offers the concepts of "common political knowledge" and "contested political knowledge."  "Common political knowledge" are that things that everyone agrees on.  "Contested political knowledge" are areas of disagreement.  The authors argue that every political system has both common and contested political knowledge.  No system can survive if everything is in dispute, nor can any system ever clamp down hard enough to erase all disagreement.  Rather, the stability of the system depends on what is common and what is contested knowledge.

As examples of "common political knowledge" in a democracy, the authors offer "how elections work: how districts are created and defined, how candidates are chosen, and that their votes count—even if only roughly and imperfectly."  "Contested political knowledge" means the policy disputes that drives elections and legislative debates, "how much of a role the government should play in the economy, what the tax rules should be, what sorts of regulations are beneficial and what sorts are harmful, and so on."  They go on to suggest that "common political knowledge" in a democracy is not just the basic framework of elections and government and the legitimacy of majority rule, but also common knowledge about who the political actors are, what the individuals and parties stand for, and the like.

The authors contrast this with autocracy, in which it is very much contested political knowledge who the adversaries of the government are, where they are, and how they can be contacted.  Turning this into common political knowledge is destabilizing to autocracies.  Democracy, by contrast, is undermined by turning common political knowledge -- such as the legitimacy of elections, the accuracy of the census, or the difference between real and fake news.

Which is another way of explaining the dangers that Donald Trump poses to democracy, why in a healthy system liberals and conservatives would agree that the danger transcends mere policy disputes, and why it is so alarming that many conservatives do not see it that way.

Simply put, we are seeing what is "common political knowledge" and what is "contested political knowledge" shift.  Traditionally we have had certain areas of consensus, i.e., "common political knowledge" between liberals and conservatives.  These areas have included:

• The losers of an election should concede to the winners
• The winners should respect the rights of the losers to contest the next election
• Changing the relations between difference branches of government is permitted, but a big deal not to be done lightly
• You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts
• It is not legitimate to use one's office for personal enrichment
• Competence matters
• Foreign meddling in our domestic politics is deeply alarming

Within such a framework, there is ample room for policy debates.  

But right now we are seeking "common political knowledge" become contested and demands for contested political knowledge to become common.

To a hardcore economic royalist, there is no room for debate over "how much of a role the government should play in the economy, what the tax rules should be, what sorts of regulations are beneficial and what sorts are harmful, and so on."  The proper answer is, there is no legitimate role for government in the economy, there should be no redistributive taxes, and no economic regulations.  How best to achieve these goals is open for dispute -- including whether to respect democratic elections if the winner wants to extend the role of government in the economy.  And growing numbers of Republicans appear to believe that large sections of the population are not "authentic real Americans" and that their vote therefore does not count.*

And so Republicans at the national level split between the ones who are willing to support a President who neither knows nor cares anything about governing, with innumerable conflicts of interest and a career based on fraud, who sees the Justice Department as his private goon squad, and who has alarming ties to a hostile foreign power because he shares their economic royalist policies or their white rural identity -- and ones who are not.  Or, put differently, some see basic democratic norms as "contested political knowledge" and the success of their policies or dominance of their group as properly considered "common political knowledge."  Others see preserving the basic democratic framework as important enough to accept losing at least some of the time.**

These are the stakes.  There is no other way to put it.

____________________________________________

*And, incidentally, I do not think our side is entirely blameless.  We have tried to move same sex marriage and transgender rights from "contested" to "common" knowledge when they are deeply contested.  I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with advocating for such views, merely  that we should accept that such views are controversial and that people of good will may disagree.

**And we are seeing the same thing played out at the state level in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan, where Republicans dismiss their defeat as illegitimate and respond by rigging the system.