How Democracies Die, Continued

 

So back to Ziblatt.  My last post went over his view that political parties are key to to success of democracy.  In particular, political parties' role is either to block the nomination of potentially authoritarian candidates or, failing that, to form pro-democracy coalitions to keep authoritarians out.  I have also criticized Ziblatt for assuming that all political outsiders, and everyone who criticizes political insiders, is automatically an authoritarians.  To automatically bar outsiders is to allow democracy to become sclerotic and degenerate into a cozy little oligarchy.

Another way to see whether outsiders are a threat to democracy is to see whether they respect accepted norms.  Norms are unwritten rules of democratic fair play.  Breaking norms does break any laws, but it does mean fighting dirty and dirtier.  People who see our system as hopelessly corrupt tend to denounce norms and say that there should not be any.  And (Ziblatt acknowledges), never changing norms can lead to excess rigidity.  

Ziblatt cites the classic example of a norm that held -- Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court kept finding his actions unconstitutional, and he threatened to increase its from nine to fifteen members.  This led to cries of outrage that FDR was fighting dirty and ended with him backing down.  It also ended with the Supreme Court backing down and finding his actions constitutional. (The "switch in time saved nine.")  Ziblatt's classic constructive violation of a norm was by FDR's cousin, Teddy Roosevelt, who had dinner with Booker T. Washington.  This was regarded as a scandalous breach of racial etiquette at the time.  We look upon it as a major advance of the cause of racial equality.  

And sometimes democracy can survive the violation of a norm if it leads to a new norm.  The classic example is Andrew Jackson's veto of the National Bank.  Up until then, the assumption had been in favor of legislative supremacy and the President was expected to veto legislation only if he considered it unconstitutional.  Since the Supreme Court had found a national bank to be constitutional, the norms of his day did not allow Jackson to veto the bank, no matter how much he might dislike it as a matter of policy.  But he scandalized establishment opinion by vetoing the bank anyhow.  Democracy survived and developed a new norm that holds to this day -- the President may veto any legislation he wishes.

Ziblatt also uses the term "norms" rather promiscuously and seems unable to distinguish a true norm from a mere custom.  He gives as examples of harmless norm breaking Jimmy Carter getting out of the limousine and walking to his inauguration, or Donald Trump not having a White House pet.  But these are not norm violations, merely departures from custom.  What is the difference?  A norm violation breaks the perceived but unwritten rules of democratic fair play.  A norm violation provokes cries of dirty pool.  I don't think anyone thought that it was dirty pool for Jimmy Carter to walk to his inauguration, or for Donald Trump not to keep a pet.  And sometimes breaking old norms leads to new norms.  I mentioned above Andrew Jackson's veto of the National Bank, which changes the norm of Presidents vetoing only legislation they deemed unconstitutional to vetoing legislation for policy reasons.  Ziblatt mentions William Henry Harrison openly campaigning for President in the 1840's, when it had previously been the custom for candidates to pretend indifference to the outcome.

But Ziblatt considers two norms essential -- mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance.  Mutual tolerance is straightforward enough.  Rival politicians and parties must accept the other side as legitimate.  Losers must accept electoral outcomes and live to fight another day, while winners must not seek permanent victory, but must allow the losers to always to come back and contest the next election.  Needless to say, Donald Trump is violating this norm in a big way post-defeat.

Institutional forbearance is a lot harder to define.  Essentially, it means political actors must use less than their full power.  He gives as examples executive orders, presidential pardons, Senate concurrence in Presidential appointments, and impeachment.  He also gives the filibuster as an example, but the filibuster is an excellent illustration of why institutional forbearance can be so hard to define.  The filibuster was once considered an extreme measure, to be used only for major and extremely controversial measures.  Over time, it has become a routine measure, such that the 60-vote super majority is considered the normal procedure in the Senate and passing legislation by simple majority is somewhere between radical and scandalous.  So which is the  norm violation, the constant use of the filibuster, or the increasingly frequent exceptions being carved out?  And, again, what of changes in acceptable use of institutional power, such as the Presidential veto?

Ziblatt suggests that violations of institutional forbearance are most alarming when they undermine mutual tolerance.  In other words, when the party controlling one branch of government appears to be using its power to permanently lock the other party out, that is particularly cause for alarm.  Ziblatt offers may examples from early in Trump's term (the book is copyright 2018).  But none of those example are so alarming as the current attempt to overturn an election.

To be conitnued.