By Charles C. W. Cooke
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Before I lodge the complaint that is currently burning a
hole in my pocket, I wish to make one thing clear to those who might add a
ghostly ergo to its gist: that, for all my sins and foibles, and despite
the squishy mood of the case I’m about to offer up, I am not–and never will
be–one of them.
You know the type to which I refer: that guy at the bar
or cookout or watercooler who believes that the current configuration of our
politics is wholly irrational, and that, if it were only to be replaced with
the alternative that he has cleverly sketched out, we would swiftly be ushered
into a Better America. I am, as I shall soon relate, profoundly irritated by
the conduct of the two parties that dominate our constitutional system. But
this irritation by no means implies an enthusiasm for the arrival of a
bloodless “third way.” I am not an opponent of America’s two-party system–which
I think is probably inevitable. I do not think that abolishing the Democratic
or Republican Party would improve our situation. I do not favor proportional
representation, ranked-choice voting, or the abolition of the Senate or the
Electoral College. I do not romanticize independent voters. I do not believe
moderation to be a virtue per se. I do not yearn for some fabled lost era of
comity and cooperation. And I am not, Lord help me, a fan of the epicene No
Labels movement, which, in its typical form, is less an attempt to protect
principle from partisanship than an experiment in abandoning conviction
altogether.
With that out of the way, we can now move on to the
point–which is that, at present, both of America’s major parties are feckless,
impatient, cliquey, myopic, rabid, and suicidal, and that, in large part, these
defects are the direct result of the failings of their leaders and tastemakers,
who have no useful conception of history and no earthly clue as to what normal
Americans are actually like. In recent years, a friend of mine has taken
to suggesting ruefully that if either the Republicans or the Democrats were
simply to stop being so “weird,” they would dominate elections for 30 years.
That, I suspect, is an overstatement. But the core observation is obviously
correct. As much as anything else, America’s swing voters are motivated in
their voting habits by the extent to which the figures on offer are deemed peculiar.
Sometimes, that peculiarity is attributable to ideology or philosophy, but,
just as often, it flows from affect, rhetoric, attitude, or the sense that
something ineffable is just off. It is no exaggeration to suggest that,
over the last decade, the rise and fall of the two parties’ fortunes have been
inextricable from the question of which was seen as the more bizarre. In 2022,
the Republicans’ decision to nominate a cadre of creeps cost them their chance
at the Senate majority and a larger margin in the House. In 2024, the
Democrats’ selection of Kamala Harris made Donald Trump seem normal by
comparison. Such matters can be overdetermined, but the elevation of the kooky
over the commonplace has cost Republicans in Arizona and Georgia, and cost
Democrats in Wisconsin, Florida, and Texas. Historically, the definition of a
political party was an institution that sought to acquire power. In the
contemporary era, that aim has often been subordinated to a host of other
concerns. The results, thus far, have been poor.
It is common nowadays to hear commentators of all stripes
declare that the country’s deep political divisions do not, in fact, exist.
When presented by the devotees of either of the two parties, this notion
reflects self-interested wishful thinking: If only the Democrats or the
Republicans would go away, the conceit runs, then the intellectual
energy that is being channeled through them would disappear, too, and the
surviving faction would be unopposed. When presented by the politically
homeless, this notion reflects the belief that the country is full of sober
moderates, whose sensible prescriptions are being continually thwarted by an
illegitimate duopoly that is sustained by nefarious means. But neither of these
views is true. The two parties are expressions of our preexisting
divisions rather than the drivers of them, while the majority of the persistent
problems within our politics–our endlessly rising debt, our schizophrenic
foreign policy, our inability to reform our immigration system, and so
forth–are the products of our incoherent public sentiments being channeled not
inadequately but too well. It would certainly be nice if there existed a silent
majority that had both a systematic agenda and a tenacious enthusiasm for its
enactment, but, alas, there does not. Instead, we have a polity that wants low
taxes and high spending, that wants a strong America and an
isolationist America, and that wants mass deportations and to be a
nation that welcomes immigrants. And so, this being a democratic republic, that
is exactly what the people get.
***
What, then, is the problem? If the two parties are indeed
maintained organically–and if the great middle is not being ignored–then,
surely, people ought to be happier than they are with the status quo?
Well, yes–and no. Yes, in that life in the United States
is far, far better than one might imagine if one were to listen to the routine
catastrophizing of our more vocal politicians. No, in that, though life is
pretty good, our politics is currently dominated by strange and maladjusted
zealots who treat public service as if it were a sport, and who engage with
each and every problem that arises as if its being resolved on their precise
terms were necessary for the survival of the republic. I can tell that, merely
by writing these words in this tone of voice, I am inviting all manner of
hyperbolic condemnations to rain down on me. How can I possibly be so CALM,
when we are in such a CRISIS, and everything is so ALARMING? Do I not know WHAT
TIME IT IS? Do I not comprehend WHERE WE ARE? Is it not obvious to me that if
the current administration does not succeed in EVERY ONE OF ITS GOALS–or,
alternatively, if it is not THWARTED IN EVERY ONE OF ITS GOALS –the country as
we have known it is FINISHED? Oughtn’t I to GET OFF THE STAGE and let the
people who understand the STAKES take over?
That is not satire. It really is how contemporary
American politics looks to the average observer: Frenetic, unyielding, angry,
eschatological, and performed in all caps. Naturally, there are a great number
of important questions facing the country–questions that voters ought to take
seriously. But those questions ought to be posed and addressed within the
general understanding that the United States is the most stable, dynamic,
prosperous, and free nation in the history of the world. Instead, in Washington,
D.C., and beyond, we have what appears to the average citizen to be a rolling
Battle of the Somme–with the same volume of bombardment and the same rates of
attrition irrespective of how much land is at stake. Conducted properly,
quotidian politics should be varied–more like a Beethoven symphony than a
maxed-out album of death metal. If, instead, every last minute is filled with prestissimo
con forza activity, the audience will soon plug its ears.
I do not intend to lionize median voters, or to pretend
that they possess special insight into our national affairs–which, usually,
they do not. But I do think that it matters that, seen through the eyes
of the rank-and-file members of our democracy, most of our political actors
seem absolutely bonkers. Take a look at the most engaged groups in our
republic–the Trump acolytes, the Bernie fans, the #Resistance, the
alt-righters, the wokesters–and compare them with the couple that lives next
door to you. Imagine members of one of those groups meeting your neighbors, and
having even a cursory conversation about politics. The Trump acolytes would be
obliged to explain why it is a good thing that the president marked this year’s
Memorial Day with a message that began, “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING
THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY”; the
Bernie fans would be required to expound upon the evils of American “oligarchy”
and to lament the many ills that have resulted from there being too many brands
of deodorant in American stores; the #Resistance types would be compelled to
utter a series of diatribes against Trump (“Drumpf”) and his legion of
“MAGAts,” who have brought us to the very edge of banning women from existing
and turning the United States into the Third Reich; and, while (sometimes)
coming at the issue from different sides, both the alt-righters and the
wokesters would proceed from the assumption that the immutable characteristics
of each person in the room were of endless fascination to everyone else, and
that, if anything went wrong, it was probably the fault of the Jews.
Your neighbors? They’d likely be completely and utterly
baffled by the spectacle–not because they are completely uninterested in
politics, but because the vehemence with which these ideas were being
expressed, along with the unashamedly totalitarian scope of their implications,
would be confusing and alarming in equal measure. Add in the outlandish lingo
that would inevitably be on display–“cuck,” “genocide,” “red-pilled,”
“elevating narratives,” “based,” “late-stage capitalism,” “invasion,”
“BIPOC”–and it would be a bloody miracle if nobody in the room had a stroke.
***
Given that normal people dramatically outnumber fanatics,
one might assume that, in any contest between your neighbors and their
tormenters, your neighbors would win every time. Unfortunately, however, there
is a significant advantage to being a fanatic who subordinates everything else
to his political goals. Fanatics show up. They join. They agitate,
proselytize, and harangue. Fanatics go to meetings, they donate money, they
knock on doors, and–crucially–they vote in primaries. In theory, primary
elections are a mechanism by which informed citizens choose candidates who they
think will broadly represent the party and have the best shot at winning
a general election. In practice, though, this outcome is increasingly rare.
Regardless of whether they are on the left or the right, average Americans tend
to be interested in achieving the same ends: They want a booming economy, good
schools, safe streets, affordable health care, and a stable world. Fanatics, by
contrast, have other aims in mind–aims such as “owning the libs,” or “advancing
the equity agenda,” or ensuring that a figure from a slightly different part of
the coalition is blocked from further advancement.
It was fanaticism that led the Arizona Republican Party
to nominate Kari Lake for the Senate, even after she had lost a
gubernatorial race, and after it had become obvious to anyone with eyes
that she was unelectable statewide. It was fanaticism that pushed the
Democratic Party to allow its entire political agenda to be hijacked by a bunch
of fringe interest groups who wished to abolish the police, outlaw private
health insurance, and allow men to compete in women’s sports. It was fanaticism
that led the Biden administration to effectively open the southern border
despite knowing that his most likely opponent in 2024 was Donald Trump, and
fanaticism that led the Trump administration to begin fixing that issue with a
deliberate and unpopular violation of the law. It was fanaticism that led Joe
Biden to start off his presidency with a promise to completely remake the
economy of the United States, and it was fanaticism that led Donald Trump to
commence his second presidency with an attempt to unilaterally rearrange world
trade. None of these decisions made any sense, and none of them would have been
made by a leader whose party was interested in retaining the support of the
political middle. In all cases, the protagonists’ assumptions were the same:
that, because the other team was so toxic, they could get away with anything.
They didn’t, of course. Kari Lake lost in 2022 and 2024;
the Democrats won the presidency narrowly in 2020, lost the House in 2022, and
lost everything in 2024; Biden’s spending spree caused the worst inflation in
four decades, while his border policy put Trump back in the White House; and
public opinion forced Trump to back off his tariff agenda. Because American
politics is intrinsically cyclical, there will always be some room for our
political parties to eschew responsibility and simply wait for their opponents
to screw up. But the degree to which this has become the default mode of
operation is absurd. Between 1896 and 2016, there was only one presidential
election in which partisan control shifted after just a single term. Since
2016, we have had two. This, I’d venture, is no accident. The parties have
given up on being popular, and the public, which is more discerning than is
believed, has responded appropriately to the abdication.
It would be nice if there were One Weird Trick that could
narrow the gap between the fanatics and the normies, rid the two parties of
their self-destructive attitudes, and lower the volume in our politics as a
result. But there is not. Ultimately, this problem will be solved by a
rebellion of the voters, not by tweaking our constitutional order, tossing a
bloodless third party into the mix, or fetishizing bipartisanship. That a
handful of activists in each party enjoys such remarkable influence is regrettable,
but it is the natural result of the choices that have been made by everyone
else. A Republican Party in which more Americans participate would be a
Republican Party that does not nominate Herschel Walker, Tudor Dixon, Don
Bolduc, Doug Mastriano, or Dr. Oz. A Democratic Party in which more Americans
participate would be a Democratic Party whose presidential candidate is not
tied down by on-camera promises to completely nationalize the health-care
system, usher in reparations, prohibit fracking, ban the most popular rifle in
America via executive order, and make taxpayers fund sex-change operations for
prisoners. As a general matter, I have a great deal of sympathy for the tens of
millions of Americans who look at the leading lights within our roiling national
debate and gag in horror and disgust. But, plucky little realist that I am, I
also want them to understand that, if they are tired of hearing the discordant,
irritating, insistent tunes that now pass for our contemporary politics,
they’re going to have to get busy writing their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment