Excellent points. We are clearly at the end of a cycle - the number of Executive Actions taken by Biden illustrates abundantly the need for corrective action.
And Biden gets full credit for taking them. He is absolutely a man on a mission, acting with the certitude of one who has spent decades in government and seen the vicissitudes of …
Excellent points. We are clearly at the end of a cycle - the number of Executive Actions taken by Biden illustrates abundantly the need for corrective action.
And Biden gets full credit for taking them. He is absolutely a man on a mission, acting with the certitude of one who has spent decades in government and seen the vicissitudes of the nation in that time. It also seems clear to me that, as with any intelligent person, he has had his own share of personal epiphanies (think of his previous attitude towards crime). Biden is a liberated man and he is unafraid of the consequences of the backlash his EAs will inevitably bring. Although I doubted him in the primaries, he is clearly the best person for the job at this moment in historical time.
But the rubber now hits the road. From here on in, we will see how he fares when it comes to enduring legislation. He is navigating the trickiest of rapids here, and I fear that those strewing his path with palms in gratitude for his early work, will have short memories and turn on him with equal vigor when he makes his first major compromise to get legislation passed. We are schooled to hope for nothing but walkovers after enduring the years of being under the boot of Trump.
When disappointment and attendant anger set in, Jen Psaki will need to be a miracle worker.
One final speculation about “cycles”.
The last two major ones (the FDR progressive period and the years of trickle up initiated by Reagan) were decades long.
During the last few decades the world has sped up immeasurably with the advent of the computer age. We are a bullet train heading towards the oblivion of climate change amidst the perils of relentless technological advances.
“Cycles” may be in our political past. They progress too slowly. I fear an endgame where we are forced to be continually reactive and cannot look above the parapets long enough to be sensibly proactive.
In this light, I would add, the GameStop phenomenon seems pretty inconsequential.
Eric, thanks for your thoughts on what affects the pace of political changes. I share your fear that we may be "forced to be continually reactive and cannot look above the parapets long enough to be sensibly proactive." One perspective on waves of political dominance and change I have found stimulating is Jack Balkin's theory of the interactions of three types of political cycles. Balkin is a professor on con law and has studied the influences of changing information technology. I cite his latest blog post, https://balkin.blogspot.com from 1/25/21 because it summarizes his current thoughts better than I can. It's s/w abstract, but his notion of "constitutional rot" seems to me well worth attention, and concern.
A couple of extracts from the post:
"[W]e can understand American constitutional development in terms of three kinds of cycles. The first involves the rise and fall of political regimes featuring dominant political parties. The second is a long cycle of polarization and depolarization that stretches from the Civil War through the present. The third cycle is a series of episodes of constitutional rot and constitutional renewal. Constitutional rot is the process by which a constitutional republic becomes less democratic and less republican over time.
"I draw three conclusions from the 2020 election and the Capitol Hill insurrection of January 6th, 2021. First, although the Reagan regime that has structured American politics since the 1980s is nearing its end, we cannot yet be certain that it has reached its conclusion. The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic contraction that accompanied it have handed the Democrats an opportunity to forge a new political regime, but whether they will successfully capitalize on these possibilities is yet to be determined. ...
"Second, our deeply polarized politics, which is currently organized around issues of identity and status conflict, will continue until party coalitions slowly begin to change, leading the parties to face off over a new set of issues. Those changes are already in motion, but the transformations will take time.
"Third, the gravest threat we face today is not political polarization but constitutional rot — a deepening decay in our political and legal institutions. This decay began well before the election of President Donald Trump. But Trump accelerated constitutional rot in the United States, by his creation of a cult of personality, by his abuses of power, and by his refusal to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election and the opposition party’s ascension to power through democratic means."
Your post is a deeply thoughtful read. Thanks Tom.
I take issue with the predictive nature of what you quoted, although it may possibly be rung up to my lack of insight.
For me, prediction at this point is a bit of a mug’s games. We are at the confluence of virtually epochal events. The disarray in the Republican Party is real and threatens America. If deep internecine struggle occurs, who can possibly foresee the result? A viable third party? One party Democrat rule (I offer mostly facetiously)?
Technology is almost completely out of control. As with the atomic bomb, if it can be built, it will be built. We’ll only learn the consequences afterward. Its effect on culture will be enormous. Who knows how technology will ultimately interact with economy. And by ultimately, I mean 10-20 years.
Social media exists to make enormous money. Its algorithms depend on encouraging ferment and hatred of the “other”. Are we at a point where there is a true reckoning with the perils of entirely unregulated speech?
And climate change. And international relations. And man’s rapacity with the natural world seems now to be reaching an inevitable endpoint.
My point above all is that all of these forces and trends pile up on one another. No change exists in isolation. We are at an apex of unintended consequences.
I feel much safer looking at the rubble of the last cycle and seeing those intersections than I do trying to make the type of curiously specific predictions that you have cited.
Equally though, I try never to underestimate my own myopia. :)
Eric--thanks for the reply, and I second your thought: "My point above all is that all of these forces and trends pile up on one another. No change exists in isolation. We are at an apex of unintended consequences." Prediction is all too often either a form of rationalizing present interests or self-soothing. But trying to draw evidence-based lines into the future is something we all (should) do all the time. I brought Balkin into your discussion because I think he does spend time rooting through the rubble of past intersections in American history. The details aren't presented in my extract. (I have only read one of his books and various blogposts. He has also done videochats with Benjamin Wittes in which they anatomize current political developments.) Though certainly not the only useful approach, I find his separately analyzing the relatively short spans of dominant political regimes from their effects on our underlying constitutional structures helpful in trying to understand what of currently perceivable trends should be the focus political action. It helps me focus and fight off despair.
Tom and Eric, thank you so much for this thread. When speaking of cycles, it certainly feels as though we are currently at the end of something and the beginning of something else. Depending on whose analyses one reads, 60-ish-year cycles are an American norm. If so, some iteration of early 20th century progressivism that began its death spiral around 1970 is due a rebirth. Historical patterns are rarely that neat, but as a general rule, reforms do emerge in somewhat regular fits and starts. (It also seems to me that reactionary push-back is the default rather than a "reaction," despite the label. It is always present but surges in response to reform and change.) When I mentioned generational cohorts as drivers of change, I am not speaking of a population subset: boomers or gen x, etc. We The People, even those of a generation, are not a single organism. But across time, we do see that generations have tendencies. Polls show that current under-40's are more progressive than older Americans as a whole. Voting and political allegiance tend to settle in as one comes of civic age and those patterns often hold across adulthood. Statistically speaking, this bodes well if our democratic institutions can maintain majoritarian integrity. The constitutional rot Tom discusses is the greatest threat to entering and sustaining a new progressive cycle.
Susan, thanks for your thoughtful response. Many people have analyzed out cyclical patterns in political development and decay. The constitutional framers were very concerned about the historical pattern of short-lived republics, and tried to set up structures that would resist that drift. I brought Balkin's perspective in because he at least tries to address your point that historical patterns are not neat, and that different coalitions of forces lead to (uneven) changes at different times. [BTW, I judge that he uses "reactionary" in the standard poli sci fashion: people who detest particular waves of social and political changes and demand a return to a prior, in their minds preferable, state. I agree that our current political regime--to use his term--has been ascendant at least since Reagan, and the default response has been reactionary economic policies--undo everything from the New Deal forward--combined with right-wing cultural and racial appeals. Hacker and Pierson call it "plutocratic populism" and, sad to say, it's been winning for quite some time now.]
From what you say, you may know all this. If you are interested, Balkin joined Wittes for a videochat on Jan.11, and though they are very chatty and somewhat digressive, Balkin does repeat his argument that one big problem with the Jan.6 events is that they signal an acceleration in constitutional rot--which is fundamentally an erosion of norms that allow basic governance whatever the political circuses surrounding it. He calls the threat a lack of trust, in the government to do its business of keeping the populace safe and prosperous, and in citizens to buy into the system whatever our particular disagreements with it or each other.
Cycles in the pre-digital past have indeed been decades long, but I think they will not accelerate to the extent that they will exist only "in our political past." Cycles tend to be generational, informed by the life experiences of cohorts of people. I think (fervently hope) the younger generation coming of political age right now will fuel a lengthy progressive cycle.
I fervently hope you’re right about the younger generation delivering a progressive cycle. It’s a thought to hold on to.
Half a century ago progressives, known unashamedly at the time as liberals, invested huge hope in the hippie generation. No movement in my lifetime (in North America) was as high octane and revolutionary, not to say exhilarating as theirs was.
Needless to say, it faded into a bitter, angry Seventies generation - the beginning of the lost in the wilderness period in America.
In that decade business and law organized to fight back. The Federalist society was formed. The Reagan era, non-progressive, crudely racist and rampantly greedy was born. This was *not* a natural cycle, born from people of different cohorts (with the exception of course of that cohort determined to protect their wealth. For several reasons it picked up steam and its tenets became the accepted gospel of the day.
In time, those hippies became those whom the current generation dismisses with the cutting phrase, “OK, Boomer”.
We may get a liberal, progressive generation. I’m not so sure they’ll have the time in this gig economy to turn matters right side up again.
You have expressed very well exactly how I see the world. We are in unprecedented circumstances here. Technology, and the attendant pace of change, connectivity, and ironically, disassociation to the point of breakdown of all societal norms, seems destined to overwhelm us all.
Excellent points. We are clearly at the end of a cycle - the number of Executive Actions taken by Biden illustrates abundantly the need for corrective action.
And Biden gets full credit for taking them. He is absolutely a man on a mission, acting with the certitude of one who has spent decades in government and seen the vicissitudes of the nation in that time. It also seems clear to me that, as with any intelligent person, he has had his own share of personal epiphanies (think of his previous attitude towards crime). Biden is a liberated man and he is unafraid of the consequences of the backlash his EAs will inevitably bring. Although I doubted him in the primaries, he is clearly the best person for the job at this moment in historical time.
But the rubber now hits the road. From here on in, we will see how he fares when it comes to enduring legislation. He is navigating the trickiest of rapids here, and I fear that those strewing his path with palms in gratitude for his early work, will have short memories and turn on him with equal vigor when he makes his first major compromise to get legislation passed. We are schooled to hope for nothing but walkovers after enduring the years of being under the boot of Trump.
When disappointment and attendant anger set in, Jen Psaki will need to be a miracle worker.
One final speculation about “cycles”.
The last two major ones (the FDR progressive period and the years of trickle up initiated by Reagan) were decades long.
During the last few decades the world has sped up immeasurably with the advent of the computer age. We are a bullet train heading towards the oblivion of climate change amidst the perils of relentless technological advances.
“Cycles” may be in our political past. They progress too slowly. I fear an endgame where we are forced to be continually reactive and cannot look above the parapets long enough to be sensibly proactive.
In this light, I would add, the GameStop phenomenon seems pretty inconsequential.
Eric, thanks for your thoughts on what affects the pace of political changes. I share your fear that we may be "forced to be continually reactive and cannot look above the parapets long enough to be sensibly proactive." One perspective on waves of political dominance and change I have found stimulating is Jack Balkin's theory of the interactions of three types of political cycles. Balkin is a professor on con law and has studied the influences of changing information technology. I cite his latest blog post, https://balkin.blogspot.com from 1/25/21 because it summarizes his current thoughts better than I can. It's s/w abstract, but his notion of "constitutional rot" seems to me well worth attention, and concern.
A couple of extracts from the post:
"[W]e can understand American constitutional development in terms of three kinds of cycles. The first involves the rise and fall of political regimes featuring dominant political parties. The second is a long cycle of polarization and depolarization that stretches from the Civil War through the present. The third cycle is a series of episodes of constitutional rot and constitutional renewal. Constitutional rot is the process by which a constitutional republic becomes less democratic and less republican over time.
"I draw three conclusions from the 2020 election and the Capitol Hill insurrection of January 6th, 2021. First, although the Reagan regime that has structured American politics since the 1980s is nearing its end, we cannot yet be certain that it has reached its conclusion. The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic contraction that accompanied it have handed the Democrats an opportunity to forge a new political regime, but whether they will successfully capitalize on these possibilities is yet to be determined. ...
"Second, our deeply polarized politics, which is currently organized around issues of identity and status conflict, will continue until party coalitions slowly begin to change, leading the parties to face off over a new set of issues. Those changes are already in motion, but the transformations will take time.
"Third, the gravest threat we face today is not political polarization but constitutional rot — a deepening decay in our political and legal institutions. This decay began well before the election of President Donald Trump. But Trump accelerated constitutional rot in the United States, by his creation of a cult of personality, by his abuses of power, and by his refusal to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election and the opposition party’s ascension to power through democratic means."
Your post is a deeply thoughtful read. Thanks Tom.
I take issue with the predictive nature of what you quoted, although it may possibly be rung up to my lack of insight.
For me, prediction at this point is a bit of a mug’s games. We are at the confluence of virtually epochal events. The disarray in the Republican Party is real and threatens America. If deep internecine struggle occurs, who can possibly foresee the result? A viable third party? One party Democrat rule (I offer mostly facetiously)?
Technology is almost completely out of control. As with the atomic bomb, if it can be built, it will be built. We’ll only learn the consequences afterward. Its effect on culture will be enormous. Who knows how technology will ultimately interact with economy. And by ultimately, I mean 10-20 years.
Social media exists to make enormous money. Its algorithms depend on encouraging ferment and hatred of the “other”. Are we at a point where there is a true reckoning with the perils of entirely unregulated speech?
And climate change. And international relations. And man’s rapacity with the natural world seems now to be reaching an inevitable endpoint.
My point above all is that all of these forces and trends pile up on one another. No change exists in isolation. We are at an apex of unintended consequences.
I feel much safer looking at the rubble of the last cycle and seeing those intersections than I do trying to make the type of curiously specific predictions that you have cited.
Equally though, I try never to underestimate my own myopia. :)
Eric--thanks for the reply, and I second your thought: "My point above all is that all of these forces and trends pile up on one another. No change exists in isolation. We are at an apex of unintended consequences." Prediction is all too often either a form of rationalizing present interests or self-soothing. But trying to draw evidence-based lines into the future is something we all (should) do all the time. I brought Balkin into your discussion because I think he does spend time rooting through the rubble of past intersections in American history. The details aren't presented in my extract. (I have only read one of his books and various blogposts. He has also done videochats with Benjamin Wittes in which they anatomize current political developments.) Though certainly not the only useful approach, I find his separately analyzing the relatively short spans of dominant political regimes from their effects on our underlying constitutional structures helpful in trying to understand what of currently perceivable trends should be the focus political action. It helps me focus and fight off despair.
I’d really like to read that. Informed speculation, evidence-based is always of interest. Thanks for taking the trouble to elaborate.
Tom and Eric, thank you so much for this thread. When speaking of cycles, it certainly feels as though we are currently at the end of something and the beginning of something else. Depending on whose analyses one reads, 60-ish-year cycles are an American norm. If so, some iteration of early 20th century progressivism that began its death spiral around 1970 is due a rebirth. Historical patterns are rarely that neat, but as a general rule, reforms do emerge in somewhat regular fits and starts. (It also seems to me that reactionary push-back is the default rather than a "reaction," despite the label. It is always present but surges in response to reform and change.) When I mentioned generational cohorts as drivers of change, I am not speaking of a population subset: boomers or gen x, etc. We The People, even those of a generation, are not a single organism. But across time, we do see that generations have tendencies. Polls show that current under-40's are more progressive than older Americans as a whole. Voting and political allegiance tend to settle in as one comes of civic age and those patterns often hold across adulthood. Statistically speaking, this bodes well if our democratic institutions can maintain majoritarian integrity. The constitutional rot Tom discusses is the greatest threat to entering and sustaining a new progressive cycle.
Susan, thanks for your thoughtful response. Many people have analyzed out cyclical patterns in political development and decay. The constitutional framers were very concerned about the historical pattern of short-lived republics, and tried to set up structures that would resist that drift. I brought Balkin's perspective in because he at least tries to address your point that historical patterns are not neat, and that different coalitions of forces lead to (uneven) changes at different times. [BTW, I judge that he uses "reactionary" in the standard poli sci fashion: people who detest particular waves of social and political changes and demand a return to a prior, in their minds preferable, state. I agree that our current political regime--to use his term--has been ascendant at least since Reagan, and the default response has been reactionary economic policies--undo everything from the New Deal forward--combined with right-wing cultural and racial appeals. Hacker and Pierson call it "plutocratic populism" and, sad to say, it's been winning for quite some time now.]
From what you say, you may know all this. If you are interested, Balkin joined Wittes for a videochat on Jan.11, and though they are very chatty and somewhat digressive, Balkin does repeat his argument that one big problem with the Jan.6 events is that they signal an acceleration in constitutional rot--which is fundamentally an erosion of norms that allow basic governance whatever the political circuses surrounding it. He calls the threat a lack of trust, in the government to do its business of keeping the populace safe and prosperous, and in citizens to buy into the system whatever our particular disagreements with it or each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSJYMXUt1m8
Cycles in the pre-digital past have indeed been decades long, but I think they will not accelerate to the extent that they will exist only "in our political past." Cycles tend to be generational, informed by the life experiences of cohorts of people. I think (fervently hope) the younger generation coming of political age right now will fuel a lengthy progressive cycle.
I fervently hope you’re right about the younger generation delivering a progressive cycle. It’s a thought to hold on to.
Half a century ago progressives, known unashamedly at the time as liberals, invested huge hope in the hippie generation. No movement in my lifetime (in North America) was as high octane and revolutionary, not to say exhilarating as theirs was.
Needless to say, it faded into a bitter, angry Seventies generation - the beginning of the lost in the wilderness period in America.
In that decade business and law organized to fight back. The Federalist society was formed. The Reagan era, non-progressive, crudely racist and rampantly greedy was born. This was *not* a natural cycle, born from people of different cohorts (with the exception of course of that cohort determined to protect their wealth. For several reasons it picked up steam and its tenets became the accepted gospel of the day.
In time, those hippies became those whom the current generation dismisses with the cutting phrase, “OK, Boomer”.
We may get a liberal, progressive generation. I’m not so sure they’ll have the time in this gig economy to turn matters right side up again.
You have expressed very well exactly how I see the world. We are in unprecedented circumstances here. Technology, and the attendant pace of change, connectivity, and ironically, disassociation to the point of breakdown of all societal norms, seems destined to overwhelm us all.