"How Democracies Die" and The Unprecedented Polarization of Our Nation

I recently read two galvanizing books: "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, and "These Truths: A History of  the United States" by Jill Lepore.

In a surprisingly complementary way, they gave me powerful insights on challenges we face in our Nation today.

 I’ll start with the highlights of How Democracies Die.  Drawing on their broad knowledge of worldwide democracies and their failure, and sometimes recovery, Levitsky and Ziblatt identify four controlling factors:

1. A leader practicing authoritarian behavior comes to power.  They are characterized by four things:

a.     Rejection of or weak commitment to democratic rules of the game;

b.     Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents;

c.     Toleration or encouragement of violence;

d.     Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media.

The authors persuasively identify behaviors of President Trump that match with these characteristics.

2. The deepening polarization between the ruling parties; in the case of our nation, the Republicans and Democrats.  While there has always been a legitimate (and necessary) debate on policies, that contest today has morphed into a contest of individual and party moral correctness and integrity, leading to mutual disdain and destruction.  

This development didn’t start with President Trump, but his character and behavior have sharply accentuated it.

As the authors of How Democracies Die observe:  In 1960, political scientists asked Americans how they would feel if their child married someone who identified with another political party.  Four percent of Democrats and five % of Republicans reported that they would be “displeased.”  In 2010, by contrast, 33%of Democrats and 49% of Republicans reported feeling “somewhat or very unhappy” at the prospect of inter-party marriage.  Being a Democrat or Republican has become not only a matter of a political affiliation but an "existential identity."  A 2016 survey (by the Pew Foundation) found that 49% of Republicans and 55% of Democrats say the other party makes them “afraid.”  Among politically engaged Americans, the numbers are even higher—70% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans say they live in fear of the other party.  I’ll return to this issue below.

3. The importance of “guardrails.”  Countries can be shielded from the negative impact of an authoritarian leader by what the authors describe as “guardrails.”  They include, most importantly, members of the leaders’ own party pushing back on the authoritarian leader, the press, the judicial/court system, other arms of the government (e.g., CIA, FBI) and existing "norms and points of mutual accommodation.”

Today, all of these guardrails are under pressure and, in some cases, direct attack by President Trump.  Overall, encouragingly, they are holding so far.  While Republican establishment leaders have, with few exceptions, fallen in line with Trump, the judiciary and press are holding the line.  One has to note, however, that the Trump administration is working hard to appoint judges sympathetic to the administration’s views, though history  reveals that judges in many, if not most, cases are going to be guided by their own instincts and often that will not be what the leader who put them in placed expected or wanted them to be.

The authors note that authoritarian leaders in other counties (e.g., Venezuela, Poland) have taken steps to change the judiciary and, even, the constitution.

Successful delivery from the leadership of an authoritarian ruler has typically depended on:  a) the entry of a strong unifying leader, and/or b) previously opposing parties coming together against a common cause—often to confront an external threat (war) or to escape a crisis seeking social peace and economic normalcy.

History shows that the return to relative “peace and normalcy" has sometimes depended on papering over and putting aside a divisive issue which shouldn't have been put aside. For example that characterized the two parties coming together after the period of Reconstruction in 1877, setting aside the issue of race relations which to this very day cannot be put aside. 

4. Broadcast and, to a lesser extent, print media and social media like Facebook and cable television have become not only echo chambers of one’s own views and biases, but they add fuel to these views and biases.  What a contrast with 50 years ago when people typically got their news then from 3-4 television channels.  In order to survive, these channels had to appeal to a broad audience, which led inevitably to a much more balanced presentation of the news. 

As Jill Lepore aptly notes, the internet now functions as a “polarization machine:  fast, efficient and deep and all but automated.”

*****

I will now return to the polarization of the nation’s electorate—a polarization deepened by party identification taking on a moral dimension bearing on the perceived moral worth of the individual.  This is persuasively illustrated by the statistics I have cited above on the attitude of parents to the prospect of their child's marrying a person of the opposite party.  

I’ve asked myself what has accounted for this sharply widened polarization:

1. Gerrymandering, with its outcome of most elections being decided based on the primary. This has led to the ascendance of candidates competing on key issues on the far right and far left of their parties.

2. Big money, particularly but not exclusively on the Republican side, has fueled think-tanks and supported candidates with policies and positions often far right or left of center.   

3. Most importantly I believe, polarized views on particular issues such as abortion and gun safety have morphed from what, in the past, were policy and political disagreements and debates into issues of moral integrity.  Notably, and I find encouragement in this, the current sharply polarized views on a number of "litmus test" issues have not always been that way.  Here are a few examples:

1. On abortion, we now see a woman’s "right to choose" being pitted against a fetus's "right to live”.

Before the 1980s, women’s health was not a partisan issue.  Planned Parenthood, founded by Margaret Sanger in 1916, found many conservatives, indeed more Republicans than Democrats, leading it.  For example, Barry Goldwater and his wife served on the board of Planned Parenthood of Phoenix.

Efforts to legalize abortion were begun in the 1960s not by women’s rights activists but by the doctors, lawyers and clergymen who ran Planned Parenthood.  In 1965, former Presidents Eisenhower and Truman, Republican and Democrat, together served as co-chairmen of a Planned Parenthood committee, signaling an across-the-aisle commitment to contraception.  Between 1967 and 1970, under pressure from doctors and lawyers, often supported by clergy, legislators began lifting restrictions on abortion in 16 states, including California, where the law was signed by Governor Reagan.

Roe v. Wade changed this.  Following the Court's decision by the Supreme Court in 1973, abortion became a political wedge prominently in the hands of President Nixon as he sought re-election.  Jerry Falwell rallied fellow Protestant Evangelicals to oppose abortion, fueled by the broader opposition to ERA and women’s rights.  Nixon, who previously had supported liberalization of abortion laws, changed course to capture the votes of Catholics and Evangelicals.  This represented a major change for many religious leaders.

Southern Baptists, for example, had earlier fought for the liberalization of abortion laws.  In 1971, the church’s national convention passed this resolution:  “We call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental and physical health of the mother.”

A strong majority of the American electorate would support this position today.  

2. Much like the issue of abortion, gun ownership and gun regulation were not historically partisan issues, nor had they been matters of extensive constitutional debate.  

The National Rifle Association, founded in 1871, had fought for state and federal gun safety measures in the 1920s and 1930s.  The NRA supported the 1968 Gun Control Act, passed after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., banning mail order sales, restricting certain high-risk people from purchasing guns, and prohibiting the importation of military surplus firearms.  During this debate, the Second Amendment played little role, since it had generally been understood to protect the right of citizens to bear arms for the common defense.  In the two centuries since the nation’s founding, Lepore writes, no amendment had received less attention in the courts than the Second, except the Third, which concerns the quartering of troops.  Republicans at that time were as likely as Democrats to support gun safety measures as part of law and order campaigns.

In 1972, Nixon, who had expressed the view that guns were “an abomination,” urged Congress to pass a ban on “Saturday night specials” and privately wished Congress would ban all handguns. He confessed he found the idea that gun ownership as a constitutional right to be absurd.

The idea that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to carry a gun rather than the people’s right to form armed militias to provide for the common defense became the official position of the NRA only in the 1970s. Gun rights became a conservative political movement, a "rights" fight especially for white men.

Lepore opines that the gun rights movement was tightly bound to anti-immigrant animus, which was building at the same time.  By 1970, somewhat less than 10 million American, less than 5% of the U.S. population, were foreign-born, the lowest percentage in more than a century and most of these immigrants had come from Europe.  Thirty years later, by 2000, the number of foreign-born Americans had risen to 28 million, constituting 29% of U.S. population, with most of the newer immigrants coming from Latin American and East Asia.

So now, women’s rights and the related issue of abortion, and gun rights—two previously bipartisan policy issues—have become ones defining moral identity. The moral dimension of the polarized views on these cuts deeper than the issues alone.  For many, they come to define the very moral worth of individuals.  Nothing could be more divisive than that.

So, what are we to do?  What should political leaders do to narrow the partisan divide which draws so much animus from the perceived or alleged moral convictions of the holder? What should each of us do?

I have to begin by underscoring the reality that some issues carry an irreconcilable moral choice which cannot and should not be ducked. There is no better example than slavery.  Today, slavery is viewed as an abomination.  It would be impossible to imagine a strong abolitionist in the 1840s and 1850s not characterizing a slave-holder as immoral in his belief. But make no mistake: many if not most slave holders felt their position was morally correct.  Looked at today, we would not see any way to compromise on the issue of slavery.  After all, you can’t say that some people should be enslaved, and others not, without denying the intrinsic right of everyone to personal freedom.

And yet, historically, we spent more than a century in our nation compromising on this issue of slavery.  Compromise was embedded in our constitution to begin with; compromises were legislated in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas and Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed the decision on slavery to be a matter of popular sovereignty in each territory. . Even Lincoln, while hating slavery and convinced that it would eventually be eradicated, agreed to its continuation in the Confederate states up to the midpoint of the Civil War.

Nazism is another example of an “-ism” that was inherently immoral, with its belief in the purity and sanctity of one “pure” race, and the attendant genocide of the Jews.  Hitler made no secret of his beliefs. They were writ large in Mein Kampf. Yet, for years, a host of German and leaders of other nations attempted to negotiate and compromise with Hitler, prepared to live with this abomination. 

 I write this is to express the obvious truth that man is capable of inherently immoral beliefs and bringing them to life through actions that deny the basic right to individual freedom and dignity to every human being.  These issues do not brook compromise.

However, there have been, and today there remain issues which have assumed the aura of an unbridgeable moral certitude so that a search for legitimate and constructive compromise is not even considered.

That is a mistake.

To take an example—prohibition.  In the 1920s in the United States, the abhorrence of drinking of any kind reached the point of being seen by many as an existential moral abomination that had to be outlawed.  A constitutional amendment was passed which forbid drinking of any kind in any place by any person (other than for medicinal purposes).  In time, common sense prevailed.  A person’s right to drink was recognized, but it had limitations—in age and point of distribution.

I have found that the biggest challenge we face is on those issues which pose two opposing rights. This presents the need to choose how to best balance those rights.  I doubt if we will find one simple everlasting answer to what that balance should be. .  New facts can modify the balance. A change in demographics and understanding of history can too. 

Take regulation of the right to smoke. With increasing knowledge of the impact of secondary smoke on other people, the need to limit smoking assumed a much greater priority; hence, the prohibition of smoking on airplanes and in other public places.  

On gun safety, we have the competing rights of hunting responsibly and protecting one’s self in self-defense alongside the right to be free of the violence caused by guns in irresponsible hands.  This is a classic case on which responsible leaders, aware of existing facts, should be able to reach a common-sense compromise which reduces the carnage we sugar from today. Leaders in other countries have done that. So can we.

Abortion is a particularly challenging issue.  You have a women’s right to choose whether to have a baby or not (this lies at the very heart of the right for contraception) and a fetus’ right to life.  How do you balance the right to safety and health for the mother and the right to life for the fetus? That it seems to me describes the task at hand.

Easy to write this. But, how do we attempt to reach a sound compromise on issues like these which involve conflicting rights but which on inspection fall short of involving a non-negotiable moral issue. 

  

1. Let me start with the easy response—“what not to do.”  You don't start out by simply characterizing another other person as "immoral."  While that may be your view, it is not likely to get you anywhere. You must address the issue—not the person's entire character.  

2. Seek first to understand one another, personally and their position on the issue at hand.   Get to know one another, really.  Be able to speak and understand each other’s language.  Only in this way will the magic elixir of mutual trust—the elixir to gaining agreement—start to be built.  

3. Identify those bedrock values and beliefs which almost all of us hold in common.  I believe you can start with our Declaration of Independence, affirming that whatever its source (God or simply human nature) everyone is entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Everyone.  No exception.  All people are entitled to justice and the opportunity through good education and health to fulfill their native abilities.

4. Turning to specific issues like abortion, gun rights and immigration that today deeply divide the nation, start by honestly recognizing that the challenge of resolving these issues grows from our allowing differences to morph into a moral judgment on other people's very character without genuinely attempting to understand and respond to the convictions of the other party, reaching a compromise that honors the bedrock values and beliefs on which our Nation was founded. 

While it will clearly be challenging, I think there is hope to be taken from the fact that the electorate’s position on many of these issues in the past was non-partisan.  I see no reason why well-intentioned leaders representing both sets of views can't achieve a non-partisan resolution that the great majority of people would agree to.

How to do that? Let me briefly, take gun safety regulation as an example:

1. Agree on relevant facts.  Get alignment on the incidence of deaths being caused by guns and their related cause (e.g., suicide, accidents).

2. Gain a common understanding of what other countries and some of our own States have done to regulate gun safety and what has been the impact on gun related deaths and injuries. 

3. Learning from this, identify concrete steps that can be taken to reduce the number of deaths and injuries while preserving the right to own and use guns by responsible gun owners.

It sounds basic. I can be accused of oversimplifying the process, I know. But as I have noted above, we have followed this path in confronting conflicting rights in regulating smoking and drinking in the past. We eventually negotiated consensus positions, even if not easily or quickly.  That must be our goal. 

*****

Still, stepping back, I need to be honest with myself.  Healing the deep social rupture, which is both a symptom and an outcome of the polarization of views which have taken on moral significance, will take much more than arriving at a common sense set of gun regulations.  For the rupture, which has grown not over a year or two but over several decades, goes very deep and affects almost every part of our life.

The moral dimension of how differences in views are held now gets in the way of conversations among people of almost every type.  Roger Putnam, among others, has commented, indeed has lamented, the decline of civil discourse and participation in community organizations over the past several decades.  It now occurs to me:  this should not be surprising, given the difficulty of having conversations with people who may be offended by what you say or who may offend you by what they say.  For many, this concern has grown so deep that you won’t begin the conversation in the first place.

This same phenomenon has affected what happens in our churches, at least many of them.  I belong to an Episcopalian church which I greatly value and whose pastor has greatly influenced my life.  It is a multi-ethnic church devoted to diversity of all kinds.  However, I have to confess that I don’t feel a person who believed in President Trump and his policies would feel comfortable coming to our church and hearing most of our pastor’s homilies.  To be sure, no one preaches the importance of love and of supporting one another more genuinely and with more passion.   But the rejection of what Trump stands for (and I share it) would be unmistakable and off-putting to a Trump supporter.

Obviously, the depth of the moral divide which separates our two parties has sharply curtailed the comradeship and willingness to work together of Congress members who would work together before.  There have been other causes of this.  People traveling home more, enabled by more convenient transportation.  Less time getting together informally.  But the basic cause is how people are viewing the other, morally.

Most sadly, this chasm has even affected family life.  It’s affected my family life and our conversations.  Try as we might, there are certain conversations that some of us feel unwilling to bring up with another member of our family because it will resolve nothing and lead to acrimony.

So what is to be done about this chasm in how we view and  regard  one another?  What will it take for us to make at least a small step to realizing that we’re in this together, that we share a common heritage, that there are values embedded in our Declaration of Independence and in our most fundamental religious beliefs that should unite us?  What will it take to bring us together, not fully, but far more than we are today?

In the short-term, I believe our greatest hope is to elect a new president who embodies the spirit of being together.  Who can communicate this reality credibly, avoiding the sense that it’s just “more politics.”  This has been done before.  Never for everyone.  Indeed sometimes, for what, in hindsight, was a small majority.  

More often than not, this coming together came in response to a gut-wrenching crisis. Never so prominently, as Lincoln's calling on the people of our Nation to come together after the still-not-ended Civil War in his stirring Second Inaugural.  But even then, we have to remember that many, particularly in the South, did not share this vision.  No, they had been raped and pillaged, as they saw it.  

Franklin Roosevelt rallied the country in 1932 to a unified vision in the midst of the depression.  But still, even then, a large number of people rejected it.

So we have to be realistic.  But equally we have to recognize that we do have a common vision and set of values in this country calling for justice and equal opportunity and a fair chance for all.  We were founded on this vision and, while never lived perfectly, we have never lost sight of it.  We need a leader who can enunciate and rally a majority of our people to it today.   

Do we have such a leader as we approach the 2020 election?  I'm not sure. 

Nothing Donald Trump has said or done offers me hope.  What about the Democratic candidates?  I believe that Joe Biden holds this belief and vision in his head and in his heart but whether he can credibly present it, I’m not yet sure. 

What about the other candidates?  We’ll have to wait and see. I don't write that devoid of hope. I remind myself the country had to “wait and see” with Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and President Obama, too.  Without any doubt, I felt Barack had this unifying vision in his mind and heart.  And he expressed it eloquently on many occasions.  But he had a Republican Party which, from the very beginning, was dedicated to ensuring that Obama didn’t have a second term and, though he tried hard, I think he could have tried harder, especially in the early part of his administration, to reach across the aisle and bring people together as only a president can.

In the end though, healing the rupture I have tried to describe will not be resolved by the president. No, it will fall on each of us and it will take time. It will depend on our being willing and sufficiently courageous to make the effort (and the effort will need to be intentional) to come to know another person as an individual, not as a preconceived member of a stylized class.

  It will depend on our seeking to understand each other's points of view and why we hold them.

 It will depend on our identifying, recognizing and honoring our common values.

 It will depend on appreciating that we are on this journey of life together, basically seeking and deserving the same things—peace, safely and opportunity among them…and that, in some important measure, we have the choice to help one another on this journey in our everyday life.