Consent of the Governed
Jonathan Chait, in New York:
Obama's immigration plan should scare liberals, too.... The extremism of the Republican Party may have precipitated Obama’s confidence in unilateralism. To think that the cycle will end here, and that a future president won’t claim more expansive and disturbing powers to selectively enforce the law, requires an optimism not borne out by history. In the short run, we will rejoice in the sudden deliverance of massive humanitarian relief to people who have done nothing more than try to create a better life for their families. In the long run, we may look back on it with regret.
Chait is partially right. Any of the three branches of government can easily run amok. Right now we are seeing two branches -- the Congress & the Supreme Court -- do just that. House Republican leadership refuses to bring bills to the floor that would pass with bipartisan support. Many Senate Republicans refuse to cooperate in the writing of legislation. The Supreme Court is dismantling decades of Constitutional law. The only person who has any Constitutional authority to push back on conservative dysfunction, obstructionism, and yes, lawlessness is the President of the United States.
Strikingly, Chait leaves the most important party to governance out of his deliberations. He is forgetting the people: implicit in our Constitution (and explicit in the Declaration of Independence) is the Enlightened principle that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Currently, Congress will not put forward popular legislation. A good example is Congress's refusal to write gun control legislation last year, despite poll after poll that suggested the vast majority of the public -- including gun owners -- favored certain restrictions. Another good example: the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United & McCutcheon cases, each of which drastically cut back campaign finance regulation. Here again, the vast majority of citizens want campaign finance restrictions.
This is not to suggest that popular opinion is always just or wise. It isn't. But in our Constitutional system of government, the governed have little say in what the governors do. We can throw the bums out only at certain prescribed intervals, not -- as with parliamentary government -- in unscheduled votes of no-confidence. In addition, because of the structure of the nation, of the Constitution & of voting districts, we don't throw the bums out even when the majority agrees they're bums.
As a result, the governed actually oppose a good deal of what the governors are doing (or not doing). Today, they disapprove of the Congress by historically huge margins, & the majority also now disapproves of President Obama. The Supreme Court, historically well-respected, now can't muster a majority approval rating. These poll numbers point to the obvious: the governed are highly-dissatisfied with the performance of the governors.
I also do not suggest that governing-by-polling is just or wise. At times in our history (or perhaps even now), the majority of Americans favored an anti-flag-burning Constitutional amendment -- which would be so peripheral as to offend but a tiny aspect of our Constitutional values -- & a balanced-budget amendment -- which would wreak havoc upon our economy during downturns.
Still, it is not "dangerous," as Chait argues, for one branch of government -- in this case, the executive -- to unilaterally enact the will of the people when that will is inherently reasonable & fair. I cannot, for instance, think of any law-abiding Americans who would suffer under an assault-weapons ban. Similarly, the Supreme Court was merely playing catch-up with public opinion when it struck down part of DOMA in U.S v. Windsor.
Our form of representative democracy assumes that legislators will legislate, presidents will preside & judges will rule impartially. The Constitutional structure, as it has developed under the two-party system, breaks down, however, if one of the two parties becomes essentially nihilistic, as the Republican party is now.
If the government is to function as the Founders intended, & as the people expect, somebody has to do something. That is the argument President Obama has been making for the past few months. He is suggesting, in a way, a limited form of parliamentary government, the structure of which permits the ruling or dominant party to enact pretty much what it wants, while the opposition has little recourse but to (a) try to sway public opinion against the government, & (b) shout at the prime minister.
In fact, most Americans seem to think we have a pariliamentary form of government. Presidential elections always get the highest voter turnout: that's when the unwashed masses rouse themselves to do their Constitutional duty to vote for the person whom they believe will do the best job of solving problems & moving the country forward. Voting for members of Congress & state representatives, etc., are usually afterthoughts except among highly-engaged voters.
Indeed, as numerous liberal pundits have pointed out recently, Americans think that if there is a problem, it is up to the president to fix it. If the problem persists because of Congressional inaction, the president still bears the blame. In regard to the surge of children crossing the border from Central America, for instance, polls have showed that the public blames President Obama, even though the Congress has refused to fund Obama administration proposals to alleviate the influx.
It is important to stipulate that we have no idea what sort of executive action President Obama will take in regard to immigration reform. But my guess is that whatever he does will fall within the range of the popular consensus. That is, he will use "the will of the people" as his guide, taking into account the limits of his Constitutional authority. This does not mean of course that all Americans will be happy with Obama's edict or that Republicans won't squeal. We have a substantial continent of xenophobes. isolationists & mean-spirited ignoramuses among us, the vast majority of whom vote Republican.
Chait's argument that liberals won't like it when a Republican president goes all-in for executive actions is correct. But I would counter that if we elect a Republican president, the voters will expect him (and it will be "he/him") to "fix things" in a conservative/antediluvian manner. Further, they will squawk if he fails, no matter how complicit the other branches of government. George W. Bush, after all, blew foreign policy big time, and he did it with plenty of help from Congress. But Americans are not blaming Hillary Clinton, et al., for greenlighting the Iraq War (as most Democrats did); the public still blames Bush. (Further weakening Chait's position, Steve M. argues that "a Republican president will do whatever the hell he wants no matter what.")
President Obama has received two huge mandates (2008 and 2012) to run the country. He seems ready, at last, to do so, and to do so by the only means possible when the Congress will not perform its Constitutional functions. Even if I may disagree with the substance of whatever executive actions he takes, I applaud Obama's newly-founded determination to take them.
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" I applaud Obama's newly-founded determination to take them." [executive actions]
Me, too! I still smile remembering when the right war slayers were pushing for us going into Syria. Well, said Obama, that certainly is an option, but I can't do that without Congress. And he waited–-we waited–-nothing happened. All foaming at the mouth and nothing to show for it––over and over. If anyone should sue, it should be the citizens of this country on this despicable, lack luster, out to lunch Congress who are not doing the job they were hired to do. Somehow this latter point escapes them–––they work for us!
It seems that our nation is stuck in the Maureen Dowd view of the President, whoever it may be. The father figure must be all things to all people, which is obviously impossible. It is a view of leadership that is doomed. Every 4 years we attempt to find a suitable "daddy". The public is bent on marching the country toward reality show TV and leaving Democratic principles behind. It's been farce for quite awhile.
If the above elegantly constructed and reasoned post is an example of CW/Marie on vacation, I would love to see her run for high office. (Hint: we do need an alternative to Hillary.)
Mr. Chait appears to be a little lacking in logic here. He seems to suggest that the crisis is not that bad, or Obama would have dealt with it in his first two years, while at the same time recognizing that there were cogent reasons why he did not. He also seems to give too short shrift to the argument that conditions have changed, and if Congress can't act, the President has to at least prioritize where the enforcement money is spent. John Sandweg made quite a persuasive case for prioritization in his interview with Greg Sargent, cited by RC several days ago:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/06/how-far-can-obama-go-on-deportations/
He pointed out the chaos that ensues without guidelines: " You have 24 field offices and roughly 6,000 ICE immigration enforcement agents across the country, all of them exercising priorities. But absent some uniform guidance, it can be done inconsistently."
Well said, Marie.
A couple of additional thoughts:
What we've seen since the 2008 election is largely rule by the minority party. With the major exception of the ACA, which was a very near thing, needed legislation, even when it came to funding essential services, has been piecemeal at best. Filibusters, and as you say, refusal by the House to bring to the floor popular legislation that miraculously squeaked by in the Senate has handcuffed government. And, of course, the Catholic Caliphate that rules the Court is telling its own retrograde story. Even their ruling "in favor" of the ACA has made it possible for dozens of states to torpedo it.
I see two motives on the part of the Right at work here. First, they have to satisfy their base, a group of religious extremists, political ideologues, corporatists and just plain angry white folks. Since that base is in a minority, they dare not comply with "the will of the people," or despite gerrymandered districts, they might lose their jobs. I'm sure the ghost of Eric Kantor lives large.
Secondly, the SOP of minority party has since 2008 been to heap blame on the President for both their hapless and deliberate dysfunction, and with the help of Faux News and the he said-she said presentation of published news, they have largely succeeded. The irony lost on most voters is that the minority party has determined its surest path to power is to do nothing or get in the way of anyone doing anything and then blame the majority for not acting successfully on the people's behalf. Presidential power is largely symbolic and that perception cuts both ways. The fault may lie in the stars or in the House, but in the eyes of many the President always gets the blame.
That said, Chait's warning is worth a listen. The people's will is notoriously fickle. There may be just enough engendered fear afoot--the Right works hard at creating it--of the Imperial Presidency to make government by executive order politically treacherous. Certainly, the President can expect the "people," who have been trained to fear so many things, to be extremely sensitive to the subject and content of the order. An order equalizing pay for men and women or one enforcing minimum wage standards will likely find general support. An order that could be seen as coddling "illegal immigrants" may well not.
I'm guessing from the House's failure to act on this issue, such is the the Republican stragegists' devoutest wish. Make the President do something; then blame him for doing it.
With what I hope is a view longer than his last two years in office, I trust the President will notice some opportunities to do good are booby-traps, political IED's that tripped could damage more than the President.
All those gun and God-hating, illegal immigrant-loving liberals might share the blame.
During each presidential election cycle, there are always a couple of wise guy pundits who, believing themselves of superior wisdom and insight to the rest of us, proffer the argument that the office of president has become largely ceremonial, the true power residing at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
But, as Marie points out, in these times of nihilism, cynicism, and hypocrisy of stratospheric levels, when a party's goals are nothing less than halting the business of government, someone has to act.
Obama is between the famous rock and a hard place because he'll be ripped no matter what he does. Whether he acts or chooses to let the Republican Absurdist play run its course, he'll be castigated, in which case, it's better to be branded a tyrant than to join the ranks of the Do-Nothing conservatives.
Another perennial subject considered by pundits is the ever popular "What would the founders say if they could see us now". I'm pretty sure that had they been keeping an eye on proceedings over the years, they would never have found themselves more disappointed or distraught than they might be now.
Conservatives have succeeded not only in refusing to do acknowledge the will of the people, they refuse to do anything. And they have an enormously powerful media arm that cheers their nihilism as the Will of the People.
The president might not be doing what everyone wants, but at least he's doing something.
@Diane, Vicky There's a lengthy new article from Frank Rich on "Good Hillary, Bad Hillary" that you might want to check out: http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/hillary-clinton-2014-8/
As he notes near the end of the article: "Now as then, the case for a Hillary victory is overwhelming: a more-or-less unified Democratic Party; the lack of a gangbusters opponent in either party; a fractious and self-immolating GOP that seems determined to drive away women, minorities, and young people; and an ability to raise tons of money. But as we all know, Hillary was inevitable in 2008 too. Anything can happen in the next two years."
Didn't come across anything about the latest interview that has everyone talking.