Jonathan Rauch Redux

Jonathan Rauch has a new article up at the Atlantic that is basically a rehash an updating of his free book Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy. The article is getting praise from people like Robert Samuelson.¹ Last fall, I devoted three posts to refuting Jon’s little book. Jon’s arguments haven’t changed much, and neither have my refutations, so if you want a blow by blow, check the historical record.

Briefly, Rauch argues that if we go back to the ways Congress made decisions in the good old days, with “hacks, machines, big money, and back-room deals”, then we could go back to the days when Congress made decisions, instead of the ways things are today, when it seems the whole point of Congress is to not make decisions. In focusing on tactics, Rauch ignores the entire larger framework of the “good old days” and how that’s changed. We moved from an economy that enjoyed constant increases in productivity (and thus wealth) to one in which productivity stutters and from an economy with a very large working population and a small retired population to one that’s the reverse. When making decisions means slicing up a pie that always getting bigger, it’s not hard to make them. Today’s Congress doesn’t have that luxury.

In the good old days both parties had liberal and conservative wings; a disproportionate percentage of the country’s population and wealth was concentrated in the Northeast, which is why Barry Goldwater complained that every presidential election amounted to a struggle over who could carry New York City; and the electorate was not far from 90% white. The continuing need to confront the Soviet Union created a forced common ground: politicians had to put country over party because the country was in danger. That isn’t true any longer. Terrorist attacks frighten people, obviously, but in the “good old days” there were plenty of people who feared a nuclear attack every time they heard a passing plane.

Rauch is right to point out that both Trump and Sanders have energized millions by promising miraculous “revolutions” that will somehow transform America more or less for free. But Rauch’s own policy preferences—Obama’s entitlement reform package and the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill—show that he can’t see outside his own Acela mindset. These are sound, rational reforms. No honest person could be against them. But it’s not surprising that millions of people don’t want millions of “illegals” becoming citizens (although I do) and that millions of retirees and near retirees don’t want their benefits cut (just cut them a little tiny bit). Since Rauch can’t understand how a rational person can disagree with him, it’s not surprising that he finds so much of the country “irrational”.

Afterwords
I don’t agree with many of Rauch’s solutions, but I do agree that campaign “reform” has needlessly weakened the parties and allowing large contributions to parties and candidates is a good idea, as long as they’re reported. But I don’t think making this change will take us back to 1960. Nor would I want to go there.