Will the U.S. Survive the 2016 Election III

Sandy Levinson

Can anyone who has looked at any of the hatefest of the past three days--which has been comparable, depending on your taste in metaphors, to the Salem Witch Trials or a lynch mob (led by the ostensible "prosecutor" Chris Christie--believe that the Republican Party as an institution is read to make peace with President Hillary Clinton?  It would be bad enough were we a parliamentary system, with an opposition party that not only opposes, but regularly refers to their desire to jail or execute the lawfully elected prime minister.  But, of course, we're not blessed with such a system.  Instead, we have one, courtesy of the Framers of 1787, in which the opposition party has all too much ability to torpedo any programs of the purported "party in power," as captured in the Republican use of the filibuster.  As I have written many times before, Mitch McConnell is not a raving ideologue; he was simply behaving "rationally" in his desire to deprive Barack Obama of a second term and believing that the most effective way to do it was to deprive him of any accomplishments.  He learned that Ted Kennedy had disastrously miscalculated by enabling George W. Bush to claim victory on two key aspects of his own domestic policy, i.e., No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug bill, and McConnell was not going to make the same mistake.  As it turned out, thanks to Mitt Romney's inept campaign (and Sheldon Adelson's providential financing of Newt Gingrich's campaign for at least a month longer than any rational analysis would have predicted), it didn't work.  But that doesn't mean that McConnell was irrational.  To be sure, he wasn't very Publican; he preferred factional Party interest to any notion of the "public interest," but of course, the Publican vision, even if you think it attractive, ultimately makes very little sense empirically, as illustrated by the rise of the two-party system by the mid-1790s.

So what's the most likely outcome of this dreadful election system.  There are three possibilities:

A. A sociopathic Donald Trump wins the presidency with Republicans retaining control of the House and Senate.  I would hope that Democrats would do whatever possible to torpedo any such Trump Administration, including refusal to confirm almost all of his appointments, but, then, I would expect the Republicans to eliminate the filibuster in then first week of January 20217 and govern like a parliamentary majority, paying no attention at all to wailing Democrats.  The latter would either begin supporting secession in Pacifica, as suggested earlier, start organizing for the 2018 elections, engage in "inner emigration,' or in fact move elsewhere.   And, of course, it would almost certainly be the case that a Trump "win" would be with regard to the electoral college, but not the popular vote.  I.e., he could either lose to Clinton directly or, even if he beats her, still have significantly less than a majority because Gary Johnson will get a significant vote as the Libertarian candidate.  Recall the 1968 and 1992 elections, where Nixon and Clinton each got only 43% of the popular vote (or, for that matter, the 1860 election, where Lincoln got 39.8% of the popular vote.)

B.  Hillary Clinton wins, the Democrats get back the Senate, but Paul Ryan remains Speaker of the House with a five-vote majority.  Again, one can imagine various popular votes.  Perhaps Hillary will emulate Bill in 1992 by winning as the first-past-the-post candidate, but with considerably less than a majority vote.  In any event, Democrats, if they have any backbone, will immediately vote to eliminate the filibuster re Supreme Court appointments and appoint to the Court people who will steadfastly enforce what most liberals believe is the "correct" view of the Constitution.  But, otherwise, Clinton and Democratic supporters will be unable to pass any legislation, thanks to Paul Ryan, who will immediately be running for the presidency in 2020 on a platform of "I hate Hillary as much as you do."  This will lead to further disaffection from the political system by anyone who actually believes that Congress should respond to the great challenges facing us.  What particular form the disaffection will take is obviously unclear.

C.  Clinton will win by 15 points (53-38, with Gary Johnson and Bill Weld getting almost all of the remaining 9%), which will be enough to give Democrats both houses of Congress.  The filibuster is eliminated for everything, including legislation, in January 2017, and the Democrats will govern as a genuine majority party.  That will, of course, make people like me very happy, but I would assume that the Republican Party "represented" by the delegates to the Cleveland Convention will increasingly take to the streets, brandishing their 2nd Amendment-protected firearms, and make it very clear that they in fact view the President of the United States as nothing other than a (lucky) criminal who is entitled to no genuine respect whatsoever.  (If that's not their view, then someone should have explained that to Chris Christie.)

Options A and C both provide something that can be called a "government," but one that is viewed by much as the country as completely illegitimate, at least if the President has anything to do with it.  Option B leaves us more or less where we are, i.e., mired in legislative gridlock and ever-increasing contempt for the most important of all American political institutions, the Congress, with who knows what consequences.

Foolishly or not, I continue to allow comments (at least some of which I find illuminating).  Again, the only thing I'm really interested in is the political analysis.  I'm not interested in anyone's personal opinions of Trump or Clinton (i.e., whether the former is "really" a sociopath or the latter "really" deserves to be jailed).  The only important question is the number of people in the country at large, including those who are politically active, who do have such views and the consequence for our political system.  Steve Griffin wrote an excellent book on the importance of "trust" in any viable political order.  Can anyone possibly be optimistic that we as a society  possess whatever minimal level of trust in our political leaders is required to function effectively?
Posted 3:22 PM by Sandy Levinson [link]