Polarization: It's Not Just Fox's Fault

Let's face it. Although I continue to be disturbed at the degree of polarization we are experiencing, when our own side starts shouting down speakers at town halls, biting off fingers and killing abortion protesters, it is time to realize that we are not blameless. Yes, the other side started it with their talk of "death panels" and other such lies, but we, quite simply, are taking the bait and allowing ourselves to be provoked. This has two dangerous effects -- it encourages the right wing's martyr complex, and it escalates the polarization further, and from both sides. This is what we must not do.

I blame the media. For the polarization on both sides. Two excellent Washington Post columns explain the twin problems at work.

One problem is that the public is poorly informed. Obviously Fox News and talk radio tell a lot of lies. That's what Fox News and talk radio do. Nothing we can do about it. But mainstream news outlets have been falling down on the job of explaining what is really going on. By that I mean not just explaining that there are no death panels being proposed (they have at least made the attempt there), but a failure to explain what is being proposed. Andrew Alexander, Washington Post ombudsman, reports that 72% of all the Post's front page articles since the beginning of July have been about the politics, rather than the policy of health care reform. Policy-oriented articles are often too wonky for most readers to follow. Authors tend to assume that readers know what terms like "single payer" or "public option" mean. Alexander proposes that newspapers make policy issues accessible to non-wonks by features like "glossaries explaining basic terms, easily digestible Q&As, short sidebars that summarize complex concepts and graphics that decipher complicated data." He also proposes more stories on what reform means to the average citizen.

Of course, none of this will sway people who automatically discount everything in the "liberal media" and believe only Fox News. But it is a mistake to exaggerate their numbers, and therein lies the other problem. Alexander reports that an article about healthcare systems in other countries was among the most popular items published by the Post. The hardcore Fox crowd would never link to such an article. Columnist E.J. Dionne reports the constant bias toward sensationalism. In fact the angry crowds shouting speakers down, the Obama as Hitler signs, the talk of "death panels," and other such hysteria made up only a small fraction of all such meetings. We should have suspected as much when Obama went looking for such a crowd to work and couldn't find one. Dionne even quotes a network reporter as telling one Congressman, "Your meeting won't get covered unless it blows up."

The result is obvious. While Fox News stokes right wing paranoia with reports of "death panels," mainstream outlets stoke liberal paranoia with tales hysterical mobs shouting down speakers and comparing Obama to Hitler. Liberals denounced such things, in turn feeding the anger and fear of more reasonable protesters who then felt unfairly demonized. And so the polarization grows and the health of democracy suffers.

No one will hear me writing on this obscure blog, but if they did, I would not waste time trying to convince Fox News, talk radio or Republican leaders to be more reasonable. It is obviously not in their nature. But to the mainstream media, I would say, follow Andrew Alexander's advice. Write more about policy, geared to the non-wonk, so that the general public will understand what is being debated. This is not to suggest that everyone who understands the proposed reforms will favor them, only that there will be more room for rational debate. And when debate becomes irrational, follow Dionne's advice. Yes, irrationality is news and deserves to be reported. But give us some perspective. If the vast majority of meetings are not blowing up, show some of them, too, and give us relative numbers. Your bias toward sensationalism is contributing to the polarization that is most deadly to democracy.

And to Democratic leaders. Barney Frank's approach can be tempting. Yes, when people are being irrational, it can be tempting just to mock them. But it will just be met with either counter-mockery or a sense of martyrdom. Al Franken has it right. Rationally engage whoever is engageable, be wonky but not patronizing, treat your constituents like adults. Be Franken, not Frank. And we may cool things off yet.

Anti-Healthcare Protests: Why They Are Nonetheless Alarming

Although I emphatically do not consider the Republican Party fascist, I do consider its behavior since the 1990's both disturbing and dangerous to the future of democracy. Sarah Robinson's mistake was her exclusive focus on fascism. One of her top readers makes the same mistake, saying that the fascist analogy is flawed and we are really more like the Roman Republic.

The problem here is that all historical events are individual and unique. Exact parallels do not exist. Many popular governments have failed throughout history. Only two have become full-fledged classical fascist regimes (although fascist movements may have played a role in the downfall of others). To recognize when there is danger, it is better to move from the narrow issues of classical fascism (a unique event unlikely to repeat) to the broader issue of how democracies fail in general, to see what overall patterns recur.

Occasionally a foreign power is to blame. The Thirty Tyrants in Athens were installed by the Spartans. The French Third Republic fell to the German Army. Nascent democracies in Eastern Europe after WWII were undone by the Red Army.

But in the absence of an overwhelming foreign power, for all the individual variations, there is almost always the same underlying pattern. Rival factions become increasingly polarized. At least some factions come to value their own power over any sort of procedural fairplay. Indeed, such factions may be openly contemptuous of procedural fair play. Strife between factions escalates. Political violence becomes increasingly common, and grows. Democratic institutions are unable to contain the ever escalating factional strife and eventually break down.

The outcome is not always the same. Sometimes one faction comes to power through semi-legal channels and uses the state to suppress its opponents. That was the pattern for the classical fascists in Germany and Italy, as well as in Portugal. But democracies can fail in other ways as well. Sometimes the collapse into civil war and anarchy (Lebanon, the United States). Sometimes the military takes over to end the factional strife by force (Chile). Sometimes there is a complex combination of these outcomes (ancient Rome, modern Spain). But the basic pattern of escalating polarization, factional strife, and political violence recurs every time, whether in ancient Rome, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Lebanon, or even the United States. (Let's face it, when democratic institutions fail to resolve the leading issue of the day and a civil war ensues with 600,000 dead, that has to count as a serious failure of democracy, even if both sides in the war maintained their committment to democracy throughout).

To date we are still far from being a failed democracy. A strong democratic heritage and consciousness, and a tendancy across the political spectrum to equate democracy with national identity make it just about impossible for anyone to reject at least the outward forms of democracy. But polarization is reaching a fever pitch. Republicans are refusing the recognize Democrats as real Americans or legitimate political players. Willingness by prominent, respectable Republican leaders to liken Obama to Hitler and spout flagrant lies about his policies, anti-health care demostrators shouting down speakers and seeking to shut down debate are all signs that our traditional notions of fairplay are being abandoned. No political violence so far, but people are bringing guns to political demonstrations. Militias are returning. Death threats against Obama are four times the volume of death threats against Bush.

Overall prognosis: It looks bad, but could be a lot worse.

So what do I recommend?

First, don't be intimidated. Pass a healthcare reform. It may escalate polarization in the short run, but Republicans made a mistake in telling so concrete and easily falsifiable lie as death panels killing granny. If healthcare reform passes and death panels do not, in fact, kill anyone's grandmother, it is going to be difficult to convince people that they did.

Second, when Republicans fight dirty, don't adopt the same techniques. That will just escalate the polarization further. Call them on it. Every time a Republican of any prominence equates Obama to Hitler, introduce a resolution in Congress condemning the characterization. Point out that our side honorably voted for a resolution condemning MoveOn.org for a similar offense. When militia types bring guns to a demonstration, point out, as E.J. Dionne has that "[A]n armed citizenry is not the basis for our freedoms. Our freedoms rest on a moral consensus, enshrined in law, that in a democratic republic we work out our differences through reasoned, and sometimes raucous, argument. Free elections and open debate are not rooted in violence or the threat of violence. They are precisely the alternative to violence." Shame is the appropriate remedy for shamelessness. Let's start using it.

Third, expect this to happen next time and prepare in advance. Keeping in mind that (1) Republicans will try to shut down any significant Democratic initiative and to make Democratic success impossible, and (2) whoever speaks first and most aggressively controls the media narrative, what is the obvious conclusion? That every time the Democrats launch an initiative, it must be introduced with huge media blitz, explaining over and over, in terms understandable to an ordinary, low-information voter, WHAT THE HELL WE ARE PROPOSING. I am not suggesting lying or blatant propaganda, though over simplification is inevitable. My point is simply the earlier and more often voters get hit over the head with WHATEVER THE HELL WE ARE PROPOSING, the more difficult it will be to distort later on. Consider the following polling statistics. When asked simply whether they favors or opposed the proposed healthcare bill, respondents opposed it 42% to 36%. When the pollster explained WHAT THE HELL WAS IN IT in accessable terms, the results shifted to 53% in favor to 43% against.

Finally, in addition to the depressing study of democratic governments that failed, we should also study ones that became dangerously polarized, but ultimately pulled back from the abyss. The French Third Republic during the Dreyfus Affair and the transition between Fourth and Fifth French Republics immediately come to mind. No doubt there are many others as well. Not being xenophobes, we are not afraid to learn from other countries, even the French. Let's see what they can teach us about how democracies avoid failure.

UPDATE:
I cannot recommend highly enough this post by Glenn Greenwald. He encapsulates perfectly everything I want to say about Republicans. In particular, the attacks on Obama are not, in the end about race. They are about Republicans being unwilling to recognize any Democratic President as legitimate.

Anti-Healthcare Protests: Why They Are Not Fascist

It is not only Republican lies and hysteria about healthcare reform that deserve to be condemned. Our own side has committed its own share of alarmism with talk of "Brownshirt tactics." In particular, I am belatedly responding to Sarah Robinson's claim at Orcinus that Republicans have gone full-on fascist over healthcare. Taking historian Robert Paxton as her source, Robinson argues that the Republican party has gone fascist because we are no longer seeing any daylight between conservative elites and the right-wing mob.

All through the Bush years, progressive right-wing watchers refused to call it "fascism" because, though we kept looking, we never saw clear signs of a deliberate, committed institutional partnership forming between America's conservative elites and its emerging homegrown brownshirt horde. . . . America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs.

The fact that "brownshirt thugs" have not engaged in any actual violence so far, certainly nothing on the scale that, say southern racists deployed against Civil Rights workers in the 1950's and '60's is less important to Robinson than that conservatives have openly aligned themself with them.

I see several problems with this analysis. For one thing, while it is true that both Mussolini and Hitler came into power by forming an uneasy alliance with the conservatives, it is also true that, contrary to the common Marxist analysis of the day, it was not the conservatives who were using the fascists to achieve their goals. It was the fascists who were using the conservatives. Granted, one may argue today that the GOP has been taken hostage by its wingnut base, and that sane conservatives have little choice but either to join the Democrats or to go along for the ride. But I see no evidence that the truly insane members of the GOP have the sophistication to manipulate the conservative elite. The manipulating lies over healthcare looks pretty one-sided to me.

The tactical differences between (German and Italian) conservatives and their fascist counterparts are also significant. Both parties shared many goals such as crushing the left, ending strikes, and restoring national greatness. But fascists did two things that should scare the hell out of any right-thinking conservative (and did alarm German and Italian conservatives). They whipped up the ugly passions of the mob, and they used street thugs and mob violence to achieve their goals. Now obviously the leaders of the GOP and their allies in Fox News and talk radio are showing themselves eminently willing to whip up the ugly passions of the mob. But so far I see no evidence, none whatever, that they are willing to condone actual violence and street thuggery. Some have even gone so far as to condemn taking guns to protests (especially while carrying signs urging some human sacrifices to the tree of liberty). Granted, telling armed men that Obama wants to kill your grandmother is the sort of thing that tends to invite violence. But so far I have every reason to expect that if any violence did break out, conservative elites would take alarm and seek to reign it in.

And finally, Robinson, following Paxton, strains too hard for paralells, trying to force today's situation to match intra-war Germany and Italy. (Mussolini's Blackshirts broke up a farmworker's strike. Republican nativists threaten Mexican farmworkers. This is starting to look almost Goldberg-esque). I prefer to take a broader and more general definition of fascism and see how well today's Republican party fits. This conservative historian offers a fairly decent definition of fascism, "a paramilitary party that has taken over the state and claimed an effective monopoly of political activity."* Or, aspirationally, a paramilitary party seeking to take over the state and claim an effective monopoly on political activity. That is something sufficiently alien and odious to our American political tradition that any open attempt would arouse intense resistence and rejection.

Can it happen here? Has it? Robinson quotes Paxton as suggesting that it has, that the Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan was the first authentically fascist movement. Was the Klan "a paramilitary party . . . claim[ing] an effective monopoly on political activity"?

Well, the Democratic Party during the Reconstruction clearly did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the Republican Party and sought (successfully) to make the South a one-party state. Whether the Democrats would have accepted a rival party that was not associated with the hated North and did not advocate racial equality is an open guess.

Could the Klan be considered a paramilitary adjunct of the Democratic Party? Well, it was paramilitary in the sense that it used violence and intimidation, and an adjunct of the Democratic Party in the sense that it wanted to (and ultimately did) suppress the Republicans. But the Klan was neither paramilitary nor an adjunct to anyone in the sense that it had no hierarchical command structure and was not really under anyone's control. Also, the Klan differed from Mussolini's Blackshirts or Hitler's Brownshirts in that it basically dissolved once it achieved its goal. While Mussolini and Hitler, once in power, set up organized secret police to take the place of their street thugs, Southern Democrats, once in power, did not maintain it with a paramilitary, unless one counts ad hoc lynch mobs even less organized than the Klan.

So, what about Republicans? Does the latest outburst of hysteria make them "a paramilitary party . . . claim[ing] an effective monopoly on political activity"? Only by stretching those terms beyond any reasonable definition. Yet at the same time, it has just enough tendancies in that direction to be disturbing.

It has been apparent since 1992 that Republicans are not willing to accept any Democratic President as legitimate. Bill Clinton was a junkfood-eating Arkansas hillbilly who belonged to the conservative Democratic Leadership Council that sought to attract votes by bringing the Democratic Party toward the center. Yet throughout his term of office, Republicans denounced him as a wild-eyed radical, invented talk radio and Fox as weapons against him, dug constantly into his tiniest indiscretions, and ultimately impeached him over a blow job. Howard Dean was denounced as a deranged radical in the 2004 primaries until Democrats became so alarmed that they chose the presumably more electable John Kerry -- only to see the hostility almost seemlessly transfer. For 16 years, Republicans have been working themselves into a frenzy of hatred of Hillary Clinton in preparation for the day she ran for President. Yet the moment it became clear that Obama would be the nominee, they once again promptly and seemlessly transferred their hostility, actually discovering a belated respect for Hillary.

This is linked to the belief that only conservatives are "real Americans" and the quest for a permanent Republican majority. Yet a true one-party system would never be tolerated in the United States. The words permanent Republican majority make the point clear -- Democrats will be tolerated and allowed to run for office at all levels, so long as they do not exercise any actual power.

As for a paramilitary party, that, too, is completely unacceptable in this country (the Ku Klux Klan notwithstanding). Crowds at town halls who shout down the speakers and spout outrageous lies not paramilitary -- they are neither violent nor have a command structure.

That leaves the militia movement, which is once again reemerging. Now obviously the militia movement is not a paramilitary arm of the Republican Party. In fact, in the 1990's, in could plausibly deny being partisan. It got its first stirrings under the senior Bush, who alarmed them with talk of the "new world order" and offended them by fighting the Gulf War through the UN instead of unilaterally. The Ruby Ridge incident took place under Bush's watch. The destruction of the Branch Davidians at Waco was genuinely shocking. And the Clinton Administration really was seeking gun control measures. In short, the militias could claim to be upset over more than just having a Democrat in the White House. And the demise of the militia movement could be attributed at least as much to 9-11 as to the election of Bush Junior.

But the return of the militias coinciding exactly with the election of a Democrat, together with the absence of any proposed gun control legislation or anything else that could reasonably be taken as provocation makes their real agenda clear. They are angry that a Democrat won the Presidency and cannot accept him as legitimate. Now, obviously this does not make the militia movement a paramilitary adjunct of the Republican party, as opposed to independent individuals who think that a Democrat in the White House is reason enough to prepare for armed resistence. But when Fox and talk radio keep spouting, and Republican leaders keep implicitly endorsing, outrageous paranoid lies that inflame and encourage militia types, it gets harder and harder to deny a certain indirect collusion.

That being said, the militias have never used violence and intimidation to sway the outcome of an election, which makes them unlike Blackshirts, Brownshirts, or the Klan. It is also no doubt true that in case Republicans achieve Karl Rove's goal of a permanent majority, the militias will go away, rather than serve as their paramilitary arm. To the extent Republicans dream of a one-party dictatorship, it is a soft dictatorship on the Mexican model, not the totalitarian variety.

In short, calling Republicans fascists is both false and dangerous. But Republican behavior in the healthcare debate is also dangerous and alarming. My next post will discuss what I see as the real danger.
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*To this s/he adds militaristic policy, the abrogation of the procedures of liberal democracy, the actual militarization of society, the successful penetration of the state into the everyday life of the individual, and a very significant degree of actual state regulatory control over the economy. But right now I am less interested in what fascists do once in power that how they seek to get there.

When Politics Eclipse Policy

I had planned a belated post on the Torture Memos, but it will have to be even more belated, because the whipped-up hysteria over healthcare reform is becoming more and more disturbing. In fact, mendacity and sheer insanity of the protests is becoming so disturbing and so far out of bounds of what was formally acceptable debate that the tone of the protests is beginning to eclipse the issue itself.

What is so disturbing and out of bounds here?

Certainly not the existence of the dispute. I do not doubt that Republicans have sincere, principled disagreements with the Democrats' proposal. Nothing wrong with that. That is politics as usual and might, by itself, even be amenable to compromise. Two factors prevent compromise. One is a matter of policy -- Democrats and Republicans and ideologically incompatible views of how to handle rising health care costs -- regulate more versus regulate less. The other is political -- the opposition party wants to thwart the ruling party to keep it from looking successful. Ideologically, Republicans fear that universal health care will go badly. Politically, they fear it will go well. But this dilemma, too, is nothing new or, by itself, especially disturbing.

What is disturbing is the outrageousness of the lies being told about this proposal, how broadly they are being spread, the willingness of the senior Republican leadership to go along with them, the the hysteria they are whipping up. Yes, a certain degree of spin, distortion and deception is a normal part of political debate. When Bill Clinton came out with his own health care proposal, there was a great deal of discussion among opponents about the horrors of single payer, but no acknowledgement that he was not, in fact, proposing a single payer. But there was nothing at the time like accusations of "death panels" pulling the plug on Grandma, comparisons to Hitler, and even remote insinuations that the elderly, the sick and the handicapped would be murdered. Yes, there have always been fringe groups of paranoids who held beliefs like this, but these are views being propagated, not by fringe groups, but by mainstream channels like talk radio and Fox News, and being pushed (well, usually hinted at in such a way as to maintain plausible deniability) by mainstream Republican leaders. The Republican leadership quite simply has decided to sever any ties to real world fact and just shriek out any lie that serves their purpose. Such a breathtaking level of cynicism is both new and alarming.

Also alarming are the angry crowds showing up, believing these outrageous lies, shouting down anyone who disagrees with them and even packing heat. Granted, there have not been actual outbreaks of violence. But telling an armed man that Obama wants to kill your grandmother is playing with fire.

Even more disturbing is that shrieking blatant lies seems to be working. One might dismiss a recent poll saying that support for the bill before Congress has fallen to 36% in favor an 42% opposed. More disturbing is that fully 45% of all respondents at least partially believe in the "death panels." And, although respondents are about evenly divided in their opinion on the protests themselves, the critical independents say 50% to 34% that the protests have done more good than harm. The protests, in other words, are swaying, rather than repulsing, swing voters. As one commentator remarks, "[I]t creates an enormous incentive to lie, blatantly and repeatedly, to the public. There are no real penalties, and the number of Americans who'll believe nonsense skews the debate in the liars' direction." This means that whenever any other major Democratic initiative comes up, Republicans will repeat the tactic.

So what is the agenda? Well, in the short run, presumably to shut down a Democratic Congress, to make it impossible for Democrats to pass any major initiative. Presumably the goal is to drive the base into a frenzy and associate Democrats in the mind of swing voters with ineptitude and inability to get anything done. The short run goal is presumably to win Congress in 2010, just as the Republicans did in 1994, and to win the White House in 2012.

But there is a problem here. Whipping the base into a frenzy and turning swing voters off of Democrats as inept is not really a good long-run strategy. Frenzies are exhausting and not sustainable. And if the Republicans do win a majority in 2010, they would do well to remember the lessons of 1995. Upon taking over Congress, Republicans promptly overreached. Demonizing Democrats can win elections and turn voters off of the Democratic agenda, but it will not win any converts to the Republican agenda. No one much liked what Gingrich and his crowd were trying to, and Bill Clinton rebuilt his Presidency by standing up to the Republican Congress.

The long-run goal, presumably, is to continue working on Karl Rove's project for a permanent Republican majority. Needless to say, the 2008 election was a setback to that goal, but to judge from the level of hysteria the Republican Party and its media allies are seeking to whip up, it apparently has not been abandoned.

From the very start, Rove's plan was not structurally sound. Permanent* control of the government by one party is stable only if that party enjoys a strong majority of popular support. And over the long haul, that sort of support is sustainable only by enacting sound policies and competently implementing them. Rove wanted to take a country fairly evenly divided between the parties, muster 51% support for Republicans, and exclude the other 49% from power entirely. To do this, he focused on ignoring moderate swing voters, rallying the base, demonizing nearly 49% of the population, and enacting policies based on their appeal to favored constituencies, without much regard to their effectiveness. The result was a general ineptitude that turned an evenly divided population sharply against Republicans and their ideas. Yet the Republicans show no intention of changing their policies.

So how do you build a permanent Republican majority when your party does not command majority support and your ideas are widely unpopular? To judge by the hysteria currently being whipped up, the answer appears to be to undermine and delegitimize the Democrats, by fair means or foul. Demonize any Democrat who has the unmitigated audacity to usurp the Presidency. Turn their presidency into a frenzy of accusations and ugliness. Proclaim the Big Lie on Fox and across talk radio. Make it impossible for Democrats to pass any significant legislation. Whip up the mob if they appear to be succeeding. And explain that given the level of oppression underway, you completely understand the returning militia movement.

Granted, none of this will actually make Republican ideas or their implementation any more palatable. But it may at least be more palatable than the paralysis and orgy of recrimination accompanying a Democratic government. What we are seeing now looks like an attempt at permanent Republican majority by blackmail -- vote for us, or we'll shut the country down.

You think the hysteria in the Clinton years was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet.
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*By "permanent" here I do not actually mean until the end of time, and do not think Rove meant it that way either. Beyond the lives of the present generation is a fair definition of permanent in a this context.

Iran: The Value of Elections without Democracy

The upheaval is not yet over in Iran, and I cannot pretend to guess what the ultimate outcome will be. What is significant, though, is that the uprising began over a rigged election, and that even many people who supported Ahmadinejad are unwilling to support his rigging of an election. So perhaps I should rethink my previous dismissal of elections, by themselves, as unimportant.

My argument has been straightforward enough. It is that elections are worthwhile only if actual power resides with the elective government. If real power resides elsewhere -- say, in the army running murderously amok, in extralegal death squads, in war lords, and so forth, elections of a powerless government are worthless. The important thing is to reign in the army/death squads/war lords, stop their murderous abuses, establish civilian control, and then we can think about elections.

Iran calls all that into question. Iran, after all, has an elective government that observes democratic forms, but has very little power, with the real power residing with unelected clergy, who determine who may run for election, and can block any unseemly display of independence by the elective government.

Yet looking at the pro-democratic uprising, it would appear that contested elections of a powerless government do have some value after all. A feeble and very incomplete democratic government had proven useful in teaching Iranians democratic habits. It has taught them to look upon government as their business, and choosing their own leaders as a right. It has also taught some important habits of democratic fair play. Many supporters of Ahmadinejad have said that, although they wanted him to win, stealing an election and trying to set himself up as a dictator are going to far. (Alas, I fear that many Americans do not have this level of maturity!)

Maintaining the democratic facade has, until now, had some wholesome effects on the clerical establishment. Until the latest rigged election, the need to maintain the democratic facade has prevented the Ayatollahs from being too openly and aggressively anti-democratic and doing anything that would expose their undemocratic nature too flagrantly.

So, is maintaining the electoral facade worthwhile, even when the nominally democratic government is powerless and true power lies elsewhere? I generally remain skeptical of such elections and believe that reigning in the excesses of the true wielders of power is more important.

Iran may be a partial exception for several reasons. For one thing, although the Iranian government has undoubtedly engaged in significant violations of human rights, at least in recent times (as opposed to the bloody early days of the Islamic Revolution) those abuses have stopped well short of murderously running amok. The real powers, though far from democratic, have given society the sort of breathing room that allows the future capacity for democracy to develop. (The desire to at least appear to rest on popular consent has no doubt been a restraining factor).

Iran is also most unusual in not concealing where true power lies. Normally when a government maintains an electoral facade, but other forces such as the army, death squads, or war lords rule, the wielders of true power do their best to hide in the shadows and pretend not to be actually in charge. The lawless and deceptive nature of their rule in itself undermines whatever vestigial democracy the government may possess. In Iran, by contrast, the true center of power is openly acknowledged, formally established by the constitution, and governed by official laws. Instead of a lawless, deceptive, and often murderous center of true power, Iran has an open, official, and relatively restrained one. This power center has (until the latest rigged election) operated within certain unspoken but clearly understood rules about what was going to far.

Under these circumstances, maintaining a democratic facade and electing a powerless government may be of some value.

That, however, is the good news. The bad news is that the Iranian theocracy may not have been altogether honest, even with itself, with where the true power lies. Facing growing pressure for democratic reform, the theocracy has come to rely more and more on the Revolutionary Guards and Basij to turn back democratic reformers. Following the most recent rigged election, this reliance has become more clear than ever. And if true power does not lie with the theocracy, but with the Basij and Revolutionary Guards, it is, indeed, has lawless and secretive as in countless other countries. And the clearer it becomes to the Basij and Revolutionary Guards that they and not the theocracy hold true power, the fewer compunctions they will have about running murderously amok.

And once such group entrench themselves in power, it is very difficult, short of outright revolution, to dislodge them.

(PS: This is my 200th post)

Palin, Policy, and Elitism

It's a bit late to be doing a post mortem on Sarah Palin, but a number of comments on her have set some of my gears turning. So I thought I would take the time to explain what I have against her.

It is not that she is a conservative feminist. Yes, many feminists do regard a conservative feminist as an oxymoron and take offense at the concept. They point out, correctly, that feminism began as a liberal-to-left-wing phenomenon, with conservatives strongly opposed. But sooner or later we have to move on beyond the past. The existence of conservative feminism is a mark of just how triumphant feminism has been.

It is not because she is self-made or did not go to an Ivy League college or is not a Washington insider. It is not because she has Red State mores, hunts moose, or has five children. It is not because she did not abort a Down's baby, or because her daughter chose a shotgun marriage and/or single parenthood over abortion.

My problem with Sarah Palin amounts to three closely related complaints. (1) She clearly does not understand any leading national issues. (2) She does not want to understand leading national issues. (3) She equates her ignorance with virtue and knowledge with elitism.

Number one is merely a defect in knowledge, not in temperament, that is by itself remediable. Number two is a permanent disqualification from the Presidency, but it may still be a matter of priority rather than temperament, that leaves her qualified for some lesser office. But to equate ignorance with virtue and treat it as morally superior to knowledge -- that is a flaw in temperament that should disqualify her from any responsible office. It is the same temperamental flaw that was the undoing of George Bush. And it appears to be a large part of her appeal to many of her followers.

An extraordinary example of what this can mean comes from a Ta-Nehisi Coates quote from one of his readers: "[I]f I said, 'The average American voter simply can't understand complicated national issues.' Your response would not be 'You're wrong; Barack Obama understands complicated national issues.' A response like that would make no sense--Obama is is a singularly talented individual; he's not just a representative American voter. In order to have faith in democracy, we have to believe that a majority of us, not simply the best of us, are capable of making the right call."

This is, when you get right down to it, a remarkable statement. It means that the democratic ideal is to elect people with no understanding of complicated national issues because, after all, most average Americans don't understand such issues and we want leaders just like us. How does one answer such an absurd statement?

First of all, although most Americans do not understand complicated national issues that is, after all, not a flaw in temperament, but a matter of priority. Most Americans occupy their lives with other things. But addressing complicated national issues is, after all, what Washington is all about. Wanting our leaders in Washington to have a better understanding of complex national issues than the average American is no more elitist than wanting a doctor with specialized knowlege about the functioning of the body, a mechanic with specialized knowledge of cars, or a programer with specialized knowledge of computers.

Second, although average Americans may not understand complicated national issues, we have at least some ability to judge whether the leaders we send to Washington do. Sarah Palin more than amply demonstrated that she did not.

And third, chosing our leaders is, after all, not the same as choosing a doctor, a mechanic, or a programer. In choosing a doctor, mechanic, or programer, technical skills and professional competence are all that really matter. In choosing our leaders, we want people who share our values, goals and social vision. (All the silly business about Obama's bowling scores and taste in mustard is, in effect, using these as markers of the values he represents). We want people who are honest and play fair with their constituents. We want people who demonstrate overall good judgment. And (let's face it) we want good politicians who know how to make friends and influence people, or they will never get anything done. These, too, are things that ordinary Americans with no particular understanding of the complexities of public policy are qualified to judge.

So, in short, we want to choose leaders who share our values, priorities and goals; leaders of honest, integrity and good judgment; and leaders who know how to get things done. Is it so elitist to say that we also want leaders with a deeper understanding of complex national issues than our own. Yes, this does mean trusting in our leaders to get those complex details right. But if those leaders share our overall objectives and have good judgment, is that so bad? It is certainly better than choosing leaders who share our values but don't understand complex national issues and trusting them to guess.

What "Democracy" Means to a Neocon

Neoconservatives are predictably hyperventilating about the Russian attack on Georgia and crying "appeasement" with warnings about Munich. But at the same time they acknowledge that Vladimir Putin is nowhere near as ambitious as Hitler. He is simply seeking to dominate Russia's "near abroad."

A fair question, then, is why that would be so bad. Granted, neocons want to envelop the entire world in benevolent US hegemony, but would it kill us to keep our hands off Russia's "near abroad" and recognize Russia as a "(sorta) great power" doing what great powers do? The neocon response is that it is not just universal benevolent hegemony we are seeking; it is democracy. Autocratic (though not Communist or militant Islamist) Russia is menacing democratic Georgia and Ukraine.

To anyone who points out that Russia, after all, now has contested elections, and that Putin and his protegees won fair and square, neocons would presumably reply that it takes more than elections to make a democracy. This is also their response to anyone who argues for the electoral legitimacy of, say, Amadinejad in Iran, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Hamas in the Gaza, or Hezbollah seeking a place at the table in Lebanon.

I fully agree. It takes more than contested elections to make a true democracy. Other factors include:

• The elective government must hold actual power. If the elected government is mere window dressing and real power lies elsewhere, that is not democracy. Contested elections will never make Iran democratic so long as real power lies with unelected Ayatollahs.
• The elective government must be bound by laws and simply the leader's unbridled will. If the rule of law does not prevail, the government is not a democracy, but an elective dictatorship. Putin and Chavez are behaving like elective dictators.
• The elective government must respect basic human rights. Government by arbitrary arrest, torture and murder may be elective, but it can never be democratic. Hamas, in consolidating power, has spectacularly violated individual rights at every turn. Putin's record in this department leaves much to be desired. And so forth.
• The elective government must allow sufficient freedom of dissent for opposition to flourish and contest future elections. Otherwise it is simply "one man, one vote, one time." Hezbollah, for instance, holds southern Lebanon in a totalitarian grip within a democratic system. The others may be less blatant, but all do their best to prevent meaningful opposition.
• The elective government must not only voice the will of the majority, it must respect the rights of the minority. Otherwise it is not true democracy, but merely majority tyranny.

Neocons are quite right to point all these things out. Of course, neocons ignore equally serious failings in purportedly democratic allies. Afghanistan is a democracy even though President Karzai is referred to as "the mayor of Kabul" because outside the capital warlords rule. The Iraqi government is democratic even though its power has not always extended beyond the Green Zone; it routinely ignores its own laws; it has allied with death squads murdering men for their religion; it has no meaningful representation of Sunni Arabs, who (foolishly) boycotted the 2005 elections; and it is now seeking to avoid provincial elections that may threaten its power. Georgia's President Mikhael Saakashvilli is a democrat even though he has arrested opponents, charged them with espionage, beaten protesters, and censored unwelcome news.

All of which leads to one basic point. The above criteria are merely excuses. To neocons, for a government to be "democratic," it need meet only two standards. (1) It must have semi-plausible elections and (2) it must toe our line. When a government reverses its policies to our liking, neocons can reverse their judgments with stunning speed. When Mahmud Abbas ran in an uncontested election for President of the Occupied Territories and denounced Israel, Charles Krauthammer jeered that even though this was a Palestinian elections, with the outcome pre-determined, why was Abbas running as Yasser Arafat. But when Abbas opened to negotiations with Israel, he suddenly became a noble democratic leader. Likewise, up to 2006, neoconservatives condemned many of our Arab allies such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States for their lack of democracy. But when they condemned Hezbollah's provocation against Israel, these governments suddenly became "reformist." (Not even neocons could claim they were democratic).

The neocon rule is simple. An elective government that toes our line is a democracy and all blemishes will be ignored. Governments that do not toe our line, elective or not, cannot possibly be democratic.

Jeane Kirkpatrick in Retrospect: "Forces" versus People

One of the oddest traits of Jean Kirkpatrick's Dictatorships and Double Standards is her view of US (and Soviet) power with respect to social conditions in Third World countries. She sees many social factors that make the development of democracy difficult and warns that we cannot impose it at will. Yet she also appears to believe that social factors have no role whatever in the occurrence of revolutions. Rather, the Soviet Union can create revolutions at, which fortunately we are always able to stop.

Kirkpatrick is most often praised these days for acknowledging how difficult it is to create a democracy:

Fulfilling the duties and discharging the functions of representative government make heavy demands on leaders and citizens, demands for participation and restraint, for consensus and compromise. It is not necessary for all citizens to be avidly interested in politics or well-informed about public affairs--although far more widespread interest and mobilization are needed than in autocracies. What is necessary is that a substantial number of citizens think of themselves as participants in society's decision-making and not simply as subjects bound by its laws. Moreover, leaders of all major sectors of the society must agree to pursue power only by legal means, must eschew (at least in principle) violence, theft, and fraud, and must accept defeat when necessary. They must also be skilled at finding and creating common ground among diverse points of view and interests, and correlatively willing to compromise on all but the most basic values.

In addition to an appropriate political culture, democratic government requires institutions strong enough to channel and contain conflict. Voluntary, non-official institutions are needed to articulate and aggregate diverse interests and opinions present in the society. Otherwise, the formal governmental institutions will not be able to translate popular demands into public policy.

In the relatively few places where they exist, democratic governments have come into being slowly, after extended prior experience with more limited forms of participation during which leaders have reluctantly grown accustomed to tolerating dissent and opposition, opponents have accepted the notion that they may defeat but not destroy incumbents, and people have become aware of government's effects on their lives and of their own possible effects on government. Decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits.

These are all sound points. What Kirkpatrick ignores is that the Carter Administration was not, in fact, calling on foreign governments to become democracies overnight, only to respect basic human rights. Respect for basic human rights is part of the necessary groundwork that can later lead to democracy.

While Kirkpatrick believes that objective social conditions have a great deal to do with whether a society is capable of democracy, and that the US has little power to change them, she has no patience for the view that objective social conditions have anything to do with causing revolutions.

The idea that it is "forces" rather than people which shape events recurs each time an administration spokesman articulates or explains policy. The President, for example, assured us in February of this year:

The revolution in Iran is a product of deep social, political, religious, and economic factors growing out of the history of Iran itself.

. . . .

Harold Saunders, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, commenting on "instability" in Iran and the Horn of Africa, states:

We, of course, recognize that fundamental changes are taking place across this area of western Asia and northeastern Africa--economic modernization, social change, a revival of religion, resurgent nationalism, demands for broader popular participation in the political process. These changes are generated by forces within each country.

. . . .

So what if the "deep historical forces" at work in such diverse places as Iran, the Horn of Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, and the United Nations look a lot like Russians or Cubans? . . . What can a U.S. President faced with such complicated, inexorable, impersonal processes do? The answer, offered again and again by the President and his top officials, is, not much. Since events are not caused by human decisions, they cannot be stopped or altered by them.

Something very odd is going on here. Although Kirkpatrick does not use the dread term "forces" in talking about countries' capacity for democracy, she makes quite clear that democratization is not simply a matter of individual will, but depends on objective social conditions. Yet she seems to have no concept that what predisposes a society toward revolution also has something to do with objective social conditions such as "economic modernization, social change, a revival of religion, resurgent nationalism, demands for broader popular participation in the political process." Revolutions are simply the result of Russians and Cuban stirring up trouble, or, at most, indiginous revolutionaries armed and encouraged by Russians and Cubans.

Kirkpatrick has half a point here. It is true that hard-core revolutionaries are generally a relatively small elite, and that it is this elite often tries to stir up revolution absent popular discontent. But for revolutionaries to move beyond a mere annoyance and actually menace the regime in power, they must have a certain critical mass of support. Attracting that critical mass does, indeed, depend a great deal on "broad historical forces" and objective social conditions, including the serious disruptions in people's lives that supposedly "traditional" governments can cause. And Kirkpatrick seems utterly blind to the fact that the revolutions in both Nicaragua and Iran (the countries she emphasizes) were exceptionally broad-based popular uprisings. Kirkpatrick is certainly right that in both countries it was a narrow revolutionary elite and not the general public that determined the direction of the revoultion. Doubtless it is true that in both countries the revolution moved off in directions the general public would not have chosen. But in both cases the broad public was willing to take that gamble.

Kirkpatrick heaps scorn on Jimmy Carter for saying there was not much he could do, and that he did not know whether the Shah would stay in power. She is amply clear that the United States, so powerless to create democracy, is omnipotent in maintaining autocrat in power. What Kirkpatrick is really saying is that Carter was a fool for not seeing bombing them back to the stone age or waging war on the entire population as acceptable alternatives.

Another thought Kirkpatrick should consider. If the Soviet Union was so omnipotent and could create revolutions and topple pro-Western governments anytime, anywhere regardless of objective social conditions, why did it choose such unlikely spots? If the Cubans can gobble up Nicaragua any time they want, surely Mexico would be a more attractive target. If they can wave their magic wand and create revolution in Iran, why not Saudi Arabia while they are at it? And, for that matter, what on earth possessed them to prefer Vietnam to India? Not once does she even address how the Soviets choose their supposed targets.

Kirkpatrick is doubtless right that the right conditions must be in place to create democracy. But she is dead wrong in assuming that conditions are unrelated to revolution.

Democracy and Human Rights

When Bush or his followers are asked to name a success in their Middle Eastern policy, they are most likely to point to the elections in Iraq as proof that a democracy (admittedly troubled) has been established. What this proves, more than anything else, is the danger of making a fetish of elections and assuming that once a country holds an election, "democracy" has been established. Bush proclaims Iraq as democratic because it has an elective government. Iraq'a elective government is allied with death squads that kill men of military age for being named Omar or Bakr because those were the names of Sunni Caliphs. Given the choice between an elective government that kills men for being named Omar or Bakr and a non-elective government executes only for actual crimes, I trust most people would decide there are more important things than elections.

This electoral fetish did not begin with George W. Bush. It has been Republican policy since Ronald Reagan's presidency. Ronald Reagan abandoned Jimmy Carter's policy of giving at least lip service to human rights and instead backed the most savage violations of human rights by Central American governments so long as they were fighting Cuban-aligned rebels. Yet he also insisted that the Central American governments hold elections so he could claim that they were "democratic," even as their armies ran murderously amuck. This is not the place to analyze whether this policy should be considered vindicated, or to determine what went wrong with Carter's human rights policy. But I believe it is time to revisit Carter's system of classifying human rights because I believe that this approach, though unfamiliar to most Americans, sets a far more reasonable set of priorities than a policy that makes elections the be-all and end-all.

Jimmy Carter's human rights policy classified human rights into three categories and set a clear hierarchy of their importance. The first and most important category were the rights of "personal integrity" such as protection from torture, cruel, inhumane or degrading punishment, arbitrary arrest, invasion of the home, and punishment without due process. Second and intermediary were economic and social right such as access to education, medical care, clean water and sanitation. The third category, given the lowest priority, were "civil and political" rights such as freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, elections and the like. This approach is unfamiliar to our way of thinking. We tend to think (proudly) in terms of our Bill of Rights between rights that makes no distinction personal integrity and freedom of (political) expression, and makes no mention of a right to services at all.

But the distinction between rights of personal integrity and rights of political expression is a valid one. Consider the following hypothetical. There are two countries, which we will call Country A and Country B. Neither of them allows free elections, opposition political parties, criticism in the press, or anti-government demonstrations. In Country A demonstrations are broken up by government backed thugs who scatter the demonstrators and beat the ones nearest the thugs. In Country B such demonstrations turn into massacres. In Country A people who publish critisms of the government or try to organize an opposition receive rigged trials and sentances of three to six months imprisonment. In Country B such people turn up as tortured and mutilated corpses on the roadside. In which country does a democratic reform movement have a better chance of success?

And whether one wishes to call them rights or services, access to education, health care, clean water, sanitation and the like matter to a country's democratic prospects. The Bush administration has made amply clear that it considers democratic elections valid only if we like the results. The election of certain parties, it fears, amounts to "one man, one vote, one time." These fears are at least sometimes valid. Well, who tends to win elections? The answer is usually, whoever delivers services best. It becomes critical, then, to a country's democratic prospects for either government or pro-democratic private actor to deliver needed services, or some very dangerous people may beat them to it and win elections as a result.

The most obvious flaw in Carter's original concept of human rights is that it was hopelessly naive about how vicious some governments can be. Violations of "personal integrity" are not limited to torture, "cruel, inhumane and degrading" punishment, arbitrary arrest, intrusions on the home, and denial of due process. Over time, the State Department added extra-judicial killings and "disappearances" to the list. But even that is not adequate. The whole formula failes to account for massacres, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, uprooting whole communities, etc. The Reagan adminstration tended to excuse such things in Central America on the grounds that they were happening in the context of a civil war. But that just goes to show that if we favor democracy and/or human rights, avoiding civil wars needs to be our top priority.

So, what do I recommend? First, acknowledge that human rights are more important than elections and, indeed, that respect for human rights is a necessary precondition for successful democracy building and should preceed elections. Next, set some basic priorities for ranking the importance of human rights and governments' records. Governments that engage in massacres, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, uprooting of entire communities, etc. are the very worst human rights violators. Violations on such a scale most typically take place in the context of civil war. So, let us give priority to avoiding or resolving civil wars. Negotiations, diplomatic pressure, assistance to the losing side and, in extreme cases, humanitarian intervention may all be in order.

As for government that engage in such egregious violations of human rights outside the context of a civil war (Saddam Hussein may fairly be called one), there is great controversy on whether a policy of isolation or engagement, pressure or neutrality is best. Much the same goes for government that engage in more ordinary violations of "personal integrity" rights such as occasional killings, torture, arbitrary arrest, denial of due process etc. Throughout the Cold War we tended to fit such governments into one of two categories. Either they were Communists, in which case we sought to isolate and undermine them, or else they were anti-Communist, in which case we actively supported and often aided their human rights violations in the name of fighting Communism. Carter's human rights policy was a clumsy and not very successful attempt to move away from such a policy. George W. Bush is expressing an aversion to adopting adopting such a policy in the War on Terror, but has not come up with any very good alternative. A good starting place would be to recognize that there is a difference between tolerating or dealing with governments that violate human rights and actively assisting them in their rights violations. Let us explore the wide range of intermediate options and see which ones do most to promote respect for rights of personal integrity. This will not happen until we recognize the importance or respect for such rights and make it our clear priority.

Our next priority should be a combination what is known as building civil society and attention to what Carter called economic and social rights. Building a civic society means creating independent institutions outside the control of government and is a necessary precondition for democracy. That is one reason why deomocracy is so hard to build in the wake of a tyrant on the scale of Saddam Hussein; such tyrants set out to destroy all civic institutions as threats to their power. Such institutions need to regrow before democracy can flourish. It has long been U.S. policy to give aid to such institutions in countries where they are weak, and that policy should continue. In building such institutions, we need to pay more attention to delivering education, health care, sanitation and other services. Having a good system of services in the first place is the best way to keep dangerous demogogues from building a following by delivering such services. We should be encouraging governments, as a matter of pure self-interest, to give priority to basic services for the poor. We should also encourage democratic reformers and other friendly actors to get into the service business before someone else does. And since any society's ability to deliver services necessarily depends on its wealth, we should also encourage policies that encourage both rapid economic growth and fairly equal distribution.

Some may criticize this approach for slighting "civil and political" rights such as freedom of the press, political parties, and free elections. More reasonably, I am laying the basis for such rights. Civil and political rights are best developed by local initiative. Democratic reformers can operate in a non-democratic society that shows reasonable respect for rights of personal integrety. They are most likely to gain a following if they address people's immediate and concrete needs (such as bread and butter issues) and note merely abstract rights and principles. Imposing democracy at gunpoint is, as we are seeing, unlikely to be a successful policy. Democracy is far more likely to take hold if it is the product of local initiative and local movement.

If society is non-democratic but peaceful, if it offers due process and refrains from abusive treatment and other violations of personal integrity, if it experiencing economic growth widely shared and delivering basic services, if it independent institutions outside of government control, then the final push to democracy is far more likely to be successful and lasting than if a tyranny is suddenly replaced with elections before society has any chance to recovery. And if there is no local movement for democracy, perhaps it is because most people perceive such a society as really not so bad after all.