OP-ED COLUMNIST
Our Democracy Is at Stake
October 1, 2013
This time is
different. What is at stake in this government shutdown forced by a radical Tea
Party minority is nothing less than the principle upon which our democracy is
based: majority rule. President Obama must not give in to this hostage taking —
not just because Obamacare is at stake, but because the future of how we govern
ourselves is at stake.
What we’re seeing here is how three structural
changes that have been building in American politics have now, together,
reached a tipping point — creating a world in which a small minority in
Congress can not only hold up their own party but the whole government. And
this is the really scary part: The lawmakers doing this can do so with high
confidence that they personally will not be politically punished, and may, in
fact, be rewarded.
When extremists feel that insulated
from playing by the traditional rules of our system, if we do not defend those
rules then our democracy is imperiled.
This danger was neatly captured by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, when he wrote: “Democrats
howled about ‘extortion’ and ‘hostage taking,’ which Boehner seemed to confirm
when he came to the floor and offered: ‘All the Senate has to do is say ‘yes,’
and the government is funded tomorrow.’ It was the legislative equivalent of
saying, ‘Give me the money and nobody gets hurt.’ ”
“Give me the money and nobody gets
hurt.” How did we get here?
First, by taking gerrymandering to a new level.
The 2010 election gave Republican state legislatures around the
country unprecedented power to redraw political boundaries, which they used to
create even more “safe, lily-white” Republican strongholds that are, in effect,
an “alternative universe” to the country’s diverse reality.
Between 2000 and 2010, the number of
strongly Democratic districts decreased from 144 before redistricting to 136
afterward. The number of strongly Republican districts increased from 175 to
183. “Republicans would need to mess up pretty badly to lose their House majority in the near future,” said Republican analyst Charlie Cook. The numbers suggest that the fix is in for any election
featuring a fairly neutral environment. In other words,
there is little risk of political punishment for the Tea Party members now
holding the country hostage.
Meanwhile, there's the Supreme Court’s inane
Citizens United decision. Last month, for the first time ever in Colorado, two state
senators who voted for universal background checks on gun purchases lost their
seats in a recall election engineered by gun extremists and reportedly financed
with some $400,000 from the National Rifle Association. You’re elected, you
vote your conscience on a narrow issue, but now determined opponents don’t have
to wait for the next election. With enough money, they can get rid of you in
weeks.
Finally, the rise of a separate
G.O.P. (and a liberal) media universe — from talk-radio hosts, to Web sites to
Fox News — has created another gravity-free zone, where there is no punishment
for extreme behavior, but there’s 1,000 lashes on Twitter if you deviate from
the hard-line and great coverage to those who are most extreme.
When
politicians only operate inside these bubbles, they lose the habit of
persuasion and opt only for coercion. After all, they must be right. Rush
Limbaugh told them so.
These “legal” structural changes in
money, media and redistricting are not going away. They are superempowering
small political movements to act in extreme ways without consequences and
thereby stymie majority rule.
If democracy means anything, it means that, if
you are outvoted, you accept the results and prepare for the next election.
Republicans are refusing to do that. It shows contempt for the democratic
process.
President Obama is not defending
health care. He’s defending the health of our democracy. Every American who
cherishes that should stand with him.
