Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, examines how American policies have taken advantage of moments of crisis to exploit “disaster shocked people and countries.” She refers to this tactic as “disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock.”
In the United States since 2001, the American government, and particularly the Republican political party, has continued to take advantage of various crises in an effort to shape our government into an image they had envisioned. The major difference now is that instead of taking advantage of existing crises as described in Klein’s book, they are manufacturing crises in order to create the circumstances that drive dramatic shifts in policy.
Federal budgets may be mundane affairs to create, but they do speak to our national priorities – our soul, if you will. Debate has generally taken place calmly in the halls of Congress, and through legislation passed by a majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate, policies that are primarily directed by the majority have been enacted. The Drama of the Filibuster has been a rarity and utilized by the Senate minority to either stop legislation or to modify it by compromise. House and Senate rules have also been used to block legislation, appointments and budgets when these were important enough to the minority to jeopardize their ability to compromise or when compromise was impossible.
The use of cloture has become routine recently to the point that, in order to vote on virtually anything in the Senate, a 60 vote majority is required which virtually guarantees that the minority will have control of the agenda and the legislation passed. This in itself is a new trend, but layered on top of the minority control of the Senate is the use of “leverage moments” when the minority uses a deadline that carries significant consequences in order to modify budgets or legislation.
The result has been what many are calling “dysfunctional government.” A “government shutdown” would seem to be the last thing a government wants, but when steadfast obstinacy is your only tool, you see a solution to every problem by threatening to not pass critical legislation without certain demands being met.
As a strategy, it has been used by both parties with increasing frequency, but as you can tell from the graph, it seems to have taken off with the 92nd congress – when Democrats held the majority. It is also notable that the 110th congress has had a number of cloture votes that exceeds previous congresses by a 2 to 1 margin.
Government shutdowns have generally been brief and have been used to indicate that the party refusing to negotiate was “serious” about their particular demands. In 1980, a judicial interpretation of the “Anti-Deficiency Act” made operation of government functions limited to those necessary for protection of life or property during the shutdown. The stakes got a bit higher with that ruling.
In each of these cases, the shutdown, or in some cases blocking legislation deemed important or even crucial to the functioning of government, was used in much the same way as the crises that Naomi Klein wrote about. A sense of urgency was created (and that word is the correct one) and the solution required adoption of the minority party’s policies in order to continue.
Except for the government shutdown of 1995 which lasted 21 days, most government shutdowns have been relatively uneventful. In the end, the Republicans received considerable criticism for the consequences of shutting down the government at that time, but they have continued to use the threat of shutdown as a means of getting their policies enacted (or blocking Democratic policies).
The most recent use of a deadline to pressure the majority into ceding to demands of the minority is, of course, the “debt ceiling” crisis. It is, as all of the other government “crises”, manufactured. Artificial. Arbitrary. But this time, also potentially devastating to the economy of the US and the world.
One wonders if the Republicans were serious that they would not raise the debt ceiling if their demands were not met. If one takes hostages and threatens their lives, the threat must be credible in order to use that threat as a bargaining tool. Given the consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling, I doubt that any responsible person would have followed through on that threat, but then there is the TEA party.
The difference between politics of government shutdown and politics of possible US credit default are miniscule, and most of it was probably “political theater”, but the Republican TEA party faction and the Democratic Progressive faction are both so ideologically driven that compromise is all but impossible. I truly feared that there could be no compromise in part because the Republican party is being threatened from within by the TEA party. The rhetoric was clearly inflexible from even the leadership of the Republicans, and there was a real possibility that some Republicans might have been locked into their positions. Many Republicans will face primary challenges for failing to adhere to the rigid stance of the TEA party and their own extreme rhetoric.
Fortunately, reason and consideration of the consequences of failing to act prevailed and a compromise was reached, but many agree that the compromise favors the minority party’s policies.
Governance by crisis creates three problems. First, it essentially creates the conditions for minority rule. Second, it risks undermining the credibility of the United States even when a compromise is ultimately reached. Third, the most reckless and irresponsible party is rewarded for their dangerous actions.
The rules haven’t changed, but the game somehow changed. It is as though the Republicans have exploited a flawed rule in order to ensure their victory in every confrontation. It’s like a gambler that has found a way to win every hand of cards, a stock broker that has inside information, or a mobster who can make offers that no one could refuse.
This, I believe, is a threat to democracy. There is a reason that the majority party is in the majority, and it is to reflect the will of the American people. When the interests of the people are subverted by legislative maneuvers, the majority loses. And in the end, we all lose.
Whether the government is described as dysfunctional or not, it is clearly not functioning the way it was intended by the Founding Fathers to function. There is sufficient opportunity to force compromise when the government functions as it should without making majority rule impossible.
It’s time for a change. There should not be a way to create a crisis in order to bend the will of the majority to the will of the minority. That is not representative democracy.
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