Yikes! It’s November 9, 2016, and not only has a Democrat again won the presidency, but in an unexpected surge of popularity, the Democrats have decisively retaken the Senate, and gotten within ten or so seats of the GOP in the House. Worst of all, a number of trends noticed by pollsters suggest similar or worse outcomes in future elections.
This is the third of the three scenarios for the short-term future I’ve been sketching, all for the purpose of trying to judge whether America has entered late republican times, or might do so soon. I’ll provide no further introductory material this time around, so to really grasp what I’m up to, you’ll have to at least read the previous post, “The Divided Government Scenario,” and you probably ought to also look at the others it links you to.
This scenario is described as a “legitimacy-lacking” rule because a) liberal control over the bureaucracy, much of the judiciary, academia, entertainment/arts, legacy media, and many big tech corporations, and b) liberal psychology will together cause Democrats to treat a bigger-than-expected 2016 victory as a mandate to rule, even though they don’t have the House. (The following scenario and the previous one are pretty “bleak,” as one commenter put it, but do note, the scenario of the Democrats winning back the House in 2016 appears so unlikely at present that I don’t even think we should consider it!) The fact highlighted by the 2014 elections, that well more than half of America’s localities and states voters trust Republicans more than Democrats, is of immense significance. It is a clue pointing to the larger fact that America’s political “doom,” if it comes, would likely not be one of gradual liberal-governed descent into Soft Despotism, but would rather involve aspects of such a descent provoking efforts to make a secessionist split.
But back to the short term. What the encouraging 2014 results do not change is the fact that the big prize remains the national government, and that the Democrats will have the means to run it in this scenario. Were they to win in the more decisive way described, their bureaucrats would feel in secure control of their agencies, which are most of the federal agencies. As important, most liberals would be incapable of admitting that their popularity is only marginal, and only regional. Many would admit that Obama himself was a big disappointment, but they would see a bigger 2016 victory as the public’s endorsement of his basic domestic agenda, and of the Democrats’ overall message, even despite the many embarrassments experienced during Obama’s term. The hesitancy liberals would feel in the Divided Government (DG) scenario, would be absent. They would certainly not feel the excitement they felt in the wake of 2008, but they would feel an overall vindication. That would significantly change liberals’ overall behavior.
So what would unfold? In sketching this, I will refer everything to the enumeration of factors found in the previous post. This is going to get grim, but keep in mind its primary character as a thought experiment.
1) While we might expect the situation with the Court to remain not much different, a stronger dynamic of liberals feeling in the driver’s seat will cause a quicker and broader repudiation of what originalist-fostered precedents we do have than in DG.
2) Political Correctness. Not as dramatic and campus-centered as in DG, but far more pervasive and coordinated. With confidence restored that history is on their side, liberal administrators of many kinds of institutions will push the borders of acceptable speech and association in controversial areas further and further back, and in increasing numbers of cases, the Court won’t be there to rescue. Mass conservative abandonment of most existing institutions of higher ed, and moves to construct an alternative system, could start to unfold. From my own self-interested perspective, good news. From a long-term patriotic one, a major step towards a more systematic division into two Americas.
Even beyond the institutions controlled by liberals and liberal-tarian sympathizers, religious liberty will become significantly trimmed, although this will take many years to unfold, and it’s important to keep in mind that these reverses could be reversed if conservatives can again get in a position to appoint originalist justices. Christians will find it easier to live with this trimming than many expect. What will be harder to live with is the fear of further limitations, ones that will come into view as real possibilities for the near future.
3) Obamacare remaining, 5) illegal immigration increasing, 8) foreign policy drift. These factors pretty much remain as they were in DG.
4) Debt and deficit, 6) corruption in and strength of bureaucracies, and 7) executive legislating, all will be worse. 4) could provoke crises in the short term.
10) Economic leftism prospects, and 11) race-bait politics prospects? Both increase.
12) Liberal-tarian party? Same lower odds as in DG.
9) Emergence of Reform Democrats? Fuggetaboutit! Again, the psychology that we have won doing what we’ve done will drive everything. Whatever serious Reform Democrats emerge will be driven right out of the party. This is the most distinctive and important feature of this scenario.
Now it is true, that a specific and limited kind of reformist Dem, the champion of minimal fiscal sanity à la Jerry Brown, will likely to come into play in many states and cities, and especially to reign in the pensions for public-sector workers. Otherwise, many municipalities and states will need financial bailout, which will infuriate the many Republican-dominated states and cities that have stayed more solvent.
There are some dangers in this scenario of civil disorders emerging. 6) could provoke loss of confidence in elections and taxes, leading to national strikes or other civil disobedience moves by conservatives. State-led resistance to unconstitutional executive or agency actions might also get going, although those are less likely to provoke violence. Another danger is if there is a gathering perception that the Dems will continue to rule into the middle term, the conservative half of the nation will plunge into despair. What comes out of such despair? A lot of “dropping out,” I suppose, but probably also a revival of militia-like groups. Note that the key pro-gun-rights decisions of the last decade will almost certainly be overturned in this scenario.
Even if a rise in civil disorder incidents does not emerge in the short term, some truly deadly trends will still be at work. No Reform Dems means that we might have lost the last chance, among other things, to keep the Democratic Party from becoming the American equivalent of a French anti-clerical one, one that openly calls for the withering away of all non-privatized or non-liberalized Biblical religion. And it would be the last chance for a generation to keep even part of the Democratic Party committed to the Constitution in any meaningful way.
Either of these developments, but especially the first, would mean that unless the Dems then suffered repudiation in the middle term, over the long term it would merely be a matter of timing, before either the union split apart, or despotism was put in place over all of it.
Overall, in the third scenario, it becomes very unlikely that America will avoid late republican times.
Some sort of middle-term renaissance of conservative popularity would be required to prevent sliding into them. If enough Dems move too far into economic leftism, or if the foreign-policy situation collapses, such a middle-term conservative rebound could happen, despite the expected increase in Mexican-American votes. And while we’re considering this rickety middle-term raft of hope, I repeat what I said in the first part of this series, that damage to a constitutional order is repairable.
But if Dems rule for the short term and there is no conservative victory in the middle term, then by around 2035, it will have become plain that the political situation has become radically different. One will notice more civil disorder, and the serious proposal of plans for secession. One will notice factions, institutions, administrators, and politicians seriously calculating about how they will fare if the union does wind up sundered, or, if leftist implementation of partially despotic governance does enter an irreversible phase. For the political power game gets more “interesting” the more its basic rules come into question — entirely new ways of playing the game come into view. And yes, some of the institutions and actors weighing their prospects in this uncertain situation would be ones within the armed forces. Once you enter late republican times, much becomes unpredictable.
Dark talk. I admit it holds a certain fascination for me, but honestly, I don’t indulge in it for the drama. Rather, I think the increasingly typical conservative penchant for fatalistic dark talk is unhealthy. Precisely because doom-pronouncing can have dangerous effects upon morale and upon morals more generally, I think we now are at a point where we need to consider “late republican” topics more openly and seriously, in order to be ready to speak the best and most practical rouse-to-action words at the key moments. Only by such talk can conservatives refute and redirect the unhelpfully vague and apocalyptic doomsayers already upon us, and whose numbers will become legion if the Dems win in 2016.
And look, I of course don’t know any of the things I’ve said here or in the preceding posts, and I am certain some significant portion of them will prove to be wrong. Most of all, it could well be that I have egregiously underestimated the hold of American normalcy or outright missed the existence of hidden reservoirs of liberal decency. I do know that history always contains surprises and believe that the song is right to say that the whole world is in His hands.
Your thoughts on my thought experiment?