James Madison, Greg Weiner, and What to Do about the Filibuster

“Patience ‘is the central constitutional virtue—and it is, by all signs, a lost one.'”

To understand our political malaise, we should approach it from multiple analytical angles. We can divide the most common of these approaches into two groups, broadly speaking: (1) those that frame our political troubles as downstream from our societal ones and (2) those that see our political discord and dysfunction as stemming from the artificial separation of American politics from our wider society. Both frames help us inch closer to a more comprehensive understanding of why American politics is so, well, terrible.

Political Defects as Downstream from Societal Defects?

The first approach emphasizes the role of our social disorders and divides in creating our unhappy politics. This line of argument sees our partisan sorting into geographic enclaves and media silos as a key driver of our political discord. Even as American society grows increasingly diverse on the whole, that diversity is not spreading itself out over the wider country in an even manner. Despite our immense racial diversity, we are still an exceptionally segregated country (including within our most racially diverse places—our cities). In education, school segregation arguably has been on the rise in recent years. And our social separation does not only run along the lines of race. As consumers, we enter into a market that is tailored to our most hyper-specific needs and desires, and we are increasingly sorting into one of the two parties on the basis of our places of residence and consumerist tastes. Under this view, our divided politics is not that unique from our divided and separated society.

Also falling under this umbrella—the view that our political troubles stem from our wider societal troubles—is the argument that a democratic-republican political culture of responsible self-governance cannot magically arise from a society where the virtue of self-control is somewhat lacking. It is not a secret that our contemporary culture places a premium on self-expression and authenticity. Those who are true to themselves—and the urges, interests, and passions that comprise the self—are lauded. Compared to the past, today we place far less emphasis on being shaped by the wider society and its core institutions like organized religion, the family, and school. Under this view, our performative Congress is not a far cry from our performative society: lots of people “being themselves,” while neglecting the constraints and norms that make Congress a lawmaking body and not just another shouting Sunday show.