A Lucky Stalemate

1. An Alleged Problem

Sometimes, we hear lamentations about political "gridlock" -- the alleged problem wherein politicians are unable to agree on what should be done, and so "nothing gets done", i.e., no (or relatively few) new laws are passed.

More generally, we have two major parties in the U.S., and -- despite periodic complaints to the contrary when one side loses an important race -- they are about evenly matched, and have been for decades. Neither party is able to fully implement their agenda, since there is always the other party there to oppose them. As I write this, the Democrats control the House of Representatives, while the Republicans control the Senate. Since any legislation must pass both houses, and the two parties disagree on many things, it is difficult to get any laws passed.

Many on both sides decry this situation, wishing that their side could finally gain undisputed control so they could just implement their agenda and save the country at last. They just disagree on which side ought to have total power.

Libertarians, on the other hand, often praise gridlock -- we don't want the politicians to be "getting stuff done", because most of what they would do is bad.

Now I want to make an argument in praise of the political stalemate we've been enjoying, but I don't want to appeal to specifically libertarian premises. I want to say that if you're a reasonable person, of whatever party, you should hope that the stalemate continues.

2. Moderation

The first point is that the political stalemate -- more accurately, the balance of power -- exerts a moderating influence on government. The most extreme ideas that might be devised by our leaders are politically infeasible, because they will be rejected by the other party.

The only proposals that can get through the government are ones that can get at least some support from both sides. Some moderate Republicans/Democrats have to be persuaded to vote for it. On average, these proposals will tend to be those that are relatively less stupid and destructive. The most stupid and destructive policies are most likely to occasion dissent from the "other side" (the party other than the one that proposed the policy).

Many have noticed that our politics has become more polarized in recent years. This has some bad effects, but at least one good one: maybe there will be fewer bad policies passed.

Now, you might think this a surprising argument to come from an avowed political extremist. My own policy ideas are probably more extreme than those of anyone currently in Congress (in most cases, much, much more extreme), and thus my ideas could not get passed. So that's a bad thing.

True. But, while I think most of the ultimately correct ideas are extreme, I do not think that most of the extreme ideas are correct. I am not in favor of extremism merely as such; in fact, most extreme ideas are terrible. Even though the status quo is badly flawed, most extreme policy proposals that I hear are much worse than the status quo. Therefore, on average, I expect that if more extreme ideas (of the sort that politicians are likely to come up with) get passed, things will get worse.

Of course, you might disagree with this if you are a committed partisan of either the left or the right. Maybe you think that extreme left-wing ideas tend to be good. Obviously, I can't examine all extreme left(/right)-wing ideas right here, since I'm not going to type in a 2000-page book. All I can do is give a general sort of prima facie, meta-consideration.

In the U.S. at present, things are going relatively well. Not compared to the ideal utopia, of course, but compared to other actual societies, from other times and places on the Earth. In fact, things are going incredibly well by that standard; almost all societies have had things vastly, horribly worse. You could say we are way above the mean of the "goodness" distribution.

In general, most large perturbations of a chaotic system should be expected to push it towards whatever is the most common state for that kind of system. Human societies are complicated, chaotic and their behavior is difficult to predict. You could think of extreme policy changes as big perturbations of a chaotic system. We should expect such changes, on average, to have the effect of making our society more similar to the average human society. Which is terrible.

Of course, if you have some specific (extreme) policy proposal, and you think you have very powerful arguments demonstrating the advantages of that particular policy, then the above very abstract consideration wouldn't and shouldn't change your mind about that proposal. But I think it gives prima facie evidence that in general, making it easier to pass extreme policies (especially if you do not have a great deal of confidence in the judgment and character of typical political leaders, which you should not!) is a bad thing.

3. Corruption

Here is the other thing, which I think is the main point. As Lord Acton says, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If the American political stalemate were to end with one party assuming unambiguous control of the government, then the U.S. would become a one-party democracy. What's another word for a one-party democracy? "Dictatorship".

You might think that your side's politicians are nice now. (Though chances are, you don't think that. You probably just think that they are relatively less corrupt and destructive than the other side.) But once they gain unchecked power, it's a different story. There are almost no cases in history when a group had unchecked power, and they decided to use it mainly for good, and not to benefit themselves at the expense of others.

An interesting case is the communists. If you meet communists today (which you can sometimes find on university campuses), they seem like such nice people, who are just deeply concerned about justice, the plight of the downtrodden, and so on. They do not at all seem like power-mad potential killers. But in actual history, in all cases where communists gained actual political power, they fairly destroyed their societies. They suppressed dissent, oppressed the people, and often murdered millions.

The more morally committed a ruling elite is, the more oppressive they are likely to be. The communists were so oppressive because they wanted to remake society according to their ideals, whereas the kings and queens of old mainly just wanted to live in luxury. That's why societal dominance by an ideologically defined group is especially dangerous.

4. How Have We Been So Lucky?

When I think about this, it seems to me that America has been very lucky to have such a long-running stalemate. Our political system, with its winner-take-all elections, seems to be designed to favor only two parties. Parliamentary systems such as the U.K.'s are much more favorable to multiple parties, which would seem to make it harder for any one party to gain dominance.

It's a striking thing that Democrats and Republicans are so evenly divided in the U.S. Most elections turn on a few percentage points of the vote. The overwhelming majority of voters vote along party lines, but it just happens that a little less than half of voters identify with the Dems and a little less than half with the Reps; then there are a few percent of swing voters.

You could easily imagine shifts in the population so that more people start identifying with, say, the Democrats. With a shift of just a few percent of the population, the Dems would sweep the elections, and then we're on to a one-party democracy.

What is maintaining this equilibrium?

Perhaps the explanation (related to the median voter theorem) is that politicians of both parties deliberately adjust their positions to be just to one side of the middle of the political spectrum (where the "middle" is defined in terms of the preferences of the median voter). Why would they do this? Well, suppose one politician in a race takes a position far to the right of center. Then his opponent should take a position distinctly, but not too far, to the left of the first politician. The second politician will then presumably get the votes of a large majority of voters (everyone who is clearly to the left of the first politician in their preferences).

Obviously, there are some complications (if your position is too moderate, then your party's extreme members may not show up at the polls, etc.). But this general sort of dynamic could explain the long-lasting equilibrium in which Dems and Reps are about evenly matched.

One problem with this story -- and this is more than a minor adjustment -- is that there's a fair amount of evidence that voters don't really vote on the basis of policy preferences. They vote more on the basis of "identity". They just personally prefer to identify with either Democrats or Republicans. Maybe their parents always voted Republican, or their ethnic group generally votes Republican, and so they "identify as" Republicans. (See Achen and Bartels' Democracy for Realists.)

That being the case, if the balance between Reps and Dems starts to shift in the voting population, it is not so straightforward for a politician to simply "adjust his position" in a way that will still get him close to half of the votes. If demographic changes start to happen that would produce a decisive majority who prefer to identify with the Democratic tribe, it's not clear that the Republicans could do anything about this -- it's not clear that there's anything they could change about themselves that would move them back toward the median voter's preference. This would make it surprising that the balance has been maintained for so long.

I can think of two possibilities. Either Achen and Bartels are wrong, and policy preferences are a significant part of voting decisions, or, even though voters' preferences are not mainly based on policy ideas, there are still some adjustable attributes of each party that voter preferences are based on. As the population changes, the Republicans/Democrats can perhaps adjust aspects of their image that appeal to voters' non-cognitive, emotive preferences, so as to place their party close to the median voter's preferences.

5. Conclusion: How Progress Works

An implication of my view is that major political progress is not to be hoped for from defeating one's political opponents (whether those be the Republicans, or the Democrats, or both). If voter choices are based on policy preferences, then long-run progress must come from shifting the median voter.

If (as Achen and Bartels argue) policy preferences are largely epiphenomenal for average voters, then I think progress would have to come from shifting the median policy opinion among the elites.