Odds and Ends

In both videos, Haidt provides his explanations for our growing political polarization. He points out ten specific reasons, which interact with one another, and became particularly important beginning in the 1990s. I won’t go into all of that, as Haidt does a good job explaining his views, especially in the first video. What I want to point out are some interesting things in the second video, which also includes a short presentation by NYU Law professor Rick Pildes, then a brief Q&A with both speakers.

Both Haidt and Pildes agree with the idea of open primaries to combat political extremism, which I also support. They also agree that ending gerrymandering would be a good thing, but that it likely wouldn’t have a tremendous influence on the composition of Congress. That’s probably true, but I still think it is a good practice to abolish. Surprisingly, Pildes argues that we should have stronger party leadership within Congress, arguing that it has been more independent members that has exacerbated polarization. He cites Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz as two examples. He argues that if party leaders could exert more control over their members, they could corral them to compromise toward more centrist solutions. This is the polar opposite of what I have argued, that too-influential party leaders are stifling discourse among rank-and-file members. And, I’m not convinced by his argument, but perhaps he’s correct. Achieving some forced consensus between two extremely polarized parties doesn’t guarantee a good result. I’m making a two wrongs don’t make a right argument, here. I think Congress should be a battle of ideas between all elected members, not just those few in leadership.

Haidt points out that one of the reasons we had lower polarization during the mid-20th century is that we faced common enemies during those years. The Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War. He correctly points out that government grew larger with each of these major challenges, but then never shrank back to pre-crisis levels. Haidt is from the political left, so one of his suggestions may come as a surprise, but he argues that we should shrink the size of the federal government! Devolve more power to state and local governments. Trust in private enterprise and public-private partnerships to do those things that government doesn’t do very well. As a result, our federal government will be better able to do those things we need it to do. I could not agree more! Haidt also suggests we might need a new common enemy, and that could be our current political dysfunction.