Trends and Aberrations

It's always interesting when something like the Wall Street Journal posts something I actually agree with - and even more so when I recognize the name of the author as someone I ordinarily wouldn't agree with on much. No matter its source, though, this editorial makes a good point about whether or not we should be expecting a return to civility once President Trump is no longer occupying our attention.

Its answer, to put it simply, is no. The argument is that President Trump represents the culmination of existing trends in politics rather than something completely outside of them, and I largely agree with that view. It's one I've often set forth in other areas, such as when people complain about the news media, or complain about the inability of the government to do anything, or so on... A lot of people making those complaints ignore the ways in which we can influence those institutions and the ways in which those institutions will naturally shape themselves to fit what we want out of them. It should surprise nobody that the increasing polarization of our government mimics what we're doing to ourselves in other areas. And I'm impressed that this editorial is willing to blame both sides equally for that; I'm not sure it's precisely correct, but it's still more than I would have expected out of this particular author.

The one point I do disagree with is the argument that lowering the stakes will help. Decreasing the power of the federal government may help a little bit, but throwing that power back onto the state governments or even further down will give those places more license to govern in increasingly partisan ways themselves. Getting rid of it entirely, to my mind, simply means that other parts of society will take it and use it in even less accountable ways than our government would.

In the end, I think what we need are more institutions that both sides are willing to trust. Ideally, we'd have media organizations that both sides trusted to tell the truth, but at this point I don't think the right will ever trust the mainstream media again, even if they were to somehow become utterly flawless, so that's not particularly likely. Even just having some moderate politicians that both sides trusted to have the best interests of the country in mind and to listen to both sides' ideas would be helpful, but that requires the people to unbend enough to actually elect such politicians, which is also not particularly likely.