The Madisonian Republic at work

 

A recent op-ed in the New York Times shows the enduring influence of James Madison -a Democrat- in modern times. 

Madison's constitutional design sets limits not only to direct democracy (which has turned California into referendum-driven chaos for taxpaying residents and businesses) but also to big-spending, high-impact legislation such as Obamacare and now Built Back Better.

Madison's Republic combines the empowering of states (Electoral College) and SCOTUS with midterm elections -POTUS, COTUS- to check what he called "slim majorities" from overreaching and passing major legislation without bipartisan consensus.

Regardless of the merits of Obamacare and Build Back Better, they have been curtailed for lack of what Madison called a "fixed majority". In 1791, Madison explained that:

"Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.

As there are cases where the public opinion must be obeyed by the government; so there are cases, where not being fixed, it may be influenced by the government. This distinction, if kept in view, would prevent or decide many debates on the respect due from the government to the sentiments of the people." (For The National Gazette, 1791)

Biden's slim majority -likely to be reversed in the coming midterm elections like almost all the presidents since LBJ- doesn't meet Madison's requirement for major legislation -what we now call a "mandate" supported by a landslide majority such as those behind the New Deal and the Great Society structural legislation-.

Despite progressives' urge for rushing to pass BBB before they lose control of the Senate and House, the Madisonian rule is likely to prevail. If not, the fluctuating majority will block or modify its implementation.

And those are good news for the US economy and political stability. A house divided cannot stand unless it has checks and balances that force negotiation.

US self-correcting system works again: first it stopped Trump, now it stops Biden

 

James Carville's anger after the Democrats' midterm beating channeled the feeling of the Democratic center almost as well as Lynn Cheney's anger at Trump's preposterous attempt to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power. 

Voters in Virginia, New Jersey, and Baltimore send a clear message of rejection to the Democrats' Far Left agenda. David Brooks summarized it in an opinion piece in the NYT alerting about the growing disconnect between the "woke" agenda pushed too far and too fast by the progressives and the priorities of a country that still is 73 % white and 

center-right:

Washington Post's columnist Gary Abernathy's analysis of the causes of the Democratic defeats on the moderate liberal PBS Newshour and his debate with progressive Democrat columnist Jonathan Capehart captured the perspective of the middle America that pushed back against the Far Left agenda.

"For most voters, the 2020 election was not about policy promises. It was a referendum on Trump. To present an alternative palatable to the largest pool of voters, Democrats settled on their most inoffensive candidate. During the campaign, Biden promised support for parts of the far-left agenda, but voters understood he had to pay lip service to that wing. They didn’t elect Biden to do big, historic things. They elected him to restore a sense of calm."

At the New York Times, columnists Maureen Dowd explained how "wokeness derailed the democrats" and their colleagues Gail Collins and Brett Stephens warned that the Far Left policies can drive the Biden administration to an early failure.

So far, even the much-maligned "liberal media" was fast in reacting -although after the fact- and asking the current Democratic administration and COTUS leadership to correct course away from the Far Left agenda items that turn off critical constituencies -such as the "Farmers and Labor" that once were part of the official name of the Democratic Party in some states or other non-urban, non-college-educated segments of the 73% white voters majority-. Thus, the Fourth Power worked slowly but did work.

The other two controls over POTUS did work as well.

Let's start with SCOTUS :

Much to the chagrin of conservatives in the Right and Far Right, Trump appointees to the Supreme Court decided against attempts by the Trumpist governor of Texas to circumvent Roe v. Wade and allow vigilantes to sue women who abort in the State.

COTUS also worked with remarkable effectiveness. Two moderate Democratic senators blocked the unpopular 3.5 trillion-dollar budget pushed by the progressives and six progressive representatives voted against the popular 1 trillion Infrastructure bill that finally passed with Republican votes in a bipartisan way as the voters who voted Trump out of office and Biden in wanted.

Both parties and their partisan media (Fox for the Republicans, CNN, and MSNBC for Democrats) claims that US democracy is dysfunctional are in part bogus. Parties are supposed to be dysfunctional and... partisan. That is part of a democracy, but the United States is first and foremost a Republic -as Benjamin Franklin famously explained in 1787-  but voters and SCOTUS seem to know better and the constitutional institutions created by the Framers to control them demonstrated that checks and balances work. 

As for POTUS, Donald Trump is no longer president and Joe Biden got a serious warning to turn to the center or become a lame duck. 

The Economist also noticed another feature of the US constitutional system that works wisely to prevent parties from obtaining what Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci called "hegemony" - the eternal extremist dream-.

Parties that control the Executive tend to lose seats and control of COTUS during the midterms. The hurry to push critical legislation on a temporary partisan majority -brought as coattails by presidential elections- is contained precisely by midterms. President Obama learned that lesson the hard way with Obamacare. Republicans learned that SCOTUS is not COTUS shortly after when Bush-appointee Justice Roberts gave the deciding vote to prevent them from striking down Obamacare.

The fundamental institutions of the United States have been tested twice in the last two years and passed the test successfully:  in 2020, when COTUS certified a legitimate election despite an insurrection promoted by a defeated President refusing to concede, and in 2021, by voters and COTUS preventing a partisan minority from exceeding its mandate-.