Francis Fukuyama: Paths to Depolarization
Fukuyama&#x27;s filter bubble is SO obvious reading this piece.<p>&gt; &quot;The path out of polarization needs to be a political one, given the nature of our democratic system: that is, a realigning election in which one party decisively wins control of both houses of Congress and the presidency and holds on to power through two or three electoral cycles. &quot;<p>I can&#x27;t think of any better way to <i>speedrun</i> the collapse of America than this happening, honestly. This might have been viable back in &#x27;12-&#x27;16, but now? Hell no. Every major political institution has set its social capital on fire in the past decade, and the only reason a lot of them are standing is because they can point to the &#x27;other side&#x27; being obstructionist. A thin veneer of &#x27;my team right or wrong&#x27; on the part of the least-informed voters (the least informed CITIZENRY don&#x27;t vote at all) is the only thing keeping people from being radicalized into &#x27;this entire system is bad and EVERYONE IN IT IS BAD&#x27;. (Right now we&#x27;re radicalizing people into &#x27;the system would work if we got rid of the deplorables&#x2F;libtards&#x27;). Particularly since without the kayfabe of Democrats vs. Republicans, the media is going to have to invent a new thing to get people worked up about: The NYT&#x2F;WSJ&#x2F;Guardian&#x2F;Reason&#x2F;Daily Wire&#x2F;terrible FB meme groups aren&#x27;t going to shut down or say &quot;Now that one party is in charge, we should give up the profits that come with outrage for the sake of our ~country~&quot;. Nor is such a situation safe from outside meddling; it&#x27;s even MORE exploitable in some ways.<p>&gt; &quot;The problem with RCV is that for it to have a major effect, it would have to be adopted in a large number of states for both party primaries and presidential elections.&quot;<p>Yes.  And why I think a successful implementation of RCV in the US would involve multiple states having it on the ballot in the SAME ELECTION (ideally an ODD YEAR election). As Fukuyama identifies, the major obstacle to this is the people in power on both sides, but his idea of politics as being only national down is showing here. Basic tactics suggest you fight a centralized, powerful enemy by spreading out your efforts - make them fight on multiple fronts and set up a situation where you can fail and still make inroads. (If 25 states have it on the ballot and it passes in 12, you still have made significant progress and if those 12 show it&#x27;s viable, then the next run becomes a lot easier. Especially if you can make the 12 swing states.)<p>&quot;The lack of RCV then affects the prospects of the second path towards depolarization, emergence of a viable third party.&quot;<p>Likewise, Fukuyama shows his idea of &#x27;politics&#x27; is pretty restricted to &#x27;national politics&#x27; in this case. My idea of a &#x27;viable third party&#x27; would look to the history of them in the US, which would suggest that the most likely way to get a viable third party off the ground is to create a strong state&#x2F;regional party (a la the Minnesotan Farmer-Labor party). That party then gives another viable route into politics for <i>aspiring politicians</i>, which means that the politicians in the Dem&#x2F;GOP at the state&#x2F;local have some ability to push back against national interests (e.g. a popular Minnesotan Dem state senator could say they&#x27;ll run as F+L if the party doesn&#x27;t bend on thing X, and if that person is on the shortlist for potential governor&#x2F;national candidacy, then losing them hurts, tactically).<p>I could also see some major progress happening if a party arose and focused solely on local, officially non-partisan races. A &quot;viable third party&quot; doesn&#x27;t just mean &quot;a party that immediately has a substantial footprint in national Congress or can win the presidency&quot;. What an odd definition.<p>&gt; &quot;These approaches—changes in institutional rules, third parties, and grassroots organization—are all important components that could contribute to depolarization. Many political reform proposals face a chicken-and-egg problem, however: you can’t enact legislation to reduce polarization until you’ve reduced the level of polarization. The path to a long-term solution is blocked in the short run. The only way to resolve this conundrum is through the democratic process itself: that is, through a decisive electoral victory by one party that seeks to promote serious change, and is able to enact it.&quot;<p>What.<p>Seriously, how does the second half of this paragraph follow from the first? &quot;We tried nothing and we&#x27;re all out of ideas!&quot;<p>He needs to justify this: &quot;The only way to resolve this conundrum is through the democratic process itself.&quot; To say it&#x27;s the ONLY way is making a very strong statement. For instance, reducing the size of the country until it was manageable (Balkanization) could solve that conundrum, it just has a really high price. So what Fukuyama is actually saying here is &quot;the only way to solve this conundrum <i>that doesn&#x27;t have costs I consider too high</i> is&quot;. That&#x27;s a massive hidden assumption there. Somehow I doubt that Francis Fukuyama and I agree on how much suffering is acceptable to solve this problem and (more importantly) <i>who</i> can suffer for it.<p>&gt; &quot;Of the two parties, it would for better or worse have to be the Democrats.&quot;<p>Again, complete understanding of politics only on the national level. I&#x27;d say the best odds for a realignment type election would come from moderate conservatives in the Rust Belt or Plains States. Unlike those in the South, those communities are less religious (which makes cross-party appeal easier), have some policy positions that cross over with&#x2F;are popular with liberals (e.g. being more pro-environment), and have a way to talk to some issues uniting a lot of Americans (e.g. being told what to do by people who don&#x27;t understand how you live&#x2F;being treated as flyover country or unimportant by coastal states + places like Texas). There are substantial logistical barriers to the Dems pulling it off. First of all, their bench is <i>pathetic</i>: The modern Democratic party is a gerontocracy and accepts far less internal division than the Republicans. Where are these new Dems supposed to <i>come from</i>?<p>&gt; &quot;But the Republican takeover by Trump and his MAGA movement has been much more thoroughgoing than anything that has happened on the Democratic side, and represents a much more toxic form of politics.&quot;<p>Tell me you don&#x27;t talk to normal people who are conservative without telling me you don&#x27;t talk to normal people who are conservative. I&#x27;m from a purple state, in a purple district, from a bipartisan family, and there are far fewer crazy Trump people here than people who are sighing and voting for the lesser evil. On the other hand, you sure do see a lot of crazy Trump people in the neoliberal filter bubble. Twitter =&#x2F;= average Dem voter and Parler =&#x2F;= average GOP voter. Sorry.<p>He even talks about this later but doesn&#x27;t put together that Trump&#x27;s MAGA takeover is way less stable than Fukuyama thinks, and is already working on being dismantled. Now, the people who are more competent than Trump but took notes, that&#x27;s concerning. But it also hasn&#x27;t happened yet.<p>&gt; &quot; The contemporary Republican Party will therefore never incubate a broadly appealing centrist vision, at least not until it begins to consistently lose elections.&quot;<p>As opposed to the Democrats, who didn&#x27;t start incubating such a vision <i>even when</i> they started losing elections?<p>Fukuyama seems to think the illness of the Democratic party is limited to the cultural craziness of the last few years and ignores its ossification + the spending of their social capital until the bank is empty. Toning down on the culture wars would probably help them - temporarily. The wokeness is a signal of simmering tension and pressure, and it&#x27;s going to break out somehow. Instead of co-opting the party&#x2F;process, we&#x27;d probably see movements to OPEN hostility from both extremists instead. He seems to be under the odd delusion that both sides will just shrug if they find out what they believe isn&#x27;t popular, and that all the perverse incentives for companies and politicians to fan the flames will just disappear if some elections go the way he wants.<p>In short: LOL