In Defense of the Constitution

Democracy is dead, and the Constituion is responsible. That, at any rate, seems to be the emerging consensus among some of America's smarter left of center bloggers. Last week, Dylan Matthews of Wonkblog laid the blame for the current government shutdown not on President Obama or Ted Cruz, but on James Madison: 

This week's shutdown is only the latest symptom of an underlying disease in our democracy whose origins lie in the Constitution and some supremely misguided ideas that made their way into it in 1787, and found their fullest exposition in Madison's Federalist no. 51.

Matthews' opinion was seconded by Matt Yglesias, who argued that ultimately "America was doomed" because of our presidential system of government. And this weekend Jonathan Chait argued that the current budget battles might have been "destined all along" due to our constitutional structure. 

Matthews, Yglesias, and Chait all based their claims on a 1990 essay by political scientist Juan Linz, The Perils of Presidentialism. Written during the wave of democratization that coincided with the end of the Cold War, Linz's essay lists a number of dangers arising from a strong presidency, and argues that newly democratic nations ought to consider adopting a parliamentary system of government (like that of Germany) rather than a presidential one (like we have here in the U.S.).  

It's a good essay, and if one were designing a system of government from scratch, particularly in a society without a long tradition of democratic self-government, Linz's concerns ought to be taken seriously. But there is something a little odd about seeing The Perils of Presidentialism being cited as an argument by those who wish that the House of Representatives would be more accommodating to the President. As the title suggests, The Perils of Presidentialism is chiefly concerned that come from the president having too much power. 

For example, Linz argues that because the president alone is elected by the whole nation, he and his supporters "may be tempted to define his policies as reflections of the popular will and those of his opponents as the selfish designs of narrow interests." This certainly is a temptation. In fact, it seems to be a strong temptation for Chait himself, who describes today's GOP as "a party large enough to control a chamber of Congress yet too small to win the presidency." Matthews likewise suggests that his personal favorite theory of democracy is summed up in a statement by Max Weber: "In a democracy the people choose a leader in whom they trust. Then the chosen leader says, 'Now shut up and obey me." 

It gets worse. According to Linz, there is also a danger that the president will "use ideological formulations to discredit his foes," perhaps, for example, by referring to them as nihilists, anarchists, terrorists, etc.

And then there is the timing factor. Linz' also argues that, because of presidential term limits, a president's 

awareness of the time limits facing him and the program to which his name is tied cannot help but affect his political style...  This exaggerated sense of urgency on the part of the president may lead to ill-conceived policy initiatives, overly hasty stabs at implementation, unwarranted anger at the lawful opposition, and a host of other evils. 

Ultimately, Linz fears, frustration with legislative unwillingness to go along with presidential policy might lead to a military coup, or other forms of violence. 

While it's fun to speculate about alternative systems of government, America is not at risk of devolving into a military dictatorship any time soon. For all our faults, the U.S. is in fact one of the most successful countries in the history of the planet, and our constitutional structure, with its system of divided power, is one of the reasons for that. If you want to attack the House Republicans, be my guest. But leave James Madison out of it.   

UPDATE: On Twitter, Adam Gurri directs me to a piece of his that sums up my thinking perfectly: 

Rather than judging institutions on the basis of theory, we ought to be looking at their resilience; how they stand the test of time. The electoral college is frequently a target of criticism and ridicule by people who feel it is outdated, but it is precisely because its life can be measured in centuries rather than decades that we should trust it by default. At least, we should trust it more than the simple stories proffered by pundits and scholars. 

The more I learn about the Swiss canton system, the crazier it seems to me. Yet there are some cantons that have been in continual existence for something like 700 years—and Switzerland is a very wealthy and very peaceful nation. We should not conclude from this that their system of government should be spread to every corner of the Earth, but it is clear that there is something about the system as it operates in Switzerland that works.