James Fallows, back in the United States after three years in China, has a new essay up at The Atlantic titled, "How America Can Rise Again".
Despite the optimistic title, Fallows concludes that the "American republic may prove to be doomed". While there is nothing wrong with the United States that Americans cannot fix, except for the government which "is old and broken and dysfunctional, and may even be beyond repair".
Fallows describes the United States as "a vital and self-renewing culture that attracts the world’s talent, and a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke."
The most charitable statement of the problem is that the American government is a victim of its own success. It has survived in more or less recognizable form over more than two centuries—long enough to become mismatched to the real circumstances of the nation.
Over the past 222 years, our government has become diseased by a "buildup of systemic plaque". Fallows gives the obvious example of the Senate where it serves as a "deep freeze" for any progressive change coming from the House and is a "dead weight". He notes that Senate representation gives disproportionate power to sparsely populated states.
The Senate was part of the intricate compromise over regional, economic, and slave-state/free-state interests that went into the Constitution... No one would propose such a system in a constitution written today, but without a revolution, it’s unchangeable. Similarly, since it takes 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster on controversial legislation, 41 votes is in effect a blocking minority. States that together hold about 12 percent of the U.S. population can provide that many Senate votes.
While Fallows observation is not unique, but it underscores how small an obstacle a minority party can be to effectively block any change. The American system has irrevocably empowered the minority to dictate the future of the majority and the Senate is the key to the minority's power. He writes:
The most charitable statement of the problem is that the American government is a victim of its own success. It has survived in more or less recognizable form over more than two centuries—long enough to become mismatched to the real circumstances of the nation.
The United States is failing to adapt to the challenges facing the country. Fallows sees Americans as having an increasingly difficult time "focusing on issues beyond the immediate news cycle, and an increasing gap between the real challenges and opportunities of the time and our attention, resources, and best efforts."
Fallows outlines what he sees as the options we may have to fix our failed government.
He rules out "an enlightened military coup" because there is no leader currently in the military that could bring this about. Nor is a "plutocrats' coup" likely either for probably an obvious, but unwritten reason: the U.S. government as-is works for the plutocrats.
"There is no chance for constitutional amendments to make the Senate more representative," Fallows writes, "since the same small states that would lose power can block any change." And while a constitutional convention could be called, Fallows writes "that would be my cue to move back to China for good".
He dismisses as impossible that the U.S. would switch to a parliamentary system or see the rise of a viable third party.
The last, best chance for change was the terrorist attacks of 2001, but instead of "what could have been a moment to set our foreign policy and our domestic economy on a path for another 50 years of growth", Bush, Cheney, and a complacent Congress "created problems that will probably take another 50 years to correct."
We are left with two choices according to Fallows:
Doing more, or doing less. Trying to work with our flawed governmental system despite its uncorrectable flaws, or trying to contain the damage that system does to the rest of our society. Muddling through, or starving the beast...
Our only sane choice is to muddle through. As human beings, we ultimately become old and broken and dysfunctional—but in the meantime it makes a difference if we try.
Fallows advocates we accept our systemically flawed system and "improvise and strive to make the best of the path through our time—and our children’s, and their grandchildren’s—rather than succumb."
Muddling through has worked us before. Fallows concludes: "America has been strong because, despite its flawed system, people built toward the future in the 1840s, and the 1930s, and the 1950s... They worked within its flaws and limits, which made all the difference. That is the bravest and best choice for us now."
So, while "muddle through" is not inspirational, but it is a sober acknowledgment that our nation cannot simply progress past the U.S. Senate solely on rhetorical "hope" and "change". The path ahead is difficult as ever, so we can either give up, or muddle through.
"Muddle through" may just be the best rallying cry a weary and cynical person, such as myself, needs to fight on in 2010 and beyond. In other words, don't let the bastards grind us down.