Okay, folks. I’m putting on my sociologist hat and telling you about legitimacy, and how the GOP has utterly rejected it today. (Also? I have a Ph.D. in this area and I did my dissertation on legitimacy, so I know what I’m talking about.)
We’ll start by defining some terms: governance, power, authority, and legitimacy.
Governance is the management of nation’s (or city’s, or state’s) people, resources, and decision-making power. It’s the ability to make binding decisions on the people in a population. Also, by doing this, the people who are governing can coordinate the activity of a nation (military, economic, etc.) and distribute resources and assign tasks to support the nation’s goals.
Power, quite simply, is the ability to make your own (or your group’s) concerns count and take precedence even when others resist.
Authority is the use of power when those who are subject to the authority consent to it.
Finally, legitimacy is an agreement among people that particular social objects (like laws) will be binding upon our actions, as groups as well as individuals.
Now let’s tie these ideas together.
Power must be legitimate in order for authority to be respected and obeyed in politics for any length of time. Think of legitimate power as the power that someone has a right to exert on you, while illegitimate power is the power someone has no right to exert on you. In an ideal system, a robber has no right to demand your money, but a judge imposing a fine does.
Illegitimate power can also be called coercion, where you are forced to do what the other person wants, whether you want to or not.
However - and read this carefully: The GOP has made it clear with its actions since Newt Gingrich declared war on the Democratic Party that its main goal is power, not governance.
Let’s talk about how we know this, and how today’s actions make it clear that our government is completely illegitimate.
Morris Zelditch of Stanford University was one of the top names in the field of legitimacy theory until his passing last year. Among other things, he worked on the legitimacy of government. In his research, he found four main criteria that must be present in order for political power (and authority) to be legitimate. These are called “consensus,” “impartiality,” “objectification,” and “consonance.”
First, consensus: The authority’s power and legitimacy come from norms that all members of the society hold. They’re rooted in what everyone considers good, right and proper.
Second, impartiality: The norms that the power is rooted in are considered “in the common interest,” or universal. They aren’t specific to one or two groups.
Third, objectification: The norms are considered to be matters of objective fact. They’re not seen as opinions.
Finally, consonance: The authority’s power is only used inside the boundaries of the norms that grant its power in the first place.
The GOP has now violated all four of these criteria. They are not governing. They are in it solely for power.
We had norms about what government was supposed to do - “of the people, by the people, for the people” - and “the people” were understood to mean ALL the citizens. Those have been destroyed by the GOP’s continual attempts (and more often than not, successes) at blocking many of “the people” from their votes and from their rights. The destruction of those norms undermines both consensus and impartiality.
With the GOP’s continual attacks on science and the law, the idea of objective fact has been destroyed. Now everything’s an opinion, and everyone has a “right” to their opinion. Many people even believe they have a right to have an opinion and to not have it be challenged. So much for “objectification” as a standard for legitimacy.
Finally, the GOP is doing everything it can to lend its political authority and power to churches - specifically, right-wing religious groups who want to destroy the rights of women, nonwhites, GLBTs, and many other marginalized groups. It’s stepping way, way, way outside the bounds of the consensus standard.
As of this morning, the GOP has made it clear that they don’t give a blue damn about the rule of law. They don’t care about anyone but their group. They don’t care about whether they’re perceived as legitimate. They just care about using their power to enrich themselves and their group - and not just in economic ways but in normative ways.
Their group is rich, straight, white, cisgender, “Christian” men. That’s their group. If you’re different in any way - you’re in trouble. They want women back in the kitchen, chained to their ovens and their children. They want gays back in the closet and in sham straight marriages. They want blacks back in the ghetto - and back in chains, if they can arrange it. They want Latinx people deported.
And if you’re not in their group, you’d better be ready to fight.
Now, history tells us that people who manage a government entirely to benefit their group never last very long. But they do last long enough to cause serious damage. At this point, the legitimacy of the Presidency and the Congress have already been destroyed. Now the Supreme Court has lost its legitimacy as well.
We are a failed state. It is going to take us a long, long time to rebuild.
Vote. Canvass your neighborhood. Make sure everyone you know is registered to vote, and make sure they vote on November 6.
Otherwise, we’re all screwed.
EDITED TO ADD: Thanks for the Rec List and Community Spotlight, folks! I didn’t expect this to take off like it did. I’m heading to bed, but I’ll check in tomorrow morning for sure!
