Maybe I am kind of slow to the party? I have come to a realization that sort of eluded me, or let’s say it escaped my attention in my mature years. As a young man I understood the catch phrases of the era (1960s and 1970s); we used to blame things on “the man” and we used to bemoan the operation of “the establishment”. The establishment of those days is the polar opposite of the “deep state” meme that is bandied about in right wing circles. The establishment of old, the idea was, held things in place and protected the status quo. Young radicals and professional radicals wanted change! By contrast, the deep state pushes the idea that a set of liberals are trying to undermine the status quo. Couldn’t be more different both in concept and rationale. While the idea of an establishment is well founded in political science, the idea of a “deep state” is entirely a right wing conspiracy theory, and it has been constructed with a specific goal, to distract people from the real radical right wing efforts to de-legitimize institutions, capture the State mechanisms and prevent majority rule. But let’s forget the conspiracy crap for a moment. Let’s look at the real operation of the establishment.
Two senators for every state ensures that the upper chamber of the Congress over-represents rural opinion in that body. Rural citizens have always been more reactionary, xenophobic, religious and conservative, and less well educated on average, than the typical citizen. So the establishment of the Senate as a protector of minority rights, and that the minority is anti-modern, is intentional by the Founders and something that will not change. Not in the short term anyway.
In presidential elections the operation of the Electoral College is another establishment feature that abstracts the popular vote by transforming it into a vote of “electors” each selected by their political party to reliably vote for the party’s candidate. For those who think this works well, we only need to look at how the number of Presidents being elected by less than a majority of the popular vote has always been a notable feature of selecting our highest office holder and seems to be, if anything, on the increase. So this is something else that won’t change.
The two-party system and the operation of primary elections establishes party fanatics and activists as the arbiters of who gets to run in the general election. Instead of a process focused on selecting the “best” candidate to put forward, this process ensures only that the most fervent (often meaning most extreme) person ends up the nominee. The primary system is ripe for ideologues to capture their party’s primary voters and thereby capture the choice of candidates. This may not seem like status quo being protected, but this aspect of party politics and the primary process have been a feature which groups have used to control parties throughout American history, whether it was the era of the party bosses in urban settings back in the day or more recently what we now see with the person who controls the primary process being the person who controls the party.
Without going into additional examples, I want to make the point that I raised in writing this. The establishment protects the status quo and the original intent of some of the Founders - those who distrusted the will of the people and the popular sentiment put these mechanisms into place on purpose. However this is not 1776 or even 1798; the world, and our population has changed in the over 200 years since ideas of protecting government from the people held sway. Our government is, or should be, a government of the people and the people should govern by majority rule. The operation of education, media and modernization ensure that a majority of our citizens are qualified to participate in government. But too many of our institutions are designed to protect minority rule and this is a problem for our system of government.
Serious democrats and dedicated progressives need to return to radicalism on the left and return to serious efforts at reform and re-institution of major government mechanisms. It is particularly important to re-look at how institutions, including at the State level, are anti-democratic and subject to capture by factions and demagogues. We need to ensure that the operation of our government is truly by a majority of the people and for the general welfare of all the people.