A path not to be taken

For more than two centuries, we Americans have wallowed in the belief that we are special. American exceptionalism has been bandied around much like a high-minded, near religious credo. No one else could measure up to our view of ourselves. Most of us felt that our high opinion of ourselves was well justified. In the past, our booming economy, the freedom our representative democracy brought to us, seemed to bear-out that we were in fact an exception to the presidential-led countries in the world's history. Most republics, headed by a president, had in the past, devolved into dictatorships.

In a recent interview by Wonkblog's, Dylan Matthews, of Juan Linz, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Social and Political Science at Yale University, Professor Linz raised concerns about America falling into the category of other democracies, many that had taken the path to dictatorship. His argument has merit and should cause us to take pause.

A major concern of the professor is that we have, as a country, lost our synergistic self-interest. In recent years we have fragmented into factional self-interest. Except on an infrequent basis, we rarely stand-up for the country. Our loyalties are regionalized, sometimes driven by one religion over another, one ethnic group, one race, one lifestyle, or by one or more of a number of identifiable separatist motives. It seems that we strive to highlight our differences versus celebrating our collective similarities. This factionalization is driving us to political grid-lock; grid-lock that will cripple any ability to govern the country.

With our current electoral process, grid-lock is more and more the inevitable outcome of our local, state and national elections. Majority rule is no longer operative. With the capability of state legislatures to modify voting districts, the House of Representatives has been gerrymandered into a completely dysfunctional law-making body. The Senate may be even worse with the militant use of the filibuster to thwart the will of the majority.

Elections become less and less an indicator of the will of the American people. In the recent 2012 election, the American people by considerable majority voted for the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives elections, yet the Republicans won a vast majority of the House elections ...gerrymandered districts was named by Republicans as the reason for the Republican win of the majority of House seats. In the Senate anytime the majority party has fewer than sixty votes, it becomes incapable of legislating.

When militant intransigence of the minority party in either the House or the Senate is added to the equation, the government effectively shuts down. It doesn't matter what the president chooses to do, the broken legislature can (and as we have seen) throttle the president and the will of the people ...even when the majority of the people have spoken (voted) in favor of the president's chosen path.

What can be the remedy to dysfunctional government? In many past democracies, a strong leader, with the aid of a supporting military has taken the power into his own hands.... In many of these cases, a military dictatorship is the resultant government. Hopefully, we in this country will come to our senses and avoid such a devastating path for our people.