Welcome to part two of my two-part series comparing American democracy with the rest of the world, based on the modern classic of comparative politics
Patterns of Democracy (2nd edition) by Arend Lijphart (rhymes with pipe-heart), published in 2012. Yes,
part one is very long (and very fascinating, I’m told), but you don’t need to read it unless you want to, because I’ll briefly summarize the parts you need to understand.
In his book, Lijphart classifies democracies into two broad categories, based on the question: who should the government be responsive to when the people are in disagreement? The answer provided by the
majoritarian model of democracy is that government should be responsive to a majority of the people, or often in practice, a plurality of the people. In contrast, the
consensus model of democracy accepts support from the majority as only a
minimum requirement, and instead seeks to foster broad participation in government and broad agreement on policies.
There are two complementary approaches to building a consensus democracy (or building a majoritarian democracy, if the antithesis of each approach is used). The first, the
joint-power approach, seeks to broadly share power
within institutions, for example multiparty systems, proportional representation, and coalition cabinets. In contrast, the
divided-power approach diffuses power
across separate institutions, for example across central and regional governments (federalism), upper and lower houses of the legislature (bicameralism), independent central banks, and constitutional courts with the power of judicial review.
Note that these two approaches are complementary, not mutually exclusive. A democracy can embrace both joint-power and divided-power approaches, reject both, or embrace one while rejecting the other. As such, every democracy can be roughly divided into one of 4 quadrants. Here is a table displaying a prototypical democracy from each quadrant.
| joint-power | non-joint-power |
non-divided-power | Israel | UK |
divided-power | Switzerland | USA |
The United States’ approach to democracy almost uniformly rejects joint-power, while embracing divided-power, so we sit somewhere between a majoritarian democracy like the UK and a consensus democracy like Switzerland. In the last post I discussed non-joint-power in the United States, and in this post I’ll be covering divided-power.
At the end, I’ll finish up with Lijphart’s conclusions on the effectiveness of consensus democracy vs. majoritarian democracy in general (spoiler: consensus democracy is better), and I’ll give my thoughts on the future of democratic institutional reform in the United States.
Divided-power in the United States
Let’s take another look at Lijphart’s conceptual map of democracy (democracies further to the left embrace the joint-power approach, while those toward the bottom embrace divided-power). As you can see from the conceptual map, out of the 36 sufficiently large and long-lived democracies in Lijphart’s sample, the United States ranks as a very close second to Germany in its strong approach to divided-power. Other notable divided-power democracies include Australia, Argentina, Canada, and Switzerland, with Switzerland being the joint-power black sheep of the group (Germany is also joint-power, but not to the same extent).
Lijphart describes five institutions that can be used to build a divided-power democracy, and the United States has fine examples of all of them.
- A federal government instead of a unitary government
- A bicameral legislature instead of a unicameral legislature.
- A rigid constitution that can only be changed by an extraordinary majority, as opposed to a flexible constitution that can be changed by a simple majority.
- A Supreme Court with the power to review legislation, rather than the legislature having the final say on the constitutionality of its own legislation.
- A central bank that is independent from the executive, as opposed to a central bank that is controlled by the executive.
Let’s talk about each of these aspects of divided-power, and how they are implemented in the United States in comparison to the rest of the world.
An exceptionally strong federalism
At its most basic, federalism means that there is a guaranteed division of power between central and regional governments. But how do we guarantee that such a division of power remains stable? There are typically three institutions that serve that purpose. Notice that these are the same as 2, 3, and 4 in the list of divided-power institutions above.
- A bicameral legislature with a strong second chamber dedicated to representing the regions of the federation.
- A written constitution outlining the federal division of power. To keep the division of power stable this constitution needs to be rigid, meaning that it should be difficult to amend.
- A supreme or constitutional court that can protect the constitution with the power of judicial review, meaning that the court has the final say on the constitutionality of executive and legislative actions.
What is federalism good for though? Federalism is particularly well suited to very large countries (in terms of both population and geographic size), and to very diverse countries (in terms of religions, ethnic groups, languages spoken, etc.).
The United States is the second most populous democracy in the world, with the first being India, which is also federal. The least populous federation is Switzerland, though it is still relatively large, being approximately in the middle of Lijphart’s 36 countries ranked by population.
In terms of diversity, the US is only semi-diverse according to Lijphart’s classification, and in any case, state lines are not and probably could not be drawn with regard to separate racial, ethnic, and religious groups, as they can be in some other countries.
In the case of India, a highly diverse society, British colonial authorities drew administrative lines without regard for linguistic differences, an unfortunate situation which was not corrected until the 1950’s, providing additional representation for linguistic minorities. Canada and Switzerland are other examples of federations with regional lines drawn (at least roughly) to contain cultural and linguistic minorities.
It’s not common, but for diverse societies it’s also possible to have federal territories that are not defined geographically, for example Belgium’s three cultural communities.
There is another possible purpose of federalism, and that is to allow the regions to experiment with different forms of government. In practice, however, regional governments tend to be extremely similar to the central government. If you’ve ever wondered why almost every US state has a bicameral legislature, even though state governments are not federal and some states are extremely small, then there’s your answer: there is no good reason, except that it mirrors the form of the central government. Presidentialism, too, has leaked into the states, with governors essentially acting as presidents for each state, despite the flaws of presidentialism I went over in the first post.
There has been some experimentation with electoral systems among the states, for example ranked choice voting for congressional and presidential elections in Alaska and Maine and for local elections in many other states. There has only been one notable exception when it comes to majority/plurality electoral systems, in the state of Illinois, which used
cumulative voting (a semi-proportional method) for its lower house from 1870 to 1980.
Another notable case outside of the USA is Australia, with the state of Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory using the single-transferable-vote form of proportional representation for electing their regional assemblies, unlike the Australian House of Representatives and the regional lower houses of every other Australian state which all use ranked choice voting, a majority/plurality voting method. However, single-transferable-vote is far from unheard of in Australia, as it is also used to elect the national Senate.
Of course, in the United States there has been a great degree of experimentation with state laws, including of taxation, drug prohibition, environmental regulations, etc. This has allowed some states to learn from the experiments of others, and at times has allowed certain states to lag far behind the others, depending on your perspective.
Bicameralism taken too far?
Bicameralism, meaning the division of the legislature into two differently constituted chambers, is closely associated with federalism, as the purpose of the second chamber is typically to give additional representation to the regions of the federation. In Lijphart’s sample, all 9 of the federal countries are bicameral, while only about half of the 27 remaining non-federal countries are bicameral. The unicameral countries tend to have smaller populations. Worldwide, about ⅔ of countries are unicameral.
Typically, the first chamber tends to be the more important of the two, with the second chamber in a subordinate role, though there are notable exceptions: the United States, Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, and Uruguay all have chambers with approximately equal powers, or arguably in the case of the United States, greater powers. Second chambers that are directly elected tend to be more powerful, as direct election gives the second chamber additional democratic legitimacy and thus greater political influence, which is true for the five countries with powerful second chambers except for Switzerland, where most but not all members of the second chamber are directly elected.
Some less important differences are that the first chamber also tends to be the larger one (with the only exception being the British House of Lords). Terms of office tend to be longer in second chambers, and second chambers tend to have staggered elections.
One of the most important differences is that second chambers are often designed to overrepresent certain minorities, the most common example being the overrepresentation of regions with smaller populations, as seen in federalism.
In this table you can see the degree to which different countries overrepresent the smaller regions. The three countries with the greatest degree of overrepresentation of smaller regions are Argentina, the United States, and Switzerland. These are also countries where all regions have equal representation in the second chamber regardless of population size. The same is true of Australia, which ranks 5th on the chart. In the United States, a staggering 10% of the best represented voters control 39.7% of the seats in the Senate. Other countries like Germany and Canada give greater, but not equal, representation to smaller regions, while Belgium gives only slight overrepresentation to its French and German-speaking minorities.
In the United States the second chamber has some unique powers, such as ratifying treaties and confirming members of the federal judiciary, that the first chamber does not have. This, combined with the Supreme Court being one of the most powerful activist courts in the world, has produced an unusual situation where a minority controls an arguably more powerful second chamber. And the situation is only getting worse:
by 2040, two-thirds of Americans will be represented by only 30% of the Senate. Having a bicameral legislature with special representation for smaller regions is an important guarantor of federalism, but as we can see from other countries like Canada, Australia, and Germany, the amount of overrepresentation seen in the United States is not necessary to maintain a strong form of federalism. Only time will tell whether the United States can maintain a stable and legitimate government in a state of continually strengthening minority rule.
The most rigid constitution in the world
A rigid federal constitution is another important guarantor of federalism, and the United States has the least flexible constitution in the world, with two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate as well as the approval of 3/4ths of the states being required to pass a constitutional amendment. There are several other countries where supermajorities are required,
as you can see in this table, but not to the same degree as in the United States. It is one of the reasons the United States has the shortest written constitution in the world at 4,400 words, despite being one of the oldest constitutions.
Having a constitution is not itself enough to guarantee federalism, an institution is also needed to defend the constitution. Independent courts with the power of judicial review fulfill that purpose, and the United States has one of the most vigorous federal courts,
as you can see in this table. The German Constitutional Court arguably ranks in second place. Judicial review is particularly strong in several other countries besides the USA and Germany: India, and recently, Canada, Costa Rica, and Argentina. When it comes to the United States, Lijphart notes that, “The activist American courts and the Supreme Court in particular have been accused of forming an ‘imperial judiciary.’”
A rigid constitution and the courts with independent review to back it up are an important anti-majoritarian device, while having a flexible constitution and no judicial review allow unrestricted majority rule. The UK is a prime example of majority rule, and is also one of only 3 democracies of Lijphart’s 36 with no written constitution, the other 2 being New Zealand and Israel. Switzerland is an odd outlier, being an otherwise completely consensual democracy with no judicial review, despite having a strong form of federalism. Perhaps this demonstrates that judicial review is helpful, but not essential, to maintaining federalism.
The paradox of the US Supreme Court
As explained in the last section, activist courts with the power of judicial review are an anti-majoritarian device, but the US Supreme Court is majoritarian in its makeup in almost every respect, in contrast to the German Constitutional Court and the Indian Supreme Court which follow a more consensual pattern.
One example of the Supreme Court’s majoritarianism is its small number of justices, only 9, compared with 16 in Germany and 29 in India. This places a hard limit on the amount of broad representation of different population groups on the Supreme Court. A second majoritarian aspect is that justices are chosen by majority in the Senate, unlike the two-thirds majorities required in both German chambers. The court itself makes decisions by majority, which increases the power of the court to make decisions, but decreases the consensual nature of the decision-making.
There are a couple more reasons the Supreme Court is majoritarian in its makeup: one is that vacancies are filled as they occur, allowing majorities to sequentially pick their favorites, whereas if justices were chosen as a group it would be more likely for minorities to be chosen. A second reason is that US justices have very long terms, which tends to be an obstacle to broad representation in an evolving society. In Germany and India, justices have mandatory retirement ages of 68 and 65, respectively, and in Germany they are chosen to 12 year non-renewable terms.
This paradox of a consensual institution with majoritarian rules is seen not only in the Supreme Court, but in many other institutions of American democracy. The presidency, for example, represents a division of power between the executive and legislative, an expression of divided-power, while the presidency itself, a single person elected by majority, is the antithesis of consensus decision making.
One of the most independent central banks… at least until the 90’s.
Central banks are crucial policy-making institutions, particularly when they are strong and independent. Having a strong and independent central bank is an important aspect of the divided-power approach to building a consensus democracy (recall that an independent central bank is one of the five divided-power institutions enumerated above).
The most important duty of central banks is making monetary policy – the regulation of interest rates and the supply of money, which in turn has effects on price stability, inflation, unemployment, economic growth, and the business cycle.
According to the Cukierman Index of Independence, central banks are at their most independent when they have exclusive jurisdiction over monetary policy and their only or primary task is to maintain price stability. Central banks may be less strong when they have multiple, possibly conflicting goals, such as both price stability and full employment. Other important aspects of bank independence are the independence of the bank’s governor from the executive, and when the bank is in full control of the terms of lending to the central government.
Until around 1994, central bank independence was strongly correlated with federalism, another important divided-power institution, and the five central banks with the greatest independence were all federal systems: Germany, Switzerland, the United States, Austria, and Canada.
As you can see in this table (
continued here), these five banks reigned supreme as the most independent central banks in the world for 50 years, from 1945 to 1994.
After 1994, many European central banks became remarkably more independent as a condition for participating in the euro, per the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, for example the Spanish, French, and Italian central banks which all increased by approximately .5 on the Cukierman Index in 1994, easily surpassing the United States. The establishment of the European Central Bank in 1998 and the adoption of the euro transformed the central bank for those countries into an element of the international system. After that, the correlation between federalism and central bank independence shrank considerably, as the central bank was no longer a domestic institution, following the same divided-power approach as the rest of the domestic government.
The United States, in contrast, has remained completely static from 1945 until the present day, with a Cukierman Index of .56, putting it in 17th place among Lijphart’s 36 major democracies as of 2010. It’s beyond the scope of Lijphart’s book, and my own expertise, to say whether this has had any effect on economic growth or the ability of the Federal Reserve to maintain price stability, compared to EU countries.
Categorizing democracies using joint-power and divided-power
I want to talk about how majoritarian and consensus democracies perform in practice in the next section, but first, I would be amiss if I didn’t mention what Liphart describes as “one of the most important general findings of this book”, which is that the five variables representing divided-power tend to be clustered with one another, and also the five variables representing joint-power tend to be clustered with one another.
For example, democracies which are federalist also tend to have bicameralism, constitutional rigidity, judicial review, and central bank independence (that last one only prior to 1994), all examples of divided-power institutions. Likewise, democracies with a lower percentage of minimal winning one-party cabinets also tend to have more political parties, less executive dominance, more proportional election systems, and greater interest group pluralism, all important divided-power institutions.
Take a look at this factor analysis for a more precise picture. The numbers may be thought of as the correlation coefficient between the variable and factor 1 and 2, which represent joint-power and divided-power, respectively.
Meanwhile, between the two approaches, joint-power and divided-power, there is very little correlation, for example federalism is not well correlated with the number of political parties. The United States is a perfect example of mixing the two approaches, as it closely adheres to the divided-power approach, while rejecting joint-power. These correlations are of immense interest to comparative political scientists, because it represents a useful way to categorize democracies along two dimensions.
How is it that democracies end up embracing either of the two approaches?
Taking another look at the conceptual map, one of the most striking patterns is that countries on the right side, the non-joint-power side, tend to be former British colonies, with some exceptions such as Argentina, Costa Rica, Greece, Spain, South Korea, and France. As Lijphart notes: “France is an especially interesting exceptional case: in view of French president de Gaulle’s deeply felt and frequently expressed antagonism towards
les anglo-saxons, it is ironic that the republic he created is the most Anglo-Saxon of any of the continental European democracies.” The left side of the map, in contrast, includes most of the continental European democracies, and all five of the Nordic countries, which have a common Scandinavian cultural heritage of consensus decision making and arbitration.
There are some exceptions on the left side as well (the joint-power side): Ireland, India, Israel, and Mauritius all were formerly under British colonial rule, the difference is that these are highly plural societies, where majoritarianism and its associated non-joint-power approach just do not work well in practice, often leading to sectarian violence, as I explained in the first post.
What about the divided-power approach, signified by the bottom of the conceptual map? As explained earlier in this post, the size of the country (both in terms of population and geographic size), as well as diversity, are significantly correlated with the divided-power approach. In other words, the countries embracing divided-power tend to be larger and more diverse.
Wrapping up: majoritarian vs. consensus democracy
So how do majoritarian and consensus democracies stack up in practice? The conventional wisdom is that majoritarian democracies are less representative of the population, but are more decisive, and therefore better at governing effectively. Lijphart argues that faster decisions are not always wiser decisions, in fact the opposite is often true, and policies that are supported by broad consensus are more likely to be successfully implemented. He also observes that non-joint-power democracies like the United States have the disadvantage of frequently flip-flopping between contrasting policies whenever government control changes hands from one party to the other.
Lijphart runs a regression on 17 indicators of government performance, such as government effectiveness, rule of law, and control of corruption, and finds that the joint-power approach is favorably correlated to a statistically significant degree with 9 out of 17 of them, while non-joint-power is only correlated with economic growth, but not to a statistically significant degree. In general, all of the correlations with economic variables are weak, such as with unemployment, budget balance, and economic freedom. Divided-power, meanwhile, has such weak correlations with all of the government performance variables that no firm conclusions can be drawn.
Lijphart concludes that while joint-power democracies are not necessarily proven better than majoritarian democracies at all aspects of governing, they are almost certainly not worse, as the conventional wisdom goes, and along many aspects they are significantly better.
One major exception is that when it comes to the control of violence, joint-power is very strongly correlated with a lower degree of violence, an intuitive result considering the discussion in my first post of the incompatibility between majoritarianism and diverse societies, as exemplified by Northern Ireland.
Consensus democracy: the “kinder, gentler” democracy
Consensus democracies may not always be superior decision makers, but Lijphart is able to draw other conclusions on the tendencies of joint-power democracies, but not so much on divided-power. He finds that joint-power democracies are more likely to be welfare states, have a better record of protecting the environment, put fewer people in prison and are less likely to have the death penalty, and are more generous with economic assistance to developing nations.
When it comes to putting people in prison, the United States is such an extreme outlier among other democracies that Lijphart found it necessary to remove it from the analysis, but still, the effect of joint-power on incarceration rates was strongly negative and statistically significant. The USA has 743 prisoners per hundred thousand people, twice as many as the next democracy in Lijphart’s analysis, the Bahamas. Even extending the analysis to non-democracies, the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with either Russia or China in second place, depending on the survey.
When it comes to government effectiveness and “kinder, gentler” policies in general, the problem with all of these correlations, as Lijphart points out, is that culture may be a confounding variable, and “consensus democracy may not be able to take root and thrive unless it is supported by a consensual political culture.” But he offers hope that the cause-and-effect may go both ways: consensual democratic institutions may have the effect of making an adversarial political culture more consensual. Switzerland and Austria have not always had a consensual culture, their histories being marked by violent strife, while today Belgium, India, and Israel have adversarial cultures and consensual institutions. One hopes that over time those country’s institutions will have a positive effect on their contentious political cultures.
Where does the United States go from here?
The bad news is that the United States is probably not going to change one bit along the joint-power and divided-power dimensions. Some few countries have made a move towards federalism over time, and even more rarely a handful of countries such as New Zealand have moved towards proportional representation and a joint-power approach, but in general all democracies have been extremely stable along the joint-power and divided-power dimensions from 1945 to 2010, especially the United States, with its exceptionally rigid constitution. The bottom line: if you’re an American looking for a relatively “kinder, gentler” democracy with more proportional political representation, your best bet is to pack your bags.
However, if you are ever in the extraordinary position of framing a new constitution or amending one, my advice is to learn from our experience and the experience of other democracies around the world: avoid presidentialism like the plague, embrace the parliamentary system, and adopt a proportional electoral system. This advice is doubly important for highly diverse societies, where majoritarianism (particularly of the non-joint-power variety) frequently leads to violence.
submitted by Rewatched Veep recently for what I think was the third time? Either way, it left me with some thoughts
- Sue was a lot less featured than I thought. Most episodes had her with minor dialogue in a few scenes only, and there were only a handful that had her with a largish part in the plot (the hostage episode, and the garbage one too), whereas most characters had their day in the limelight, at minimum. Of course some characters will always be minor, but she probably has less total screentime than Furlong. Glad she was back for the finale.
- Testimony was interesting because of the outside view of all of this, and shows the public perception of all the characters. Ben in particular presented as especially charismatic, which was quite something.
- I don't know if this was an Easter egg or not, but Montez goofed up the oath - its '...office of president...' but she said '...the office of the president...', which I thought was odd that it wasn't explicitly mentioned, but I'm willing to be it was difficult to put into the 5-minutes of tightly packed plot conclusion
- I found it odd that Tom James asked to be Treasury Secretary when he did, on election night, whereas it would've made sense to ask Selena after she wins (as she'd be at her happiest), as opposed to when the most powerful woman in the world is at her most tense
- I'm also surprised there wasn't a large deal made over the Electoral College itself, given literally one faithless elector could've been bribed to swap votes and decide the presidency, whereas it wasn't mentioned at all at all.
- Selena's actual political acumen is rarely mentioned, and we only get glipses of it (her postal commission reducing waste in the postal service, her 'successful' raid on the wedding that killed the target). As TV Tropes puts it, its more of an informed ability than anything directly displayed, which unfortunately contributes to it seeming like a 'comedy of errors' at times than an incisive look into the political backrooms. Each of her major attempts are defeated - both Clean Jobs and the (Mommy) Meyer Bill effectively leave her with no major legacy in her first four years in the West Wing.
- One of her issues is having no office in the West Wing (something we're told in a flashback around S6 or S7, I believe?), though Seasons 2 and 3 have her team operating out of an (albeit smaller) office in the West Wing from time to time, which is sort of confusing.
- Given the timeline of politics puts Selena as entering politics in the mid-1990s, she was probably elected to Congress first around the Year of the Woman in 1992. This isn't meant to sound crude or dismissive, but her description of her experience of sexism in politics (such as in the S7 debate) would likely be something more associated with a career in politics in the 70s or 80s. Though not to dismiss a lived experience or anything.
- The progression of women in politics is pretty interesting to comprehend - given this version of 2020s America has had two (three?) female presidents and a female vice president, and every election since 2012 has had a woman on the ticket. Even their 2020 election had two women at the top of the ticket. This has progressed to the point that having a two-woman ticket isn't entirely unthinkable, which is a pretty remarkable step up.
- I live in a country that is not the USA, so our scandals are more of the 'politician leaked a document' or 'minister fell asleep in parliament' type, as opposed to the far, far larger threats current America has, so it may have aged better for my own viewing than for other people's viewing.
- Catherine is at her most interesting when its shown that she's far more like her mother than we'd be led to believe; this is at its best in the second last episode when her and Majorie decide to get married in Europe after all, which sort of rerails her character a bit. She's really easy to feel sorry for, and usually hits a lot of those moments where you just want Selena to do the right thing for once (she doesn't).
- It's rather hilarious seeing that Selena's friends are all as stuck-up as she is; insulting her political skills to her face, not inviting her to a wedding, etc. Its not a stretch to imagine all of them were merely friends because the pressures of Law School brought them together, and find it difficult to maintain a friendship outside of that.
- The show, in my opinion, moves into the flow of 'Election TV' far to quickly, and moves away from an interesting premise too early in its run, to something that is often seen in other shows (Scandal, House of Cards, etc). Not that it isn't still top-tier television, but its just a bit off, looking back in retrospect.
- Helsinki and London visits are rather interesting episodes, and show off the common Vice Presidential duty of foreign visits and funerals that the president doesn't want to attend. (Also, though I could be wrong on the specifics, the USA is attempting to negotiate a trade agreement with Finland, where as an EU member state, the USA would only be able to reach an agreement with the EU as a whole, not individual member states. Plot hole?)
- Could the 'squeaks' from her shoes in the inaugural address even be audible to the general public? They were no louder than her voice, so surely would be less detectable from far away from the microphone. Also, would the technician guys not have a lick of sense and at least mute the microphones until she actually got to the podium?
- I feel like using the party colors was a bit of an unnecessary giveaway, I would've liked to see the election map lit up with orange and cyan or something interesting. Also, I do believe they mention the GOP at one point, just as an aside. My own view on the parties, which explains things like Jonah's base and Montez wanting to ban for-profit prisons is that politics are akin to Ireland's, where one party (Selena's) is a liberal party with a large conservative/traditionalist wing, and the other is a party of the neoliberal center. This would also explain the scope of the president to be able to woo members of the opposing political party in the House vote, which otherwise is a bit immersion-breaking.
- I understand this point is a bit of looking back and scoffing, but how and why was the economy so dramatically upset because of uncertainty in the race? Fundamentally both parties are different flavors of the same soup, so I wouldn't expect the markets to be as spooked as they were, especially given that its weathered greater storms (like the present). It's probably nowhere near comparable to their given analogue of the 2008 crash, which was caused by fundamental issues with lending practices, not 'uncertainty'.
- The scene with Congresswoman Nickerson is one of the best takedowns in television, and I'm glad they channeled that energy into the scene in the finale with Tom's Amy.
- I watched the cut scenes of Catherine's Documentary on the YouTube, and I sorta wish they made a long-form version of that episode, as its simply brilliant, and an interesting shift away from their usual format.
- I forgot how funny the 'Hey Grimace' line is from Furlong.
- Freeing Tibet is one of the major actual successes which she engages in (and which almost justifies her typical bad behavior to Catherine). However, Montez getting the Peace Prize is a bit mad given she had no involvement (I understand, its a plot point), but she had no part in signing the actual agreement. After Selena leaves office, there's no benefit to her from keeping it secret anymore, especially when such a major legacy achievement is on the line; given that one (Tibet) significantly outweighs the other (leaking her tweet coverup), there's no real reason why she'd keep it a secret while remaining in-office either, or go to such extremes in her post-presidency either. I understand a throwaway line from Jane McCabe on how it was very big of her to keep quiet at such a critical juncture, I still can't see any reason she kept it hidden so long.
- Another plot question - if Mina was in a sexual relationship with a candidate in the Georgian election, how was she allowed to not only be a supervisor, but a direct overseer from the UN? Do they not have self-declaration forms for this kinda thing?
- I bet Montez wishes she appointed Selena to the Supreme Court after all.
- Shawnee Tanz is a fantastic character, and represents an interesting Ellen Wilson-style figure of when the more powerful half of a political couple isn't the politician, an archetype totally absent from the show before S6.
- Season 7 is noticably rushed, which is a shame, but is understandable given the health problems JLD had. Plot elements are dropped, like Amy's abortion, which could've been rather interesting if properly fleshed out (wonder are there any extended fan-written interpretations out there?). Others, like Richard's political rise, are solid plotlines, but just happen far too rapidly. Otherwise its a pretty interesting season, even if it does tread a lot of the same ground that Seasons 3 and 4 do. Most of Selena's attitudes are very scorched earth, which doubtless made it more of a tense campaign than is depicted; with election rigging to Selena even using a slogan that is a direct attack on a fellow candidate.
- The finale also poses the question of Selena being too proud to ask Kemi to be her running mate (assuming Kemi would go for it; she was pretty close to Selena in delegate totals), and only considering her immediately before Kemi goes nuclear on CNN. This is aided by the fact two-female tickets are a bit more feasible in this America, of course.
- After Selena and Jeff Kane successfully browbeat Jonah into accepting the VP position, it does raise the question as to why they didn't just try browbeat him into accepting AgSec or something minor; he doesn't have Shawnee Tanz to back him up anymore, though I do wish she had stuck around.
- I understand people make criticisms of Veep S7 looking too much like a direct Trump parallel, though I think it's because we've largely forgotten the parallels to the Obama administration that early seasons have - from questioning Chung's citizenship, to the Michelle Obama-Selena link of being a powerful and capable woman stuck with dealing with obesity, not a major issue. My only issue would be Amy physically resembles Kellyanne Conway too much, but though I suspect once the Trump administration fades into obscurity, it'll end up being seeming less of a direct parody.
- I wish someone did a 'fashion analysis' of Veep, as I've seen some good ones of Mean Girls and the like, so that would be entertaining to watch.
- Selena's personality evolves throughout the series, going from 'abrasive and jilted, yet well-meaning public servant' to 'someone desperate for a last grasp at power'. In that, the ending scene of S6 works incredibly well as a 'the gang is back for one last blast' type scene. The ending part of the convention scene works incredibly well to that regard, where she individually sells out each and every ideal and person that's important to her. What really gets me, is that its nothing she hasn't done before either, its just a really condensed and focused impact of what's happened throughout her career; she defamed Tom James with the assault allegation in the same way she fueled the Chung torture rumor; she sells out her daughter in the way that she's, well, done it all of Catherine's life; minor details like drilling rights on federal lands are an easy mirror of past sell-outs like support for a border wall; though of course Gary takes the absolute cake, and its a fantastic finale for that reason.
- I do question how on earth she actually banned same-sex marriage - if both parties are at least moderated somewhat, there's no political use in banning same-sex marriage; even Buddy Calhoun doesn't represent a large enough slice of the pie that she can't avoid appeasing them. I suppose its one way of cementing her repulsion of Catherine, but it seemed sorta superfluous. Also, the fact it may well take a constitutional amendment, too?
- While obviously the general idea of the Oval Office scene was to hammer home how lonely it is at the top, she could well 'resurrect' at least part of her team if she had the willpower - Amy would likely jump at the chance to be free of Jonah, and Dan could well be bought/bribed back with some form of access to power or money. Not to mention how Jonah and Richard are still part of the cabinet, and Sue is unfixingly changed. Sure, she's lonely, but its not an immovable situation.
Anyway, this was far longer than I intended. 9/10
submitted by The New York Times has a paywall. Here is the article:
In “Unpregnant
,” the HBO bildungsroman released this month, the plot revolves around a 17-year-old heroine who travels from
Missouri to Albuquerque — a road trip of 1,000 miles — because that’s the nearest place she can get an abortion without parental consent. Watching it made me recall a conversation with a feminist friend, who shocked the hell out of me last year by saying that progressives were too focused on protecting Roe v. Wade.
Why? The argument is that we currently have the worst of both worlds. We’ve basically lost the abortion fight: If Roe is overturned, access to abortion will depend on where you live — but access to abortion
already depends on where you live. At the same time, we have people voting for Trump because he’ll appoint justices who will overturn Roe
. Maybe it is time to face the fact that abortion access will be fought for in legislatures, not courts.
I was shocked, but I could see the logic. It’s true that abortion access is already abysmal. The stressful road trip in “Unpregnant” is actually in some ways a best-case scenario; many women seeking abortions aren’t suburban teenagers without economic pressures or family responsibilities. Nearly 60 percent have
already had one child and nearly half live below the poverty level; some fear they’ll be fired if they take time off, particularly if they need to make two trips, as they must in the 26 states with
mandatory waiting periods.
The argument that the left has already lost the abortion fight reflects the fact that there’s no abortion clinic in
90 percent of American counties. This is the result of the highly successful death-by-a-thousand-cuts anti-abortion strategy, which has piled on restriction after restriction to make abortion inaccessible to as many American women as possible.
Chief Justice Roberts’s concurring opinion this summer in June Medical Services v. Russo — the one that mattered — was hailed as a surprise victory for abortion rights, but not by me. Justice Roberts refused to uphold Louisiana restrictions virtually identical to those the court struck down as unconstitutional just four years earlier, but clearly stated that his reluctance
was because of his respect for precedent. Anyone with their eyes open could see the justice signaling to abortion opponents to continue the process of eroding Roe v. Wade’s nigh-absolute protection of access to abortion during the first trimester by inventing new types of restrictions, which they have been remarkably creative in doing.
If Judge Amy Coney Barrett becomes the next Supreme Court justice, Justice Roberts’s vote will be irrelevant, anyway. And if things already looked pretty grim, now they look much worse:
Up to 21 states have passed laws banning or limiting abortions in ways that are currently unconstitutional. Many will go into effect immediately if Roe is fully overturned.
So what should we do now? Often forgotten is that R.B.G. herself had decided that Roe was a mistake. In 1992, she
gave a lecture musing that the country might be better off if the Supreme Court had written a narrower decision and opened up a “dialogue” with state legislatures, which were trending “toward liberalization of abortion statutes” (
to quote the Roe court). Roe “halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue,” Justice
Ginsburg argued. In the process, “a well-organized and vocal right-to-life movement rallied and succeeded, for a considerable time, in turning the legislative tide in the opposite direction.”
What Ginsburg called Roe’s “divisiveness” was instrumental in the rise of the American right, which was flailing until Phyllis Schlafly discovered the galvanizing force of opposition to abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. Schlafly wrote
the culture wars playbook that created the odd coupling of the country-club business elite with evangelicals and blue-collar whites. In exchange for business-friendly policies like tax cuts and deregulation, Republicans now allow these groups to control their agenda on religion and abortion. It’s hard to remember now but
this was not inevitable: abortion was
not always seen as the partisan issue it is today,
nor did evangelicals uniformly oppose abortion.
Whether or not R.B.G.’s assessment of Roe was correct, the best tribute we can pay to her is to do what she suggests: open up the kind of dialogue that occurred in Ireland, where young people knocked on grannies’ doors and persuaded them to vote to legalize abortion, which — much to the distress of the Catholic Church —
they did. (At the same time, activists galvanized to ensure that,
in the absence of a referendum, women throughout the country would have access to and knowledge about medication abortions.)
I don’t want Roe to be overturned, but if that happens, it could bring political opportunity. The emotional heat that surrounds abortion as an issue manages to obscure that the attitudes driving opposition to abortion actually reveal some surprising common ground with progressives on economic issues.
Non-elites often see elites’ obsession with abortion rights as evidence that they are slaves to ambition who don’t see that “family comes first.” But look closer and one can find embedded in this ideology
a powerful critique of capitalism: “I think we’ve accepted abortion because we’re a very materialistic society and there is less time for caring,” as one woman told the anthropologist Faye Ginsburg. The f
eminist historian Linda Gordon agreed: Those against abortion “fear a completely individualized society with all services based on cash nexus relationships, without the influence of nurturing women counteracting the completely egoistic principles of the economy.”
I’m still reluctant to embrace the “overrule and move on” strategy, but moving on may be our only choice. And if abortion stops playing such a role in presidential elections, then Democrats may fare better with the
19 percent of Trump voters who have bipartisan voting habits and warm feelings toward minorities; we know 83 percent of them think the economy is rigged in favor of the rich and 68 percent favor raising taxes on the rich.
Once their presidential vote is not driven by Supreme Court appointments, how many might decide to vote on economic issues? And what greater tribute could there be to R.B.G. than both a legislative restoration of abortion rights, and a new Democratic Party that can win — not just by a hair but by a landslide?
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