The Liberal Patriot Writes About Federalist Number 10 and Civic Pluralism

I re-read The Federalist  while in pretrial detention. I published my notes on Federalist 10 under Is Federalist 10 Still Valid? 9-19-2010, Part One; Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, and Part Six. The Liberal Patriot's What Can Federalist No. 10 Teach Us About Contemporary Politics? is more succinct, more current, and not written under the same conditions as my notes.

In political terms, however, we are quickly losing the Madisonian advantages of a pluralist system that protects the nation by enlarging and checking factional impulses and promoting the common good without circumscribing minority rights.

Instead of balancing interests, and forging compromises across factional lines, political competition today has virtually been extinguished across large parts of the country—and within the two parties themselves.

Consider this: there are only 11 states in the country in 2023 that are not under the unified control of one or the other party (Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Vermont) and only 4 states that will be seriously competitive in the 2024 presidential election (Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia). Likewise, one-party rule is increasingly the norm within states as most major metropolitan areas are run almost exclusively by Democrats and rural counties by Republicans.

In the absence of real political competition, Americans and their leaders have lost the commitment to value pluralism within many important institutions—most notably, the two major parties. Conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans used to be commonplace in American politics, but the former is now an endangered species and the latter nearly extinct. 

Also worth reading is A Path to Civic Pluralism

In simpler language, America is built on a basic principle of “live and let live” protected by a series of institutional checks and balances and divisions of governmental power to ensure that no one highly motivated group of people with specific beliefs or demands can “vex and oppress” others as Madison warned.

For both Madison and Rawls, the goal of political activity in a properly functioning pluralist system should never be to force others to bend the knee to one way of thinking, but rather to carve out spaces for people to live and think as they want with full and equal rights accorded to everyone.

 

This requires every citizen and political faction to accept some ground rules: (1) A constitutional framework of fair and equal rights for all, protected by the rule of law; (2) A basic commitment to value pluralism in life, mainly, “You have your views and I have mine, and even if I don’t agree with these views, I respect your right to hold them”; and (3) A pragmatic willingness among citizens and representatives to put aside their own values or interests at times to do things in concert with others and advance common goals.

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Resist social pressures to conform to narrow partisan beliefs and negative opinions of others with different views. Partisan politics today is little more than two petty and stupid high school cliques demanding conformity from people inside the group and demanding hatred of those outside of the group.

Who cares really? It’s fine for people to vote for Republicans or Democrats—or to vote for some other party or not to vote at all. We still have to find ways to tackle common economic and security challenges across party and ideological lines to be successful as a nation. No single party will ever fully dominate the other, nor should it.

Just vote for whoever you want to vote for and support whichever ideological faction you want. But remember: no one else is your enemy for supporting different political ideas, leaders, or parties.

I think there needs to a serious shock to those anti-democratic forces loose in the country. January 6 did not suffice. Trump's trials need to be made public. I think we need to change, strengthen the Constitution - dealing with gerrymandering at state and federal levels, term limit the Supreme Court, seem like good starting points to me. Popping the pimple passing itself off as Fox News, I think cannot hurt.

sch 8/13