Did Trump prove that governments with presidents just don’t work? By John Carey

Did Trump prove that governments with presidents just don’t work? By John Carey

Washington Post

By John M. Carey

John M. Carey is the Wentworth professor and the associate dean of faculty for the social sciences at Dartmouth College. He is a co-director of Bright Line Watch, which monitors threats to American democracy.

Feb. 5, 2021 at 1:07 a.m. GMT+9

Scholars have long warned that presidencies make partisan division worse — and invite coups.

Snow falls outside the White House on January 31, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

Snow falls outside the White House on January 31, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post)

Thirty years ago, a political scientist named Juan Linz wrote a series of influential essays articulating a link between presidencies and democratic backsliding, including by coup. In contrast to parliamentary systems, where legislators choose the chief executive (usually called a prime minister), presidential systems produce rival centers of power and reduce incentives for compromise, Linz argued. When the legislature and the president can each claim an electoral mandate, intractable differences might tempt one or the other to “knock on the barracks door” in search of military allies; a violent dissolution of democracy could be the result. Parliamentarianism, by contrast, provides a safety valve because the legislature has the ability to remove the executive, typically by simple majority vote. Even when things don’t get to the stage of full meltdown, presidencies tend to heighten tensions in polarized societies, Linz contended, encouraging extreme political views rather than compromise, and often producing political gridlock.

Did Donald Trump prove him right?

A professor at Yale who died in 2013, Linz wrote in an era not long after conflicts between presidents and legislatures had preceded military coups in Chile, Brazil and other Latin American countries, leading to brutal dictatorships. Scholars have debated the theory ever since, and, while Linz may have painted with an overly broad brush at times, his arguments hold up better than most middle-aged theories in political science.

The United States, with its long-lived presidential system, always posed a challenge for Linz. But the events of this month — in which a defeated president reluctant to leave office roused a mob that then attacked the national legislature — were precisely the kind of conflict he worried about. And there are many other echoes of Trump in Linz’s writings, which argue that the powerful presidency attracts a strongman personality who “will always find it hard to reconcile himself to being out of power for good.”

The United States may have avoided the worst possible outcome for a presidency, but other Linzian observations have fresh relevance today. He made the case that since you can run for president without climbing your way up a party ladder — unlike vying to be prime minister — the office appeals to outsider candidates with no allegiance to the political system, who can gain popularity by railing against that system, diminishing trust in it. Presidents are inclined to insist that they and not the fragmented legislature speak for “the people,” as a way of aggrandizing their power. (Trump’s “silent majority” and “real America” rhetoric fits this pattern.) At the same time, they have less incentive than a legislature to represent the interests of the minority party or parties. Unlike in a parliamentary system, there is no penalty for appointing toadies and hyperpartisan hacks to the Cabinet.    

True, constitutional structure is clearly not destiny. Chile, which Linz viewed as a victim of presidentialism’s failure for its 1973 coup and the dictatorship that followed, has experienced long periods of democracy under a presidency. (The country is currently rewriting its constitution after protests, but abolishing the office is not on the menu.) Costa Rica has maintained competitive elections, peaceful transitions of power and a functioning social safety net for more than 70 years, despite using a presidential system.

You also don’t have to search far to see parliamentary systems in crisis: There have been coups in Thailand in 2006 and 2014, democratic backsliding in India, and standoffs over government formation in Spain. In March, Israel will hold its fourth parliamentary election in the last two years because the previous three failed to produce stable governing coalitions.

Still, parliamentary democracies outperform presidential democracies on a host of metrics. They tend to have lower rates of poverty, economic inequality, criminal violence and corruption than do presidential democracies. All of that remains true even if you control for national wealth — a powerful driver of good outcomes.  

But if the United States, the oldest democracy in the world, had a presidential system, how perilous could it be? Linz pointed to two sources of American exceptionalism. First, he thought the American people were “overwhelmingly moderate.” In the U.S. system, he wrote, “anyone who makes alliances or takes positions that seem to incline him to the extremes is unlikely to win, as both Barry Goldwater and George McGovern discovered to their chagrin.”  

Linz also pointed to America’s “uniquely diffuse” political parties, each containing members with a wide variety of views, which facilitated ad hoc compromises on policy, both within Congress and between Congress and the president. But both of these observations now seem dated. Opinions may differ on what constitutes moderation, but few would now argue that extremism can never win in the United States. And even as Linz was writing, the era of flexible parties was approaching its end. Democrats and Republicans diverged in the 1990s, growing more internally unified and more hardened against each other (there are virtually no socially liberal Republican politicians, for example, or pro-life Democrats).

Amid ferocious polarization and gridlock, Linz’s explanations for why America was less dysfunctional than other presidential systems no longer apply, even in the absence of a coup.

For better or worse, the United States has the Constitution it does: We are not about to switch to a parliamentary model. So what lessons can we take from Linz that might help clarify the challenges we confront and the sorts of reforms that could help?

The key flaw of a presidential system is that it promotes rigidity and intransigence rather than a search for a middle ground with one’s adversaries. So reforms should target such all-or-nothing confrontations and promote compromise.

Reducing the stakes of controlling either the executive or legislative branch would be a step forward. As the judiciary’s power has expanded, for example, so have the consequences of nominating and confirming judges, particularly to the Supreme Court; this raises the premium that goes with winning the presidency, as well as controlling the Senate. The much-discussed proposal to limit justices to 18 years on the Supreme Court, staggered so that a vacancy occurs every second year, would reduce the stakes of high court appointments, cooling the attendant politics during elections and in the day-to-day operation of the Senate. Some of the proposals by congressional Democrats to strengthen oversight of the president — and punish executive-branch officials who participate in political activities — might also help rebalance the power arrangement between the two branches, reining in the imperial presidency.

The way we elect our legislators also encourages them to adopt extreme views. This was not always the case, but a series of developments — from demographic sorting (we tend to live near people who think like we do), to technological advances in the software used to draw electoral districts (which can worsen gerrymandering), to the nationalization of campaign fundraising networks — have aligned to reward politicians who cater to the wings of their parties. In districts that lean heavily blue or red, victory in a low-turnout party primary all but guarantees winning the general election, so the views of extreme voters carry more weight.

That might change if we shifted away from the system of single-winner districts, which are not constitutionally ordained. The statute requiring every member of Congress to be elected from a district represented by only one person dates only to 1967. Its repeal would would allow (but not require) experimentation with larger districts that could elect multiple winners, with two benefits. First, the fewer districts that must be drawn, the less the district mapping process would drive results, lowering the stakes of gerrymandering. Second, if three or four members were elected from a given district, more moderates who are currently winnowed by their parties’ winner-take-all primary elections would get elected to Congress. Predominantly blue districts might send a Republican or two to Washington, and red districts would elect some Democrats. Overall, there would be more opportunities for coalitions that look to the center rather than only to the extremes.

The 2020 election showed how profound the divisions of our presidential system really are. Still, pursuing multiple smaller-bore reforms that encourage compromise and electoral accountability is an achievable strategy. The nation stepped back from the brink last month (though “coup” is now part of our political discourse). But Trump’s presidency made clear that our system still encourages polarized clashes. Linz’s work provides a framework for understanding what has gone wrong in recent years — and offers clues for getting back on track.

Twitter: @johncarey03755