When looking at rules in a dynamic system
It's important to note three things
first who to the rules govern
second who writes the rules
third who enforces those rules
For tabletop games
the rules govern the players
they're written by the game designer and they're enforced by the players sitting at the table
for console games the
Rules govern the players they're written by the designers
and are enforced by the computer
So what about the rules in politics
the rules that affect citizens most directly are written by Congress?
Veto checked by the President and then enforced by the courts
State and local laws follow similar paths
and this system works quite well as it separates the rules
Enforcement from the rules writing
and it doesn't allow the citizens to directly rewrite our own rules at whim
The rules that affect our politicians though are another matter all-together
Let's start with Congress
at the start of every session
the House and the Senate get to write their own rules
And they are in charge of enforcing those rules upon themselves
That might be raising some red flags in your head
and for good reason. It's not a very good system
But so saith the Constitution and thus here we are
The structure of our political game allows a chamber of Congress to create for themselves
Whatever rules they want
if they wished they could create a rule declaring that members of the opposing party
Must wear bunny ears around the clock
It would be silly but they could do it
thankfully social norms have thus far?
Prevented the most extreme abuses from happening
and stopped Congress from going full Calvinball
But those norms are getting chipped away at an alarming rate
the Senate filibuster is all but gone
debate has sometimes been limited to as few as 90 seconds and
Legislators are frequently not given enough time to even read a bill before having to vote on it
It's getting pretty shameful out there
and the executive branch is even worse
The executive branch actually gets to write the rules that govern the FBI
Which is the only investigative body that can effectively investigate the executive branch
add to that the president's essentially unlimited
power of federal pardons
and direct control of our nation's intelligence agencies and you can see why
Structurally, we have all sorts of rules related problems built into our system
Even political parties have this problem.
There is no mention of political parties in our Constitution
And while there is good evidence suggesting that men the founding fathers didn't want them in our political system
We do have them now
and they wield tremendous power.
Sorry, Hamilton
I know you tried
the rules governing the internal workings of political parties are wholly written and
Enforced by the party itself
and the two parties have developed their own sets of rules and dependently
This is why you see features like super-delegates in the Democratic Party rules
but not so much in the GOP
and as you might imagine
Allowing these groups to self govern their internal actions has some pretty serious consequences
Of course
you might
reasonably assume that at least when they interact with the rest of the government
these groups run into all of those checks and balances that
Keep things from getting out of hand
right,
and they do
Sort of
see the rules for how Congress the President and political parties interact when the rest of government
comes from the Constitution
Or were passed by Congress veto checked by the President
and then are enforced by the courts
Rules for the courts are mostly defined by the Constitution
and previous court rulings
and those rules governing the courts are enforced either by Congress through
Impeachment or are internally enforced
which obviously could have its problems
But so far it's worked out pretty well because the courts have historically been a much more distributed and diverse body than Congress
So yay that's working.
The courts will save us good job boys
You framed the heck out of that Constitution way to go
except here's the thing
in theory
Our government is made up of three competing branches
which have all sorts of checks
and balances against each other
That's the way it was designed to be
but in practice we don't have three competing branches of government
We actually have two competing political parties
spread out amongst those branches of government
and that makes enforcement of the rules
unpredictable and very inconsistent
for example
it's generally accepted that the high frequency of
Investigations into the Clinton presidency was purely a result
of partisan politics performed by a GOP held Congress
because once President Bush was elected and the White House switched to GOP hands
that zeal for
investigation suddenly vanished
the standards of congressional rule enforcement plummeted and
Unfortunately the courts
which have often been the final arbiter of rules in our system
have become increasingly
Partisan as well
from elected state judges to the Supreme Court
This problem is getting worse not better
And this has led us to a reality where when the branches of government are split between parties
over enforcement of rules
Renders the government unable to act when it needs to
and when one party controls all the branches of government
Enforcement virtually disappears
and that is when the real shenanigans start.
So you might hear all of this and ask
Why does this matter to you?
Well our government system of checks and balances between three co-equal branches
is falling apart and that's gonna have some dire
Consequences for all of us
if we allow our political parties to act entirely in their own best interest
We are doomed to an American system where the social norms of good governance
no longer exist, though
We do live in a majority rule system the checks and the balances built into that system
were designed to protect the minority
But those checks are dissolving.
I don't want to do the slippery slope thing
But in a very extreme case
We could reach a point where members of the minority party are made targets of the state
Now that sort of thing has not happened in America before but it has happened in other countries.
It's not science fiction
So what can we do about that
actually more than you think
see politics is a lot like a spectator sport
You might not know this but in sports
spectators are active participants in the rules writing and enforcement process
You want to know why hockey eliminated the two line pass
or why basketball adopted the three-point shot
or why football?
Decided to more tightly enforce existing
Rules on illegal hits
all of those patches to the rules were not made because the underlying games were broken
They were made to make the game better for spectators
in democracies
We have the built-in ability to make change with our votes,
but it doesn't stop there
Thankfully we have the ability to apply pressure all year long
not just during voting season
We have a well-protected set of freedoms that allow us the ability to apply pressure to our rules writers and our enforcers around the clock
We can lobby our officials
we can protest
we can raise awareness of bad and unenforced rules
We can do it all
by here's the tough part and you've heard me say it before
if you want to make the game better
You have to be willing to call fouls on your own team
And that's really hard to do in an environment as partisan
As ours has become I know
but if we do that and support the social norms that keep our whole system in check
It'll pay great dividends in the long run for everybody.
We'll see you next time