The zombification of political parties
This article was received from Project Syndicate, an international not-for-profit association of newspapers dedicated to hosting a global debate on the key issues shaping our world.
PRINCETON – Among her final acts as chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel requested that her colleagues endorse the two people handpicked by Donald Trump to replace her. Following loud cheering, she announced that she would not even bother to ask if there were any “nays.” It was a telling moment: procedures meant to ensure a democratic process within the party were entirely replaced by acclamation.
Trump is hardly the only far-right populist leader to have subjugated a political party to his will. The hijacking of a party’s machinery is a common pattern among populists and would-be autocrats, and history shows that it can have truly dire consequences for a democratic political system. After all, turning your party into an autocracy is a logical first step toward turning your country into one.
True, appeals for democracy and pluralism within political parties can sound like idealism. Endless, exhausting, pedantic debates usually result in a “victory” for the most eloquent party hack – or perhaps for the person with no childcare responsibilities the next morning. Moreover, internal democracy – like primary elections in the United States – may be structurally favorable to ideological purists who prefer extreme candidates, or it may elevate people who treat politics like a hobby and prioritize the process over the results.
But internal debates do often yield better policy ideas. At a minimum, the winners will have a stronger sense of the opposing arguments and the evidence for them. They also will be more likely to respect the legitimacy of the losers in any given intraparty debate. Since fellow partisans are supposed to share the same basic political principles, their differences usually come down to how those principles are interpreted and how policies based on them should be implemented. When the losers feel that they have gotten a fair hearing, they will be less likely to quit the party.
By respecting legitimate opposition within their own party, politicians demonstrate their commitment to the basic rules of the democratic game. When internal contests are close, the winners will continue to face off against other party heavyweights, who in turn may provide a check against them if they stray too far from the party’s core commitments – not least the commitment to democracy itself. Such heavyweights have credibility with party members and must be taken seriously.
But Trump has transformed the Republican Party into something like a personality cult. Those criticizing him have been cast out and vilified (and often personally threatened with violence). Rather than treating Nikki Haley as a worthy adversary