Soc (2013) 50:224–229 DOI 10.1007/s12115-013-9647-z

COMMENTARY

Deal or No Deal Eugene Goodheart

Published online: 19 April 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

In Is Democracy Possible Here? (Princeton, 2006), the legal theorist and political philosopher Ronald Dworkin distinguishes between two conceptions of democracy, “majoritarian” and “partnership.” He is an advocate of partnership between parties. Writing in the time of the George W. Bush Administration, Dworkin, a liberal, is distressed not only by Bush’s policies, but also by his Administration’s one-sided majoritarian behavior, imposing, as it did, its will without taking into consideration the ideas and wishes of the minority party. Dworkin performs a double role as political philosopher and proponent of liberalism. Consider, for instance, his take on filibusters: “The Republican leadership said that a filibuster is undemocratic because it allows a minority of 41 senators to thwart the will of the Senate majority by refusing to bring a nomination to a final vote. The argument appeals to the majoritarian conception of democracy. In fact that argument is weak even if we accept that conception because the Senate is a non majoritarian body” (137). Dworkin doesn’t elaborate on the weakness of the argument, but it can be surmised that he views the filibuster as an element in the system of checks and balances that our founding fathers established in order to prevent the tyranny of the majority. If the book had been written in the present, Dworkin might find himself philosophically, though not politically, on the side of Republicans, who are now great supporters of the filibuster against the “majoritarian” rule of the Democrats. He would doubtless prefer the liberal policies of President Obama and his party, which has the majority in the Senate. He might finesse his position by supporting a reform of the filibuster rule, proposed by the majority party, in order to inhibit its promiscuous use by the

E. Goodheart (*) Department of English, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454, USA e-mail: [email protected]

Republicans while preserving the rule. Indeed, it would be in the interests of the partnership principle to be for such reform, for without the reform the alternative is gridlock, which is surely inimical to partnership. While arguing forcefully for his liberal views, Dworkin invites in the interests of partnership persuasive counterarguments that might overcome those views. His hope is that those who make the counterarguments are receptive to his arguments in a similar spirit. I believe that Obama embodies, unfortunately without much practical success, the partnership conception of politics as opposed to the majoritarian biases of the current Republican Party when in power and the left flank of his own party. Dworkin’s book is exemplary in its exposition of the tensions that exist in a non-parliamentary democracy especially when power is divided between the parties. His advocacy of partnership is admirable (I fully support it), but fruitful partnership depends upon good will and more or less rational policies on both sides and there are little of both these days. In its intransigence against raising taxes on the wealthy, indeed on ever raising taxes, the current Republican Party is an example of the absence of good will and rationality. Their doctrinaire anti-tax stance seems hardly consistent with their professed concern about deficits and debt. There are those in the party who are willing to go along with raising taxes, but they are at the moment ineffective outliers. The so-called “fiscal cliff” reflects a political crisis with ramifications beyond the debate about marginal tax rates. The parties are widely divided on whether we should choose austerity (i.e. severely cut government spending to reduce deficits and debt) or stimulus (fund infrastructure, education, scientific research) as the route to “growing the economy” and reducing unemployment. Austerity has not proved to be promising in Europe either as a way to improve the economy and decrease unemployment or, for that matter, to reduce debt. It has weakened the economy and increased unemployment. Going over the fiscal cliff here for an extended period, temporarily avoided in January 2013, entails “sequestration,” that

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is, sharp indiscriminate reductions in various domestic programs such as unemployment insurance, student loans and medical research as well as reductions in the military budget. We have avoided the first cliff but not others down the road as well as sequestration. The debate about whether a brief descent from the cliff works to the advantage of one side or another is an unfortunate distraction from where the focus should be: the consequences of a long term fall. The only rational way out is through reasonable compromise in which stimulus, increase in revenue and careful spending cuts are enacted. Needless to say, there can be no compromise if one or the other side is intransigent. Let’s assume that the Republicans show willingness to negotiate. The problem for the president and his party is what and where to compromise, a perennial anxiety in negotiation. Let me review the political situation. Obama in a spirit of compromise was willing to raise the marginal tax rate from $250,000 to $400,000. He had already allowed for 1.6 trillion spending cuts and proposed several billion more, bringing the total to 2 trillion dollars, exceeding the total of 1.6 trillion that he wants in increased revenue. In addition, he is asking for a modest stimulus package for infrastructure, scientific research and education. Breaking with the Republican promise never to raise tax rates, the Republican Speaker of the House proposed raising the marginal tax rate on those making a million dollars a year and higher, which the Democrats found unacceptable. (In fairness to the Republican criticism of the Democrats, Senator Charles Schumer, and Minority Leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, had at one time proposed a minimum of 1 million dollars in income as the level for raising the tax rate.) Obama raised the level from 250,000 to 450,000 (for married couples) to the dismay of a portion of the liberal left, but he did not abandon the principle of raising the tax rate on the wealthy. Boehner did apparently break with a principle of his party in offering to raise the tax rate for those earning more than a million dollars. Did this give him a moral advantage over the president as a flexible partner in the negotiation? I think not. The reason is that the Grover Norquist inspired “principle” (no tax raises ever) is a bad principle, irrational and destructive for it stubbornly refuses to take into account changing economic and political circumstances. It only entrenches the gross inequality in our economic system. By apparently breaking with the principle at least in this instance, Boehner and those in his party who were willing to follow entered onto the ground where reasonable negotiation became possible, a place where Obama has always been. But Boehner did not stay on that ground for very long, for his million dollar offer was a “take it or leave it.” He did not give the president a chance to then make a counter offer, for instance, $500,000. He simply broke off negotiation. In a further turn of the screw, Boehner put forth his Plan B. The House would vote on his proposal to raise the marginal rate

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on millionaires and force the president to respond. Not being able to muster majority support from his caucus to pass the bill, he was forced to withdraw it. In other words, his party, which he leads in the House of Representatives, reaffirmed the Norquist “principle,” which entails no compromise. The scene shifted to the Senate and a compromise, not a real solution, was worked out between the Senate minority leader McConnell and Vice president Biden. The Bush tax cuts for those making under $400,000 were made permanent while the rate for those earning above that figure was increased. The Republicans declared that in the future tax increases are now off the table, and negotiations under the cloud of the debt ceiling must be devoted only to spending cuts. There are those on the Democratic side who view Obama as a premature compromiser (a fair criticism) and some who see his very willingness to compromise as showing a lack of backbone (an unfair criticism). The latter for whom the idea of compromise is anathema unfortunately mirror their Republican adversaries in their implicit rejection of partnership as model for democracy. (In his willingness to raise the level above which the marginal tax rate would be raised from 250,000 to 400,000, Obama has again evoked in the view of the left the negative image of the premature compromiser or, as a friend of mine put it, the cave man.) In a column with the headline “Let’s Not Make a Deal” (NY Times 11/9/12), Paul Krugman, speaking for the left flank of the liberal base, urged President Obama to stick to his guns and fulfill his promise of raising taxes on the super wealthy even if in doing so he risks going over “the fiscal cliff.” What Krugman didn’t assert in the column, but what he has advocated elsewhere, is the need for the president to resist all demands by Republicans to cut spending on entitlements and discretionary items. In other words, Obama should simply not agree to anything that would involve compromise on his part. In Dworkin’s terms, Krugman could be characterized as an advocate of majoritarian democracy, despite the fact that the Democrats do not have the majority in the House of Representatives or the necessary super majority in the Senate. Obama said unequivocally that he would refuse to sign a bill extending the Bush tax cuts. (For the 2 % at the top, the tax rate would go up from 35 to 39 %.) If that means going over the cliff, so be it. It’s a risk that most supporters of Obama believed worth taking. I too believed it was worth taking for the short term and, as it turned out, Obama succeeded. But this is hardly the end of the story. As I have already noted, the Republicans will now not consider any further tax increases while insisting on significant cuts in discretionary spending and entitlements. Their weapon is the refusal to raise the debt ceiling. Obama has said that he will not negotiate on the debt ceiling. It is hard to know what that means, given the truly pernicious consequences of

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such a refusal. If the Republicans want to make draconian cuts in government spending, not raising the debt ceiling will give them what they want. As Senator Pat Toomey, a tea partier from Pennsylvania pointed out, there will be enough money from taxes that keep coming into the national treasury to pay interest on the debt, in which case there would be no default on the debt and technically no bankruptcy. The default would fall on entitlements and programs and the population will suffer. The Republicans will have won a victory on the cheap. (The Republicans in an apparent concession have postponed the debt ceiling debate for several months.) Firmness on principle and willingness to compromise are not contradictory imperatives. Obama has thus far held to his commitment to seek more revenue (higher taxes from those who can afford them), provide stimulus to the economy and make reasonable, that is not draconian compromises on spending cuts. He cannot simply refuse to negotiate on entitlements. Obama is at the mercy of two opposing critiques of his performance as president. On the one hand, he is a compromiser without strong principles and convictions. On the other, he lacks the politician’s touch in knowing how to negotiate with adversaries. If he takes a strong liberal position and sticks to it through thick and thin, he becomes a polarizing figure. If he presents himself as a willing compromiser, he is vulnerable to the charge of caving in by his liberal base. He is by temperament a compromiser. Conservatives and some selfdescribed centrists who have criticized his partisan style of campaigning and his aggressive post election position taking ignore or have forgotten that the intransigence of the opposition has left him with no alternative but to stand firm in his views. It is not Obama, but his adversaries, who have polarized our politics. To repeat: his base may be right that he tends to compromise prematurely; they are wrong, however, to discredit the very idea of compromise, which is essential to the democratic process. Every politician who is worth his salt has to have both principle and the willingness and capacity for compromise. At any moment they are contradictory capacities, but each capacity has its time to be paramount or subordinate. FDR, who invited the hatred of the bankers and took strong stands on economic and financial reform, told advisors who proposed conflicting farm bills to find a way of weaving them together. He refrained from supporting an anti-lynching bill in the Senate, because he didn’t want to alienate Southern senators who supported his economic policies. Obama has both principle and the capacity for compromise. The question is whether he embraces principle consistently and with sufficient conviction when necessary. It is also the case that the political situation now is so extreme in its polarization that whatever his abilities and capacities the forces of resistance may be too great to overcome, which may force him to move further from his base than he would like in order to prevent chaos.

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One wonders about the complacency of Krugman, Robert Reich and others about falling off the fiscal cliff. They are right that the metaphor has been misleading, for the effect of no deal between Democrats and Republicans would have been a slow descent down a curve, not a falling off. Would the Republican caucus finally come through after the Bush tax cuts have expired and vote to restore the cuts to those making under $250,000 or $400,000? After all, they would be voting for tax cuts and national opinion would force them to. A minority of Republicans did come through, but before they did Robert Reich, who had been urging Obama to risk the fiscal cliff, speculated on the strong possibility that they would not. “Republicans don’t run nationally. They run only in their own districts—which because of gerrymandering are growing even more purely Republican” (“Cliff Hanger: Why Republicans Don’t Care What the Nation Thinks” Huffington Post, Dec. 28, ’12). In their concern about primary fights with tea party candidates they couldn’t care less about national sentiment. If the Reich scenario were realized, what would Obama do? Would he, should he, stick to his guns and allow severe cutbacks in discretionary spending such as reducing unemployment insurance for those who have been out of work for a long period of time? Or …? For the left flank of the party, the alternative of compromise has been unthinkable, for any significant concession by Obama would only confirm their suspicion or rather conviction that he lacks backbone. What constitutes backbone is in the eye of the beholder. It is plausible to view the willingness to compromise, which means the willingness to make concessions in the face of unhappiness and even outrage from one’s base, as a sign of strength. If Speaker Boehner is viewed as craven in submitting to the tea partiers in his caucus, is it right to judge Obama as craven in refusing to be intimidated by the left of his party? The Senate on the brink of “the cliff” voted by an overwhelming majority for the deal worked out by Senate Minority Leader McConnell and Biden. In a departure from previous practice, Boehner allowed a vote in the House without having a majority of his own caucus in favor the deal. The Senate bill passed in the House with a Democratic majority and Republican minority voting in favor. A confrontation on television between Grover Norquist and Robert Reich, mediated by Wolf Bitzer, before the Senate vote was particularly revealing of the tensions within each party between conviction and practice. Norquist, the enforcer of anti-tax behavior among Republicans, came out for the deal despite its violation of the uncompromising Norquist principle of never raising taxes because, one surmises, he was losing ground as an enforcer and needed to stop the bleeding of his influence. (His rationalization was that the Bush tax cuts for those making less than 400,000 were made permanent and therefore a victory for his side.) Reich had in the blog noted above expressed concern that a decisive portion of the Republican caucus of the House

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would never go along with tax increases on the wealthy (they were beholden to their gerrymandered tea party constituents not to national sentiment), the effect of which would be a problem for Democratic strategy. Yet on the program he spoke out blithely against the deal in order (again a surmise) to preserve his identity as a forceful member of the left flank of his party. The symmetry of internal contradiction within both Reich and Norquist is an example of the pressure of circumstance on maintaining convictions. Pundits should look to themselves and be cautious in the judgments passed on political actors. The argument for Obama’s standing pat on entitlements (the liberal cause) is both economic and political: 1) deficit and debt are not immediate problems, the weak economy and high unemployment are the problems, and 2) the Republicans should not be allowed to continue to engage in economic and political blackmail. Let’s concede that deficit and debt are not immediate problems and that any compromise would diminish the value of an agreement. The result of standing pat would be no agreement, the continuation of gridlock and falling off (a true falling off) the next cliff, defaulting on the debt to the American people. There is no telling how long the gridlock would last. The longer it lasted the more severe would be the consequences of the fall for everyone. So the question becomes: what is worse, compromise or an indefinite gridlock leading to recession or default and bankruptcy. There is of course another question: what kind of compromise would be acceptable? Yes, Obama should be urged to stick to his guns as long as possible, but when some prominent Republicans reverse themselves and speak of willingness to make a deal, it seems premature, if not perverse, of Krugman and others to speak the language of non-compromise. My own view is that our current polarized political culture constitutes a greater danger than compromise because, in addition to the risk of a new recession, the cutting back of unemployment insurance as well as the funding of necessary programs devoted to health and education, it threatens the possible implementation of a whole range of desirable policies (immigration reform, reducing carbon emission, investing in infrastructure), indeed, the functioning of our political system. That is, the unwillingness to negotiate and compromise only intensifies the resentment of the losing party and its unwillingness to compromise on anything. It also assumes that the defeated party will remain unchastened forever. Neoconservatives such as William Kristol are now openly endorsing taxing the wealthy; a hard right talk show host Sean Hannity has come out for comprehensive immigration reform; David Frum, a speech writer for George W. Bush, has taken to task the Republican members of Congress for their obstructionist behavior to every proposal put forth by Obama, and Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma urged Republicans to support middle

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class tax cuts, in effect letting the cuts for the super wealthy expire. When asked whether the goal of the Republican Party remained the repeal of Obamacare, Speaker John Boehner answered that it was the law of the land and the effort should be to improve it. Whenever there are signs of the prospect of a coming together of the parties on certain issues they should be encouraged. If the Republicans continue to be as obstructionist as they were during his first term, Obama can maintain a principled position, which means making clear what is non-negotiable and continue to signal his willingness to negotiate. He has in fact already exploited divisions within the Republican Party to his advantage. We want a two party system in which parties both differ and come together, especially in times of crisis. The impulse of one party to crush the other is inimical to the very existence of a democracy. One-sided victories (that is those that receive no support whatever from the other side) too often prove pyrrhic. A pundit or an activist can refuse to support compromise, but the president of a divided government, constructed in the way our government is constructed, cannot. He must find a center more or less congenial to him and the opposition, whether leaning to the left or to the right. (A center, it needs to be said, is not a fixed point on the political spectrum; it may incline to the left or to the right.) Of course, there is always the danger that a compromise may turn out to be worse than the status quo. Would that be the case if Obama agreed to cuts in entitlements and discretionary spending, as he seems ready to do? Obama has expressed willingness to slow the rate of increase in Social Security benefits, perhaps to be offset by means testing in order to protect the poor. Krugman and others believe that cuts, apart from those in the defense budget, would worsen the economy and that the obsession of deficit and debt hawks is misplaced in a time of high unemployment and slow economic growth. Raising the retirement age for Social Security or Medicare is a “zombie idea,” in Krugman’s words; we “shouldn’t let it eat our brains.” At the same time he acknowledges that sovereign debt is a problem in the long term, which should be addressed when the unemployment problem is solved. And when would that be? Like other economists and Bill Clinton, he views the recovery of the economy from the Great Recession as taking 7 or 8 years. Can the economy afford our putting off concern with the debt for that long? Concern about the debt doesn’t necessarily make one a “debt hawk” or “debt scold,” terms of opprobrium. What is the tipping point? No economist, even one as gifted as Krugman, is clairvoyant about the future. Moreover, our democracy is notoriously slow and inefficient in its legislative process and a long-term problem can become short term unless one begins to attend to it early on. I am suggesting that the concerns about the debt might be taken seriously without necessarily agreeing with the specific proposals that debt

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hawks put forth. Spending cuts now may be minimal and more extensive in the future. They should be concentrated on the wealthy, such as reducing or eliminating corporate welfare or means testing for Social Security and Medicare benefits, but they may also have to be made in places that would affect those who are not wealthy. The liberal line is that spending cuts should be postponed to the time when the economy is prospering, but the reality is that it is very difficult to get Congress to attend to the problem in a time of prosperity, indeed in any time. There is every reason to begin planning now for the future. We know how crude, crazy and intransigent conservative media, particularly the talk show variety, can be, but progressives have their pale counterparts. A commentator in a well-known journal on the left who said he voted for Obama speaks of having chosen “the lesser of two evils.” Michael Moore urges Obama not to worry about the fiscal cliff, which he says without any intellectual authority in the matter is a ruse of the right. (Apparently Nancy Pelosi, whose credentials as a liberal combatant are unquestioned, believed the fiscal cliff to be real and to be avoided if possible.) A contributor to The Phoenix, a radical weekly in Massachusetts declares the Obama victory to be “the biggest setback to real, radical change in recent history.” He perversely endorses Donald Trump’s call for revolution, though, to be sure, not on Trump’s terms. While acknowledging what he calls “conservative depravity,” he speaks of “our president as vile in ways that neither Republicans nor Democrats often acknowledge,” blaming him among other things for his failure to introduce meaningful gun-control initiatives (the criticism was made before the event in Newtown), halting Wall Street greed and his use of drones in fighting Islamic militants. Those failures have made him an enabler of “a number of atrocities.” Another contributor lays out the causes for the left that if Obama fails to realize would be a reason for turning against him. The list is very long, involving matters that are both within and outside his power to enact through executive action: the “new carbon-emission rule” (the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency), gun-control legislation (the responsibility of Congress), denial of permits for the Keystone XL pipeline extension (the purview of the State Department), “beefing up Dodd-Frank regulations and stepping up pressure for financial institutions to pump money into the American economy” (whose authority?), “corporate tax benefits stripped, starting with ones for giant oil companies” etcetera etcetera. Nothing that Obama has already accomplished satisfies. The Dream Act and comprehensive immigration reform, should they be enacted, are only steps for enacting the abstractions of “more economic opportunities and social justice.” Evidently the praise that Obama received from the League of Conservative Voters for the clean air protections achieved in the first term of his presidency is of

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no account. What precisely does Obama have to deliver, what is he capable of delivering to pass muster? Many in the LBGT community are “deeply disappointed in Obama’s first term, despite his embrace this year of same-sex marriage.” (The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is unmentioned.) What else could Obama have done not to cause “deep disappointment?” He has been severely critical of Citizen’s United. “Changing federal law to curb its effects will be a big test of Obama’s seriousness.” The president is presumed to have legislative as well as executive power. He is faulted for approving a “Super PAC for working on his behalf after initially opposing {Super PACS].” That is like faulting a pacifist for taking up arms in self-defense when he is attacked. Michael Moore in an appeal to Obama posted on Huffington Post expresses his pleasure in Obama’s reelection, even praising him for what he has accomplished in the first term, but then presents him with a list of so many items that he needs to enact, suggesting that his failure to do so will undermine his legacy. The all-or-nothing mentality of the left flank is, to put it mildly, counterproductive; it would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the president to stay focused on priorities. The anger and frustration directed against Republican obstructionism in the first term of Obama’s presidency is justified, but the party exists and commands the support of almost half of the electorate. No party has all the ideas about policy that are worth enacting, though a party may degenerate to a point where it becomes an obstacle to progress. Those on the left of the Democratic Party have to ask themselves: what would a legitimate or respectable Republican party look like from their own perspective—that is, a party that has constructive ideas different from their own and which should be taken seriously in negotiation? Such a party should be the object of desire. The bankruptcy and misbehavior of the current Republican Party cannot be the end of the story. Indeed, if the party, especially in its House of Representatives manifestation, has not learned a lesson from the recent election and does not show a genuine willingness to find common ground with president, it may turn out to be the end of its story. I am assuming the value of a two-party or multi-party system in which contending ideas are welcome in the political arena—in a word the possibility of partnership especially in times of crisis. If such a party can’t be imagined, then the alternative is a one-party system in which the ruling party has all the answers. We know what such a system looks like. I have spent time criticizing the left flank of the liberal side in its expectations and demands, because while I am in sympathy with liberal aims, I sometimes find the tone and tactics of its extreme advocates misguided. The main culprits in our dysfunctional system are the hard right tea partiers and the feckless moderate center right followers who know or should know better. Nevertheless, even if the

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majority is in the right it still needs to reach out to the minority. When the minority is in the right, it should avail itself of its powers, but not exceed them. The preservation of democracy trumps party, if one has to decide between them. What seems clear is that permanent gridlock is more dangerous to democracy than most of the alternatives on offer. So the question is whether fruitful compromises are now or in the future possible when neither side can win without agreement from the other side. It is another version of the question that Dworkin asked Is Democracy Possible Here?

Postscript “Progressives” often find themselves disappointed with Obama for his failure to live up to their (note not his) conception of what it means to be progressive. Reports of their disappointment usually grant them exclusive possession of the word. According to their lights, Obama’s compromises are betrayals of the progressive cause. The meaning of “progressive” is assumed, rarely questioned and explained. Does it mean a set of ideals or strategies and tactics? Progressives in our time favor a strong government role in supporting and protecting the poor, regulating the environment, reducing gross economic inequality and

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eradicating racial and ethnic prejudice. So does Obama. These are ends; differences arise over means—that is, strategy and tactics. In negotiating with the adversary, those engaged in bargaining must decide when to stand firm and when to compromise. Those viewing the bargaining process from the outside usually do not have access to the obstacles and opportunities that exist on the inside. Should the basis of judging whether one is progressive or not depend on the strategy and tactics deployed? Perhaps the following distinction is helpful: Obama’s goals are progressive, his means are incremental: that is to say, moderate rather than radical. Do confrontation and intransigence qualify as progressive, while concession and compromise qualify as betrayal? I think not—the deployment of means should not be determined by ideology, but rather by prudent calculation of what makes for success or failure. To which I would add: progressivism doesn’t always tell us what makes for progress, and compromise may advance the cause of progress, whereas intransigence may keep one stuck in the status quo.

Eugene Goodheart is Edytha Macy Gross Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Brandeis University. He is the author of many books of literary and cultural criticism as well as a memoir, Confessions of a Secular Jew. His most recent work is Holding the Center: In Defense of Political Trimming.