This is the second part in a series of blog posts comparing German and American politics, especially from a linguistic and cultural perspective. The first entry in the series, Let’s Talk Politics, gave a broad overview of the classification of politics as liberal/conservative vs left/right, as well as the American notion of “social” vs “economic” issues.
Much ink and many lines of code have in recent weeks and months been dedicated to the polarization of politics and society in the United States. In most readings, the Trump era represents a culmination of a process that has been at play much longer – at least since the 1990s and the rise of the Newt Gingrich Republicans, with roots extending back into the Reagan era. At the same time, commentators often mourn the alleged passing of a better era in American politics, when politicians were less partisan and more able to reach across party lines. In true American fashion, a systemic issue is presented as one in which the primary failing is that of individuals unwilling to compromise, stoking the flames of division among their supporters and dragging the country into an ever deeper state of deadlock.
In often downplaying or outright ignoring the systemic nature of the weaknesses of American governance, laying the blame at the feet of politicians, media figures, and even one’s fellow citizens, this interpretation is inaccurate. Comparing the United States with Germany, another federal republic with strong separations of power between levels and branches of governance, has helped me to think through the conundrum facing the US. I would argue that the chief failing of the US system is not a lack of high-minded, noble politicians, but rather a constitutional framework that is built to address the divisions of a late 18th-century, weakly democratic, pre-industrial society, and not those that matter in our 21st-century, more highly democratized, post-industrial society.
First, having parties with clearly defined and contrasting sets of values and visions for the country is a good thing in a democracy, so long as no party is acting in bad faith and/or outside of the constitutional framework – i.e., preventing people from voting, working to not have all votes counted, spreading misinformation that sows distrust in democratic institutions. The latter are very definitely always negative and go far beyond mere “polarization”. Having parties with obviously contrasting programs, however, is fundamental to how democracy works in most countries. The problem in the US, as I see it, is that the basic constitutional framework doesn’t even anticipate the existence of parties. In contrast, the German constitution clearly defines the role of parties and how they operate within the system of governance, making it much easier for them to have contrasting, “polarized” programs while ensuring effective and broadly representative governance.
While the US constitution ignores parties, society and the political system more broadly simultaneously hold them to a much higher standard than German parties are held to. In German terms, the American system of governance would be like a non-stop grand coalition government, but with no coalition agreement, highly rebellious members of parliament constantly shirking the party line, and an executive that operates inde
pendently and often even in defiance of parliament. The German system is more realistic– parties are expected to have clear and competing programs, the executive is embedded in and responsible to the parliament, and when the ruling party/coalition can’t get a majority for its legislative initiatives, then it’s time for a new election. If two or more parties have to form a coalition to ensure a working majority in parliament, then they enter negotiations after the election and hammer out a legislative program in the form of a binding coalition agreement. If they can’t successfully come to a compromise agreement in that form, then they don’t enter into a coalition with one another. In the US, these negotiations are expected to take place on each piece of legislation and with all members of Congress, with competing interests between and within parties bedevilling the process at every turn.
Second, by having a clear constitutional framework in which a multitude of “polarized” parties can operate, the German system works against the identity-fication of politics that has emerged as a primary division in US society. With its two-vote system of proportional representation - i.e., every voter can vote for a direct representative for their district with their first vote, while the second vote is for a party and is used to calculate the proportional makeup of the parties in parliament, with a 5% minimum vote share required for a party to enter parliament – it allows for a wider range of ideologies and interests to be represented. Whereas in the American system people who are “socially liberal but economically conservative”, i.e. classical liberals in German and international terms, are expected to share a party with social democrats and even democratic socialists, these tendencies in Germany have their own parties – the FDP, SPD, and Left Party, respectively. No one expects people from the FDP and Left Party to get along politically – in fact, they’re considered polar opposites. In America? They’re all Democrats nowadays, even if that particular profile did used to also find a home in the Republican party in the form of so-called Eisenhower Republicans. Polarization within the two big US parties is increasing as strongly as polarization between them, further complicating the hard task of actually governing.
This is not to say that forming a strong political identity is bad – parties of the left have long appealed to a working-class consciousness, European conservatives to upper class, nationalist-lite identities, etc. The American setup simply doesn’t offer any real alternatives, pushing an all-or-nothing relationship to party identification. If a pragmatic, slightly left-of-center SPD (social democratic) voter in Germany is fed up with their party, they might consider voting Green or CDU, or even FDP, depending on the current electoral platform and leadership priorities in those parties. A further left-leaning SPD voter might choose to vote for Die Linke (Left Party) or Die Partei (a broadly left, originally satirical party that has been gaining ground as it pitches itself as an alternative to an SPD it views as too willing to engage in compromise with the conservatives). Lacking real alternatives, Americans frustrated with their party must engage in mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance, which can lead to a sort of political Stockholm syndrome that only intensifies the social and cultural polarization now attached to politics in the US. For example, If I am conservative but don’t like Donald Trump, yet still see the Republicans as the only route to getting the type of policies I want, then the Democrats must be really very awful for me to vote for Trump even if I despise him as a person.
The problem with the US is that the political polarization is there, but the necessary institutional and constitutional arrangement to deal with it and channel these competing visions and interests into effective governance is not. The same system makes it almost impossible for alternative parties to emerge as practical alternatives, leading to a doubling down of political identities that compounds the problem further. No matter who wins the election, this is a fundamental problem that will need to be addressed.
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