Yuval Levin on Partisanship
While reading Andrew’s indispensable blog, I found his surprising take of Yuval Levin’s excellent essay in the latest Newsweek — a sure sign, by the way, that Newsweek is doing something right.
Andrew writes, in a post amusing titled “As If We Live on Mars”:
How do you write a column about the stimulus package while barely mentioning the only reason it existed at all: the sharpest depression since the 1930s? Yuval Levin managed it. How do you write it without mentioning well over $300 billion in tax cuts from a Democratic president (far more than anything the Republican actually proposed last fall)? Levin managed that too. He also managed to argue that the two parties represent deep, stable and coherent views about human nature, and the relationship of the citizen to the state. The Republicans, one infers, represent fiscal responsibility, the freedom of the individual vis-a-vis the government, the resilience of human nature, and prudent strength in foreign policy.
My sense is that Yuval saw no need to rehearse the details of the economic downturn because he does not live on Mars, and he assumes — wrongly, perhaps — that his readers are similarly Earth-bound, and are thus broadly familiar with the economic circumstances that prevail on Earth. In its ongoing quest for relevance, Newsweek is trying to find new, more affluent readers, some of whom might in fact live on Mars, or perhaps in vast space-going vessels that are skirting the edge of the Oort Cloud.
But seriously: Andrew goes on to note that the Republican party has badly misgoverned the country, and that it has failed to live up to the principles he identifies. This is an interesting and important point. I don’t, however, think that it is responsive to Yuval’s argument, which is less an apologia for the Republican party and more a case for why “factions” can be a good thing. For one thing, I’m pretty sure that Yuval would concede many of Andrew’s points — that Republicans have strayed from their core principles, etc. Now for Yuval’s argument.
Our deepest disagreements coalesce into two broad views of human nature that define the public life of every free society. In a crude and general way our political parties give expression to these views, and allow the roughly like-minded to pool their voices and their votes in order to turn beliefs into action.
This suggests that individuals who identify with a party have an obligation to argue with and persuade those in their own faction about how best to realize their shared worldview. Loyalty to a party recognizes that politics is an iterative game, and that loyalty is rewarded over time with trust.
To ridicule these disagreements and assert as our new president also did in his inaugural that “the time has come to set aside childish things” is to demean as insignificant the great debates that have formed our republic over more than two centuries. These arguments—about the proper relationship between the state and the citizen, about America’s place in the world, about the regard and protection we owe to one another, about how we might best reconcile economic prosperity and cultural vitality, national security and moral authority, freedom and virtue—are divisive questions of enormous consequence, and for all the partisanship they have engendered they are neither petty nor childish.
To recognize that our two parties represent two broad worldviews isn’t to suggest that one or both have always been faithful to them. Rather, it is a way that we negotiate a landscape that in fact includes as many worldviews as there are individuals. Andrew and I both have highly idiosyncratic takes on the world, and so we both bristle at the excesses of partisanship. But in my case, I tend to think that being part of an extended conversation among like-minded people has some value. At the same time, I think it’s very valuable to also have conversations with people who don’t share the same premises, which is why I strive to be careful and fair-minded and empathetic. Having known Yuval for a while, I think he operates in much the same way, though perhaps he has a little more faith than I do in the Republican leadership.
There is also, I stress, a place for clear-eyed loners. We’d all be far worse off without Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan and other writers and thinkers who adhere closely to Orwell’s vision of the public intellectual. But there is also a place for movements, and those who seek to repair them and guide them.
If the Republicans constituted some useful opposition this would all be true. But from my point of view they’ve asserted something very dangerous: whoever wins the presidency gets to use the OLC and whatever other excuses to remake the Constitution and separation of powers to their liking.
There seem to be a lot (most?) of Republicans, both intellectuals and rank-and-file, who honestly and in good faith believe this is ok as long as a terrorist kills, what, two people? Which makes the party actually dangerous. I’ll look on with satisfaction as candidates like Palin go down in flames, hopefully the party will be gutted and remade sooner rather than later.
— Steve C · Feb 23, 12:02 AM · #
I’ve read enough of Levin’s stuff to conclude from the empirical data that he is simply a profound waste of spacetime.
You pimped Levin on Palin an I think most of us pretty much concluded he’s a fraud.
Try harder, Reihan.
— matoko_chan · Feb 23, 02:28 AM · #
I have never heard any conservative or Republican make the argument Steve seems to think is commonplace, and would be stunned to hear it. Who actually made the case that the president has the authority to rewrite the Constitution? The argument I hear is that the Constitution gives the president extraordinary authority in times of war. I guess Steve would disagree, but his characterization is the exact opposite of the argument being made.
Also, I like Yuval Levin a lot, no matter what self-described empiricists may say. His recent book on science and politics looks valuable and intriguing.
— Blar · Feb 23, 03:01 AM · #
Well, for starters, anybody who has ever said “the Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.” That would include several members of Congress as well as, if I recall correctly, at least one Supreme Court justice.
Sure. Why on Earth does he have to rewrite it if he can simply ignore it, instead?
— Chet · Feb 23, 04:33 AM · #
Blar –
“Who actually made the case that the president has the authority to rewrite the Constitution?”
Sigh.
Well for one: http://www.propublica.org/special/missing-memos
Ever heard of the unitary executive? People actually believe that stuff. But more to the point, if John Yoo v2 were in a Republican administration today, busily writing memos saying the President could ignore the law passed by Congress entitled “No Mr President you cannot torture the fuck out of taxi drivers”, Republicans would be ok with that. And if a Constitutional amendment were passed with the same name, Republicans would say something about the founders and something about a suicide pact and decide that’s one of the amendments we can ignore.
To put it another way, if you’re not shocked and dismayed by the above link, you’re one of the people who thinks the President can rewrite the Constitution. That whole mindset needs to be flushed down the toilet and labeled anti-American and Republicans need to be as embarrassed by the whole thing just like everyone is about Jimmy Carter before they’re not dangerous anymore. That’s the moment when Republicans can apply for “useful opposition” status.
— Steve C · Feb 23, 04:51 AM · #
Well, for starters, anybody who has ever said “the Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.”
I know you’re being glib, but the Supreme Court believes this (at least implicitly). Hence, the “strict scrutiny” test for laws which regulate fundamental rights like speech, guns and religion, even though the Constitution explicitly states that the government “shall make no laws.” If the government can show a compelling state interest and pass the “least restrictive alternative” test, it act in such a way as to effectuate the slogan “not a suicide pact,” and do so under the cover of the Constitution.
— JA · Feb 23, 01:42 PM · #
I’m pretty sympathetic to what Reihan is trying to say here, but this is where I think things skid out a bit: “To recognize that our two parties represent two broad worldviews isn’t to suggest that one of both have always been faithful to them.” Many of us think that the last decade or so of the GOP isn’t just a slight lapse in its representation of the kind of conservative worldview that is a useful & appropriate contributor to the American project — rather, we think that this incarnation of the GOP is a profound, dangerous rejection of that worldview, in which it has eaten away at that worldview from within and continues to wear the rhetorical skin of that worldview as a masque so as to better hide among, and prey upon, the innocent citizenry. But now we’re in the last reel of the horror movie, where the masque has slipped, the hideous face underneath fully revealed not just to the handful of protagonists, but rather the whole town can see the masquerade for what it is. It’s time to put the foul beast of movement conservatism down for good, so that a real conservatism can take its place. Levin’s piece tries to pretend that this isn’t so, and that’s what Andrew finds odious about it.
— James Williams · Feb 23, 03:35 PM · #
I know enough about the unitary executive to know that those who argue it are not saying “shred the Constitution and crown the president.” They argue that the Constitution itself provides that extraordinary authority.
Similarly, from what I was able to peruse from your link, those memos all argue that their positions are supported by the Constitution, not that the Constitution should be rewritten by the president. Perhaps if you could cite a specific case?
Again, I’m not asking you to agree with those arguments, but to avoid assigning untenably hyperbolic motives to those with whom you disagree. You can argue against them without resorting to bald sensationalism.
— Blar · Feb 23, 05:48 PM · #
“…those memos all argue that their positions are supported by the Constitution, not that the Constitution should be rewritten by the president.” (Blar)
Yes, but they were written in bad faith — they were instances of deliberate legal malpractice. That’s not my view or the Democrats’, it’s the conclusion reached (as reported last week) by the Bush Justice Department’s OWN Office of Professional Responsbility before Bush left office. Look, OF COURSE someone who wants to gut the Constitution is not going to write memos saying “Let’s gut the Constitution.” They’re going to use fancy legal language to try to make it sound like they’re NOT gutting the Constitution even as they proceed to do so. That’s what’s meant here by “rewriting” the Constitution — not that you formally amend it, but that you write your way around having to follow it. A guy with an advanced education like John Yoo’s can easily conjure language to make black sound like white; that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be naive and ignore what he’s transparently up to.
— Jefferson · Feb 23, 10:07 PM · #
“To ridicule these disagreements and assert as our new president also did in his inaugural that “the time has come to set aside childish things” is to demean as insignificant the great debates that have formed our republic over more than two centuries.”
Please, this is a pure straw man argument, far, far from the excellent essay described. And I have to agree with Andrew, based on the last 8 years of GOP governance, I can’t abide Levin’s bare assertions about the GOP’s views on the “great debates that have formed our republic.”
— Tiparillo · Feb 24, 01:21 AM · #
You must realize that is a partisan interpretation, not an incandescent truth. There are plenty of people who take those arguments in good faith, and you will never persuade them otherwise by saying “you are wrong and either stupid or immoral not to realize it.” If you think John Yoo is using legal voodoo to misinterpret the Constitution, explain to me why his interpretation is wrong, instead of just questioning the man’s character. John Yoo could be the Devil from Hell and it wouldn’t matter if he has a valid argument, and telling me he is the devil does nothing to address his arguments.
Otherwise it is bland ad hominem disguised as indignation, and I won’t let that pass for argument.
— Blar · Feb 24, 01:29 AM · #
Not sure what’s going on here — I posted a longer reply that hasn’t appeared — but in case it doesn’t, here’s the short version: Blar, it’s not me who concluded that John Yoo’s memos were “legal voodoo,” it was apparently his own former colleagues in the Bush Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, in a report written late last year and not yet publicly released. Once it is, you’ll have the explanation you’re calling for, and we’ll be able to see if the criticisms are merely ad hominem or, as I suspect, based on analysis of what’s actually in the memos. Meanwhile, don’t shoot the messenger, huh? I don’t make the news, I just report it.
— Jefferson · Feb 24, 03:05 AM · #
Jefferson: Your earlier comments ended up in the ‘FYI’ thread – I’ll leave it to you to cut and paste them, if that’s what you want to do.
— John · Feb 24, 04:44 AM · #
Ah, sorry — that’s because when I went to post those earlier replies, there were no boxes to write them in for some reason. So I clicked on the nearest thing, which I guess was a link to that other thread.
— Jefferson · Feb 24, 05:16 AM · #
“I know enough about the unitary executive to know that those who argue it are not saying “shred the Constitution and crown the president.” They argue that the Constitution itself provides that extraordinary authority.”
That’s nice. John Yoo I’m sure honestly and in good faith believes what he did was right (I read his book, it’s entirely logical and reasonably argued. He should go directly to jail.).
As I said, I’m ready and willing to assume good faith on the part of all those on the Right who would like to gut the Constitution. Their arguments flow from a very special and narrow ideological tradition, one that doesn’t reach back more than 40 years. All that theory must be destroyed and discredited.
Maybe that’s hyperbole, but what kind of American isn’t outraged by this:
http://www.propublica.org/special/missing-memos
I would hope that if a future administration rolls out legal justification like those in the memos above, shock and horror would follow.
— Steve C · Feb 24, 07:03 AM · #
“If you think John Yoo is using legal voodoo to misinterpret the Constitution, explain to me why his interpretation is wrong, instead of just questioning the man’s character”
Well there are all sorts of places to go with this (the fact that you’re making this statement is much more revealing about you), but for one John Yoo believes that Geneva says something that it plainly does not say, that no precedent even begins to hold: that it’s not necessary to hold status hearings for those captured in battle. That is absolutely black and white in the 3rd convention. He says in his book he believes Geneva doesn’t say this, but in fact it does. Buy his book and read it, then look into the law.
Blar, if a Republican lawyer says it’s ok for the President to murder his American enemies in broad daylight, and he really believes it way down in his soul and with also believes it follows perfectly from his legal training and experience, would arguments against this theory be partisan? Maybe partisans would be making the argument first – how does this change what’s true?
This is why these Republican memes are so utterly despicable, they put legit-sounding window dressing on starkly illegal and immoral acts that the rest of only could only possibly take seriously if the meaning of truth or fact or the actual history of the American legal tradition were changed to something we know them not to be.
— Steve C · Feb 24, 07:24 AM · #