Judd Gregg: The Trump-Sanders Axis

We are seeing an American political phenomenon with the rise of businessman Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).  

One way to explain it is that fatigue with political correctness is meeting envy-economics.  

Another description would be that the right and the left are meeting on Populist Street. 

{mossecondads}However one labels it, the political process has become a cauldron of superficial solutions. Voices of excess and outrage are dominating our social media midway and culture.

It is claimed by the pundit class that these two different but parallel figures have risen to such prominence because they have tapped into deep veins of anger, fear and resentment that run through both the left and the right in our country. 

That may be. But the phenomenon is much deeper than that in its implications. It has the potential to fundamentally mar our democratic system.

Our political history is replete with populous movements on the right and left. William Jennings Bryan won the Democratic nomination for president three times on such an approach.  More recently, Ross Perot determined the outcome of a presidential race with comparable appeal.

This year may be different, though. The rise of Trump and Sanders may actually mean something much more significant than the legitimate expression of frustration. It may mean that we have decoupled rational political discourse from the process of electing and filling major political positions.  

We may have stepped off into a model that has been for a long time the modus operandi of South American democracies: Virulent populism that leads to truly destructive governance, in which the logical and reasonable are drowned out in the name of claiming redress for the many against the few.

Where does this come from? Obviously, the catalyst for it is economic anxiety or social outrage. But it is deeper than that, for it goes to how people understand the American experience and democracy. 

A great deal of the responsibility for the collapse of the reasoned approach lies at the feet of the educational system. Many people have come through schools that have not taught civics or American history in anything other then relativistic terms.

For the purposes of most history courses in grade school and high school, America is simply like everywhere else.  

The value system that set up this democracy, which was formulated by geniuses such as Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington and Hamilton, is given little if any credence as being better or worse than any other democratic system.

At the center of our founders’ federalism system was the expectation of tolerance, compromise, rule of law and economic growth driven by individual initiative. These have disappeared from the landscape of education, buried under an ethos that allows no place for judgments of right and wrong. 

This creates a political atmosphere that allows anyone who believes they are right to assert that claim to the exclusion of everyone else — and to govern in that manner.

Without an educational system that teaches the core values of our constitutional system, it is reasonable that people who are searching for answers to the problems they see most afflicting them will move outside the system and follow the pipers of populism.

A further factor that is decoupling governance from reality is the massive expansion of communication, especially in social media. There is no accountability in social media. Hyperbole dominates the medium and the purveyors of the most outrageous commentary care little about the  consequences of their words.  

Yet for many people, this medium — and this overheated rhetoric —  is their reality. The result is that, when one is trying to govern, social media exhibits little tolerance for   substantive and rational policies to address difficult and complex issues such as economic growth and job creation.

Outrage and anger is not only the message, it is the answer.

Effective and good government cannot survive in such an atmosphere. The irrational, angry, charismatic person becomes the leader. Government becomes dysfunctional.

A downward spiral that feeds on itself begins. More outrages leads to more populist excess in response. We may be a long way from Argentina or other South American examples but the path is clearly there and a large number of people seem to be willing to step along it.

One should not discount the concerns of those attracted to the Trump-Sanders axis. But someone needs to stand up and say that their approach is simply wrong.

Otherwise, it will cause great damage to our nation, and to our system of governance.