The Future and its Intransigents

Steve Teles joins The Remnant for a second time to explore what can be done ...

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Steve Teles joins The Remnant for a second time to explore what can be done to fix our dysfunctional parties. Like many of Jonah’s closest friends, Steve disagrees with his idea that a third party could cure what ails the GOP, and instead argues that we should build moderate factions within it. Brace yourself for an exceptionally wonky discussion, which covers Jonah’s distaste for primaries, why we need a better class of political moderate, and whether Joe Biden should be considered a centrist. There’s also plenty of gratuitous complaining about Congress and the Clintons, so prepare your bingo cards.

Show Notes:

– Steve’s page at the Niskanen Center

– Never Trump, Steve and Rob Saldin’s latest book

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  1. Avatar photo
    Tracie

    Wonkishness aside, the embarrassing dysfunctions of both parties is much of what I suspect is turning so many people off politics these days. Speaking for myself, I have a sense of futility and disconnect.

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    Tracie

    And now I know how to pronounce bête noire. Why else do I listen?

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    Robert Knudson

    I am intrigued by the idea of a group of moderates working not just to bargain, but also to set the agenda. However, I am afraid that the fact that we have a federal system of separation of powers and checks and balances rather than a parliamentary structure makes this type of action well nigh impossible, even if it favors the sort of moderation and horse trading which these legislators are currently engaging in. Perhaps expanding the house would make this type of agenda setting more likely in that chamber, but otherwise the branding power of the existing parties is going to dictate the general agenda because the general issues of importance have been nationalized and running for office in a district requires taking on the brand imprimatur of a party to connect to voters and donors, which in turn requires adherence to the party hierarchy on larger organizational matters even as it allows for some independence within that structure.

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  4. Ell

    Sorry, worst remnant ever and I’m a founding listener. I got through it nonetheless.

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      Dan Jett

      Completely disagree. I distinctly recall Teles’ first appearance on The Remnant, which was one of the first episodes I ever listened to, and THAT was the episode that hooked me on The Remnant podcast. Absolutely fascinating. I love this stuff.

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    AC Kansas

    So underpinning a lot of this is the primary process and the fight to extremism that it has become. A suggestion on this podcast is to get rid of the primary system, which I think is an idea that Jonah has favored in the past. So basically get us back to pre-1960's politics, which I think isn't necessarily a bad thing because they got things done then (New Deal, Medicare, etc.). Might not agree with the programs, but things got done. The problem is even with the faction idea discussed here, is there is no way to get the parties to ditch the primary system. Those in power can use the system to their benefit, so what is the benefit to them to ditch it? That's probably why factionalism wouldn't work long term (might work for an election cycle or 2) and another viable 3rd party might be needed.

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    Anne W (Raw5254)

    I was never interested in politics all that much. I was a pretty average voter in that I voted for the party (except I did vote for Clinton the first time). For a short time I got into listening to Sean Hannity (this was before he went totally off the deep end), and Rush had an early morning TV show my husband and I used to watch, mostly for entertainment.

    This is my way of saying that the podcasts Jonah has been having with various political *experts* has been fascinating. One of the things I’m really tired of is the constant complaining, but no actual ideas. I’m tired of being lied to, and I’m really tired of all the so-called *free* giveaways being used to get votes.

    So, I’m listening hard, Jonah. I’ve learned a lot from you and the people you talk to. Somehow we have got to find a way to do better.

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    Andy Napoli

    Holy cow. Steve Teles is LITERALLY laying out verbally, the exact idea I sent to Jonah after his "Words With Friends" post. I'm pasting what I wrote to Jonah below (into segments), in hopes somebody can ensure that he reads it.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Andy Napoli
    To: goldbergcolumn@gmail.com
    Sent: Thu, Oct 14, 2021 12:27 am
    Subject: Re: Words With Friends

    Jonah --

    I'm a lifelong conservative, anti-Trump, who is a huge fan of your work and that of the Dispatch. I worked for ten years on Capitol Hill for Representative Chris Smith (NJ-04) from 1995-2005. I've been working at the Pentagon since 2006 as an Army Civilian, mostly working on efforts to reduce excess and underutilized Army facilities and real estate and save money for taxpayers. I am a classical liberal Madisonian conservative -- the most politically influential work I read in college was Federalist Paper #10, which was like a revelation. I've worked on some political campaigns in the 1990s, and ran my former boss' Congressional re-election campaign in 2000.

    I had a couple of ideas I wanted to share with you, as you think through the crucial question of what classical liberal conservatives like us should do.

    First, the history of third parties in the US is that they generally perform one of two useful functions: they either threaten one of the two major parties enough to cause one or both of them to change course and absorb the insurgent third party (like the GOP did after the 1968 run of George Wallace), or they lead to the destruction of one of the major parties and replace it (i.e., like the GOP did to the Whigs). A less useful function is that they remain perpetually irrelevant and occasionally serve as a spoiler (i.e., like Jill Stein's Green Party in 2016 or Ralph Nader's independent bid in 2000).

    So in my view, any discussion of a third party needs to be framed in this historical context, with one of these two goals explicitly in mind. If the goal is to threaten an existing party sufficiently to cause one of the other parties to adapt and absorb it, then the entire organizing effort behind the third party should be designed along those lines. If the goal is to disrupt the coalitions in the two major parties sufficiently to cause one party to collapse and the new party would replace it (after a realignment in coalitions), then that calls for a different set of organizing principles. The first approach is sort of like building a small business with a business plan of having a bigger company buy you out after you're noticed. The second approach is like building a start up with the goal of becoming a billion dollar company and wiping out a major established competitor by disrupting their entire business model.

    From reading your piece and then your discussion of the criticisms, it seems like you're laying out a case for the former approach (disrupt sufficiently to be noticed and then bought out by having a few key elements of our agenda incorporated into one of the two major parties). But I think the model of the NY State Conservative Party is flawed in a couple of crucial ways. NY elections and nominations processes are funky and getting on the ballot is one of the most convoluted processes in any state. The Conservative Party really has never played the role you seem to want to see on the national stage -- occasionally a candidate will seek the Conservative Party's nomination, in hopes of obtaining a slight edge in the general election, but those candidates are not abandoning their major party, and they're not making serious concessions to just run on the Conservative Party Line. They're running on BOTH the GOP AND the Conservative Party line. The advantage of seeking the Conservative Party endorsement after making a few token concessions, is that there is a small but non-trivial purists who are unwilling to vote reflexively for the GOP nominee, but who might vote for the GOP nominee if they also get the Conservative Party nomination or endorsement. The Venn Diagram here is realllllllllllly small.

    One of the things I admire about your clarity in writing and speaking, is that you regularly remind listeners/readers that we DO NOT live in a parliamentary system. We have a two party system as an inevitable consequence of first-past-the-post elections plus geographic electoral districts plus fixed elections schedules. Those choices that were made by our Founding Fathers (especially the fixed elections and the geographic districts) makes it almost impossible for a true multi-party parliamentary system to evolve or be sustained in the US. Most third parties that endure, do so because they're irrelevant. And I'd say the Conservative Party in NY is usually irrelevant. A third party that wants to make a difference, either gets bought out, or kills and replaces one of two big parties. So if you're going to continue to ruminate about this idea, I'd urge you to bear this in mind.

    I personally think that a crucial part of the GOP's dysfunction (and the D's) is that institutions have become so weak in some many areas of civic life, that they're being hijacked or taken over by opportunistic infections. The institutions' immune systems can't hold off these opportunists like they used to. Trump dipped his toe into the Presidential water every four years since the late 1980s. Each and every time, the institutions laughed at him so quickly and so clearly, that Trump's ego wouldn't let him risk being so obviously humiliated. Yet he decided to run in 2016. The key question is not "why Trump?" but "Why then?" Why did he succeed in 2016 when all his prior trial balloons never got off the ground? I think it's because he smelled weakness and rot in the political superstructure. The Reagan Era GOP coalition and our key GOP leaders were disgraced and weak. The glue that held the Reagan coalition together was the fear of Communism. Fear of radical Islam was a poor substitute but it did work for a while in the aftermath of 2001.

    But the failures of the "experts" in Iraq and Afghanistan, the failures of "experts" on the Great Recession and financial crisis, the failures of "experts" in other aspects of our lives, all piled up to create an opening for opportunists and hucksters like Trump, Bernie Sanders, and others.

    I believe that the best way in the short run to right the ship, is to work towards the narrow goal of restoring control by party elites over their own nominations processes (including primaries). This is the root cause of how the GOP ended up with Trump. And Trump knows that control over primaries is the source of his power - that's why he's focused like a laser on destroying Liz Cheney, and crowed when Rep Anthony Gonzalez decided to retire ("1 down, 9 more to go!") Trump knows that the fear of losing a primary at the hands of one of his endorsed sycophants is the source of his power.

    So the question turns on, how do we protect those remaining 9 GOP members so that they win their primaries? How do we make longer-term changes to elections and nominations procedures to strengthen the power of political parties to manage their own nominations processes rather than stand like slack-jawed bystanders while independent groups and billionaires engage in performative stupidity and virtue signaling?

    I have several sets of ideas, most of which are inspired by Jonathan Rauch.

    The first is that we need to form not a third party, but a FACTION or brand that seeks the nomination in both parties. I would recommend calling this brand or faction, the Principled Pragmatist Party (P3). The idea would be to have independent expenditure groups put muscle and money into supporting principled pragmatists who pledge to settle policy differences though compromise and the legislative process. Pick a few key races where a rational Democrat is being challenged by an AOC illiberal type, and pick all of the races where a GOP Member voted for impeachment or removal, who's being challenged in a primary. Offer to organize and help those candidates if they adopt the P3 label and pledge to support a few fairly simple approaches. Like reforming the Electoral Count Act of 1887 so that Trump can't repeat his ploy of having states send two sets of electors. Like calling for a temporary "Cease Fire" in the Culture Wars by pledging to settle the issues of abortion, guns, critical race theory, etc in the state legislatures and in the municipal councils, rather than in Congress. I'd be far more willing to vote for a Democrat for US Senate if they at least could tell me that while they're pro-choice, they would be willing to slug it out in the halls of Richmond, Virginia or Trenton, New Jersey rather than on Capitol Hill or the US Supreme Court.

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    1. DocHeartless

      So I'd like to paste in my comment in between these two excellent comments threads (thank you, Andy) to push back on my own key disagreement with you, Jonah, and Steve. You notice above how you quickly go from the moderate (P3 in your case) issue platform and then - "get a dozen of these P3 branded members elected." Ah, but that's the rub. They first have to make it successfully through our broken radicalized primary system. Mr. P3 is going to get savaged in the primary; he's a RINO that is all too eager to sell fetuses to the slaughterhouse. Or he's a blue dog Manchin wannabe that will just gum up any righteous attempt to expanded or social safety net to Swedenesque proportions. I would LOVE your idea to come to fruition. But any elected pol is going to look at that primary fight and think, "what's in it for me to put myself at risk that way. Sure I'll have some additional deal-making power if the dream comes true, but what are the chances I'll be going back to my law firm instead?"
      Sadly, tragically, I have a hard time seeing this system being successful. Maybe this is Jonah's complaint as well (I think he was getting at this when he remarked that some of the same arrows launched at his third party idea could just as easily find their mark in this one). If the proposal is something with a very small chance of success, and in the meantime it forestalls necessary action to cleanse a party of craziness, then it is just delaying a righteous fix. This is probably a complaint against Jonah's third party idea as well -- sure it may work to spoil republican candidates, but will it reform the GOP back to principle and sanity? I suspect not -- if anything, I could see it pushing the voters (not the pols, which would be torturously caught in the middle as usual) toward further populism and radicalism.
      I would love to see more discussion and theorizing about voting system reform efforts. Would it be possible to convince parties that it would be in their interest to increase party bosses' power? Could we change how leaders of parties are appointed/elected to push them toward moderation? Is there any chance of getting leaders into the GOP at the national or state level that could push for, say, ranked choice voting in primary systems? Or how about opening up the primary system to independents? What could we do to increase buy-in for ranked choice voting systems at the state level? I would think that this key faction within a faction idea would be much more likely to succeed with Murkowski in Alaska than Cruz in Texas.

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      Andy Napoli

      Part II....


      The second is that once we get about a dozen of these P3 branded members elected to Congress, in both parties, we form a caucus. And when we have enough of them to determine the fate of the Majority Leader or the House Speaker, we strike. We make it known that Pelosi won't get our Democratic P3 votes for Speaker, unless she brings up our preferred Electoral Count Act of 1887 reform bill. Or our Republican P3 Members won't vote for McCarthy as Speaker until he abolishes the Hastert Rule and/or ejects MTG and Lauren Boebert from the House GOP Conference. The P3 Caucus would be all about getting things done and settling disputes through the legislative process. It's about showing voters what you gave up, and what you got in return. Make Compromise Great Again.

      The key strategic political terrain is the suburbs and exurbs. Biden won them mainly because Trump and Trumpkin clones are so toxic to suburban college educated voters. The P3 Caucus would run candidates almost exclusively in suburban and exurban districts. Those voters are not overly ideological -- they're practical. They like divided government and believe in checks and balances. Offer that to them. In areas where they prefer Democrats, run pragmatic pro-choice candidates who pledge to settle issues like that at the state level. In areas where they prefer Republicans, run pro-life candidates who pledge to settle issues like that at the state level.

      My ideas here are similar in some ways to the prescriptions issued by David French in his recent book. I often argue with #Cult45 friends that I just can't get worked up anymore about policies because the GOP today has in fact become #Cult45. The GOP in 2020 literally didn't even bother to adopt a Party Platform for the love of Christ. I just can't take my Trump voting friends seriously about "but Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett" when they won't even look me in the eye and explain how policies can matter when Trump didn't even run on any policies in 2020. He ran on a 'whatever Trump says' platform.

      Third, the end-game is that we build enough critical mass, and enough P3 Members of Congress, that we eventually run our own candidate for President (maybe in 2028). At that point, we drop the bipartisan caucus and have our P3 candidates run on a new party ticket. That slate would explicitly seek to destroy one of the two major parties. and force a major coalition reshuffle.

      So what would a future 2028 party nominee look like? I honestly don't know. What I do know, is that we need to help both parties regain control over their primaries. We need to get more .pragmatists elected across the board. I don't care if they're pro-gun control as long as they're willing to settle that issue at the state level and give me a fighting chance to protect my 2nd Amendment rights. I can happily vote for their candidates in 2022 or 2024 inside a "popular front" a-la-Bill Kristol, as long as I know that my key issues are protected from a massive federal policy loss until we slay populist nationalism. Temporary Cease Fire means temporary. Nobody is being asked to change their minds on key social issues. And maybe, just maybe, settling some of these issues at the state level will actually result in some compromise.

      As David French sometimes notes, it's real easy for Pro-Life state legislators to vote for fetal heartbeat bills when they know the Courts aren't going to let those bills ever become law. Isn't it interesting that the Mississippi case headed to a Supreme Court decision, is not a fetal heartbeat bill, but a ban on abortion after 15 weeks (i.e., the outer fringes of "viability"). If the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade and made my dreams come true, all that would actually do is shift the debate into the state legislatures anyway. And that's where most of these #Cult45 type legislators are deluding themselves. There's no way in Virginia, with our current electorate, that we'd be able to pass a fetal heartbeat law. We'd be lucky to stave off abortion on demand and Medicaid funding for abortions. In other words, if Roe were overturned, we'd actually have to get a lot more pragmatic and practical because suddenly our positions would MATTER.

      One way to defang the populist nationalists is to allow the legislative process to actually function the way it's supposed to function. This is why the Hastert Rule needs to go. Which means allowing your side to lose when you don't have the votes. When every issue becomes an existential death struggle or "Flight 93" situation, it pours rocket fuel on the purists and extremists. When you frame these issues in generational time horizons, trench warfare, as a long-term movement, etc., what matters is incremental progress where you can sustain your gains across multiple election cycles. It's defense-in-depth, not blitzkrieg. A Democratic Caucus with enough P3 Members in it, could force Pelosi to seek GOP votes for the bipartisan infrastructure bill or else they'll depose her as Speaker. And GOP P3 Members could similarly threaten to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and even vote for Pelosi as Speaker even if McCarthy technically wins a Majority. The power of P3 Members to make such threats (and carry them out) is directly proportional to their ability to win a contested primary.

      Andy Napoli
      Alexandria, VA

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  8. Joe O

    Steve Telese's "senate center faction" of 6 to 8 senators would throw a wrench into current system and that's not a bad thing. Let's try it!

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  9. Mike Darnell

    As Cheech and Chong would say, “That was some good shit Man”

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    Jay Larson

    I can agree that a third party would benefit however I believe the biggest positive we could do would be to alter our primary process. Wide open voting with the top two candidates advancing to the general election. Would help from nominating the party extremes.

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