What’s happening in the House is taking us over the cliff
This post by Lee Drutman says it all:
The US House is now in uncharted territory.
Yes, you probably know this from following the ongoing drama over the vacated House speakership. As of this writing, we are now 17 days into this manufactured crisis.
But how uncharted?
And if we’re off the map, where are we headed? And are we off to “There be dragons” land? (Possibly, yes)
In the pixels ahead, I’ll visually map where we are. As we’ll see, there are some historic parallels. But not enough to feel like we’ve really been here before.
Here’s what’s distinct about this moment, based on the best metrics we have.
–Congress is more polarized than ever.
-The Republican Party is more far-right than ever.
–The share of House districts that are truly competitive is tinier than ever (less than 10 percent).
–The share of House districts splitting their tickets hit a 100-year low in 2020 (fewer than 4 percent).
–Partisan margins in the House are uniquely narrow.
–The dimensionality of voting in the House has collapsed into a single dimension.
–The Republican Party is growing more internally divided.
To close observers of politics, none of these findings may be that surprising. But I hope by seeing them all together, we can appreciate how unusual this moment is — and just how far we’ve sailed away from the “normal” patterns.
My simple takeaway is: We’re not going back.
So we need to ask: where do we want to head now?
If we are deliberate, we have possibilities. If we are not deliberate, the sea of dragons may chew us into pieces.
So come aboard. We’re going on a data journey.
(The data will cover only the U.S. House of Representatives. Similar patterns hold in the Senate, but since the House is in crisis right now, and the trends are clearer in the House, that is the focus of this piece, which is already long-ish)
He goes on to xplain all this in detail and I highly recommend that you read the whole thing if you’re interested in this subject. I’ll just include some of the charts he uses to illustrate his points here:
I have one final graph, and it describes some very uncharted territory.
Uncharted Territory means we have to invent our own chart of the future
The hard thing about Uncharted Territory is that, being uncharted, it’s really hard to know how where we are headed.
Some aspects of the current moment reflect Rarely Charted Territory. For example, the contentious parallels of 1910 (when insurgent Republicans stripped Speaker Joseph Cannon of his powers) and 1931 (when an evenly divided Congress agreed on a liberal discharge petition rule). To the extent history offers parallels, the most likely outcome would be an end to the strong Speaker model of Congress, and a move back towards a more decentralized, committee-based organizational structure.
However, in those earlier periods, politics was less nationalized, and voting was less one-dimensional. There was still some play in the joints, some flexibility in the coalitions. Today, that seems much less likely. Too many of aspects of this current period are unprecedented.
From my readings into the dynamics of complex systems, the trends (particularly the collapse of dimensionality) suggest a system on the verge of a significant transformation. The current arrangements feel quite shaky because we are experiencing the tremors of an organizational arrangement that can no longer hold.
If we are truly in uncharted territory, the map of the past offers little advice.
It’s normal to fear the uncharted. This is our natural conservative instinct — however imperfect the status quo might be, it at least reflects the accumulated wisdom and traditions of years; most alternatives are likely worse.
But in this uncharted territory, we are beyond the accumulation of traditions. We are in the unknown, whether we like it or not. And all the signals suggest big change ahead. There is only one option: start thinking creatively about how we might govern ourselves in the years to come. The future, after all, belongs to those who show up with a plan.
Here, of course, is where I cue my song and dance about the need for electoral system reform to Break the Two-Party Doom Loop: Fusion voting and proportional representation, people. We’re in uncharted territory. It’s time to take alternatives seriously while we still have time to consider them.
Again, I highly recommend you read his entire explanation of those charts. But even a cursory observation shows clearly that something is happeneing here. And it probably isn’t good.