Virtual Finish

Marc's article  -- NRCC backs Riggleman, as it does for all R incumbents

National party organizations are weak in certain ways but PIE partisanship is strong.

Hershey (p. 382):  "Why should partisanship help citizens who have so many other sources of information about candidates and issues?  Perhaps it is because they are exposed to so much information."

Edmund Burke on PIG:

In all bodies, those who will lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the taste, talent, and disposition, of those whom they wish to conduct: therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will prevent the men of talent disseminated through it from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects!

Charlie and Maddy raise questions about the future -- uncharted economic terrain.

Demographics

Ratcliffe's testimony today and ... Russia

Mueller indicted "the Internet Research Agency"

Defendant ORGANIZATION had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political
system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton. Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities. Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S. grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and
with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

Examples of their work

Americans served as signal boosters.

Bots

They targeted Michigan and Wisconsin.

We close on a disturbing note:

They are still at it.

Progressive Outside Money

Zach Montellaro at Politico:

Justice Democrats, the hub for insurgent Democrats, has joined the rank of super PACs. On Friday, the group’s PAC filed a notice with the Federal Elections Commission announcing that it intends to become a so-called Carey Committee (which is also known as a hybrid PAC) — effectively forming a super PAC in addition to their already active PAC. 

The move is the latest example of the party’s liberal wing embracing the fundraising strategies that have been scorned by some on the left. (A spokesperson for the Justice Democrats did not respond to a voicemail or email left by Score on Sunday asking to talk about the group’s plans.) A group of top aides to Sanders’ presidential bid announced last week that they were forming a super PAC of their own to convince Sanders’ supporters to back Biden. Chuck Rocha, another Sanders aide, also formed his own super PAC, called Nuestro PAC, that aims to mobilize Latino voters.

Rocha poked at that underlying tension among some progressives who are wary of super PACs in a video he posted to Twitter over the weekend. “Just because Nuestro PAC is a quote-unquote super PAC, we ain’t taking no money from corporations. We ain't going out to work for none of these assholes I hate all my life,” Rocha said in the video. “We are literally going to the movement and trying to raise money to go out and get more Latinos to vote.”

The devil will be in the details (and the FEC reports) with these new groups. Sanders actually had over $700,000 worth of super PAC support during the primaries — but it was from Vote Nurses Values PAC, which has been funded by a nurses’ union and didn’t draw anywhere near the same kind of ire that other outside groups drew. Also worth remembering is Our Revolution, the Sanders-founded dark money nonprofit group. To try to fend off charges of hypocrisy, the group had voluntarily released the name of donors who gave over $250 — but not the exact dollar amount, which is less than the level of disclosure for super PACs. (The group said its largest donor gave $25,000.)

Starting to Sum Up

At Pacific Standard (a casualty of the collapse of niche publications), Seth Masket wrote about a major theme of this course:

For several years, a number of scholars (including me) have been making the case that American political parties are best thought of as loose networks of interest groups, candidates, donors, activists, and others, rather than hierarchies organized under the DNC or RNC. (You can see examples of such studies here, here, here, here, and here.) 

This observation is important for historical context.  When Madison wrote about parties, he was talking about what we would today call PIG -- specifically, legislative factions. There were no party organizations as we know them today.  Indeed, Americans tended to frown upon overt political campaigns. This exchange from Hamilton makes the point:

HAMILTON:  You've created quite a stir, sir
BURR:            I'm going door to door
HAMILTON:  You're openly campaigning?
BURR:            Sure.
HAMILTON:  That's new.

 Masket also made an observation that may relate to your essays:

The way we think of parties is vitally important to how we treat them. If we want to regulate parties or restrict their activities or even ban them, that's far easier to do if they're rigid hierarchies than if they're flexible networks. The latter can adapt to a great many impediments.

The same is true for proposals for party strategy.  If you argue that the Democratic Party should do X or the Republican Party should do Y, remember that there is no central shot-caller for either party.

Back to the Future: The Founders and the Parties

At Cato in 2011, my frequent coauthor Bill Connelly had some thoughts on the Founders and political parties:

Some insist today that the Founders did not expect political parties to form, that parties only arose later in American history. But in a 1792 essay titled “A Candid State of Parties,” Madison concluded that parties of distinction are “natural to most political societies,” and will likely endure. Even to this day, perhaps?

Admittedly, “A Candid State of Parties” is a partisan tract, just as were The Federalist Papers. Madison the Founder was a statesman, a politician, a political theorist, and a partisan. And that is not a criticism. Madison clearly understood that “in every political society, parties are unavoidable.” In fact, he concluded parties “must always be expected in a government as free as ours.”

Madison recognized that American politics and partisanship are rooted in the Constitution. Mere partisanship is possible precisely because of limited constitutional government, or as I like to say, the Constitution governs parties more than the parties govern the Constitution. Our constitutional concrete is sufficient to withstand partisan warfare today just as it did in the 1790s.

Partisanship is rooted in the Constitution because of First Amendment freedoms. Clearly freedom of the press and freedom of association allow and even invite the abuse of licentiousness and excessive partisanship. But what is the alternative? Madison understood that in a free society, politics, including the spirit of party, is ubiquitous.

Since the latent cause of faction and spirit of party are natural to man, Madison sought to control the effects of faction, rather than to remove the causes, since the cure would be worse than the disease. That is what the Anti‐​Federalists wanted; it would have required curbing liberty. The point was to expand, not limit, liberty.

Partisanship is also rooted in the Constitution in another fundamental way. Throughout our history beginning in the 1790s, partisanship has been premised on the fault lines of constitutional interpretation and debate over the central principles of the separation of powers and federalism, or in other words, role of government questions. Contentious partisanship has its roots in the Constitution.

In the 1790s we also see the Founders’ practice of their principles; their actions, too, seem to refute the notion that the Founders were anti‐​party. While the 1950s was a period of relative partisan quiescence as was the era of good feeling in the early part of the 1800s, I think if you look historically those two periods are the exception more than the rule.

Now, partisanship is potentially good and bad. Friction creates light as well as heat. Our Constitution invites constructive partisanship, including often cantankerous, cacophonous, contentious partisanship. The principal differences between our two great parties, whether over the war on terrorism, health care reform, or global warming, matter, and they are often principled differences.

It is worth examining some of the causes of heightened partisanship today. First, party primaries, especially in congressional elections, invite appeals to the party base, and clearly contribute to greater partisan polarizations. Should we eliminate congressional primaries or nominating primaries either at the presidential or congressional level?

Should we return to the smoke‐​filled rooms? A second cause is gerrymandered redistricting, especially enhanced by computer modeling. Perhaps we should adopt the reform of eliminating computers — or maybe not?

Third, the democratization and decentralization of Congress due to institutional reforms. Some of the above causes were consequences of the 1970s reforms, in Congress in particular, designed to make Congress more open and democratic. Should we reform the reforms?

Fourth: the growth of government and the concomitant increased stake in our politics contribute to increased partisan polarization. Big government gives you big politics. James Q. Wilson, one of the leading political scientists of recent generations, said that once politics was about a few things; today it is about nearly everything. Maybe what we need to do is limit government if we want to limit politics and make our politics less cantankerous.

Fifth, an important cause of partisan polarization has been the effort to advance comprehensive, nonincremental reforms. For example, the decision by Democrats to advance comprehensive health care reform may by its very nature have raised fundamental questions about the role of government. Perhaps we should refederalize some of the policy questions. Moreover, we blame political parties when we should also acknowledge the role of our two other key mediating institutions: interest groups and the media.

Sixth, greater partisan polarization is due to the explosion in the role of the number of interest groups, so‐​called hyperpluralism, including in the think‐​tank universe. Maybe we should blame or credit Cato for partisan polarization. The proliferation of think tanks over the last 30 to 40 to 50 years has contributed to a more ideological, or you could say more principled, politics.

Seventh, the dramatic increase in education among Americans augments polarization. If I may paraphrase Shakespeare, perhaps the first thing we should do is kill all the professors, though I personally hope we don’t do that.

Eighth, decentralization, fragmentation, and greater competition of the new media as the hegemony of the old media establishment erodes have clearly contributed to the more cacophonous, contentious character of our politics. We’re clearly not going to get rid of the Internet anytime soon. The media loves to report on the planes that crash, not the thousands of planes that fly successfully every day. Conflict is what gets covered as opposed to consensus, exaggerating the level of contentiousness in our politics. But do we want to get rid of the new media and return to the good old days, or was it the bad old days, of the media establishment? Do we really want to return to the 1960s’ near monopoly of national news by NBC, ABC, CBS, the UPI, and AP wires?

And yet, finally, the most fundamental cause of partisan polarization may be our 200‐​year‐​old constitutional system which, as I suggested earlier, invites the spirit of party in our politics — and I certainly don’t recommend a new constitutional convention.

Our Authors on Twitter

The candidate you like is the one you think is most electable | Marjorie Hershey, Indiana University TheConversation https://t.co/TiAFQkFlOD

— R Hashimoto (@1RHashimoto) March 12, 2020

Saying partisanship is a helluva drug is a helluva drug. https://t.co/Cdl4LXeU36

— Sam Rosenfeld (@sam_rosenfeld) April 23, 2020

Great Quote: “Politics is about conflict and democracy isn’t pretty.” We need to better teach this in civic ed. - Frances E.Lee, Prof. Of Politics & Public Affairs @PUPolitics @JennaSpinelle @McCourtneyInst https://t.co/EIN8vlcPiw

— Mike Kenig-Electoral Reformer (@ElectReformer) April 29, 2020

The Party Politics of COVID-19

My friend Philip Klinkner has some fascinating analysis at Vox:

[At] the federal level, we have seen lawmakers advocating for economic aid on a bipartisan (albeit asymmetrical) basis, resulting in the implementation of programs like the Paycheck Protection Program. But the parties have been divided more on public health measures. Passage of last week’s small business relief bill was held up because Democrats insisted, over Republicans objections, on including money for hospitals and more testing.

The differential impact of the pandemic also gives us clues about how the 2020 election might play out. Democrats will likely continue to criticize President Trump’s erratic and ineffectual response to the crisis and the need for the federal government to provide funding to meet the ongoing medical and economic emergency. President Trump, meanwhile, might argue that his actions have limited the pandemic at least in the areas where most of his voters reside, while Republicans might accuse Democrats of hyping the crisis in order to ramp up government spending for their voters in large urban areas.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office has already called aid to state and local governments devastated by the pandemic “Blue State Bailouts.” Such a message is all the more pernicious and perhaps more effective since it triggers prejudices related to race, religion, and immigration. If so, it seems likely that the pandemic will only deepen America’s chronic social and political divides.