The game of chicken: Indian lessons from the great US shutdown

There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress – or more precisely in a single House of the Congress – a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one. Narendra Modi fans might like to think this is on-the-market acidic commentary about the UPA the grand old party that is its crown jewel. But this is about a different GOP, the American one, and the Congress it leads in Washington and the shutdown it has inflicted on its own country. In India we are used to government paralysis and sometimes government by paralysis. We shrug at shouting matches in parliament or the spectacle of politicians throwing sheaves of paper or chappals at each other. The proceedings of our houses of parliament are routinely brought to a standstill through walkouts and boycotts. But the leader of the Free World is demonstrating a sort of free fall that makes our bedlam seem almost functional – a deadly political game of chicken. [caption id=“attachment_1157675” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A fence surrounds the US Department of Commerce in Washington. Reuters[/caption] It is so crazy that Slate mocked the impasse in the language American journalists use to describe crises in less ‘enlightened’ parts of the world such as Afghanistan. The current rebellion has been led by Sen. Ted Cruz, a young fundamentalist lawyer from the restive Texas region, known in the past as a bed of separatist activity… (A)ttention now focuses on longtime opposition leader John Boehner, under pressure from both the regime and the radical elements of his own movement, who may be the only political figure with the standing needed to end the standoff. This is way beyond the give and take of democracy, the negotiations and bargains that are part of the great game. The hardline Republicans have basically issued a list of demands to President Obama as if they were hijackers or kidnappers instead of lawmakers. Jonathan Chait writes in New York Magazine “the hostage letter House Republicans released brimmed with megalomaniacal ambition”. The specifics of the demands – rolling back Obama’s health care plan despite it being basically ratified by the Supreme Court, the Keystone pipeline, the debt ceiling – are less important than what allows the American system to come such a pass. Chait writes that the problem is hardwired into the system. He quotes the late political scientist Juan Linz in explaining the Achilles heel of the American system of checks and balances. “All such systems are based on dual democratic legitimacy: No democratic principle exists to resolve disputes between the executive and the legislature about which of the two actually represents the will of the people.” The reason it has worked until now is that both the major parties were diverse enough to allow for some kind of eventual middle road option. Democrats had conservative Southerners. Republicans had moderates from the north east. The divided system of government could lead to gridlock but there were usually people on both sides who applied the brakes before going over the cliff. But now the make up has changed, especially for the Republican party and the Tea Party that has emerged from inside it. In India, even Mamata Banerjee, who liked to call strikes at the drop of a hat, has seen that shutting down government to show muscle is counter productive, cutting ones nose to spite ones face. Mamata, to her credit, saw this even before she came to power. She understands that there can be political consequences if voters see her as merely obstructionist. Republicans in power seem happy to run amuck with the Brahmastra at their disposal. There are two reasons for that. The gerrymandering of election districts in America, the redrawing of borders to create safe seats, means that fewer and fewer electoral seats are truly competitive anymore. So congressional representatives have little incentive to rein in their more extreme instincts anymore. The second reason is that over the years the Republican party has banked on the bogeyman of big government to whip up great populist outrage. Given the amount of waste that’s there in government, the pork barrel spending, the bridges to nowhere – that anger is not difficult to summon up. But Republicans are now discovering that their big government antipathy has itself become an out-of-control humungous Frankenstein monster whose single-minded purpose is to gut government. As Charles Pierce writes scathingly in Esquire: We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government. Is it any surprise they now show no qualms about driving government off the cliff? Our systems of government are very different . But if there is one lesson to be taken away from the debacle unfolding in Washington it is this. Hatred for government is easy to whip up, especially when governments are corrupt, wasteful and bungling. Ronald Reagan came to power by selling government as the problem and in an India mired in corruption scandals and electoral sops, it’s tempting to go down that road as well. But there has to be a distinction between government and governance. Narendra Modi has tried to make that point, espousing maximum governance and minimum government but as the electoral rhetoric heats up and the take-no-prisoners attitude toughens, it will be harder and harder to keep that distinction in mind. And once we lose sight of that it becomes infinitely harder to stuff the genie back into the bottle as the Americans are discovering - minimum government, maximum shutdown.