The figure of the political outsider has never been hotter in American politics, a trend that predictably corresponds with the longest period of historically low levels of trust in government. According to the Pew Research Center, only 19% of Americans trusted the government “to do what is right always or most of the time” as of November 2015. This large-scale public distrust has undoubtedly rocketed more radical candidates, such as Trump, Sanders, or even Cruz, to increased popularity. Like today’s presidential candidates, these recent social movements re-directed American skepticism and mistrust into calls for fundamental changes to national institutions. Movements such as Occupy Wall Street or the Tea Party movement– despite their disparate political leanings– shared the common goal of altering the Washington consensus. Like many American political movements before them, they worked from a source of public distrust in the government to claim that radical change was the only mode of fixing a broken governmental system. While this political strategy has been effective in specific moments in American history, such as the Civil Rights Movement or the New Deal, the legislative action achieved during these periods proves to be more the exception than the rule. In short, the American political system does not readily pay heed to calls for deep institutional changes.
When considering this trend against the founding theory of our government, however, it becomes clear that the American government was not made to respond to calls for radical change. The Founding generation was notoriously fearful of “mob rule,” which they defined as rapid, systematic transformation fueled by public opinion. Perhaps then, polarized radicalization on the left and right produces ineffectual governance when placed within the American governmental system. In essence then, the recent suite of fundamental reforms posed by both Republicans and Democrats, such as those stemming from the Tea Party or Occupy Movements, may not be optimized for our government as the Founders intended. This is not to disparage the goals of these radical movements, but to suggest that their strengths do not include the catalyzing of rapid legislative change.
The Founders characterized mob rule as a passionate, rapid, ill-considered mode of enacting broad change. In the late 1770s, John Adams said, “The law, in all vicissitudes of government, fluctuations of the passions, or flights of enthusiasm, will preserve a steady undeviating course; it will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations, and wanton tempers of men.” Here, Adams expresses a fear of passions, and dismantles any faith in the ordinary citizen to make a swift decision regarding urgent matters of the state. Similarly, James Madison writes in Federalist No. 10 that factions are particularly dangerous when they constitute the majority of the republic, but that government officials must mitigate the impassioned demands of these bodies. In contemporary politics, however, when technology has made accountability to the electorate higher than it was in the 1770s, electors are less able to dilute the demands of their constituents. The political movement may therefore be seen as the quintessential mob, further establishing the point that the American government was not crafted to acquiesce to the goals of the immediate paradigm shifts of the public. Although one could argue that the American Revolution and the Constitution itself stemmed in part from the self-determination of the mob, the nation’s founders continuously demonstrate fear of the huddled masses. While the American pubic is certainly subject to reactive hysteria or irrational behavior, this logic was also employed for elitist, racist, sexist, or generally exclusive purposes, giving the Founders multiple reasons to articulate an improper, destabilizing capacity within the general public. By this logic, they justified our three branches of government as well as our consensual style of government, in which officials must come together to pass legislation.
To return to contemporary politics, Occupy and the Tea Party are particularly illustrative cases of fervent shifts in public opinion as catalyzing calls for major government reform, or what the Founders would have called “mob rule.” Since the Great Recession began in December 2007, public trust in the government “always or most of the time” has not risen above 20%– a drastic decline since highs near 50% during George W. Bush’s tenure. Following this massive financial downturn, activists and ordinary civilians alike flooded New York’s Zuccotti Park in late 2011, calling for punishment to be imposed upon the so-called 1%. While criticized for their lack of a cohesive policy platform, the protesters were united in their expressions of distaste for connections between Washington and Wall Street and their consequent calls for systemic governmental reforms.
The comments of protesters highlight the movement’s unabashed mistrust in our current institutions. For example, one protester said, “I’m trying to accomplish a collective screaming voice against the atrocities that we are seeing in our political system. I think there’s a lot of corruption and a lack of integrity. That’s disgusting to me.” Coeval with these comments, in October 2011, a Pew Research Center survey showed that public trust in government was the lowest it has been since Eisenhower’s tenure, with only 15% percent of respondents saying they trusted the government to do the right thing “always or most of the time.” Further corroborating this correlation, Andrew Kohut, then President of Pew, reported that the public and the Occupy movement were unified in their belief that American institutions largely served the super-rich. In many ways, Occupy is a social movement expressing what large swaths of the American public believes about the state of the American politics. Consequently, the public called for massive wealth redistribution, campaign finance reform, adjustments to the balance of power between government and the financial sector, regulations on lobbyists, smaller banks, among other large-scale goals. This was a broad ideological movement that called for deep institutional reforms to the American political system.
In the eyes of many political luminaries, the Occupy Movement galvanized large swaths of the New Left and placed financial reform back on the national political agenda. Bernie Sanders has been dubbed the Occupy candidate by many pundits, and has received endorsement from the movement itself. More than that though, he and his supporters are reflective of the traces of distrust and arguments for fundamental systemic change that have characterized American politics since 2007. In fact, the far-left’s calls for revolution have pushed more moderate candidates to declare a need for institutional reform. Hillary Clinton’s financial policy proposals, for example, are much more disruptive to the financial status quo than those of Democrats past. Although the party disagrees on whether she pushes reform far enough, Clinton’s proposals to impose risk fees on gargantuan banks, more closely regulate the shadow banking sector, and allow bureaucrats to call for banks to simplify or fracture, are certainly more radical than Bill Clinton’s disposal of Glass-Steagall.
Just as the left has navigated cycles of distrust and calls for systematic reform to ideologically realign itself, the right has done the same, galvanized in part by the Tea Party. As was the case with Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party also formulated its mission in the mistrustful wake of the Great Recession. A Tea Partier said in 2010, “I’m sick and tired of them wasting money and doing what our founders never intended to be done with the federal government.” Once again, the quote reveals a lack of faith and a belief that the American political system was not operating as it should have been. Further, the party grew to be highly influential in determining the trajectory of the Republican Party. In fact, the peak of Tea Party support was 32% of Americans in November 2010. The group’s radical principles of balanced budgeting and lessened funding for Social Security and other government programs, were for many the necessary institutional reform that the nation needed. These ideologies rocketed GOP members such as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to prominence and allowed the more conservative wing of the GOP to obstruct more moderate Republican legislation as well as Democratic legislation. Significantly, this obstruction, rather than active legislation, became a hallmark of the Tea Party presence in Congress. The movement clearly parallels Occupy, with its ideological roots in widespread distrust of Washington and a desire for large-scale alterations to the political process.
Both of these examples bring to mind the words of the Founders in discussing “mob rule.” In reaction to a significant national event, the Great Recession, the public had an emotional reaction—mistrust—and called for fundamental changes to American institutions on the left and right of the political spectrum. In light of this stark contrast, between the Founder’s design and the current activist political climate, congressional stagnancy is not surprising. With these dual movements having heavy influence in both political parties, radicalism seems to be the principal strategy on both sides of the aisle, making an ineffective congress the natural price to pay. Importantly though, the similarity of these movements to an antiquated definition of the “faction” does not de-legitimize them at all. Further, we must adjust our expectations of these movements within the current American political system. As has been shown, the rhetorical powers of these movements have been their strengths. Even when American social movements have been unable to fully enact their suites of policy proposals, they have often changed political framing for decades to come. This discursive influence may reverberate in unquantifiable ways, driving policy towards previously overlooked goals.