Comment by ajjenkins | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajjenkins | Hacker News Reader

I’ve never heard of the author until today, so I don’t have any bias against him, but I think his argument makes a lot of sense.

Personally, my preferred solution to polarization is voting reform (I actually think approval voting would be a better fix than RCV though) but he makes a good point that voting reform is a long term solution to a short term problem. I still think it’s worth pursuing, but there’s no way it will help us with the 2024 presidential election, for example.

The Democratic Party moving to the center could be done much more quickly, and if the strategy was successful in winning elections, might force the Republican Party to similarly adopt more moderate positions.

Another “solution” to polarization in the US is a civil war. This should definitely be avoided at all costs, but would probably eventually reduce polarization when the winning side forces the losing side to adopt their policies (like how the North forced the South to end slavery after the Civil War).

Having a single party dominate politics for a while sounds a little scary, but if they’re democratically elected, I guess that’s what people want, right? And, to me, it’s a much more palatable short-term solution to polarization than Civil War II.

Did the Civil War really facilitate depolarization in the US? The South is arguably still recovering economically from the Civil War, and retains a very strong cultural identity linked to the Confederacy. Walk into the gift shop in the Alabama state capitol, and you can buy Confederate Army uniforms for your kids.

The South was economically speaking essentially very, very, very behind until WW2 and its after match. They didn't recover 'just fine'.

And considering that the South was literally turning into traditional aristocracy including changing low codes and so on, now is much closer to what we would consider the center.

Are you suggesting that the Democratic Party should move to the left or to the right? Seen from Europe it is currently right of centre.

Americans as a whole are right of center on economic issues compared to Europe. But the current tension in America revolves around cultural issues. On that, the Democratic Party is significantly left of center, to the point where they reject political debate on a number of cultural issues where Europeans debate and are willing to compromise.

For example in 2016, the European Court of Human Rights rejected the claim that the “right to marriage” under the EU Convention on Human Rights encompasses same-sex marriage: https://eclj.org/marriage/the-echr-unanimously-confirms-the-.... In Germany, same sex marriage became legal by legislative vote, with Angela Merkel voting against it (putting her to the right of Donald Trump on the issue). There was no political crisis around these votes. While many in Europe support same-sex marriage, most see it as a political issue, not something beyond the reach of the political process.

Contrast the US, where progressives are talking about “packing” the Supreme Court over its rejecting the notion that the Constitution contains a right to abortion so expansive that it would render invalid nearly every abortion law in Europe. That decision made international news, with countries like France criticizing the Supreme Court, even though their own abortion laws were illegal under Roe, and the case in question, Dobbs, upheld a Mississippi law that was basically the same as the law in France.

There is no appetite in the Democratic party to pack the Supreme Court; it's a fringe position. Both poles of American politics are full of fringe ideas; on the left, you have things like "impeach Clarence Thomas", and on the right you have things like "defund the FBI and then have prosecutors in every red state secure punitive search warrants for Democratic politicians".

It's true that Roe, especially as originally conceived, put America to "the left" of Europe. We're to the left of Europe on all sorts of things: bankruptcy laws, no-fault divorces, exclusion of illegally obtained evidence, same-sex marriage, the right to wear religious garb in public spaces, the insistence that religious education be kept out of public schooling, no mandatory military service, and, of course, the First Amendment.

But your argument here includes a sleight of hand, because you confining your analysis to Dobbs itself, but ignore the state laws that it enabled, many of which are radically to the right of the European consensus. For instance, Ohio bans abortion at the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected, with no exceptions for rape or incest, so that a 10 year old girl had to be smuggled into a neighboring state within weeks of Dobbs passing.

Your point is that Europe doesn't put these questions outside of the political process. But you've run far past the end zone with that (seemingly correct) argument, by trying, and failing, to characterize the positions of the American political poles. It's a shame, because the real point you have to make here is interesting; you shouldn't crud it up with the partisan stuff.

> There is no appetite in the Democratic party to pack the Supreme Court; it's a fringe position.

Polls show significant numbers of Democrats support packing: https://www.newsweek.com/new-poll-shows-court-packers-will-f.... It's not a majority, but it's hardly "fringe."

> But your argument here includes a sleight of hand, because you confining your analysis to Dobbs itself, but ignore the state laws that it enabled, many of which are radically to the right of the European consensus.

The European consensus on moral ideology versus politics enables laws (in Ireland until recently, and in Poland still) that are radically to the right of the European consensus on abortion. Nobody in Belgium is showing up to the houses of EHCR Judges over recent decisions rejecting the notion of rights to same-sex marriage and abortion.

The point is that both Ohio and France view abortion as a matter of political line-drawing. People in France manage not to freak out about how people in Poland choose to draw the lines, so long as Polish law doesn't apply to them. In my view that makes Ohio and France more similar to each other than to California and New York, where many folks think that issues like abortion and same-sex marriage should be outside of the political process altogether.

They polled immediately after the Dobbs leak; prior to that poll, it got like 25% support. It's a fringe position, and will get fringier. If you polled Democrats on whether we should impeach Clarence Thomas, you'd get substantial support, because Democrats hate Clarence Thomas, just like you'd easily get Republicans to support impeaching Sonia Sotomayor.

The point you said you were making, about who does the line-drawing, is one I agree with. But, as I said, you misled when you implied Dobbs aligned policy with "Europe" (if you had said Dobbs had the ultimate effect of aligning us with Poland, I'd agree, but you didn't say that because we all know Poland is significantly to the right of the European consensus, and it would have harmed the partisan argument you tacked on).

How does Dobbs align is with Poland? Do you think it will result in a national ban on abortion in the US?

That’s a stated goal of many serving congress people.

If things swing a particular way you might see a national ban bill next year.

I don’t know how likely that is but it’s certainly a position many Republicans take.

Many politicians in Europe also take that position—legalized abortion is a delicate compromise in most EU countries. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who briefly succeeded Merkel as leader of the CDU, also staunchly opposed abortion, as did many in her party. In fact, in Germany’s high court has recognized a right to life under the Basic Law that begins at conception. Abortion is legalized in the country under the theory that the constitutional violation doesn’t necessarily need to be punished.

A national abortion ban can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. We’ll end up with a mix of laws at the state level, just like the EU. Public polling shows that Americans favor similar laws to Europe—abortions being illegal after the first trimester except under various exceptions. https://www.vox.com/2022/7/13/23204957/roe-wade-abortion-dob... (“At least three national surveys have shown majorities of Americans favor banning abortion after 15 weeks, even as those same respondents said they wanted to see Roe upheld.”).

> A national abortion ban can’t get 60 votes in the Senate.

David Shor: "Unless we see big structural changes in the Democratic party's coalition, then the modal outcome for 2024 is Donald Trump winning a filibuster-proof trifecta with a minority of the vote." (emphasis his)

(And, of course, the GOP could weaken the filibuster with 51 senators.)

What the public wants and what the legislature’s provide are fairly far from each other on this issue.

The minute the Dobbs decision came down several states laws changed to dramatically limit abortion. Much more limited than the national polls suggest are the desired outcomes. Indiana of all places had to rush a change on the books to make sure their ban wasn’t too limiting.

In that climate, and the way midterm elections go, I think a national ban is a definite possibility.

Meanwhile, an assault weapons ban is very popular with the public, but is effectively impossible to get passed.

Structurally, this Supreme Court is more activist than the public wants and is misaligned with the majority opinions (though I’ll grant that’s not the courts mandate).

It has already aligned several whole states with Poland on the issue; this isn't an abstraction: the population of US states with bans comparable to Poland exceeds that of Poland.

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