The founding fathers were anxious to oppose a parliamentary system that produced the oppression against which the revolutionaries went to war. Breaking with King George III and his enablers also meant creating a newly conceptualized presidential system, with checks and balances, a powerful legislature (the House of Representatives) and a Senate whose members were originally selected by state legislatures. The founders overweighted the influence of the less populous states in order to help to curb the popular will, and to gain broad support for the new constitution’s ratification.
All of these exemplary attempts to minimize the possibility of mob rule, and to prevent majorities crushing minority interests, has mostly served us well – until it no longer does. Likewise, the Electoral College originally had its uses, even now that it is an anachronism.
Nevertheless, as ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss’ self-inflicted rapid loss of her mandate, and of her legitimacy, so clearly demonstrated yesterday, pure parliamentary systems often have advantages over the comparative rigidity and (in good times) the stability of a robust presidential system like our own. (Many African polities operate mixed parliamentary/presidential systems that effectively privilege the presidential side of their governmental equation and neutralize the otherwise usually available parliamentary benefits.)
Truss swept into Britain’s highest elected office not as a result of the vote of her parliamentary ruling Conservative Party colleagues but by winning the support of a mere 160,000 paid-up members of the party. Then she foolishly acted on that limited and unsupported mandate radically to introduce massive tax cuts for the rich (and others) without demonstrating how those cuts (and resulting budgetary deficits) would be financed. Not only were the cuts made in service of zombie economics, following some long-discredited Reagan/Laffer curve syndrome, but they were introduced after decapitating the knowledgeable and much respected head of the Treasury. Neither Truss nor ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng consulted with experts or took advice. Ideological hocus-pocus triumphed, and then their make believe house of financial cards tumbled. The market – an ultimate arbiter – reacted with hostility, Truss forfeited her legitimacy, and she became the shortest serving prime minister in British history.
That saga is instructive. But for our purposes, it is more important that a parliamentary system, particularly a mostly “pure” one (unlike Germany’s or South Africa’s), showed that a leader whose policies were found wanting could be removed, almost instantaneously. There was no need to wait four years, for another presidential) election. There was no political campaign, with information and disinformation. No smears, no jousting by rival contending forces. And any polarization of a nation’s opinion makers and of its popular wills was avoided.
The Conservative Party members in Parliament, through the head of its leadership committee, simply (metaphorically) strolled over to the prime minister’s office, had a quiet talk with the embattled Truss, and told her in straightforward words that her party could back her no longer. She had lost the confidence of her colleagues. Indeed, despite the Conservative Party’s massive majority in the House of Commons, she no longer commanded their respect. So she could no longer lead, and had to go.
Obviously, the actual details of her resignation are more involved and possibly even more determinative than we know. But her reckless and ill-informed financial maneuverings ended up threatening the seats in parliament of a preponderance of her fellow Tory parliamentarians. Opinion polls, plus the gyrations of the financial markets, indicated that the opposition Labour Party’s popularity had soared. If a national election occurred now, Labour would overwhelm the Conservatives and perhaps several hundred of the now Tory seats would shift to Labour.
The American presidential system, in comparison, is positively sclerotic and in some senses defective. Truss, and even former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, worked their way up through their party. Neither vaulted to national prominence by rash behavior in political primary contests, propelling themselves from little known to central stardom by unprincipled and outrageous exploits and coarse language. They were vetted within the party, their mettle tested well before they themselves campaigned on behalf of their party for national hegemony.
Moreover, our methodology and our four year cycles mean that – unlike the British parliamentary method – we have no good way in between popular elections of dismissing someone whose policies meet with disdain within Congress or popularly. Our checks of a misguided president come through Congressional voting, just as a British prime minister has to gain majority approval in the House of Commons. But she can lose a vote of confidence in that House or, as in the present case, can offend her own colleagues and be compelled to withdraw. We have no sure method, short of the drastic provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution, of removing failures without long months of waiting, onerous campaigns, and much vituperation.
We are also beholden to the primary system, a reform intended to remove power from party bosses and transfer it to the people. But in its twenty-first century configuration, the political primary system has shifted contests for most Congressional seats, and even for the presidency, into a battle of ideologies. Since adherents of the other party (except in California and Alaska) may not vote in a closed primary, independents and centrist voters are frequently excluded. So the contests tend to be between lesser or greater extremes. Thus in November’s upcoming election, a mere fifty Congressional seats (at most) are truly competitive. The others have all been decided in primaries where, as I said, extreme views have already prevailed.
Britain’s parliamentary system mostly excludes those on far fringes. The nutty edge of American political life –the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and the Lauren Boeberts, even the Ron Johnsons and Herschel Walkers — find it much more difficult to be accepted within their parties or among a broader public.
We need to rescue ourselves from the well-intended plans of our forefathers, and even of those of the reformers who gave us the primary system in the early twentieth century. But exactly how to end the primary mess and to give ourselves at least some of the flexibility of the British parliamentary system must remain, alas, a work very much in progress.
It is time for a positive change which will prevent results such as Trump or any of his followers.