The Permanent Election

One of the things that distinguishes advanced democracies from banana republics is that winners and losers accept the results of elections. Losing candidates and parties don't initiate coups. Winners don't kill off the losers and their supporters. The winning party has an opportunity to govern. Both sides go back to their respective corners -- winners take office, losers take other jobs -- and wait until the next election to do battle again.

In recent years, however, U.S. politics has shifted somewhat away from this model toward more or less continuous battles. The first stage, which began several decades ago, was the "permanent campaign." Here, newly elected officials would almost immediately begin rounds of fund raising and media strategies designed to discourage potential rivals from entering the fray years hence. Potential rivals, for their parts, would begin almost at once to raise money and organize for the next election.

We are now, it seems, witnessing the next stage in our shift toward a banana republic form of government. Permanent campaigns are morphing into permanent elections. In the permanent election, rivals seek to reverse the decision of the majority of voters and unseat the victor as soon as they can. Unlike the permanent campaign, in which incumbents and rivals only act as if the next election were imminent, in the permanent election, the next election is in fact always imminent -- or at least an imminent possibility.
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