Domino Theory of Norms Spells Doom for US Politics

The habits of liberal democracy are self-sustaining only up to a point. The norms of orderly government have to be practiced to retain wide support. Once questioned, they’re at risk of breaking. For the past few years, the US has been finding out just how fragile these norms can be.

The latest source of revelation was the reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare. We don’t yet know what kind of derangement – ethical, cognitive or both – plagued his killer, but even in a country too familiar with lethal violence, you might have expected a universal and unqualified condemnation of this heinous act. Far from it. A remarkable number of politicians, commentators and dwellers on social media saw the need to put the crime in context, as they would say. Murder is not the answer, most of them concede, but remember that the health insurance industry is also a violent predator. People are angry and right to be, they explain.

Writing in the Financial Times, Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, noted that national surveys have found that between 2021 and 2024, 10%-15% of Americans “consistently support violence for political goals that they endorse.” This position, in effect, sees terrorism as legitimate and, if conditions warrant, admirable. Perhaps, after the celebrations attending the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, the willingness of so many Americans to take that view shouldn’t be surprising. But it certainly ought to be disturbing.

The idea that disagreements can and should be resolved peacefully is surely the foundational norm of democratic politics. But US politics is increasingly organized around rival fundamentalisms. The issue isn’t so much polarization – the hollowing out of the middle – as what’s happening at the poles.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-18/domino-theory-of-norms-spells-doom-for-us-politics?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTczNDUzNDk2MiwiZXhwIjoxNzM1MTM5NzYyLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTT09RSVhUMEFGQjQwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDNjgyQTUwQzJCRDM0MTFCQTgwQjEwQjZEQjczQzM1MSJ9.TBlRm9p5w1xgPLZimTm8k9ZEa3Pi6lWnTynx2z_-6EA