Discussion on Reductionism

This is a discussion on reductionism I had with another poster, @gquenot, on Biopolitics and Bionews, on a now disappeared thread.  I repost it here as I think it may be of interest.

Me:One of the heavyweights in philosophy of mind, Jaegwon Kim, considers the consensus of the last 5 decades of debate to be -- "qualia is not reducible to neurology". https://www.amazon.com/Phys... I have a review, which summarizes.

gquenot: Thanks for the reference and for the review that I found here. This is not a very positive review even though you rated the book 5-star.

It is difficult for me to appreciate whether or not or to what extent the consensus of the last 5 decades of debate really is “qualia is not reducible to neurology”. If, like Daniel Dennett, we think of qualia as “the ways things seem to us”, I see no obvious reason for which these should not be reducible to neurology (not claiming that they are, nor that they should be).

Me: Much philosophy writing is turgid and assumptions are unclear. And for even good thinkers— what fraction will one agree with? I run about 50% agreement with Kim and can clearly see what assumptions I disagree with for the rest. This deserves an A+ to my mind.

Non reduction? There are three primary reduction approaches: ignore mind (behaviorist and functionalists), eliminate mind (eliminativists), dismiss mind (delusionists). The leading functionalist, Putnam, has abandoned functionalism, and the leading eliminativist, Churchland, has abandoned eliminativism. Dennett has not abandoned delusionism, so at least one branch of mind denial is still active, but Kim considers Dennett to have lost the debate among his peers.

For those who accept mind, Kim considers inverted rainbow, Mary the color scientist and Chinese Room to be unrefuted arguments for irreducible qualia. He is not alone in this. The Stanford encyclopedia entry on scientific reductionism agrees the consensus view is that reduction is a failed project and irreducibility of mind is a prime example of this failure.

gquenot: 

[…] This deserves an A+ to my mind.

This makes sense.

[…] Kim considers Dennett to have lost the debate among his peers.

Possibly but I don’t see this as settled and there might still be other reductionist options.

[…] unrefuted arguments […]

I have almost never been convinced by a thought experiment. They are basically appeals to intuition. They may work with people sharing the appropriate intuitions but not with others.

The Stanford encyclopedia entry on scientific reductionism agrees the consensus view is that reduction is a failed project and irreducibility of mind is a prime example of this failure.

I will have a look. Such a bias seems strange from SEP. It may be that the reductionist view is a minority one but I don’t see it as a failed project at all, not that it has succeeded indeed but I don’t think that the question has been settled.

Me: Here is the intro to section 5:

The mainstream in the philosophy of mind is, apparently, one version or another of non-reductive physicalism. The majority within the philosophy of science has nowadays abandoned the unificationist program, to which reduction was intimately connected right from the start. However, as became apparent only in recent years, some questions regarding the concept of reduction have not successfully been accounted for yet, and recent developments in metaphysics in connection with metaphysical grounding may shed new light on the concept of reduction.

And the lead paragraph of 5.4:

Scientific reduction became an important topic in the philosophy of science within the context of a general interest in the unity of science, and it was inspired by specific alleged cases of successful reductions. The most prominent argument against reductionism stems from the observation that straightforward reductions hardly ever occur. Hence, reductionism cannot be regarded as yielding a coherent picture of what actually goes on in science. As long as reductionism is supposed to be more than a purely metaphysical position and is intended to say something significant about scientific change or norms, the value and relevance of the notion of reduction seems to depend in part upon how well the reductionist positions fit the facts, which their critics argue they do not (see, for example, Sarkar 1992; Scerri & McIntyre 1997).

https://plato.stanford.edu/...

I share your skepticism of thought problems, and consider empirical test cases more significant.

gquenot: I read the whole section 5.4. It may be a fact that most philosophers have abandoned the view of reduction as one of the core notions of theories defending one form or another of scientific unification. It is clear also that if something can “block the reductionist train in its track”, it must be the “mind problem”, with the consciousness and freedom questions specifically. However, those who say that it is impossible should not stop those who are doing it. In this respect, the article could have been a bit more neutral.

Regarding “more significant empirical test cases”, I strongly recommend: Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts by Stanislas Dehaene. This is not at all a philosophy book (I even think that Stanislas Dehaene carefully avoids to make any philosophical digression; he just temperately mentions in the beginning that his work is conducted in a naturalistic context) but I think that its contents is nonetheless highly relevant to the philosophy of mind. Indeed, progresses are being made on the neuroscience side but the problem is still far from being solved.

Me: When not all of physics reduces to QM and relativity, that is a problem for reductionism. When only about half of chemistry reduces to physics, and only biochemistry in biology, and this is the limit of reductions in science, then reductionism as a global claim is empirically untrue. That psychology does not reduce to biology -- is not an anomaly, and is an expected outcome of a non-reductive approach to science.

Insisting on a biologic reductionism approach for psychology, despite the global failures to date for reductionism, is pretty clearly ideological dogmatism. Seeing if one can somehow make it work when nobody else has before -- that is how science advances, so more power to anyone giving it a go.

But based on the failure of reductionism to date, science needs to be based on a non-reductive model -- and non-reductive theories of mind are where one is most likely to see success.

As for empiricism on this question -- Susan Blackmore did an excellent job compiling empirical data relative to mind theories: https://www.amazon.com/gp/c...

gquenot: We may have different intuitions on these questions and I see nothing wrong with that.

Which of insisting on or rejecting reductionism is more dogmatic seems quite subjective to me. I don’t see any reason for making any claim either way; we may just consider the question as unsettled yet and continue to explore both alternatives. I do not share your feeling on “the failure of reductionism to date” and I don’t see what a non-reductive model for science could be.

We may indeed think of “non-reductive theories of mind” but these can’t be scientific theories. Honestly also, I don’t see how one can explain anything (regarding its nature or its operation) with a non-reductive theory, be it scientific or not. Maybe an example?

Susan Blackmore’s book looks interesting and I plan to read it. However, Stanislas Dehaene is not someone that compiles empirical data relative to mind theories, he is among those that are producing these data. In this domain, his book is the best I have ever read.

Me: I have added Dehaene to my reading list. Thanks!
That failure to reduce, and valid theoretical reasons WHY reduction is impossible in principle across the sciences, is still insufficient to convince you that reductionism cannot work? I would submit that yours is by definition an anti-scientific position -- you reject the possibility of falsification , even when provided falsifications.
Here are two links that may be helpful in understanding non-reductive science:
Incommensurability across disciplines is intrinsic to science: https://www.academia.edu/87...
Reasons why reductionism was a default assumption, and is no longer valid, focusing on downward causation:
http://web.missouri.edu/~se...

gquenot: 

That failure to reduce, and valid theoretical reasons WHY reduction is impossible in principle across the sciences, is still insufficient to convince you that reductionism cannot work?

Failure to reduce? Failed attempts so far or current “gaps” are just that, they do not prove that reductionism cannot work.

Valid theoretical reasons? I honestly don’t see what you are referring to.

In both cases, what would constitute a successful reduction is not that clear and the in principle possibility of and the actual realization of a reduction are two different things. To be a bit more specific on that, no biologist pretends that it is practically possible to explain the functioning of a particular organ, say a heart, directly in terms of quarks and electrons. Yet, whatever philosophers might in majority think about that, the vast majority of biologists (I don’t even know of a single exception) really believe that the nature and functioning of a heart is “quarks and electrons interacting through fields”, that and nothing else but that, however intractable that might turn out to be in practice. The consensus might be lower and possibly much lower when it comes to mental-related things but, apart from that, from geology to biology, the vast majority of scientists do consider that everything is reducible to “particle physics” in the sense that nothing else needs to exist or to intervene and, even more, that postulating such something else does not help to explain anything more in any discipline.

non-reductive science

I will have a closer look but this mostly seems to address practical difficulties, it does not seem to invalidate the possibility of reductionism itself. Also, I don’t see how the observation of a lack of practical unification or of practical unifyability deserves to be called “non-reductive science”. At best, this could be called “non-unified (yet) science”. The real question is: what more can you expect to explain by postulating a non-reducibility and how?

Me:  This review states that reductionism among biologists is, contrary to your claims, a minority, shrinking, and almost disappeared, view: https://scienceblogs.com/wo...

Do you need citations to show that psychologists, sociologists, economists, etc are also not reductionists? In asserting reduction is necessary you are in conflict with the experts in the fields in question.

One of the links I provided note that incommensurality of different sciences -- IE their terms and metrics are fundamentally untranslatable. The second noted the emergence of structures which are not reducible to substrates, and downward causation. all three of these are incompatible with reduction. These provide a theory as to why reduction fails.

Meanwhile, efforts to implement reductionism have failed dramatically across almost all of science. Note, failed predictions are falsifications. And a wholesale collection of failures is basically the definition of a failed research programme: http://people.loyno.edu/~fo...

The instance on reduction contrary to expert consensus, in conflict with apparent theoretical impossibility, and despite the hypothesis being falsified by both Popperian and Lakatian standards -- is pretty dramatic ideological dogmatism.

Meanwhile, this claim:

apart from that, from geology to biology, the vast majority of scientists do consider that everything is reducible to “particle physics” in the sense that nothing else needs to exist or to intervene and, even more, that postulating such something else does not help to explain anything more in any discipline.

if you really are asserting that the vast majority of scientists are reductionists on everything but consciousness -- is both unsupported and pretty dramatically untrue.

gquenot: 

This review states that reductionism among biologists is, contrary to your claims, a minority, shrinking, and almost disappeared, view: https://disq.us/url?url=htt...

This review states that reductionism is possibly a minority view among philosophers of biology. It says nothing about how widely this view is shared among biologists. I am still waiting to see a biologist claiming that there must be something else than particle physics for explaining the functioning of a heart, even if none is directly doing that and even if they routinely work at higher (and approximate and simplified) abstraction levels.

Regarding social sciences and economics, one can argue that they do include some psychological components, even if not explicitly so the consensus might be lower there too.

In practice, many scientists possibly do science only within their own discipline with little attention to “the big picture” and without necessarily caring a lot about the questions that interest philosophers. Yet, within “hard” sciences (say excluding psychology and anything depending upon it), I still believe that no or very little scientists consider that something else that particle physics must intervene for explaining what happens in their discipline, even if particle physics in not the most efficient level for them to work with (and that might be a euphemism).

I would like to see an example of something that would be definitely incommensurable or untranslatable between biology and physics and/or what that would actually mean and how this would rule out a possibility of reductionism.

Same for “the emergence of structures which are not reducible to substrates”.

Regarding “downward causation”, I see that as more a problem for non-reductionist approaches than for reductionist ones and this involves mental stuff and therefore leads to a lower consensus too.

Again, failed attempts so far are just failed attempts so far and do not prove anything.

Dogmatism is in saying that an issue has been settled, not in saying that it is still open. I am not saying that reductionism is true or must be true (or achievable), just that it has not been ruled out yet.

if you really are asserting that the vast majority of scientists are reductionists on everything but consciousness -- is both unsupported and pretty dramatically untrue.

Maybe the confusions comes from the fact that I am talking of scientists while you are taking of philosophers of science.

Me:  gquenot -- your reply comes across as fundamentally dishonest.

This review states that reductionism is possibly a minority view among philosophers of biology. It says nothing about how widely this view is shared among biologists.

Reductionism is a philosophy question -- specifically philosophy of science. Non-philosophically oriented biologists would have no insight into this question. And philosophers of science have always been a mix of scientifically oriented philosophers, and philosophically oriented scientists, so any consensus among philosophers of biology will by definition include multiple biologists.

Also, despite several requests from me, you have provided NO support for your repeated claims of what biologists think.

that there must be something else than particle physics for explaining the functioning of a heart, even if none is directly doing that and even if they routinely work at higher (and approximate and simplified) abstraction levels.

NO explanation from ANY biologist for the operation of a heart references particle physics!

Regarding social sciences and economics, one can argue that they do include some psychological components

"include some psychological components" is explicitly =/= reductionism to psychology. For problems in a different field to be interactive with and usefully informed by another science is -- SOP in science, and has nothing to do with reductionism.

I still believe that no or very little scientists consider that something else that particle physics must intervene

You continue to equate physicalism with reductionism. Physicalists can be, and primarily are, non-reductive physicalists. Supervenience is not reduction (although Kim correctly points out that to avoid reduction through supervenience, emergent structures must be causally independent of their substrates).

I would like to see an example of something that would be definitely incommensurable or untranslatable between biology and physics

Species. Symbiosis. Parasitism. Population. Ecosystem.

You appear not to have put any thought whatsoever into looking for challenges to reduction, despite my spoon feeding you multiple references, and specifying the consensus view of science today.

Again, failed attempts so far are just failed attempts so far and do not prove anything.
Dogmatism is in saying that an issue has been settled, not in saying that it is still open. I am not saying that reductionism is true or must be true (or achievable), just that it has not been ruled out yet.

We deal with our world empirically, and science is an empirical discipline. It cannot provide "proof". Science operates off failed tests, from which we reject the hypotheses that failed these tests. I showed how these failures satisfy both the Popperian and Latakian standard for rejecting reduction.

I repeatedly encounter ideological dogmatists, be they religious, political, or philosophical like yourself, who insist on holding by their ideology until it is definitively refuted. For an empirical question, this is an impossible standard to meet, so your rationale is an explicit fallacy. It is also an overt rejection of science, which I pointed out to you many many posts back.

Maybe the confusions comes from the fact that I am talking of scientists while you are taking of philosophers of science.

I don't believe there is actually any confusion. You admit in this very post that "most scientists" don't think about, and have no clue on, this philosophical question. I have cited the scientists who do pay attention, who are among the community of philosophy of science. You simply refuse to accept what the philosophic/science experts say.

New York Law Opens Door to Hundreds of Sexual Abuse Lawsuits

James Grein, left, and his lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, on Wednesday. 

The New York Times reports on a change in law that creates a one-year period to let victims of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits even though the statute of limitations had passed. The NYT writes: 

“Theodore E. McCarrick, the prominent Roman Catholic cardinal who was defrocked early this year for sexual abuse, brought one of his victims, James Grein, then 30, to meet Pope John Paul II in 1988. 

It was a private audience, Mr. Grein recalled as he became one of hundreds of people to begin filing lawsuits on Wednesday under the Child Victims Act. The new state law says that for one year, sexual abuse victims of any age in New York — including, crucially, those whose cases had expired under the old statute of limitations — can take legal action. 

After Mr. McCarrick, then the archbishop of Newark, left the room, Mr. Grein said he knelt before the pope and revealed, in the presence of several Vatican officials, that Mr. McCarrick had been sexually abusing him since childhood. 

‘I told him I had been abused as a child by this man, and I need you to stop it,’ said an emotional Mr. Grein, who is now 61. ‘He put both hands on my head, and told me he would pray for me.’

Victims of sexual abuse in New York were previously required to file civil lawsuits by their 23rd birthdays. Under the new law, they now have until age 55, and for one year, starting on Wednesday, they can be even older than that.

The window may become a powerful lever for clergy abuse victims to find out how extensive the cover-up of sexual abuse was in the Catholic Church and whether top Vatican officials knew about it.”

If Grein’s story is true, it suggests the level knowledge about child sex abuse and complicity in it by the Pope and Church has been widespread for decades. If abused people can actually prove their cases, often not an easy thing to do, it is likely the Catholic Church will be bankrupted, at least in New York. Other service organizations are also bracing for an onslaught of lawsuits, including the Boy Scouts.

Thoughts and prayers don't cut it to bring some degree justice to the victims, but lawsuits just might. 

Religious Freedom vs. Secular Law

LGBT-friendly business notice

A source of disagreement that continues to polarize American society is allegations by religious believers that religious and speech freedoms are being crushed underfoot by secular laws and court decisions. If one tries to look coldly and objectively at the reality, the situation is not nearly as serious as religious believers routinely assert. The one area of exception is impacts of laws on religious practices in commerce. Impacts on private religious practice mostly range from zero to low and impacts on religious beliefs are zero in all contexts.

In June 2015, the Supreme Court held in Obergefell v. Hodges that a fundamental right to marry existed for same-sex couples under the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment. The decision was 5-4 along the liberal vs. conservative divide. It is reasonable to expect that within the next 3-6 years the Supreme Court will reverse that decision and the right will revert to the states.

In the years leading up to the Obergefell decision, conservatives argued, among others things, that same sex marriage was an intense attack on religious freedom and associated freedom of speech. In hindsight, Obergefell probably was a modest to significant factor in Donald Trump's election. Many or most religious conservatives saw American society as launching an all-out war on religion and associated religious freedoms.

Things that can obscure the view - the fog of unconscious bias

Where's the beef?: In the years leading up to Obergefell, there was a lot of debate. As usual, the two sides mostly talked past each other. Also as usual, the combatants tossed out endless arguments based on undefined concepts, e.g., attack on exactly what religious freedom, and unquantified effects, e.g., exactly what are the benefits and burdens in clear, real-world terms.

Making one's own beef: Although someone somewhere probably did an analysis and published it somewhere, there was essentially no acknowledgement by either side of a brutally honest cost-benefit assessment. Essentially no one in the partisan wars was even asking about exactly what freedoms were benefited or burdened by how much and for whom did these costs or benefits apply? Being ignorant of an analysis and tired of the usual empty left vs. right blither, trying to do a home-grown cost-benefit assessment seemed worthwhile. So, that was attempted.

In essence, weighing costs and benefits to freedoms is a matter of generating one or more algorithms that can provide at least a rough burden and benefit estimate. Although the task seemed simple at first, it wasn't. It quickly became obvious that at least two separate algorithms would be needed because impacts on affected groups varied depending on the freedom context. One algorithm focused on cost-benefit in the context of freedom of religion. The second was for cost-benefit in the context of freedom of commerce or economic activity. Once that became clear, the task was fairly straightforward, but still a bit more complicated than one might expect.

Obviously, not all impacts could be assessed, e.g., people's psychological comfort or discomfort with the thought of a wrong-sex person using a public bathroom, even if that might be a rare event or one that a correct-sex person in the bathroom wouldn't always be aware of. Nonetheless, the algorithms were designed to look directly and objectively at the core arguments the two sides were blindly arguing against each other with little objective data for either side being used.

Impacts on freedom of religion and religious speech: Different groups and their sizes that were obvious to consider included number of adult Americans, number of LGBT Americans, number of religious adults, number of religious adults who supported or opposed same-sex marriage, etc. The data was based on poll numbers. The detailed analysis is here.

The logic behind the algorithm was simple. For example, religious freedom burdens for religious opponents of same-sex marriage would obviously be greater than for (i) non-religious opponents, or (ii) all, including religious, people who supported same-sex marriage (most Americans at the time the analysis was done). The trick was to quantify (estimate) burdens and benefits. Obviously same-sex couples who could now marry got all sorts of benefits, e.g., rights of inheritance and other family and spousal benefits that marriage confers. Burdens on religious opponents were more complicated but still estimable to a reasonable degree.

The bottom line was that impacts on religious freedoms weren't severe. Instead, some religious people reacted vehemently and emotionally, but the actual burden on their real-world freedom to practice their religion any way they wanted was low to non-existent. By contrast, the benefits to same-sex people, a small group (about 9 million) who could now marry were very high. The table below outlines the underlying assumptions, logic and rights-impacts for supporters of same-sex marriage.

Impacts on opponents of same-sex marriage are shown below.

IVN published a summary of the analysis that I wrote for them. The public response was nil. In line personal expectations, people weren't much interested in hearing about freedom-rights costs and benefits on an issue that was tearing American society apart. By then, October 2015, it was clear that facts, logic and reason on divisive political issues weren't of much interest to more than a tiny sliver of the American public, maybe about 0.1% based on personal experience.

Impacts of same-sex marriage on freedom of commerce and economic activity: This analysis gave vastly different results. That is because about 142 million people lived in the 22 states and D.C. that had laws banning discrimination in commerce based on sexual orientation (not based on discrimination against same-sex marriage per se). Data: 44% of all U.S. residents reside in states with an anti-discrimination law.; 56% of all people reside in states with no anti-discrimination law.

The detailed analysis is here and the article that IVN published is here.

The upshot was that impacts in commerce for same-sex marriage opponents could be severe enough to put some business owners out of business and their employees out of jobs. Again, public response to the analysis was nil.

The point of this discussion: A reasonable response to the foregoing might be something like "So what?" Good question. So what, indeed. Arguably, looking at freedom burden and benefits would help partially rationalize debates about many issues where the usual left vs. right debate is based on undefined, unquantified concepts, e.g., exercise of religious freedom, burden on freedom of speech, burden on business operations, benefit to society. Based on human cognitive biology, that approach to political issues is a non-starter.

Politics is mostly intuitive, moralistic and intolerant because that's how the human mind processes inputs. Personal beliefs are mostly driven by things other than unbiased facts and logic. Freedom of speech that protects dark free speech as much as honest speech is a major factor that fosters and amplifies unconscious, moralistic thinking. The human species has to survive or die off based on its evolutionary cognitive heritage. Time will tell if that's for better or worse.

B&B orig: 1/28/18

Koch Industries Plans New Propaganda Campaign

The New York Times reports that the Department of Justice is dismissing all charges against Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ). This case illustrates the extreme difficulty, near impossibility, of prosecuting white collar criminals. Menendez was accused of taking bribes from a doctor in return for lobbying for the doctor's interests.

The NYT writes: “The Department of Justice on Wednesday dismissed all the remaining charges against Senator Robert Menendez, a decision that underscores how a 2016 Supreme Court ruling has significantly raised the bar for prosecutors who try to pursue corruption cases against elected officials.”

“The unraveling of the case against Mr. Menendez is the latest example of how difficult it has become to win public corruption cases after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to overturn the conviction of the former Republican governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, who had been accused of accepting luxury items, loans and vacations in exchange for helping a businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr.” “That decision drastically limited the kinds of “official acts” performed by lawmakers that can constitute bribery or corruption, with the court ruling that only specific actions could be deemed to cross a legal line.”

The Supreme Court's 2016 ruling in the McDonnell v United States case was expected to make it harder for prosecutors to prove corruption cases against politicians in cases where there is no proof of an explicit agreement linking a campaign donation or gift to a contract, grant or vote. Those predictions are coming true. Obviously, any sane politician with any awareness will make sure there is no written agreement in bribery or illegal conflict of interest situations.

The implication for president Trump appears to be that prosecutors will have a hard time proving bribery. Whether this more difficult legal burden on prosecutors affects allegations of money laundering or illegal conspiracy isn't clear. In McDonnell's corruption case, the court held that an “official act” does not include simply setting up a meeting, calling another public official, or hosting an event. There has to be something more to show bribery or illegal corruption. Presumably, the same standard applies to Trump.

The NYT reported that Menendez plans to run for re-election to the US Senate for a third term. He has the backing of democratic New Jersey state politicians. Republicans plan to attack Menendez as a corrupt politician.

It seems that the rule of law is under attack from both outside and inside the federal judiciary.

B&B orig: 2/1/18

History: Partisan Defense of Accused President Nixon

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. . . . . Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” John Adams, 1775

“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects. . . . . Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. . . . . The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.” James Madison, Federalist Papers #10, 1787

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. George Washington, Farewell address to the American People, 1796

Writing an opinion essay for the New York Times, Michael Conway and Jon Marshall argue that the current republican defense of president Trump is not much different than republican defense of president Nixon.

Conway was counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment inquiry. Marshall is an assistant journalism professor. They write: “Reporters and political commentators often express frustrated surprise at the steadfast support of President Trump from most Republicans in the House and Senate. But they shouldn’t — it has happened before.

In fact, when these critics refer back to the Watergate era as a time of bipartisan commitment to the rule of law over politics, they get it exactly wrong. Defending the president at all costs, blaming investigators and demonizing journalists was all part of the Republican playbook during the political crisis leading up to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

. . . . . In late 1972, when a Democratic congressman, Wright Patman of Texas, began to investigate connections between Mr. Nixon’s aides and the Watergate burglary, the House Republican leader, Gerald Ford of Michigan (who later succeeded Mr. Nixon as president), called it a ‘political witch hunt,’ according to the historian Stanley I. Kutler in his book ‘The Wars of Watergate.’

. . . . . the ranking Republican on the Senate Watergate Committee, Howard Baker of Tennessee — a man often lauded for putting principle over party — met with Mr. Nixon to discuss strategy. To ‘maintain his purity in the Senate,’ Mr. Baker didn’t want anyone to know about meeting Mr. Nixon, wrote the White House counsel, John Dean, in a memo before a meeting with Mr. Nixon. Once the hearings started in late spring of 1973, Mr. Baker’s staff leaked information about the committee’s witnesses and plans to Mr. Nixon.

When Mr. Baker famously asked, ‘What did the president know, and when did he know it?’ during the Watergate hearings, he meant to protect Mr. Nixon in the mistaken belief that the president didn’t know about the Watergate cover-up until many months after it occurred. The question backfired once evidence mounted that Mr. Nixon was involved in the cover-up from the start, and Mr. Baker eventually became a critic of the president.”

Thus, it seems that there is not much new in partisan party politics. That makes sense since the impulse is innate to human biology. President Ford called the investigation into Nixon a political witch hunt. That sounds exactly like Trump and his supporters attacking the Mueller investigation. Democrats defended president Clinton, while republicans tried to impeach him. Given history, one can argue that partisan self-defense ranks above country and the rule of law. Apparently, that is what tribal politics looks like.

President Trump’s admiration for tyranny or autocracy, and his disrespect for the rule of law is publicly professed and well-known. So is his contempt for restraining political norms such as avoiding conflicts of interest. For example, Trump falsely asserted “the law’s totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest”.

Clearly, Trump and some or most of his supporters cannot see the warning signs the Founders spoke of. Under the circumstances, including republican control of the House and Senate, Washington’s warning about frightful despotism is something that some Americans alive today just might come to see in their lifetimes.

B&B orig: 8/14/18