interviews
Water and the American West
by Richard Frank
October 25, 2021
This interview with Richard Frank, professor of environmental practice at the UC Davis School of Law and Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
frank | Can you tell me a little bit about the story of water and how it's tied to the West, and to California in particular?
Richard | A friend of mine who's a Court of Appeals Justice here in California wrote an opinion on a water law dispute and started it with the quote, "the history of California is written on its waters." And I think that the point is true of the entire American West.
Water policy and legal issues are inextricably tied to the development of the Western United States; water is the limiting factor in so many ways to settlement, to economic development, to prosperity, and to the environment and environmental preservation.
Can you talk about the difference between groundwater and surface water– and the policies that regulate each?
There are really two types of water when it comes to human consumption. There's surface water: that is the water that is transmitted by lakes, rivers, and streams. Then there is groundwater, and a substantial amount of water that Americans and the American West rely on is groundwater. That is water that is stored in groundwater aquifers, which are naturally occurring groundwater basins. Both groundwater and surface water are critical to the American West and its economy and its culture.
Traditionally a couple of things are important to note, first of all, water is finite. Second, water gets allocated in the Western United States generally at the state level. There's a limited federal role. Primarily, policy decisions about who gets how much water for what purpose are made state by state.
I think allocation is really interesting in that it's more state-level than federal. How was water and the allocation of water in California designed? Is it a public-private combination? What goes on in terms of the infrastructure of water?
Another very good question. The answer is it depends. Most of our water infrastructure is public in nature.
Again, in the American West, the regulation of water rights is generally done at the state level, but the federal government, historically, has a major water footprint in the American West because it has been federal dollars and federal design and management that really controlled much of the major water infrastructure in the American West — you know, Hoover Dam, and the complex system of dams and reservoirs on the Colorado River in California, with the Central Valley Project that was built and managed by the federal government with Shasta Dam on the upper Sacramento River as the centerpiece of that project. But we also have a California State Water Project, the key facility being the Oroville Dam and reservoir on the Southern River that is managed by state water managers. If we were starting over, that kind of parallel system would make no particular engineering or operational sense.
But, we are captive to our history.
And then you have these massive systems of aqueducts and canals that move water from one place to another throughout the American West. They are particularly responsible for moving water from surface water storage facilities to population centers. In the last 50 to 75 years, these population centers have really expanded dramatically, so you need massive infrastructure to deliver water from those storage facilities, the dams, and reservoirs, which generally are located in remote areas to the population centers. So it takes a lot of time and energy to transport the water, from where it is captured and stored to where it is needed for human use.
California has faced continuous drought – what measures is the state taking now to manage water?
Just to frame the issue a little bit — we have, as I mentioned, a growing population in the American Southwest at a time when the amount of available water is shrinking due to drought and due to the impacts of climate change. We have growing human demand for residential and commercial purposes and at the same time, we have a shrinking water supply. That is a huge looming crisis.
And it is beginning to play out in real-time. You see that playing out in real-time. For example, several different states and Mexico rely on Colorado River flows based on an allocation system that was created in the 1920s, which is overly optimistic about the amount of available water. From the 1920s until now, that water supply has decreased, and decreased, and decreased. Now you have interstate agreements, and in the case of Mexico, international agreements that allocate the finite Colorado river water supplies based on faulty, now obsolete, information. It is a real problem.
What measures do you take now, knowing this information?
If you look at the US Drought Monitor, it is obvious the problem is not limited to the Colorado River. We are in a mega-drought, so cutbacks are being imposed by federal and state water agencies to encourage agricultural, urban, and commercial water users to cut their water use and, and stretch finite supplies as much as possible through conservation efforts.
In California, we have the State Water Resources Control Board, the state water regulator in California, and they have issued curtailment orders. Meaning, they have told water rights holders, many of whom have had those water rights for over a hundred years, that, for the first time, the water that they feel they are entitled to, is not available. Local water districts are also issuing water conservation mandates; the San Francisco water department is doing that, in Los Angeles, the metropolitan water district, is urging urban users to curtail their efforts.
And then agriculture. Agricultural users — farmers and ranchers — have had to get water rights in many cases through the federal government, as the federal government is the operator of these water projects. They have contracts with water users, individual farmers, ranchers, or districts, and they are now issuing curtailment orders. They're saying, we know you contracted for X amount of water for this calendar year, but we are telling you because of the drought shortages we don't have that water to supply. Our reservoirs are low at Lake Shasta or at the Oroville Dam.
When you drive from San Francisco to LA on the five, you see a lot of signage from the agricultural farming community about water. There's apparently some frustration about this. What are the other options for them?
About 80% of all human consumed water goes to agriculture. That is by far the biggest component of water use, as opposed to 20% used for urban and commercial, and industrial purposes.
Over the years, ranchers and farmers, and agricultural water districts assumed that the water would always be there — as we all do.
And the farmers and ranchers have, in hindsight, exacerbated the problem by bringing more and more land into production. You see on those drives between San Francisco and Los Angeles, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley, all these orchards are being planted. Orchards are more lucrative crops than row crops — cotton, alfalfa, and rice. But, if you are growing a row crop, you can leave the land fallow in times of drought.
We don't have to plant. If the water stopped there, or if it's too expensive to get, it may make economic sense, but if you have an orchard or a vineyard it's a high value, those are high value crops, you don't have that operational flexibility and they need to be irrigated in wet years and in dry years. Now, you see these orchards, which were only planted a few years ago, are now being uprooted because the farmers realized that they don't have the water necessary to keep those vineyards and orchards alive. For ranchers, the same thing is true with their herds. They don’t have enough water for their livestock.
The water shortage has never been drier than it is right now. Farmers and ranchers are being deprived of water that they traditionally believed was theirs and they're very understandably, very unhappy about it. They see it as a threat to their livelihood and to the livelihood of the folks who work for them. Their anger and frustration are to be expected, but it's nobody's fault.
To say, as some farmers do, that it is mismanagement by state and federal government officials, I think is overly simplistic and misplaced in the face of a mega-drought. Everybody's going to have to sacrifice. Everybody's going to have to be more efficient in how they use water. All sectors are going to need to be more efficient with the water that does exist.
Looking at this percentage breakdown of water use – is it actually important for individual users to change their water habits?
Well, every little bit helps. When you're talking about homeowners, about 70% of urban water use is for outdoor irrigation. So we're talking parks and cemeteries and golf courses and folks' yards. You know, that used to be considered part of that American dream and the California dream — you would have a big lawn in front of your house and behind your house. Truth be told, that has never made much sense in an arid environment. That's where the water savings in urban areas is critical in the way it really involves aesthetics rather than critical human needs, like water for drinking and bathing and sanitation purposes. There is a growing movement away from big lawns, and away from the type of landscaping that you see in the Eastern US — there is no drought in the Eastern United States. As Hurricane Ida and other recent storms have shown, the problem is too much water, or rather than too little in most of the Eastern United States. So it really is a tale of two countries.
We just need to recognize that the American West is an arid region. It has always been an arid region, we can't make the desert bloom with water that doesn't exist. We need to be more efficient in how we allocate those water supplies. And it seems to me in an urban area, the best way to conserve and most effective way is to reduce urban landscaping, which is the major component of urban water use.
You also write about water markets and making them better – for those who don’t know, what is the water market?
Water markets, that is, the voluntary transfer of water between water users, is more robust in some other Western states. Again Arizona and New Mexico come to mind. California somewhat surprisingly is behind the curve. We are in the dark ages compared to other states. Water markets are kind of anecdotal. There is not much of a statewide system. It is done at the local level, through individual transactions without much oversight and without much transparency. And I have concerns about all of those things.
I believe conceptually watermarks are a way to stretch scarce, finite water resources to make water use more efficient. I can, for example, allow farmers or ranchers to sell water to urban uses or commercial usage or factories in times of drought.
Farmers sometimes can make more money by farming water, than they can by farming crops.
There are efficiencies to be gained here.
The problem in my view is really one of transparency. The water markets are not publicly regulated, and some of the people who are engaging in water transactions like it that way, frankly, they want to operate under the radar.
In my opinion, water markets need to be overseen by a public entity rather than private or nonprofit entities. We need oversight and transparency, so that folks like you and myself can follow the markets to see who's selling water to whom, for what purpose, and make sure that those water transfers serve the public interests and not just the private interests.
There have been a number of stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the Salt Lake City Tribune about efforts in some parts to privatize water transfer. Hedge fund managers are buying and selling water, as a means of profiting. And it strikes me that when you're talking about an essential public resource — and in California, it is embedded in the law that public water is an inherently public resource, that water is owned by the public and it can be used for private purposes, but it is an inherently public resource — the idea of commoditizing water through the private, opaque markets is very troublesome to me. I think it represents a very dangerous trend and one that needs to be corrected and avoided.
Why is California so behind?
There's no good reason for it. It's largely inexplicable that since the state was created on September 9th, 1860, we've been fighting over water. In the 19th century, it was miners versus farmers ranchers. In the 20th century, with the growth of urban communities, the evolution of California into one of the most populous states with 40 million Californians, it has been a struggle between urban and agricultural uses of water.
In the second half of the 20th century, there was a recognition that some component of water had to be left in streams to protect ecosystems, landscape, and wildlife, including the threatened and endangered wildlife. That suggestion has made agricultural users in California angry. You will see those signs that allude to the idea that food and farming are more important than environmental values. I don't happen to believe that's true. I believe both are critically important to our society. But the advocates for the environment have a proverbial seat at the water table. So that's another demand for water allocation that exists.
Do you maintain optimism?
Yes. I think it's human nature to look on the bright side. I try to do that through research scholarships and teaching. There are models for how we can do this better in the United States. Israel and Saudi Arabia and Singapore are far more efficient with their water policies and efforts. Australia went through a severe megadrought. They came out of it a few years ago, but they used that opportunity to dramatically reform their water allocation systems. That's an additional model. I think most people would agree in hindsight that their previous system was antiquated, and not able to meet the challenges of climate change and the growing water shortage in some parts of the world.
Here in the United States, we can learn from those efforts. There are also some ways to expand the water supply. Desalination for one. Again, Singapore and Saudi Arabia have led the world in terms of removing the salt content from ocean water and increasing water supply that way. In Carlsbad, California, north of San Diego, we have the biggest desalination plant in the United States right now, and that is currently satisfying a significant component of the San Diego metropolitan areas’ water needs. It's more expensive than other water supplies, but the technology is getting more refined, so the cost of desalinated water is coming down at a time when other water supplies, due to shortages and the workings of the free market are going up.
At some point, they're going to meet or get closer. Unlike some of my environmental colleagues, I think desalination is an important part of the equation.
In a proposal that came up in the recall election, one of the candidates was talking about how we just need to build a canal from the Mississippi River to California to take care of all our problems. That ignores political problems associated with that effort, as well as the massive infrastructure costs that would be required to build and maintain a major aqueduct for 2000 miles from the Mississippi to California. That's just not going to happen. Some of those pie in the sky thoughts of how we expand the water supply, I think, are unrealistic.
interviews
The Democratic Party & The DNC
by Elaine Kamarck
March 15, 2020
This interview with Elaine C. Kamarck, a Senior Fellow in the Governance Studies program as well as the Director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
She is an expert on American electoral politics and government innovation and reform in the United States, OECD nations, and developing countries. She focuses her research on the presidential nomination system and American politics and has worked in many American presidential campaigns. Kamarck is the author of “Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates” and “Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again.”
She started at the Kennedy School in 1997 after a career in politics and government. She has been a member of the Democratic National Committee and the DNC’s Rules Committee since 1997. She has participated actively in four presidential campaigns and in ten nominating conventions—including two Republican conventions—and has served as a superdelegate to five Democratic conventions. In the 1980s, she was one of the founders of the New Democrat movement that helped elect Bill Clinton president. She served in the White House from 1993 to 1997, where she created and managed the Clinton Administration's National Performance Review, also known as the “reinventing government initiative.”
frank | How are you today Elaine?
Elaine Kamarck | Just fine. Thanks. How about you?
I'm doing well, thank you. We pre-discussed a bit, but we're looking at the history of the two primary parties in the US, and I want to talk about the transitions in party ideology since you've been active in working within the democratic party. What is your history with the party?
I went to work out of graduate school for the Democratic National Committee many, many years ago as the research director for a commission that was writing a rule for the 1980 Democratic convention. I worked for the DNC for many years. I worked in presidential politics for many years.
I finally finished my doctoral dissertation and went to work for a Think Tank. Again, a democratic leaning think tank. And then Bill Clinton won the presidency. I went into the White House and worked for him. When I left there, I went up to Harvard where I stayed for 15 years being a professor.
And then I came down here to Brookings where I write about politics and public policy and government.
You obviously have a very close look at the Democratic Party both through the DNC and the White House. Can you see a change in the party? Have things shifted, or has there been a consistent line of ideas and ideals?
It's probably more consistent than people realize. Let's take healthcare, which is one of the big issues. The Democratic Party first called for universal healthcare in 1948 in it's platform. So, that's been around for a long, long time. The Democratic Party's been quite consistent in terms of supporting laws that allow for union organizing. That's been decades and decades. The party has changed a little bit. There's many issues the party's been quite consistent on. The party has been pro choice for many years. On all the big ones, there's actually great stability in the party itself, and there's been some stability between the parties.
Now, there are issues where there's been changes.
And that frankly happened to the Republican party as well, but more dramatically. They were very much a free trade party. And now under Trump they very much are not.
Obviously, the foreign policy issues change. Nuclear treaties with the old Soviet Union were a big issue in the 1984 presidential election. We don't talk about them as much anymore even though, frankly, they're still important. There's a lot of continuity within the parties and between the parties over the years, more than people think when they're looking at the issues in the heat of the moment.
Could you talk about the Clinton administration's position on trade and how that transitioned to what we're seeing now from democratic candidates currently running for president?
During the Clinton administration there were several big trade treaties passed and put into effect. The first one, of course, NAFTA. China MFN was also a big one opening up trade to China. The Clinton administration had a lot of free trade policies. And at the time it was thought that if you passed a trade treaty, you would have some dislocation, but that if you also passed it with trade adjustment assistance to retrain people, etc. that it would work.
You wouldn't be hurting anybody. There would be the normal disruptions in an economy. A lot of people in the Clinton administration, myself included, now think that trade adjustment assistance didn't do the job. There were field workers who had no interest in becoming X-ray technicians, for instance. It's a good example because heavy manufacturing has decreased, but of course, a lot of good jobs have increased over this period of time in healthcare. But there were a lot of people, men especially, who didn't want to work in healthcare, and didn't want to make those sorts of transitions, or couldn't make those transitions for whatever reason.
People who were stuck in their homes and had mortgages, and couldn't move, and couldn't sell their houses once manufacturing picked up and moved to China or Indonesia or somewhere else. I think that in the Clinton administration, we underestimated the difficulty of these economic transitions. That's why a couple years ago Bill Clinton came here to Brookings and gave a speech, he said, "I couldn't pass a trade bill today."
Is the transition away from this trade policy because of the unintended consequences, or has the principle shifted?
I think it's more general than that. Too many people, in too many communities, have been hurt by globalization and therefore the rush to do new trade agreements is in fact very, very much slowed down. Trump did a renegotiation of NAFTA, which passed, which made some changes.
It’s frankly not as dramatic as, of course, he would have us believe. We still have trade architecture we had 20 years ago. It's just that so many people are suspicious of trade deals now, that you can't see any new ones happening in the near future.
You mentioned universal healthcare has been at the forefront of Dem policy since 1948. There is still this big, very contentious debate about healthcare. Has the conversation actually shifted or is it repetitive?
No. The conversation has actually shifted. The conversation, up until about 2017 was, "How do we take this system we have of private health insurance, where most people have private health insurance, and old people and poor people have public health insurance, how do we standardize that and control costs and make sure that no one is left behind?"
What happened is the idea of single payer, which is obviously the system in most other democratic countries, got great popularity with this notion of Medicare for All. But, as I'm fond of saying to my students, there's this really weird technical term called transition cost, and it is the killer of revolutions and it's a killer of big ideas, particularly in stable democracies. And the transition costs refer to the dollar cost and the upheaval cost in moving from one large system to a completely different large system.
You have immediately hundreds of thousands of people out of work. You have chaos. You have people who don't know what their new plan is going to look like. You have to set up an entirely new system before that happens.
It's a jarring jolt to the economy and to people's lives, which is why by the way, it is losing popularity for people. Think about it. On the other hand, if you put in a public option into Obamacare, what will happen is that eventually private health insurers will either go out of business or they'll have to get competitive with a public system.
Eventually, we will have a public system because frankly, one of the things the government turns out to be very good at is paying bills. Paying bills for your doctors, for the old people's doctors in Medicare. If you notice, with the exception of Warren and Sanders, all the other democratic candidates got behind this idea of a public option, because in the public option people can keep their private health insurance and then as this new system gets working, they can say, "Oh, okay. It's pretty good after all, and it's cheaper."
That might be cheaper than your private health insurance. And you will transition in a much more gradual way, and one that lets people have choice and people feel that they have choice. That's kind of the debate. It's sort of a sudden shift, to a more gradual shift.
You described the transition cost as the killer of revolution and of big ideas in stable democracies, and Sanders’ plan as this serious jolt to the economy. Are there examples of massive transitions to new systems that worked, or that were inevitable?
We had a big transition to a big system in 1936 when Roosevelt started the social security system, and that's an interesting example of how these things do cause jolts. In 1935 and '36 the United States was actually coming out of the Great Depression. Jobs were picking up, etc. And then, two things happened in 1936 / 37. Payroll deductions started coming out of people's income to fund this new social security system. That was the first year it was ever done. And the federal reserve board made a pull back on the money supply. That wasn't related to this. That was just inexperience with Keynesian economics. But those two things at once put the United States back into the Great Depression.
There was a double dip. The first Great Depression, it started to alleviate, and then, there was another big one. And we didn't come out of the second dip until we started work production for the Second World War.
When you start a big new system like this, it shakes the economy. There's all sorts of things falling out from those decisions, which is why now with a bigger and more robust social safety net, and some better knowledge of how macroeconomics works, every time you look at one of these great big ideas, you've got to ask yourself, "What's going to happen? What are the transition costs going to be from getting from one system to another? And can we afford to alleviate them so that people aren't hurt in the transition?"
Obviously, social security still exists and is something a lot of people would argue was necessary. The double dip might have been necessary. Short term pain, long term support and security.
Right, right.
Is that a fair argument to make now?
Is there a better way to get to universal healthcare?" And that, of course, is the appeal of the public option. Is that it is less disruptive than putting in place something called Medicare for All, and then suddenly having private health insurance prohibited.
If there's a less painful option or an option where the true transition costs are easier, obviously that's the prudent thing to do.
I want to talk about the DNC and the role of the DNC in democratic politics. Can you explain at a basic level what the function of the DNC is?
Policy positions are established by presidential candidates. The winning candidate writes the platform. Policy is established by incumbent presidents in terms of what they do. And it's established by the democratic caucus in the house and the democratic caucus in the Senate. They're the ones that set policy on these very big questions. The DNC has two functions. One is to elect Democrats all the way up and down the ballot. Tom Perez, the current chairman of the DNC, can brag justifiably about all the state democratic legislative seats that have been won since 2016, 2017 when he took over. That's their first goal, is winning elections and gathering up enough money, and then distributing that money in ways that help win elections. There's a lot of evidence that the DNC was very, very helpful in winning back a bunch of gubernatorial seats in 2018, and a bunch of state legislative seats.
The second thing the DNC does is it has the responsibility for setting the rules for the presidential nomination system. These rules for this coming year were set in a meeting in Chicago in 2018. Before we had a full slate of candidates. The DNC is the arbiter of those rules. They set up the rules of the road for the convention. And then of course, they have to put on the convention. That's a massive logistical operation as you can imagine. And that's the responsibility of the DNC.
Finally, once there is the presidential candidate, the DNC tries to raise as much money as they possibly can and use it in key states for get-out-the vote efforts for all the Democratic office holders, from president down to County commissioner.
What do the 2020 guidelines look like? The lingering thing right now within democratic politics is this idea of neither front runner getting enough delegates. What happens then?
The rules that the party passes for delegate selection, it governs things like when states can have their primary. The rules set out the first four early states, that we saw happen. And then, after that states can do what they want to do in terms of the date of their primary.
It sets rules for awarding delegates. You've probably heard of the 15% rule, where a candidate has to get more than 15% of the vote in order to be awarded any delegates. It sets out how you select your at large delegates, whether or not you're going to have superdelegates, whether they are voting on the first ballot or the second ballot only, which is the rule for 2020. They set out the rules of the road.
The second piece that the party passes is the call to the convention. And the call to the convention sets out the rules for the actual convention, what happens when you get there. The current rule, and it has been the rule for many, many, many years, is that you have to have a majority of the delegates when you arrive at the convention, or you have to have a majority of delegates on the first ballot in order to be nominated.
If you wanted to change that, you would have to go through the Rules Committee and have a minority report and get a vote to change the rules, which has happened. It's possible to do. But look at it this way, if you come into the convention with a plurality and you want to change the rule to a majority, but you only have a plurality, you're probably going to lose that fight. Both parties have used majority for many, many years. When Franklin Roosevelt got nominated you had to get a two thirds vote.
The person with the majority of the delegate vote carries the nomination.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
There was a debate question at the end of the last debate that asked all of the candidates on stage, "If we get to the DNC in July and no one has a clear majority of delegates, how would you proceed?" Everybody except for Sanders said, “you let the system work it out.” Sanders said it should go to the person with the most votes.
Maybe Sanders was talking about the rules. But I think what he was probably referring to is that if the primaries in June he has the plurality, he would encourage other people to join him. In other words, to leave their candidates and support him instead because he would have momentum, he would have a certain claim on having won the most votes, and therefore he should get the nomination.
I think that's more what he was talking about than an actual change in the game. Remember that there's this period from the first week in June to the opening of the convention on July, 13th where if no one has the magic number, there will be a lot of persuasion going on. There'll be a lot of phone calls and meetings with delegates for other candidates, trying to get them to come over and make a majority. I would assume that if somebody has a plurality and it's a pretty hefty one, they probably would end up getting the nomination by the time we go into the convention.
The DNC in the last few years has gotten a lot of criticism about their role in democratic politics. And I think the criticism stems from where they [DNC] align within this split in the party – between moderate and progressive candidates. Do you feel like that criticism is fair?
Well, there's two ways to answer that. If you work for a political party, whether it's the Democratic or Republican party, your primary interest is not factional. It is not aligned for this group or that group. Your primary interest is, how do we win? And in that situation, you find a lot of people at the DNC looking at things through the lens of, "What is the best way for us to win?" as opposed to any sort of ideology. The second thing I'd say about that is that the DNC controls very little of what it takes to win.
The DNC does not give candidates in primaries money, all right? It didn't give Hillary Clinton any money. It hasn't given anybody in the current race any money. It doesn't do endorsements in primaries. It simply sets the rules of the game and it doesn't change the rules of the game.
The rules of the game for 2016 were set in 2014 before Senator Sanders ever got into the race. They were not changed between 2014 and 2016. Similarly, the rules for this year were set in 2018. They were not changed between 2018 and 2020. So while individuals, as we saw in the WikiLeaks releases from 2016, at the DNC may have their own preferences, there's very little the party can actually do to influence a nomination race. All you have to do is look at the Republicans in 2016. Believe me, if you think that those couple emails from WikiLeaks criticizing Senator Sanders were bad, imagine what the RNC staffers were saying about Donald Trump in 2015. Okay.
Expect it was awful. And in fact, even though there was great deal of consternation among the Republican party regulars about the Trump candidacy, they were in the end, helpless to stop his candidacy because the power in the nomination system is all now in the hands of primary voters.
And that's a good thing to you?
Well, I'm not sure it's a good thing actually. I'm not sure it's a good thing because in fact it gives you people like Donald Trump, who are authoritarians and demagogues, and clearly not suited to be president. He's a dangerous person to democracy. That's my own point of view.
I'm worried frankly, about this primary system, which by the way works the same in both parties. I've had this conversation with my Democratic friends so often who say, "Oh, we would never have nominated Donald Trump." What? How do you know? We could, because the system is the same where basically all the allocations of delegates fall to the primary voters. We could as easily have a Democratic demagogue as we do currently a Republican demagogue, and they could get elected.
When did the rules give primary voters the majority power in electing the candidate?
It was after 1968 and it was somewhat of a gradual process. And for most of the history after 1968, the primary voters basically chose the same sorts of candidates that the old fashioned party bosses and elected officials would have chosen. 2016 was the first time we saw somebody who would never have been chosen by a Republican office holder.
We had Donald Trump elected. Forget these policies, right? A lot of people think he and the way he thinks, and the way he is trying to undermine the judiciary and other parts of the government, is a danger to democracy.
Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, nobody thinks that on that dimension they would've been Donald Trump's.
They were very critical during the election, and then transitioned to support. Does that support of President Trump from people within the party, the acceptance of a new type of president, who does undermine Democratic norms, make you nervous about who can and will be elected in the future?
Oh, absolutely.
On the other hand, I will say that under the surface, the Republican Senate, as much as it is publicly in lapdog mode, has in fact done some things to keep Donald Trump from his worst instincts. They did pass the Russian sanctions bill early on. They have passed restrictions on Trump's behavior in Yemen and in Iran. They reigned him in a little bit, but certainly not as much as we would like to see. Trump's most recent attacks on the judiciary are just downright terrifying given that for over 200 years we've had a system of equality between the branches of government.
Does it worry you about what could happen on the Democratic side as well? Does this attraction to the cult of personality make you nervous? Can you even return to “norms” after a President Trump?
It makes me nervous for both sides. The same dynamics that gave us Trump could easily give us a Democratic version of Trump at some point in the future. I can't tell yet. There's other people who study the presidency as I do, and we've all had the following conversation.
We don't know how much of this executive overreach goes away with Donald Trump whenever he leaves office, and how much of this will permanently change the office of the presidency. I think it's a little bit hard to say at this point.
Trump, unlike some other would-be dictators around the world, like Erdoğan in Turkey or like the president of Hungary, Trump has not managed to change any laws to give him more power, but he has managed to exercise presidential powers in ways that are pretty unprecedented.
It's a little bit tough to say at this point. I think we can say that there's probably no permanent damage done, but there certainly has been damage done to our expectations of how a president should behave.
I'm so curious about, even if he is beat in November, what he means for future presidencies.
Absolutely.
Once things change it's hard to go back. Maybe it just pivots into a different direction, but it's fascinating to me.
As it should be.