Liu Yu x Xiong Peiyun: "House of Cards" during the Great Depression in the United States | Cultural Living Room

Cultural Living Room Event Scene. From left: Host Yang Jingwu, Liu Yu, associate professor of the Department of Political Science, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, and Xiong Peiyun, associate professor of the School of Literature, Nankai University.

Roosevelt’s contest with the Supreme Court:

"House of Cards" staged during the Great Depression

Liu Yu: We all learned " Roosevelt’s New Deal " in middle school, such as the Social Security Law, the Minimum Wage Law, the Maximum Work Hours Law and other series of so-called Progressive bills. After the Progressive Bill was introduced, the nine Supreme Court justices, or rather, five or six, had been constantly ruling Roosevelt's bills for a considerable period of time to be unconstitutional. According to their view, the government has no power to interfere in how the economy should work.

At this time, Roosevelt thought of a solution. He could not cancel the Supreme Court, nor could he force the old men of the Supreme Court to retire. It was not that easy to amend the constitution, so he came up with a "smashing court plan": if every justice does not retire at the age of 70, the president can appoint a new justice. The nominal reason is that it can disperse the workload of these elderly and weak judges. At that time, several of the nine justices were over 70 years old. If this plan succeeded, it meant that Roosevelt could self-authorize and appoint about three or four judges. If the "Filling Court Plan" succeeds and he can transform the conservative-dominated court into a liberal-dominated court, all his new policy can be passed.

Of course, this also caused an uproar among a considerable number of people in American society. This plan was directly killed on the Senate Judicial Committee in 1937, and was not even taken to the House to vote. The whole book of "Supreme Power" describes why Roosevelt had to "fill the court plan", as well as the reflection of society at that time and the struggle process. This book is a bit like a suspense novel. If it is adapted into an American drama, there is no need to even find another screenwriter.

"Supreme Power: The Contest between President Roosevelt and the Supreme Court", written by Jeff Shesso, translated by Chen Ping, New Classic Culture丨Wenhui Publishing House July 2019 edition

Xiong Peiyun: What is the nature of the Constitution? Is it inorganic or organic? It is like a stone, with a stele placed there, so that everyone can admire, follow, and cannot change a word, or is it a tree that will grow and change? Since the US Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Constitution is alive. People have been discussing it continuously. After the draft came out, there were protests from Patrick Henry and others. Later, there was First Amendment to the US Constitution. When Roosevelt competed with the Supreme Court, many other voices appeared. How should the Constitution be abide by? Should we abide by the provisions or by the values? Therefore, the US Constitution contains organic ingredients.

Law is formulated by people, and the elements of being governed by people are enforced by people, so judges have discretion. In this sense, the law is made by people and enforced by people’s will. There is no pure concept of rule of law, but more of it is ruled by people.There are also differences in man rule. Some do things according to legal rules, some do things according to human feelings, and some do things according to corruption and abuse of power. Therefore, there are all elements of man rule, but whether the rules respects the rules involves fair judgments.

Many people talk about their practices and involve the concepts behind them. Washington believes that in order to save the country and people's livelihood, the government's expansion of power is to better serve the people, and the Supreme Court may be making trouble. Supporters of the Supreme Court say that safeguarding the country's justice is for the country to develop better. After the argument, I saw a very touching sentence in the book: The Great Depression did not overwhelm the American Constitution, nor did it overwhelm the independence of the Supreme Court.

The 32nd President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt

Everyone is trying his best to do things for the country, but there are different ideas. When I was traveling in the United States in 2013, I passed by the Civil War Memorial. Looking back on the Civil War today, why did you fight a war at the cost of so many people's lives? Are there really such a big difference between the south and the north of the United States? There were too many casualties in the south back then, and it was entirely due to industrial and agricultural countries fighting wars, and the south seemed to be bound to lose. Like General Sherman from the North who carried out a massacre in the South, were they born executioners? Neither, they said that in order to defend the Federation, they should do so. And southerners say that we should do the same for our independence. The North American colonies initially separated from Britain and later separated from the Union of the Southern Union. They are actually the same in nature, both requiring independence. Why are there such a big difference in their ideas, and why are there such a big conflict because of ideas? These questions are also worth thinking about.

When the U.S. court fought with Roosevelt, Hughes was the chief justice. A person like him who interspersed among factions, many people would say he was a swingman, such as the current Justice Roberts. The United States is like a ship. Sometimes there are more people here and the ship seems to have overturned, and Justice Hughes is standing on the other side. The ship needs balance, and Hughes and many centrists play this role.

When the country and the times have extreme left and extreme right, the centrists are very miserable, and both sides will shoot at the people in the middle. However, the role of the centrist is very important and plays a balanced role. Therefore, on the one hand, the law can play the so-called brake function, and on the other hand, it can play the role of a shield function. Most importantly, the law is a balancer that can maintain social justice.

I also talked about in "The Search for Beauty" that the founding father of the United States was not born with how beautiful human nature was, without flaws, and selfish, or was born to build a country. They are also selfish and may abuse their power when they have it. Roosevelt also had flaws in this regard, and of course his power was bound. When the world became extremely right and fascists came to power in the 1920s and 1930s, why did the United States not go to such paths as Germany, Japan, and Italy? It is these elites that balance it and have made a lot of efforts in defending the important values ​​of the country.

American writer Washington Irving has a novel " Rip van Winkel ", which was translated into "Li Bo Da Meng". This novel is very interesting. It tells the story of a young man who has a good relationship with others in the village, but he has a bad relationship with his wife, and his wife often abuses him. One day he entered the forest with a hunting rifle on his back and saw a group of Dutch people drinking. He also went to drink, and then fell asleep for no reason, and he slept for twenty years. When he woke up, he found that he was full of spider webs and his beard became very long. After he returned to the village, he found that the village had also changed. The tavern originally hung a portrait of George III, but now it is hung a portrait of Washington, and many people are talking about the current election. In this book, the character Rip van Winkel is a criticism of ordinary citizens. Some say that the justices are old, just like Rip van Winkel, their ideas have not changed, they have been sleeping for twenty years without keeping up with the times. However, the novel gives a good refutation of related criticisms. In fact, people’s values ​​are not simply determined by age, nor do they have to understand the world clearly when they are old.

The development of society is very similar to Rip Van Winkel. Some people may have a relatively slow perception of the world, but they have their own concerns. For example, Rip Van Winkel in the novel does not care about the tyranny of George III at all. He is concerned about whether his wife's tyranny ends. A person has different aspects of caring for an era. Some people care more about supreme power - who has the final say between judges and presidents, and some people care about who has the final say in their family and who has the final say in the company. If these people catch up with the great changes in the times and think that a proposal is beneficial to him, he may fall into this torrent.

Novel character Rip Van Winkel sculpture

Why did Roosevelt's "filling the court plan" fail?

Liu Yu: I will share my reading notes, which are mainly related to two questions. The first question is, why does this "filling court plan" fail? The second question is, did Roosevelt really fail? Through these two questions, I will also share my views on American politics itself, which can also be said to be my views on this book. Because talking about the essence of this book is also about American politics.

Why did Roosevelt's "Filling Court Plan" fail? This policy failed a bit strangely, not because Roosevelt himself or the New Policy policy was unpopular. Roosevelt was very popular from beginning to end. His "Filling Court Plan" began to be promoted in early 1937, and Roosevelt won the votes in 46 of 48 states in the 1936 election, which was an extremely rare wind-like success in American history. Today, the Republican and Democrats in the US Senate were evenly matched, while the Democrats in the Senate had an absolute advantage at that time, with 76 seats being the Democrats and only 16 seats being the Republicans. Polls at that time showed that Roosevelt's New Deal was highly praised by the public. In other words, the failure of the "fill-off court plan" was not caused by Roosevelt himself or the new policy was unpopular.

Another background that needs to be added is that we often say "separation of powers", but in fact, when many countries actually operate, they are dominant. It is not difficult to absorb judicial and legislative power by the so-called administrative power. Why? If a party has a very public opinion base in the presidential election, the same public opinion base can completely make it dominate the legislature. People in the judiciary are appointed by the president or Congress and can easily become president or Congress rubber stamps, which is something that happens frequently in history.

In 2004, Venezuelan President Chavez was a left-wing populist president who did something exactly the same as Roosevelt's "Filling the Court Plan". He raised the number of courts in Venezuela from 20 justices to 32 to ensure that judges supporting his sect dominate. Some countries use other methods, such as the recent incident of purge of justice in Türkiye, as well as Russia, Zimbabwe , etc. The abolition of judicial independence has made the nominal "separation of three powers" become "one power" the most dominant thing" in history.

Former Venezuelan President Chavez

first, Roosevelt is a very popular president. Second, the practice of abolishing judicial independence is very common in other countries in history. So, why didn’t Roosevelt do this in 1937?

This triggered my first more important observation of American politics: there is a tradition in American politics - the priority of institutions over policies.

The tradition of American politics:

The system takes precedence over policy

Policy is not difficult to understand, such as how the economy should be managed, how the relationship between the employer and the labor force is handled, what are the cleaning standards, what are the working conditions, and what the relationship between blacks and whites should be like, these are all specific measures about policy. What is the system? The system is about the structural arrangement of power. Who should this power be concentrated or dispersed in whom? What should the relationship between different power institutions? There is a tradition in American politics that systems have priority over policies.

This is different from China's political tradition. The Chinese political tradition is a "consequence theory" tradition, which is called utilitarian in terms of terminology. Of course, utilitarianism is a neutral word here, which can also be called "efficacy", which means that we use the results to judge whether something is right or not. When we face a policy, the psychological test of Chinese people is, is this policy beneficial to the country and the people? Is it beneficial to the national economy and people's livelihood? If it is beneficial to the country and the people and the national economy and livelihood, we should implement it drastically. The higher the efficiency, the better. This is our psychological standard for judging right and wrong with "result theory" or "efficacyism".

However, the political traditions of the United States are different. They have to ask two questions. The first question is the same as us. They also have to ask whether policies are beneficial to the country and the people? Is it beneficial to the national economy and people's livelihood and to the people's lives? However, for them, there is another more important question: Does the government have the power to do so? Will doing so undermine the balance of the power structure? This is two different things from the previous policy standards.

So, I summarize their political tradition as the "two boot theory". He had to wait until the second boot was also landed before this policy could be truly accepted. How to land the second boot? This is the function of the Supreme Court to achieve the landing of the second boot through the so-called judicial review. Only by understanding the "two boot theory" in American politics can they understand their political traditions.

Without the tradition of "two boots", many things in the United States will be different from what has actually happened in history. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to build a road in Kentucky . "If you want to be rich, you must first build roads." At that time, the United States was also in the primary stage of capitalism. At that time, the road and railway systems had just developed, and they also needed to build roads. However, then-U.S. President Jackson rejected the proposal. He said that under our constitution, the federal government does not have the power to build roads in one state. Because the Constitution only stipulates that the federal government has administrative power in cross-state trade, but that road is only built in a state of Kentucky. It is unconstitutional to allocate funds to repair this road, so the final road construction is incomplete.

can be said to be numerous, and the most famous case in the New Deal is the "Sheckett Poultry Company vs. United States". Simply put, this factory not only violates many labor laws in the new policy, such as poor working conditions, long working hours, and the minimum wage does not meet the standards, but also uses some sick chickens that do not meet the sanitary conditions at all to process chicken. According to our first boot theory, isn’t it right for the Roosevelt administration to regulate such companies? But why is the Supreme Court's decision in the 1935 Shekt case that the National Industrial Revival Act, which regulates the production conditions of this factory, unconstitutional?

Because the Constitution only stipulates the administrative power of the federal government in cross-state trade, at least in the interpretation of the judges at that time, the federal government did not have the power to regulate the production conditions of processing plants in a certain state, so they said this was unconstitutional. If the second boot is not landed, this policy cannot be passed. Including the recent debate on why there is a Obama medical reform, all of which are similar situations. Many major debates in American history are about whether the second boot can fall.

Liu Yu

Why are Roosevelt's supporters also opposed his plan?

Liu Yu: Maybe everyone will ask, why is this happening? We will implement policies that benefit the country and the people with drastic measures. The more efficient we are, the better? Why do we need a judicial review? We also have to give the Supreme Court power, saying, let’s see if the government has the power to do this. Isn’t this an unnecessary move? If the government does bad things, you stop it, we can understand that, but why do you stop it when the government does good things? Why do you give the Supreme Court such power to promote so-called judicial dictatorship? This is the problem with

.When we say that the government should do good things, the higher the efficiency, the better, but what is good and bad things, and who will decide what is good and bad things? A good thing that seems to be clear at a glance to some people may be a bad thing to others. Including Roosevelt's New Deal, is the policies in it necessarily a good thing? For example, the minimum wage law, there are still too many debates today. Is it necessary to stipulate that the minimum wage is good for workers? There are quite a few economists, perhaps even mainstream economists, that the minimum wage law seems to be a good thing because it is out of kindness and a moral appeal, but you stipulate that the minimum wage is so high that it will affect the employment rate, because if you stipulate that the minimum wage of these three workers is five yuan per hour, I may hire three workers; if you don't stipulate that, you give him three yuan wages, I may hire five workers. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether the minimum wage method is a good thing, and there are many debates in economics.

What is good and bad things? Only by maintaining intellectual humility can we realize the importance of checks and balances of power. I often say to my students: If the truth is absolute, autocracy is necessary. If we think that this thing must be right just because we do things out of kindness, then autocracy is necessary. Why do we need to impose power constraints? All the power is left to him and vigorously promote this good thing. It is precisely because we have uncertainties in knowledge, intelligence and epistemology that we need checks and balances of power.

For example, Venezuela just mentioned. Chavez is a typical president who is progressive in the language of American politics. He has done a lot of good intentions, such as giving the poor free education, free medical care, and free housing. He also absorbed all legislative and judicial power into the president's power, making his decrees unimpeded. But what is happening in Venezuela today? Great famine, super inflation. Therefore, good intentions and kind intentions may not necessarily equal good results. Human rationality is flawed, and we must be humble intellectually. You may be wrong. Because you may be wrong, you need checks and balances of power.

After Roosevelt's "Filling the Court Plan" came out, the political force that mainly blocked him was not the Republican Party, but the Democratic Party, not just the Southern Conservatives, but the so-called Western progressive Democrats. Including a considerable number of the public, the support rate for Roosevelt himself and the New Deal is very high, but the support rate for the "Filling Court Plan" is much lower. Why? Even if the public believes that the new policy is right, it admits that the public's own opinions should be subject to certain constraints, and we must have a trial and error mechanism here.

Why should the system give priority to policies? Because the policy is wrong, we can keep trying and making mistakes, just like a football game, if we lose, we can play another game. But if you destroy the system and change the rules of the game itself, the game will not be able to continue, which is very dangerous.

There is a saying in "Supreme Power" that impressed me deeply: "The judicial review in the United States is actually a compulsory political dialogue between different generations of the United States." The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are lifelong. For example, today's justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are also appointed by Trump, previously appointed by Obama, Bush, and even appointed by Reagan era. Because they are lifelong and never retire, they actually compulsoryly realize intergenerational dialogue. It is not only a dialogue between different power institutions, but also a dialogue between different generations of the United States. Therefore, in this sense, there will be a brake or buffering effect.

1933, Roosevelt began his first fireside conversation .

Xiong Peiyun: Liu Yu said it very well, and I remembered the story in another book "The Miracle of Democracy". At that time, when representatives from various states in the United States were going to Philadelphia for a meeting, they could not gather the number of people at all. They finally gathered the number of people because it was not for constitutional preparation at that time, but for the amendment of previous federal regulations. Many representatives who attended the meeting were dissatisfied with the fact that the later meeting became a constitutional conference.They think this federal regulations are good because states are also a concept of state. When these people were going to formulate the draft constitution together, some people said that we had just escaped from a great empire like Britain and now we need to establish a unified federal country. Therefore, many people began to boycott the Constitutional Convention, which was guarded against human nature.

When I visited the US election in 2012, there was a detail that impressed me very much. One morning, many people went to various polling stations to check out the ballots, but at first they didn't look at the ballots carefully. Until there was a polling station that brought the ballots to see, there was nothing unusual in front of them, namely the president, the vice president and others. On the other hand, I didn’t even know a word on the ballot. I should be familiar with the political vocabulary.

The word is coroner, what is this word? I checked it was the coroner. During the presidential election, officials in various states and counties who are responsible for autopsy must be directly elected. Don’t you feel that it’s far from the president when choosing a coroner? It's like the president is going to be shot, it's like finding someone to be fair. No, it’s not about asking him to judge, but about attaching importance to the law itself. Bacon once said that justice is the last line of defense for social fairness and justice. If justice is polluted, the source of justice in the entire country will be polluted. If the coroner has problems and cannot enter the real judicial process in the end, will there be no serious problem? We say that justice is the last line of defense for fairness and justice in society. In this line of defense, the coroner is the first door, deciding whether relevant cases can enter the judicial process. From this detail, we can see that the American institutional design has a lot of preparations to prevent the evil of human nature.

Xiong Peiyun

Culture takes precedence over the system:

Why is the justice not counting?

Liu Yu: Actually, the Supreme Court is not supreme, and this is also the second point I want to talk about. Did President Roosevelt really fail? This also has the topic of today's conversation: Is the president's final decision or the judge's final decision? We have a little understanding of American politics and may say that the president's words do not count. The most typical example is Nixon. When he clashed with the Supreme Court several times, he was defeated. Like the "Watergate Incident", the Supreme Court ruled that you must hand over the tape, which was the most direct fuse for his resignation. Including the "Pentagon Case", he clashed with " New York Times ", he said you can't leak the Pentagon documents, the New York Times said I can, and finally the justice said "New York Times" could, and Nixon had to compromise. Like Trump is on stage now, even if he is a conservative president and a court led by conservative justices, the court does not obey him and also restricts him on many issues.

But, is the Supreme Court determined? I don't think this is the case. In essence, what the president says doesn't matter, and what the Supreme Court says doesn't matter. Who has the final say? I think it is the mainstream public opinion that has the final say, or political culture.

Return to the second question: Did Roosevelt really fail? Roosevelt said: I lost this battle, but I won this war. What's the meaning? Because the centrists in the Supreme Court, or the justices who were more conservative at the beginning, turned from conservatives to liberals, it became almost unnecessary to "film the court plan", because the Supreme Court itself has become a liberal court, constantly giving the green light to Roosevelt's policy, why should I fill it out? Therefore, after Roosevelt's failure to "filling the court plan", he did not feel very angry, because he could win the war without fighting this battle.

But why did these two judges turn against each other? Why does it fall from right to left? This is not accidental, it is related to the changes and evolution of American political culture. The struggle between the president and the Supreme Court not only began during the period of Roosevelt Jr., but actually started from the period of , the old Roosevelt , and the battle lasted for more than 30 years.The changes in political and cultural changes over the past 30 years have been blowing for more than 30 years, civil society, labor groups, the general public, the media, and some NGOs. They have been calling on the government to stand up to manage labor conditions, labor wages, and even production policies, as well as care for the elderly, the weak, the sick and the disabled, social security, poverty support, etc.

The judge is also a human being, and will also be affected by public opinion pressure, and his own ideas will also grow and change. Popular or folk culture has a so-called uplifting nature for political elites and justices. By around 1937, the accumulation of hidden, implicit, and quantitative cultural changes turned into qualitative changes. In the late 1936 election, Roosevelt and the Democratic Party's storm of cloud-like victory caused a major stimulus to the centrist justices. This type of punishment was the same type of case in 1935, and by 1937, it suddenly became another type of punishment because it swept 46 of the 48 states, including the Democratic Party, which caused a major stimulation to the justices, and they finally saw clearly where the wheel of history was heading.

When social culture and mainstream public opinion undergo very clear signals, many justices will receive these signals. Why doesn’t the justice say the final word? First, the justices will constantly update their ideas according to changes in public opinion; second, when the gap between the justices' ideas and mainstream public opinion is very obvious, the mainstream public opinion will definitely find its own outlet. For example, new legislation is used to indirectly overturn the justice's judgment, or to influence some of the justice's own ideas, or even to start a war. Before the American Civil War, the then Supreme Court judge ruled that blacks had no citizenship. If the justice has the final say, the case should be over after this judgment. The fact is that not only did not come to an end, but the northern states in the United States did not hesitate to launch a war to overthrow the justice's verdict. So, why is there a civil war? The civil war is directly related to Tenny's verdict, because your verdict does not meet the mainstream public opinion of the North and the public opinion of the Industrial State, we will not hesitate to start a war.

There is also the Butler case in 1936, which overturned an important regulation in the new US policy called the "Agricultural Adjustment Act". In theory, if the justice has the final say, it can end it if it overturns the Agricultural Adjustment Law. In 1938, Congress repackaged and listed the bill and revised some provisions to introduce it. So, the Supreme Justice said nothing. When the judge's judgment is too far from the mainstream public opinion, the public opinion will definitely find its outlet, or change the judge's view, or pass new legislation, or even launch a war.

This is the second point I just wanted to say. The first point is to talk about the priority of the system over policies, and the second point is the priority of culture over the system. A country's culture, like gravity, will surely attract the system to change in its direction. Before 1937, the president had quite a bit of power. Of course, after the transformation of Old Roosevelt, the power has increased, and overall it is still very small. However, after the Supreme Court turned against him in 1937, the president's power became very strong. In fact, the Supreme Court has surrendered and voluntarily gave up all their power in the economic field and handed over to the president. So, you can't say it, because the Supreme Court can often veto the president's resolutions, often veto the resolutions of Congress, and veto the resolutions of the states, and the justices can have the final say.

Whether it is a justice or a president, it actually cannot "have the final say". The decisive factor is the mainstream public opinion, that is, the "water level of concepts". The justice may not have a one-to-one relationship with mainstream public opinion. Public opinion may sometimes wait for the first-class judge, and the justice may sometimes wait for the first-class public opinion, and sometimes there will be a misalignment. But overall, public opinion is like a sucking stone, and the system structure changes in its direction.

Plant photo of nine current justices of the United States

Official supervision or the creator of fake news?

The role of media in American politics

Xiong Peiyun: I have been in media for many years, because the media has the right to speak on its own, and many media people are usually leftists.What we usually call liberals have a tendency to a large extent: I speak for the public, tell the truth, let everyone know more news, and give myself a certain halo or a certain meaning of ability or tendency. When we see many media reporting on something, it represents the voice of justice and reveal more things. In this sense, many media will also try to please the people as much as possible: What do you need, I will tell you the so-called truth.

Foreign say that the media is the fourth type of power, not being transcendent from the world, and sowing food for this world. It has its own interests and is also composed of people. Even if everyone is following a certain law and doing things according to the so-called legal rules, there is still a component behind it. Because it is a law of rule by man, judges, lawyers, etc. are bargaining on a certain law or event, and there are factors behind it. On this basis, when we talk about media, the media does not really have its own halo, nor does it have selfishness, no stance, and no prejudice.

When many media reports, they are the same as photographers taking a photo. They are all taken out of context to reality and cannot be complete. So, when we teach journalism courses, we specifically mention a word called "media literacy". When you read a news, how do you judge it? Do you think that a fire broke out in that place when you see a photo of fire rising into the sky?

Several years ago, there was a riot in Paris in 2007. Many cars were burned at that time. When I saw BBC-related reports, I asked my French classmates who worked in Paris: Is the riots in Paris very serious now? I sent him a photo. He said, if you read the BBC report, you must have thought that there was a civil war in Paris, but in fact it was just one or two photos. The fire you saw in that photo would have been extinguished long ago. He was just shooting the scenes in that place, and it could not be very large.

Why news reports are often just out of context for reality, including one of the tricks for good photographers is to do subtraction. This world is so complex, how could he take care of all aspects? He can only choose according to his own values, and he thinks he is right because we would rather believe that we are right.

In this sense, when Trump said that some American media have a tendency to fake news, I think what he said is right, including recently we talked about what the tendency of some media when making movies. It’s not that these media are bad, but that the media has this tendency overall.

When we talk about news writing, many people say they should be objective. In fact, no journalist can be objective because you are a subjective person. You have to give meaning to the world and to give meaning to articles and pictures. How come you are objective? You must be controlled by your reason, by your emotions, by your experience, and by your ability to simply be like a robot. Even if robots write articles today, to a certain extent, they are programmed by humans and reflect the will of programmers. In this sense, no matter where the media is, it must have bias, but it is hoped that it is valuable to let prejudice coexist and correct bias.

President Trump has made public statements many times that American media such as CNN are creating fake news.

Liu Yu: In Roosevelt's "Filling the Court Plan" incident, at least the information I got from this book, the media still played a very positive role. Most mainstream media are progressive, but after Roosevelt proposed the "Filling Court Plan", most mainstream media criticized him, which was very important and critical.

When I read this book, I deeply felt that democracy, the rule of law, or constitutionalism have its own fragility. Roosevelt is so charming, and being charming is not necessarily a good thing for politicians. Because he has a charm that makes people unconsciously believe in everything he says. The so-called "Chrisma-type leaders" are sometimes good things, sometimes bad things.

I remember a detail in the book. At that time, most Democrats in the Senate, or at least half of the Democrats, opposed his plan. In order to win over them, he invited them to visit and held a party for several days. Roosevelt had a very humorous sense of humor, chatted and laughed, and immediately fascinated many of the congressmen who had originally opposed him. After the party, the number of lawmakers supporting him increased significantly.

To advance some of his key policies, Roosevelt may be talking about his views on the policy every once in a while, next to the fireplace. The people listened to his speech through the radio. After each fireside conversation, his approval rating for his policies has increased significantly. I have been thinking these two days that if the Justice did not turn against him in time, Roosevelt would be very likely to have done the "filling the court plan" because his ability to win public opinion is too strong. Why did Roosevelt lose? To put it bluntly, he doesn't need to push this matter, but if he has to push this matter, it is very likely to do this based on his personal charm.

used to use NBC TV microphones for fireside conversation.

Nietzsche said something a bit politically incorrect. He said that The masses are a woman, meaning that the masses are women because her emotions are very erratic and easy to be manipulated. In this case, media such as the New York Times and the Washington Post were able to stand up and bluntly criticize Roosevelt's "sinking court plan" and still played a very positive role.

switch to today's media and Trump's relationship. I think the mainstream media is very necessary to check and balance Trump's power. Today's political landscape is somewhat similar to that of the Roosevelt era. Trump is the president, the court is so-called conservatives and the Republicans are dominant in the Senate. At least theoretically, in this case, it is possible that he will do whatever he wants. Of course, I don't think he can really do whatever he wants when half of the voters disagree with him.

No matter what, the power of blocking is needed at this time, and traditional media still plays a very healthy role in this regard. But on the other hand, the diversity of the media is very important. Now the mainstream media in the United States still have an absolute advantage. If American journalists are allowed to report their party attributes, the data I see shows that the ratio of claiming to be the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is about 4:1. Most people call themselves independent or centrists, but there are many statements and analysis of what faction are independent and centrists. In any case, except for right-wing media like Fox News, mainstream media are more one-sided. This situation directly leads to the rise of right-wing political expressions of the Internet and new media, which have helped a lot in the election and Trump's governance process.

However, new media is not like traditional media after all, and its prudence is far from enough, so many fake news appear. There are many rumors and fake news in the new media, which are related to the incitement of people like Trump, but on the other hand, it is precisely because about 40% of the people feel that they are being ignored in the mainstream media, so he wants to find another position. In this sense, this is also a kind of failure or dereliction of duty by mainstream media.

Polarization is a periodic phenomenon in the American political arena

Liu Yu: The so-called polarization of public opinion is not a new phenomenon in the history of the United States for more than two hundred years, and in a sense it is even a cyclical phenomenon. For example, the polarization of public opinion before the American Civil War was very serious, including the New Deal period, including the so-called Great Social Period of the 1960s, the Reagan Period, the Bush Period, etc. The characteristic of American political culture is the "Wolf is Coming" culture, and every generation will announce that "now is the most dangerous moment in our history, let us stand up and fight." If the US system has generally been tested by periodic political and cultural polarization in the past two hundred years, we have no reason to think that it will definitely not be able to withstand this test this time.

The reason why the United States has been able to withstand the test of polarization over the past two hundred years is largely because the US Constitution is very flexible. It is a text of more than 4,000 words, very concise.But this simplicity provides infinite flexibility for future generations' interpretations. There are many so-called flexible clauses in the US Constitution, which enable it to accommodate a lot of debate and a lot of cultural changes.

Of course, there are some new things in the changes in American political and cultural events today. The so-called left-wing and right-wing debates are not surprising, and this has been found in history. The Civil War may have been more intense than it is now, otherwise how could the biggest war in American history have occurred? What's new, where is the "new"? It may be a change in the American ethnic structure. By around 2050, white people in the United States will drop below 50%, and other minorities will add up to more than 50%, including Asians, Hispanics, Africans, etc. Many of these populations are immigrants, and they will carry different cultural genes to the United States. We often say that American culture is a melting pot, and different cultures are integrated. In fact, the so-called melting pot does not mean that the culture of this ethnic group and the culture of that ethnic group are integrated to form a large platter; it has a core, and this core is the so-called constitutionalism.

The challenge of American political culture now is that when the Christian background and Anglo-Saxon tradition ethnic group become a minority, people with different political traditions carry different political and cultural genes into this melting pot, can they be integrated into the political and cultural tradition of constitutionalism in a timely and quickly? This is a very serious new challenge. I don't think it will definitely fail, but it's a new challenge that hasn't been seen in American history.

Organized丨Li Yongbo Wu Xin

Edited丨Yu Yaqin

Proofreading丨Zhai Yongjun