The political situation and national disarray being what they are, the temptation will resurface to put an end to the Fifth Republic. Circumstances will determine whether this idea comes to fruition or not, but it will come back soon. It is therefore better to prepare for it and, if possible, protect yourself against the many illusions that will accompany it. Starting with the fantasy according to which a “good” constitutional system protects against disasters and imbecile decisions.
Take Germany. On paper, nothing better: an electoral law very respectful of pluralism; an executive power shaped by the demand for compromise; the absence of election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage and the correlative avoidance of excessive personalization/concentration of power; a territorial organization favorable to the development of local energies… Almost perfection… Except that that is not enough. It’s even less and less enough: an extreme right much more appalling than “our” National Rally is gaining dizzyingly in popularity even though everything – and first of all the voting method – had been designed since the end of the war so that this kind of thing can never happen again; economic and budgetary results which are no longer impressive; one of the worst decisions of half a century – the abandonment of nuclear energy – taken in three minutes, in the aftermath of Fukushima, with the direct effect of a delirious worsening of dependence on Russian gas and a calamitous environmental record since it We had to reactivate all the coal-fired power stations we had to meet the needs… Nothing to brag about.
Great Britain? His mastery of parliamentarism is remarkable. But that did not prevent her from succumbing to the referendum sirens and throwing herself headlong into this suicidal Brexit, the damage of which she is now working to patch up as best she can. As for the United States, their formidable regime does not prevent Trump, nor his still possible re-election, nor the intellectual and moral decay of the Republican Party. I’m going through some and the best ones. Certainly, there is nothing anywhere that even remotely resembles a constitutional talisman.
General stupidity and populist shift
If we were angels, James Madison said, we would need no government, and if angels governed us, there would be no need to control them. One of the axioms of the political philosophy of the Enlightenment is that a good Constitution must be able to function despite everything, despite weaknesses, mediocrities and even follies. This remains true, but less and less. The general stupidity and populist shift from one end of the spectrum to the other have become too structural to remain controllable by the sole virtue of political institutions. If, as everything leads us to believe, our people are becoming infantilized at high speed, we cannot expect them to allow themselves to be sufficiently guided by reason, and therefore by the awareness of their infantilism. As for the political class, whose average quality follows the same slope by application of the law of supply and demand, it is less and less disposed to adopt reality, temperance, compromise and search for the general interest the principles of its action. All this converges. We therefore devote ourselves to spectacle, to “com”, to forgetting, to the denial of what annoys or frightens us, to politicking… Against our tastes, the Constitutions cannot do much.
Oh, of course, some reforms make the trait worse. It is probable, for example, that the prohibition of multiple mandates greatly aggravates parliamentary immaturity. But these things only play a role at the margins, once compared to the extent of our common drift. It would be better to resolve it, with a firm conviction as our viaticum: we will achieve nothing if we do not seek, first, to fight against what we are, and to stop wanting to persuade ourselves that a good little part of institutional Meccano will provide the solution. The real answers to the real problems lie elsewhere.