The Slow Death of the Democratic Party, Part Two

In my previous posting, I suggested that the Democratic Party appears to be traveling down a path to destruction first blazed by the 19th century Whigs. Today, I’d like to bring those musings into the present day.

First, a partial disclaimer. Historical parallels are a tricky business. Heraclitus rightly observed that “you cannot step twice into the same river”, for history never precisely repeats itself.

But there are patterns. In many ways, history is the unfolding story of human nature writ large – and human nature changes, if at all, at evolutionary speed. Which is why we can still suffer with Job, feel fear and pity watching Greek tragedy, and delight in good productions of Shakespeare.

It is also why nearly every great leader – from every era – has been a student of history.

Because history instructs us, I devoted my last posting to a consideration of the demise of the Whig Party in the 1850's. To summarize, I suggested three major themes:

First, that American political parties – like many human institutions – are permanently defined by the circumstances of their creation. However they may evolve over time, they can never escape the organizational DNA which went into their original organizations.

Second, that political parties begin to die when they begin defining themselves in terms of another party or parties. Stated another way, a party which loses the ability to define a vision of the future – in its own terms – is in grave peril.

Third, that, because America’s two-party system is largely self-perpetuating, a political party can survive for a long time despite dysfunctional organizational DNA and the loss of vision – but that it will eventually shatter when confronted by a great emerging issue it cannot address.

My purpose here is to suggest that the Democratic Party’s organizational DNA is ill-suited to the 21st century – or indeed, to the world of the late 20th century; that, in response to the Reagan Revolution, the Democrats have lost – perhaps irretrievably – their ability to define a vision for America’s future; and that, given those weaknesses, the Democrats now face a cluster of related issues which they may well prove unable to negotiate.

Beginning with the Democratic DNA, one critical weakness in the party has been, from its inception, an excessive reliance upon Presidential leadership. And this makes sense, given that the party was founded in direct reaction against the alleged “corrupt bargain” which denied Andrew Jackson the presidency in 1824. Party organization developed around the national convention, which focused the attention of party leaders on the business of nominating a presidential candidate. Jackson, the party’s founder and first President, was an extreme exponent of executive power – to a degree unprecedented at the time, and not to be seen again in peacetime until the late 20th century.

Throughout its history, the Democratic Party has measured its achievements in terms of its great and near-great Presidents. Unlike the Republicans, the Democratic Party can celebrate no period during which it achieved significant progress primarily under Congressional leadership.

Not surprisingly, then, Democrats have less to show for their periods of legislative control except when the White House was simultaneously held by a strong Democratic president. To a far greater degree than their Republican colleagues, Democratic Senators tend to neglect the possibilities of legislative achievement in order to pursue their own presidential ambitions – a fact which, ironically, makes it difficult for any Democratic president to cooperate effectively with a Senate thronging with his potential successors.

Even today, the newly elected Democratic Congressional majority – swept to power on a wave of public revulsion over the chaos in Mesopotamia – has no plan for ending the war. Indeed, despite the undeniable fact that the war authorized in 2002 – a war against the Saddamist regime – has been over for three years, the incoming Congressional leadership has dismissed out of hand the option of ending American involvement by cutting off funds.

It is, of course, utterly impossible to imagine Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, or Bob Dole adopting such a posture of unilateral disarmament. The leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid has started by tying its own hands – a dark omen for the next two years.

The Democrats’ presidential obsession has meant that – to an unhealthy degree – the Party has permitted itself to be redefined every four years by whichever candidate secures its nomination. It has also gradually led the party from a pattern of glorifying past heroes (FDR, Truman, JFK, etc.) to a perpetual search for the next great savior-leader who will rescue the party from obscurity.

The present “rock star” status of Barack Obama – a man of undoubted ability but precious little governmental experience or achievement – is only the latest instance of the Democrats’ chronic desperation.

The second weakness in the Democratic DNA is, simply, that the Party has always been more a coalition than a movement. Arising, as it did, during a period of pronounced sectionalism, the Democratic Party necessarily played down internal differences while focusing upon the personality of Andrew Jackson.

This fact has never really changed. Today’s Democratic Party can most readily be defined by listing its major component groups: labor, particularly the teacher’s unions; African-Americans; feminists and pro-choicers; anti-war voters; senior citizens; and trial lawyers.

The fact that most of these groups are declining as a percentage of the American population is disturbing enough. The fact that each group wields an effective veto over new policy initiatives has – in recent administrations – entirely thwarted the efforts of Democratic presidents to fulfill the dynamic role assigned to them by their party.

In addition to its increasingly dysfunctional DNA, the Democratic Party has, since the Reagan Era, shifted almost entirely into a negative mindset. Anyone who has spent time among Democrats will know that party activists focus far too much of their energy on denunciations of their partisan foes – often in the most intemperate language – and far too little on developing workable policy proposals.

Since Jackson’s day, Democrats have been great haters, but historically, they have also been great dreamers. This is, quite simply, no longer true. JFK and LBJ were the last Democratic presidents to set forth – and follow through on – bold new undertakings. During the 1980’s, Ronald Reagan, an erstwhile New Deal Democrat, borrowed FDR’s visionary vocabulary – and the Republicans have never given it back.

Thus, even today, with new Congressional majorities and a phalanx of Presidential candidates, not one Democrat seems capable of enunciating a bold vision for a better America. George W. Bush may be the lamest of ducks, but the far-too-loyal opposition continues to allow him to set the national agenda – and the terms of debate.

All in all, then, the Democratic Party of today seems incapable performing either of the essential functions of a political party – offering an alternative vision when in opposition, or governing when in power.

Obsessed with presidential leadership, Democrats seem determined to squander their new legislative majorities while waiting for a new Moses to lead them out of the last four decades of political imbecility.

Paralyzed by the incompatible elements within their coalition, they seem entirely unable to proclaim a vision for a better America

Meanwhile, a cluster of intractable challenges – the widening gap between the secure and the insecure in America; declining educational quality for most young Americans; growing trade and Federal deficits; a global environmental crisis; America’s excessive dependence upon non-renewable energy sources; and the persistence of terror networks intent upon doing Americans harm – is coming together to form a perfect political storm.

The name of that storm is the 21st Century – or, as seems increasingly likely, the Post-American Century.

A party capable of governing – or worthy of survival – would not only offer a plan for meeting this perfect storm, but a vision of calm seas and favorable winds on the other side.
Incapable of either, the Democratic Party seems doomed to break apart in the rough seas which are now overtaking it.