The Democrats' Loss of Vision

Could a third party, embracing progressive ideas, succeed in modern American politics?

As I have argued in previous posts, much depends upon how that party defines "success".  A third party must be more patient, and more tactically and strategically agile, than the leader-centered, flash-in-the-pan efforts of recent decades.

But the opening is there. 

Without question, the Democratic Party - always a coalition - is more fragile than it has been since the defection of white conservatives in the days of Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy". 

There are many reasons for this, but one deserves special consideration:  The Democratic Party's loss of its focus on the future - i.e., its loss of vision.

In 1912 - when Woodrow Wilson edged out Teddy Roosevelt in a three-way election among candidates all of whom were, in some sense, progressive - the Democratic Party began to shift away from its traditional conservatism.

Twenty years later, it had successfully positioned itself as the more liberal and visionary of America's two great parties.  A generation of young Democrats who had flocked to Wilson's standard returned, as mature leaders, to serve under one of their number, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

FDR and his New Dealers led America out of the Depression and through a global war.  Harry Truman built on his achievements, managing a vast demobilization effort while sustaining America's amazing economic growth.  Through the New Frontier and Great Society, the Democratic Party continued to lead America toward a bright and shining future.  

But somewhere in the '70's and '80's, the Democrats lost their way.  Between the Watts riots, disaster in Vietnam, the OPEC oil embargo and the seizure of the Tehran embassy, doubts began to grow about America's glowing future.

Ronald Reagan, seeing this, co-opted the promise of the future with the will-o'-the-wisp of "Morning in America".

Bill Clinton sought to revive Democratic optimism - gaining credibility from the end of the Cold War, the Boomer's arrival at the heights of power, and the enormous economic boost brought by the first wave of the high-tech revolution. 

But the '80's and '90's proved a time of optimism without vision.  Americans celebrated and squandered unlooked-for boons, but spent very little time envisioning an achievable, long-term future - or noting the real perils which lurked around their world.

And the Democratic Party - once led by Wilson's bright young men, Roosevelt's New Deal visionaries, and Jack Kennedy's New Frontiersmen - never seemed to recover from the Reagan Revolution.  Increasingly, it became a party of the past - with some Democrats indulging in a misty nostalgia for the glimmering illusion of Camelot, while others fought a stubborn rear-guard action against those who would repeal the gains of the past.

In either case, today's Democrats have become obsessed with an America that has passed away.  Their only salvation has been that the Republicans have embraced an even more retrograde vision - an odd mixture of the remembered Age of Eisenhower and a bizarrely romanticized Age of Coolidge.

Meanwhile, the future escapes both parties.  And, as there is no alternative party in the field, it threatens to escape America.

***

A third party, then, must begin as a party with a vision of the future.

There is much to lament - and much to reject - in the leadership of the present two-party duopoly.  But efforts to base a new party upon that rejection would be as useless as efforts to locate a new party somewhere between the existing parties.

The proper attitude toward the two parties may be better understood by looking at the history of America's most successful third party - the Republicans of Lincoln's day.  While Whigs and Democrats debated - or sought to avoid debating - how to handle the slavery issue, the Republicans proposed a different solution.  They sought to pen slavery up within the South, while adopting policies which would cause its eventual extinction.

Simply stated, the early Republicans envisioned a modern economy, based on personal liberty, freedom of contract, and a definition of private property which excluded the ownership of human beings.  They foresaw a continental Union, linked by railways, in which small, family farms and ranches fed the rising industrial cities.

It was a bold vision.  The fact that that vision became corrupted - and ultimately destructive - in the context of unregulated corporate capitalism should not blind us to the fact that the vision was originally benign and optimistic.

The vision of today's third party should follow this example.  Where the Lincoln Republicans envisioned the end of an economy built upon human slavery, we must envision the end of an economy built upon the sacrifice of future generations to the endless appetites of the present. 

The new party must be environmentally-conscientious, but it must not cast itself merely as a party of negatives.  Americans must look beyond the costly business of giving up our wasteful, consumerist ways and toward a new model of prosperity based more on human happiness and fulfillment than upon such myopic measures as the Gross Domestic Product.

Defining this new economy, and these new measures of success, will be an intellectual challenge of the first order.   Fortunately, there are many  thinkers already in the field - hard-headed thinkers who have begun the task of envisioning a sustainable, post-consumerist, environmentally-responsible future. 

And there are groups within American society - large, relatively cohesive groups, which fit poorly within the politics of the existing parties.  These groups could form the nucleus of a new movement.

The question is how to bring together the visionaries with the social blocs which could transform those visions into the platform of a viable party - and ultimately, into the policy of a government.

Fault-Lines: Right and Left

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama clarified, for any who remained doubtful, that the opening gambit for his second term will be to drive a wedge into the Republican Party - and particularly, into the House Republican conference.

The President's method?  To hammer away at a center-left agenda full of popular items which will inevitably place the GOP in what the chess masters call Zugzwang.

 

At the climactic moment of his speech, Mr. Obama threw down the gauntlet.  Calling out the names of one town after another victimized by madmen armed for combat, the President repeated the battle cry, "They deserve a vote!" - to a rising chorus of cheers from congressional Democrats.

It was a stirring moment, but it was more than that.  It announced a tactic.  Public frustration with two years of congressional gridlock have created an opportunity which might never come  Mr. Obama's way again.  Having won decisively in November, he has never stood higher in the polls.

 

The iron is as hot as it's going to get.

If the President is not to become a premature lame duck, he needs to hammer away at the opposition, driving his wedge ever deeper into the dysfunctional alliance of establishment Republicans and the Tea Party wing.

    

He has already enjoyed initial success.  When Speaker Boehner agreed to suspend the so-called "Hastert Rule", allowing Republican members to vote freely to increase taxes on high-income Americans, it was more than a device to avoid the fiscal cliff.

It was an invitation to collaboration between the White House and Republicans alarmed at the extremism of their own right wing.

 

In coming months, we could see a tacit alliance between the Speaker and the President to pass bipartisan legislation over the objections of the Tea Party.  If this alliance holds, it might allow the Speaker to gain the upper hand over the discontented Tea Party faction.

On the other hand, it might lead to a complete rupture of the Republican conference - and a Tea Party walkout.

 

The struggle for the soul of the Republican Party is clearly on.  Whether the Tea Party prevails - or secedes - it could mark the beginning of a decade or more of Democratic hegemony.  Either way, Mr. Obama stands to gain.

His problem, of course, is that the Democrats - who have historically been more a coalition of interests than a true party - might also fracture under the growing stresses of the times.  The danger comes from educated progressives, young citizens strongly influenced by libertarian values, and serious  environmentalists.  All these groups have serious issues with a President who seems only slightly better than his predecessor on questions of individual liberties, global climate change, and setting forth a vision for a genuinely sustainable, 21st-century economy.

From the beginning, Mr. Obama has been wedded to a classic Democratic notion of restoring an economy based on statistically full employment, with most of the jobs being provided by large, corporate employers.

For all his nods to green jobs and the high-tech sector, the President seems wedded to an old-school vision of a manufacturing economy harking back to the glory days of FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ.

Mr. Obama dreams of lifetime jobs.  Well-paying jobs, with good health benefits.  Union jobs. Jobs for Democrats.

 

In his State of the Union address, Mr. Obama made a point of hailing the return of manufacturing jobs from Japan and Mexico.  Good news, to be sure - but the President's enthusiasm for these small gains reflected his fixation on the economics of the mid-20th century.   

The old manufacturing economy, in which middle class status is dependent upon big corporate employers and the protection of big labor unions, is part of a vision of economics which relies heavily upon consumerism - and consequently, on waste.  It ignores the inevitable environmental impact of forever making more and more stuff, and using more and more natural resources in the process.

Such a vision would set American workers in an unwinnable competition with their counterparts in Asia, where labor is cheaper and environmental standards laughable.

It would also postpone the hard work of re-imagining economics to allow future generations of Americans - and others - to live well in an economy based upon thrift, sustainability, ingenuity, and individual initiative.

If the human race is not utterly to ravage the planet, such an economy must come soon.  But the President - with his penchant for kicking the can down the road - seems more interested in securing short-term political advantage for himself and his party.

And, to be sure, his present tactics might well secure an historic upset in the 2014 mid-terms, giving him a chance to remain relevant well into the last two years of his presidency.  They might even pave the way for Hillary Clinton, or some other Democrat, to succeed him in 2017.

What is not certain is that the nascent forces of a neo-Progressivism - who have supported Mr. Obama mainly out of revulsion at the alternative - will continue to support him if the GOP shows signs of falling apart.

In his ideal world, Mr. Obama might succeed in taming the Republican Party - or governing in a triumphant period of divisa et impera.  But, as in the geological world, movement along one fault line might well lead to movement upon another. 

In four years time, America might have - not two parties - but a situation in which three, or even four, parties play a serious role in shaping the future.

Much depends upon whether America's genuine progressives are ready to cast off their dependence upon the old politics of Mr. Obama's Democratic Party. 

The Biological Logic of Political Parties

Every few years, after a relatively impressive electoral victory, the eternally short-sighted American media - abetted by some history-challenged pols and a handful of political scientists - will begin discussing the possibility of a "permanent majority".

Such predictions consistently prove disappointing, and for good reason.  Like most long-standing human institutions, America's two political parties are governed by the logic of evolution.  Each party is highly adaptive, its adaptations being governed by its particular definition of success and by the imperative of survival.

Moreover, each party possesses a kind of organizational DNA, acquired at the time of its founding and virtually impossible to discard.

Whenever either party loses power, and seems likely to remain out of power for an extended period of time, it finds a way to gain new adherents.  When confronted with the risk of extinction, a major party will discard almost anything - including ideological principles - in order remain viable.

To be sure, the laws of organizational evolution are not as unbreakable as those of biological evolution.  But they are nearly so.  A party will change when it needs to change.  Survival is the key.

There is only one exception:  There is almost no possibility of either party acting at variance with its historic, institutional DNA.  When this DNA comes into conflict with the imperatives of the present, extinction becomes possible.

At present, we can see the Republican Party developing an interest in improving the legal status of undocumented immigrants.  Apparently fundamental, long-held principles concerning immigration appear to be evaporating as the GOP adjusts to the rising importance of America's growing Latino population.

This adaptation is perfectly logical, and not at all in conflict with the party's DNA.   Since its appearance in the 1850's, the Republican Party has been, at heart, the party of corporate capitalism - and of the power, wealth and privileges of people who have succeeded under the rules of relatively unrestricted corporate dominion.

To be fair, the original Republican Party had a powerful moral ideology, which was part of its original DNA.  The trouble is that that ideology concerned itself with the specific evil of slavery - which Republicans succeeded in abolishing within twelve years of the party's founding. 

This left the party without significant ideological moorings.  The GOP became the party of unrestrained capitalism, and so it remains.  Whatever other ideologies it espouses are essentially opportunistic - camouflage for a fundamental dedication to the interests of wealth and privilege.

Opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage; support for a broad interpretation of the Second Amendment; hostility to universal health-care; skepticism about global climate change - all of these are fungible.  If you want to predict the long-term Republican position on any issue, look up the position of the United States Chamber of Commerce.  You'll seldom go astray.

The Democratic Party's DNA is similarly non-ideological, but for different reasons.   Whether you trace the party's founding to Jefferson and Madison, or - perhaps more accurately - to Andrew Jackson, you will find three primary ingredients.

First, the Democrats developed as a populist movement led by outsized individuals who found themselves excluded from power by a ruling elite (the Hamiltonian Federalists or the one-party oligarchy of the Era of Good Feelings, as you choose). 

Second, the Democrats began as a coalition of sectional interests:  Virginia's planter elite allied to New York's Clinton organization, or (under the Jacksonian narrative) a three-section alliance of western frontier libertarians, Southern slaveowners, and the New York machine run by men such as Martin Van Buren.

Third, the Democrats - though they once spoke passionately of limited government - have always put more emphasis on charismatic leadership and the possession of the presidency than have their elitist opponents.

Democrats make much of their great presidents, Jefferson, Jackson, FDR - and make exaggerated claims for others, such as Woodrow Wilson, JFK, Bill Clinton, and - today - President Obama.

By way of contrast, the Republicans can be content to govern from Congress, as did their Whig predecessors in the age of Clay and Webster.  Lincoln, the first Republican, emerged from the Civil War as a towering figure, but for most of his presidency, he was at war with the Congressional wing of his own party.  TR, an immense figure, was - by any standard - a maverick.

The only truly charismatic modern Republican president was Ronald Reagan, and he - significantly - presided over the Republicans' successful wooing of unhappy Southern Democrats, who may have needed his outsized personality to draw them into the Republican ranks.

Today's Democratic Party is, thus, the product of two centuries of evolution, but in no appreciable way altered in its fundamental DNA.  Today's Democrats are critical of those who enjoy great wealth, power and privilege - though not ideologically skeptical of the system of corporate, consumer capitalism. 

The party is, more than ever, a coalition.  It is impossible to speak of the Democratic Party in terms of a fundamental ideology, but easy to analyze its policy positions in terms of constituent groups:  unions, blacks, Hispanics, seniors, feminists, and various smaller constituencies of the chronically disadvantaged.

Finally, to this day, the party retains its extraordinary focus on individual, charismatic leaders and on the importance of holding the White House.  In presidential years, Democrats flock to the polls.  In off-years, Republicans tend to make gains.

This brief analysis is entirely my own.  It is the product of many years of studying and teaching US history, but - while hardly exhaustive - it informs much that has appeared - and is to appear - on this blog.

To that extent, I hope it will be useful.

In my next piece, I plan to begin exploring the fragility of the now-triumphant Democratic Party, and suggesting which elements within the Democratic coalition might be more comfortable as part of a third-party with significantly different DNA and a different survival strategy.

The Fracking of the GOP

This week, many Americans are absorbed by the first season of Netflix' new political drama, House of Cards, while others - especially younger viewers who missed it the first time around - have been falling in love with The West Wing.

It's a wholesome sign. 

After years in which our political discourse has been dominated by the 30-second attack ad and the AM radio rant, Americans are getting interested in a subtler take on the political process.

Even the film industry is taking notice.  Spielberg's Lincoln - an historical film which matched inspiring oratory with back-room politicking - did well with both critics and the public.   So did Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, two films dealing substantively with America's troubles in the Middle East.

Even in the world of Shakespearean theatre, there's a trend toward doing more of the Bard's more pointedly political plays, such as Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Measure for Measure, and the English history plays.

There couldn't have been a more appropriate time for the experts to find and identify the remains of Richard III.

All this renewed interest in politics is, as noted, a wholesome sign.  But it raises the fascinating question of whether the existing two-party system will prove capable of accommodating and containing such a huge release of civic energy - especially in a radically decentralized media environment which empowers every citizen to reach a mass audience and organize for action. 

Given the diversity of America's population, the answer might well be "No".   But developing alternatives - whether "third parties" or other alternative forms of organization - will not flourish without hard work.

And you can count on this:  If such a movement should appear, at least one of the two major parties will do its best to absorb that movement before it can threaten the existing duopoly.

The history of the Tea Party movement may be instructive here.

When it first appeared, the Tea Party came in the guise of a true grassroots movement with concerns some of which, at least, were legitimate - at least in the abstract.  While the Tea Party movement would eventually trip over its members' preference for extreme and simplistic language - and their general indifference to the accumulated wisdom of science, economics, history, etc. - its first two years were impressive, to say the least.

Within that time, however, the movement was successfully captured by the Republican Party.  Instead of nominating its own candidates, the Tea Party opted to support the nomination and election of its approved Republican candidates for Congress, the Senate, and various statehouses.

By 2010, this looked to be a familiar political coup for the political establishment.  The GOP had picked up a great deal of new energy - and a lot of new seats - at the price of shifting even further to the right.

The problem?  This rightward shift came at a time when the American people were, on the whole, moving in other directions - not necessarily leftward, but certainly not in the direction toward which the Tea Party was marching.

Hispanic voters, a fast-growing demographic, demonstrated an increasing willingness to stand up to the Tea Party's nativist demands for a motte and bailey along the nation's southern border.

A younger generation of voters - and many of their parents and grandparents - began demolishing barriers to same-sex marriage which had seemed vastly popular only a few 

years before.

And suddenly, a solid majority of Americans seem to have been persuaded - by experience if not by science - that global climate change was real, and far more than inconvenient.

As a result, in 2012, the Republican Party - having swallowed, but not digested, the Tea Party - found itself in a quandary.  After an endless season of presidential primaries and candidate debates - each of which forced the debate further to the right - the GOP nominated Mitt Romney.  But Romney, an attractive and temperamentally moderate fellow, driven so far to the right that his oratory had become almost indistinguishable from that of the AM radio ranters who despised him.

Meanwhile, for Congress and the Senate, Tea Party primary voters nominated any number of walking, talking embarrassments - more than a few of whom proved unelectable.    

As a result, in November, Barack Obama won a second term, while Democrats held the Senate and picked up seats in the House.

Having suffered so substantial a defeat, Republican insiders called for a course correction.  Hard-core conservatives, predictably, demanded that the party move even further to the right.

The internal debates within the Republican Party promised to be interesting enough, but President Obama and his party seized the opportunity to drive a wedge between the Republican factions. 

He began this process in December, with a bold stand against assault weapons.  He continued it with his Inaugural elevation of issues such as immigration reform, marriage equality, and global climate change.  Even his nomination of retired Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense has served mainly to divide Republicans against each other, while demonstrating Democratic solidarity.

Each presidential initiative was another hammer-blow aimed at the fissure between Wall Street and K Street Republicans, on the one hand, and the populist radicals of the Tea Party, on the other.

As of this writing, the GOP is on the horns of a dilemma.  It can either damage its long-term prospects by taking the unpopular side on a long list of issues - or produce howls of betrayal from its Tea Party faction by trying to stay within the political mainstream.

It's too soon to say, but if the President stays on offense, he might well split the GOP irreparably - with the Tea Party marching off under the banner of partisan secession.

Which leaves us with this question:  Is there an equal opening for a new party or movement in the political center - or on the progressive left?