Unnoticed amidst recent hymns to “change” that many expect and few can define, something happened in 2008 that will make American politics in the next generation as different from what we have known as it differed after 1824-28 from what had come before: the well nigh single party that had ruled during the previous generation ceased to exist and new ones took over. On the one hand populist Jacksonians took over the bulk of the Democratic party and continued running the government, while the rest of the party went into opposition and became Whigs, later morphing into Republicans.
The George W. Bush years, culminating in the election of 2008, consummated the coming together of Republicans as well as Democrats who lived alike and thought alike about public affairs into a distinct class atop society. Rhetoric aside, Major decisions in Washington would be made less and less by choosing between measures, persons and parties and in opposition to their alternatives. Rather, over a generation, whether by action–as regards Social Security–or by inaction as regarding such social issues as the right to life vs. that of abortion and the right or wrong of racial discrimination, leaders of both our political parties differed ever less. They acted mostly by compromises that all could defend on the ground that no one who matters opposes them. Anyone acquainted with the US Congress, especially the Senate, knows that its members will do almost anything to avoid voting on controversial matters.
Hence “bipartisanship” became the mantra that covers the members’
herding together to avoid having to explain what they are doing. For members of our ruling class, it became enough to point out that one is in agreement with any and all who count.
But if you don’t have to explain yourself to others, you are under less pressure to explain it to yourself. Neutered intellectually by their inbreeding, our political leaders found it easier to embrace whatever ideas infected their collective mind than to do due diligence about them. Not surprisingly, the marketplace of ideas about public policy began not to winnow out the bad ones but rather to rally the majority of the political class behind whichever schemes that would benefit them most.
Thus, as if by tropism, Republicans joined Democrats in spending ever more of the taxpayers’ money for ever more government programs, the common denominator of which is that the ruling class administers them. By expanding government regulation of everything from cars to education, our commingled ruling party increased the number of jobs it controls, the amount of money and deference that must be paid to its members. As it has cohered and grown to include big businesses as well as the education establishment and much of the media, this single governing party has limited its explanation of why the public should endow it with unspecified powers to assertions that it is acting either to “save the planet” or to “avert economic catastrophe”–whatever such words might mean.
In 2008 this single party–the platforms of the two main Presidential contenders were indistinguishable and both candidates committed themselves to bipartisanship—proclaimed the birth of the “post partisan” era. Henceforth, as we are told by a familiar corporate advertisement, there are neither Liberal nor Conservative problems or solutions, just “human” ones. In practice, that means that it is illegitimate to oppose whatever comes down from the united ruling class.
Although most of what comes from this post partisan party may rightly be described as being of the political Left, nevertheless, this single post partisan party did downgrade the importance of Right and Left, by overlaying them with the practical, pressing difference between the Ins and the Outs, between what the English used to call the “court party” and the “country party.” This is a natural, inevitable division. Especially in a democratic republic, popular dissatisfaction with the exercise of power guarantees opposition, while efforts to de legitimize it guarantee its ferocity.
Confidently, we may point to September 2008 as new American political system’ birth date. That month a Republican President, seconded by the Republican candidate for the Presidency, with the enthusiastic support of the Democratic candidate, at the urging of the Congress’ Democratic majority, with the support of Congress’ Republican leadership, and backed by a media chorus that included the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, even National Review, as well as the Federal Reserve and the nation’s major banks, told the public that because America’s financial system suffered from lack of liquidity, Taxpayers must give the Treasury $700 billion to spend as it saw fit. If not, the financial crisis would worsen. Nevertheless, polls showed that large majorities of Americans, Left as well as Right, said NO. Substantively, the Outs were correct. Nonetheless, they were out.
The political class brought all its weight to bear on the substantial number of Republican but not negligible Democratic members of Congress who heeded public opinion. The bill passed, narrowly. After the Democratic Party’s victory in November 2008, it presented essentially the same approach to a financial crisis fast becoming an economic depression: now give us some $800 billion to spend as we wish: “there is no disagreement” said the President.” But popular opposition had grown, not necessarily along a Left-Right divide.
Yes, a Democratic President backed by a Democratic majority in Congress, mostly of the Left, would pass some version of that “trillion dollar Turkey.” But elected officials, regardless of whether they call themselves Republican or Democrat henceforth have to deal with a public opinion that has recognized that its Bipartisan, self proclaimed Post Partisan Establishment is a party unto itself, that it is deeply flawed, and that it has led America in the wrong direction.
No one can tell which personage, wearing what current label, will play what future role or under what label he will play it. But the first step toward a new party system, a realignment, has already begun. A few Republicans have joined Democrats, and vice versa, on the respective sides of the new divide. But this division, unlike previous ones between the two parties, will require those on either side of it to redefine themselves.
Our time’s massive political fact is that “everyone” in both parties, namely those who count, has stood on the side of the Establishment and against public opinion. Opposing them is no light thing–any more than standing up against public opinion is a light thing. That is why this divide is likely to broaden and harden as to lead those on either side of it formally to redefine themselves.
What does that mean in practical terms? For now it looks as if the Democratic Party, with the accretion of Establishment Republicans will become the National Government Party, while the Republican Party, to the extent it survives, must do so by incorporating elements from both the Democrat and Republican Parties who are opposed to high taxation, big government, and failed foreign policies. It will be Court vs. Country.
