One reason many Americans correctly are frustrated with our political parties is because they no longer define most of us.
For a long time, Democrats defined a liberal belief that the country’s problems could be solved through collective action. The economy could be manipulated through government intervention. Public education, defense, transportation (within strict limits) were effective ways to improve the general welfare. This resulted in taxes and costs, but the benefits outweighed the costs.
Republicans were defined as a moderate form of being a Democrat. Republicans stood for collective action to solve problems, but on a more local level. States and localities were the proper area to deal with education for example. Republicans believed in government, but limited in certain instances. Nationalization of problems was acceptable in few instances, national defense or highway construction for example, but not in health insurance. However, Richard Nixon, actually proposed, and almost got enacted, a national health insurance system very similar to the one being debated today.
Both parties, tempered by two major world wars, viewed big problems nationally, but differed in scope. If local government was more appropriate for a problem, then use it first, said Republicans, but sponsored a national system of highways under Eisenhower that became the envy of the world.
Political scientists were often frustrated, because of the small differences between the parties. Bland, moderate, middle ground, not very exciting, were all observations; especially when compared to the often violent conflicts of ideas that were going on in Europe and Latin America. Americans might argue about politics, but usually did it over a warm beer and then adjourned to go watch the football game together. To actually fight over Democrat or Republican “ideals” was ridiculous.
So what changed? Why is politics today in America becoming a blood sport?
The world changed. Without even noticing, most Americans have been transformed into a World Economy. A paradigm shift has occurred that American missed, because we so busy being good “consumers” and enjoying flat line inflation rates, zero interest loans, and no down payment mortgage deals. Meanwhile, politicians were getting elected with the approach of cutting taxes (to supposedly stimulate economic growth; i.e., more consumerism); and raise spending. Ronald Reagan was the champion of this approach, having learned from Prop 13 California that drastic tax cuts could be offset by rises in spending if you just moved the money around, and delayed paying for public projects.
The New Deal was finally stopped after nearly forty years of bipartisan support, with this approach. Cut taxes and raise spending to spur consumerism appeared to work and had the effect of moving the Republican Party to the right and to the provincial.
Provincial is the key to the understanding this paradigm shift. While American was enjoyed prosperity based on the excess spending spurred by one tax cut after another, the economy was quickly being globalized. American corporations used the tax cuts to expand overseas, finding cheap labor in new markets irresistible.
The Republican tradition of moderation was undermined by the realization that money was to be made in more radical approaches to government, and the tax cutters soon became tax crusaders. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the local government is better tradition of the Republicans morphed into “national approaches to big problems were bad and even evil”. This change blithely ignored the many national approaches Republicans had taken in the past, and their ongoing strong national defense spending position. Curiously, a large military run by a huge government program doesn’t bother conservatives at all; even though most democracies have fallen military takeovers. A huge paradox exists when on one hand Republicans decry all “big” government, but trillions were thrown at the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, political “purity” is now pushed as the answer to a growing minority presence relative to the Democratic Party. In today’s pure conservative thought, there must be signings of oaths (not to raise taxes) and to cut government.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 pushed Southern Democrats quickly out of the party and into the welcoming arms of Richard Nixon. His “southern strategy” worked, and when coupled with Reagan’s “new conservatism” tipped the balance of power into the conservative column for many years.
It also radicalized American politics. For the first time in years, political discussions got ugly. Race became part of the debate. Liberal Democrats were put on the defensive, as their traditional national solutions to problems were neutralized by the deft Reagan approach of cutting taxes and raising spending.
“Tax and spend” was fired at the liberals, and stuck, even though cut taxes and spend was really what was going on.
So, the New Deal finally died, ending the grand liberal/southern states rights coalition that had ruled American Politics for nearly fifty years.
Now, new definitions for the two party system are what are needed.
Democrats should be called “Nationalists” and Republicans “Provincials”. Liberal and conservative have no meaning in the modern political context.
This change has occurred in the face of a crushing paradigm shift from a national economy to an international one. The middle class has been destroyed by outsourcing jobs which has decimated pro-democrat unions. Public schools, once envied by the world, now cannot keep up with the demands of the world economy. In the past paradigm, American high schools could graduate 50% of its students; send the top 10% to the best colleges on the planet, with the rest going to work “at the plant”. Over the past thirty years, because of Reagan’s glorification of private enterprise and tax cut killing regulations, America’s manufacturing centers were shifted to China, India, and other emerging multi-national economies. There is no place for over 50% of American high school graduates, who must take increasingly lower paying jobs with no benefits.
Bill Clinton caught on to this paradigm shift, and forged a new, but brief coalition, of the few moderate Republicans and Democrats left, then supported NAFTA and other free trade movements, basically saying “if you can’t beat them, join them”. Clinton, by his nature an internationalist, having been a Rhodes Scholar, was comfortable with supporting the world economy, even though it was finishing off the beleaguered middle class, who had heretofore been loyal Democrats.
So now the shift: Republicans move harder to the right, abandoning their moderates, adopting “traditional values” and feeding on the anger of a middle class who feel abandoned by the Clinton frees trade Democrats. The former “Dixiecrats” still declaring “states rights” are hoping to turn the tide back to white rule (see below) and local control. This is code for somehow putting segregation back into fashion (an impossible dream given current demographic trends). But, hey, who said racists were logical?
And herein lays the rub for the Republicans. As tormented as their political logic has been, for example George W. Bush’s term betrayed the ruse that you could cut taxes and raise spending and not have a deficit problem, now Provincials are boxed in by the traditional value that local is best in dealing with national problems.
The paradox is that local solutions to national problems are no longer even close to an effective approach in the global economy. The issue is an international economy and global competition that states rights or local control has no chance to even address, much less solve.
Can you imagine, if miraculously the southern right winger can stem the tide of multiethnic and racial America, how it will play in China or India? One can just see a Chinese business leader coming to a renewed Jim Crow Alabama for example, and wanting to put a factory there. I don’t think so!
And then there is the destruction of the middle class. The middle class was barely even informed of the shift of manufacturing overseas. One by one, mills were closed, with often two weeks’ notice, and absolutely no transition plan.
Companies that used to be “All-American” had silently morphed into multi-nationals Levies (what could be more American?), suddenly were all made overseas! Wal-Mart not only markets Chinese made goods, it does so at such low prices that whole blocks of retail American stores are wiped out in town after town.
The victims of this cut throat competition are middle class Americans. These Americans are enraged at the unfairness of it all, but borrow more money, work more hours (if they are lucky enough to get a job) and shop at Wal-Mart with credit cards carrying interest charges that further depress their standard of living! In spite of all this abuse, many members of the beleaguered middle class are Provincials! (How the middle class has been duped and tricked by all this is another topic outside the scope of this piece).
The demolition of the middle class occurred quietly with deadly results that exploded in the Great Recession of 2008. The deck of cards came tumbling down. Low prices and the loss of economic vitality that were the inevitable result literally gutted the middle class engine of consumerism that had driven the American economy since World War II. Suddenly even Wal-Mart is hurting. Low prices are cut even lower, endangering profit margins. Still, as of this writing, the middle class has not started buying which is the beginning of the end of recessions. And they probably won’t for a long time, because many are flat broke. The golden goose of American prosperity is in real trouble.
Led by a housing bubble which was a product of the Reagan Revolution of low taxes and no regulation, speculation drove that market into the ground. It is interesting that the “Savings and Loan” scandal of Reagan’s presidency was not heeded as a warning. Speculation robbed the middle class of the only value they had, home values. And, to make matters much worse, gimmick mortgages exploded when interest rates were raised, and foreclosures are now the rule rather than a rare exception.
And the engine has been killed. The middle class has dwindled considerably. The huge trick for both parties is how to rekindle the consumer economy. So far, neither side has had much luck. Nationalists are probably closer, envisioning “greening” the economy and modernizing infrastructure and transportation. Provincials are still chanting the tax cut solution, and even the most doctrinaire of them doesn’t really believe it will work. In the short run, tax cuts work to stimulate the economy IF rates were so high in the first place that they depressed economic investment and growth. When rates are already low, and they are cut lower, the effect on the economy is huge government borrowing, from China of all places, which is harmful to economic growth.
The tragedy is of course, that government spending, the New Deal approach, is probably part of the solution here in the short term, but the more it is tried, the more deficits are driven sky high, which will retard future economic growth.
The Federal Reserve’s decade long low interest overstimulation of the economy hit the wall of a middle class that was broke. Chronic underemployment developed quickly, resisting the new President’s stimulus plan to date.
And the new president? Oh, yes, he is BLACK!
And that is the next paradigm. The Democrats, as the Republicans were making gains with their provincialism and cut taxes and raise spending strategy, were spending decades trying to reinvent their party given the international economy and a middle class that felt real betrayal. Tax and spend still works to destroy liberals.
However, it is in the blackness of the new President and the move by the Democrats to the new Clinton national approach that is now defining them as the Nationalist Party. It is no accident that an African-American was elected President. It was predictable, but happened a little sooner than expected.
Demographic studies are showing that the country has now tipped from a Caucasian majority to a mixed race one. Low Caucasian birth rates are finally catching up with the white dominated political and economic culture. Immigration is also having an effect, but birth rates are the real factor. And, contrary to the white hopes of the fading south, this is a very good thing!
Why? Because of the international global economy, that’s why! Countries, like China for example, that for years were dominated by European and American economies, are quickly becoming dominant. Former Aryan, xenophobic approaches (white man’s burden) are not appreciated in brown and yellow countries. Caucasians find themselves on the defensive immediately, when they try to dominate global economic discussions. In fact, there is a backlash developing, and European/United States white dominated businessmen are at a decided disadvantage when confronted with Chinese women who already own the Wal-Marts of the world.
It is vital that the Democrats drove the Dixiecrats out of the party in the 60s. It is also vital that Democrats have become Nationalists, because it is only nationally that the United States can deal with the global economy. Local approaches are simply not germane anymore. What is good for Alabama is not good for anyone, including Alabama!
The problem is the Republicans. As the moderates leave in droves, and the party swings to localism and libertarianism, the Party’s ability to effectively deal with problems and actually solve them deteriorates.
How does this jive with what will probably be some victories in the 2010 mid-term elections?
Unfortunately, for the Republicans, that will be the worst thing that can happen to them. If, for example, they attain a majority, then they will have to apply their increasingly minority, provincial solutions to international economic problems, and fall flat as non-starters.
And, their failures will simply revitalize the multi-racial coalition that grows in potential power daily. If that monster is aroused enough, Provincials will be not only in political danger, but physical danger as well.
It is no accident that rural white supremists are arming themselves. In their twisted way they are realizing that they are outnumbered and are becoming more isolated. This paranoia has led to even more radicalization of the Provincials, particularly in rural areas.
Now some ifs: It must be noted the paradigm development discussed above has a very large danger in it. The danger grows as the parties swing further apart, the potential for violent conflict increases. The peaceful transfer of power, always a vital American tradition, could be in trouble if the new defining and re-inventing of each party deteriorates into fascism.
The Tea Party, that still refuses to kick out the white supremists and other radicals for example, could become the vehicle for fascism growing in America much like the All-American Bund in the mid-thirties. Luckily, as with many radical movements in the United States, the fascists dwindled in the face of the power of the major parties and the advent of World War II; being a fascist in America is 1941 was not exactly a route to most popular citizen. Such obstacles do not exist today, making fascism development a real possibility if not likely.
The First If: Can the two party system exist when one party becomes more minority all the time? Unless the Republicans can broaden their appeal, from what is becoming an all white, past middle age, regionally dominated and rural party, they will be a minority in American Politics for a long time. If they can figure a way to reinvent themselves and broaden their base around provincial lines, not fascist ones, then they might continue to exist. Frankly, this if is a large one to overcome for provincial Republicans.
The Second If: Can the Democratic Party (Nationalist Party), realize the demographic shift and counter the traditionally effective “tax and spend” “branding” by the Provincials?
If they can, the Nationalist Party will be the only dominant party in the United States. The key to this is energizing the coalition that swept the African American President into power. The power in that was not so much current as future, because emerging multi-racial, and mixed raced political power will be the standard in the next fifty years in the United States.
This will also be driven by the need to fit into the global economy that is becoming increasingly dominated by world citizens of color. The Caucasian domination of the world is ending.
The Third If: If the Republicans or Provincials continue to isolate themselves, will their huge economic advantage be able to offset the demographic advantage of the Nationalists?
The recent Supreme Court decision, enabling huge corporate donations in political campaigns, could prove the salvation of what amounts to a dwindling political movement. In short, Provincials could simply buy elections in the future if the Nationalists cannot motivate their huge base.
This is problematic however, considering the huge numeric disadvantage the Provincials will have, coupled with their philosophical mis-match with global economic realities. And, multinational corporations, who were given such an advantage by the Supreme Court, may not want to support Provincials who spout racist dogma, when the majority of their boards are Chinese.
A textbook example of this occurred in California in the 1990s. Republicans decided to make immigrant bashing under then Governor Wilson a keystone of their political attack against Democrats. This backfired, because Wilson didn’t look at the demographic shift in the state, with a majority of the state people of color and a huge Mexican-American population. Provincial immigrant bashing, racist in its core, does not appeal to “minorities” who are now, if they combine, a majority. If one follows voting patterns in Los Angeles, the impact is remarkable. Los Angeles and San Francisco are getting bigger and more nationalist all the time. Rural California, decreasingly white, continues to immigrant bash, but just don’t have the votes.
So, multinational corporations, who make up the majority of “American” corporations, may, with the exception of petroleum corporations, not take advantage of the Supreme Court’s Provincial Gift. In fact, they may swing the other way, because the Nationalist Party is the only party they can talk to realistically about American markets.
It is not by accident that conservatives hate and fear the “Acorn Movement”, because, in spite of its Keystone Cops behavior, it represents a real threat to white hegemony everywhere.
The final if: Can American democracy continue without a vital two party system? The potential exists for the destabilizing effect of multiple parties developing as the Nationals and Provincials fail to contain their members into broadly based coalitions. This will probably happen first with the Provincials, who find party discipline like herding cats. There is simply too much radicalism within the party for any sort of real control. At any time, a whole segment of the party could quit, take its votes and go home, over ideological differences.
This is shown by conservative Republicans today appearing more disciplined than Democrats, but this is deceiving. Under the surface of the short term Republican discipline against Obama Health Care, are deep fractures in philosophy, actions and organization. Republican Party meetings are continuing to deteriorate into shouting matches, as radical right wingers clash with even less radical right wingers. The moderates have long since left the building, to register as Independents, who easily morph into Nationalists.
Independents may “send a message” of anger to Nationalists who can’t fix underemployment, but where else can they go? Not to the radical Provincials that is for sure.
This leaves us with a growing Nationalist Party, whose identity is very different from the New Deal coalition of the past. It is possible to predict where this party will go.
One could predict a national effort to deal with the global economy. One could predict a more hostile approach; witness Obama’s educational reforms, to tradition Democrat Unionism, especially if it perceived that such unionism is harming multi-ethnic constituents. One could predict continuing reform of Health Insurance, since without it global economic competition is impossible. One could predict a lessening of military spending to deal with the deficit. One could predict ultimately breaking through the “tax and spend” trap, and taxing the rich at 1960s rates as the middle class slowly begins to realize who really screwed them.
One thing is for sure, the goals of the Nationalists will be general and bland if the party is to exist. Another thing is for sure, the Nationalists will be a party open to all races, creeds and religions as it seeks to fit into the global economic and political scheme of things.
Unfortunately, in conclusion, this leaves us with a major party, the Nationalists, versus a collection of right wing groups, the Provincials, the Tea Party, the John Birchers, the Libertarians; etc.
American political institutions are all, from state to federal, conditioned on a two party system. Experience with multi-parties, a Parliamentary system, is limited.
Therefore, the potential for often violent and confrontational politics will increase unless the political system can be modified to accommodate a political make-up of one large party and several splinter ones.
Such conditions in the past, unfortunately, saw the rise of fascism and political instability.
