January 04, 2010 09:12 PM UTC

When Disenchantment Was All the Rage

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• by: JO

Over the weekend I read a post on this site that garnered considerable praise. But even after reading it three times, backwards and forwards, I couldn’t fully understand the author’s meaning. Was he/she refuting a single poster on another blog who apparently found Grover Norquist an attractive one-night-stand, and declaring that she was The Biggest Threat faced by Democrats? Or, to judge the post by the PlyFer Theory (“meaning” lies somewhere between what was implied by the author and what was inferred by readers), was this an attack on “left-wing” Democrats who were threatening the party’s current majorities in Washington by expressing dissatisfaction with the results of the 111th Congress so far? Based on the chorus of agreement, this seemed to be the main point: disenchanted Democrats ought to shut up and be thankful for what they have, since Republicans of 2010 are nastier than they’ve been since 1993!

Although I wasn’t around to see all of it, I think it’s fair to say that the Republican Party has struck a fairly consistent line since long before 1993–at least Ulysses S. Grant– …

…viz. to pursue specific policies shaped by the general philosophy that the role of government is to protect, and advance, the interests of private property (and no, I don’t mean your complete set of Barbie Dolls collected since childhood 40 years ago!). There were two exceptions to this unbroken string: the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (who, not surprisingly, ran for a second time not as a Republican but as the candidate of the National Progressive Party), and the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, who was courted by both Republicans and Democrats to run in 1952, making him the least “political” politician of the 20th century. Certainly it’s true that since the candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964, the Republicans have been focused on One Big Thing: repeal the New Deal. They don’t always state their aims quite so clearly; more often it’s more like “big government is bad….unless it benefits defense contractors” or somesuch.

Democrats, on the other hand, have a much more complicated ideological history, starting with the small-farmers-on-the-frontier of Jefferson and Jackson and then dividing between the Unreconciled Confederates of the post-Civil War era in the South and the era of Social Democrats fighting unregulated, unbridled Capitalism in the North. Those two parties largely coexisted in the same convention hall until 1968, when Richard Nixon decided there was nothing inherently contradictory between Big Capital and Rabid Racism still fixated on the role of former slaves. Somewhat later, when the former-Southern Democrats-turned-Republican efforts to deny civil rights had failed, this institutional racism linked up with the “Values Movement.”

The Values Movement is important to Democrats, even though it’s a phenomenon of the Republicans. How does one explain why small farmers on the Steppes of North America are die-hard Republicans? Surely it’s not in their economic self-interest, as demonstrated annually when crop support checks are cashed, making Kit Carson County look a bit like Inner-City Detroit–a welfare state. When it comes to economic self-interest, Republicans of the 4th CD in CO, to name one example, are die-hard supporters of the New Deal! But when it come to dealing with cultural changes that take place in cities, involving people who are unlikely to hang around the farm much after age 18, changes that seem threatening to a somewhat simplistic view of the world, well, Reverend James D. has the answer! You only need one book in the house, which is a good thing since chances are you only have one book in the house!

I over-simplify, of course, but the point remains: Politics is about economic struggle (some would say “warfare,” but that would sound too, well, too radical) carried out (usually) without the violence. It has nothing–nothing at all!–to do with how polite the other side may be. The current Congress may offer the slightest variation on the theme, but only because this is the first time in a long time that one party has held  a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, a strong majority in the House, and the White House (or so its leaders thought). Republicans quiver! Attacks on the rights of property are ready to take off!

Except, of course, that it isn’t happening. For one thing, Joe Lieberman isn’t a Democrat. Ben Nelson says he is, but he most likely wouldn’t get a passing score on a Democratic Party Admissions Test if one were given. And blue dogs? Who are they, anyway? Democrats who aren’t? Sortacrats?

Which brings me to my second point: Politics is about economic struggle (some would say “warfare,” but that would sound too, well, too radical) carried out (usually) without the violence. Thought that was my first point? Well, yeah, except for this: Politics is not primarily about getting elected. If it were, both parties would always turn to movie stars–deemed beautiful, able to read speeches written by others and sound convincing, willing to disrobe on stage when ratings require. We wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between parties–indeed, there would be no need for parties!–since the whole point would be getting into office–winning the ratings game!–and party ideology can just as easily obstruct that objective as help to achieve it.

Which brings me back to the weekend thread about disenchantment with the disenchanted. Just over two years ago I, like many readers here, I suspect, sat in a second grade classroom during the precinct-meeting portion of the county convention. Packed. Chairs too small. To one side was a handful of sad-looking group of Hillary supporters. They looked somewhat shocked and certainly discouraged. Who were all these strangers on the Other Side, the Obama Side? Were these naifs unaware of whom the Party Powers were supporting? Of who was collecting PAC contributions left-and-right? Didn’t they know that a black man who grew up in Indonesia, who worked as a Community Organizer on the South Side of Chicago (if that doesn’t mean Pinko, then they must be colorblind!) stood no chance, none whatsoever, running against a White War White Veteran White Senator White Republican White Protestant? (Although, to be fair, the identity of the Republican wasn’t yet known, although his main traits were never in question.) Or, to borrow one comment in the weekend post, Didn’t the Obamites know what was possible?

Well, yes, we did know what was possible; at least we thought we did. We thought that the people, working together to address the host of problems that had been piling up at an ever-increasing rate for the past seven years, could be addressed through common action carried out through the institutions of government. And we thought we could work together to elect someone who seemed to give voice to that conviction in a slogan: Yes We Can.

Maybe we chose to ignore our candidate’s well-known fondness for achieving consensus, even if it meant keeping the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review in session for hours. Maybe we didn’t really imagine Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff. Maybe we didn’t imagine that if Obama were elected he would end up bringing back many Clintonistas to serve in his cabinet. I’m quite sure that we didn’t  imagine that the shape of health care reform would be left up to one Senator from Connecticut who was no longer a Democrat! I’m quite sure we didn’t imagine that a secret back-room drug deal would be struck with Big Pharma in the first month of the new presidency and would survive months of “negotiating” terms of a “health care reform” bill. I’m quite sure we didn’t realize that “compromise” meant giving in, time after time after time, to the other side while extracting no compromises–none!–in return! I’m quite sure we didn’t imagine that he goal of “bipartisan” support would be pursued to the very bitter end, through compromise after compromise, only to see no Republicans–ZERO–would agree to vote for the compromised bill in question.

Neither did we imagine that with the range of problems in front of us–health, of course, but also education, environment, war, declining industrial production, mounting trade deficit–could only be solved one at a time. Maybe it’s unreasonable to solve all problems in 12 months. But isn’t it also unreasonable not to have specific proposals on the table for more than one problem after 12 months?

Maybe we were guilty of falling prey to our own illusions, to the belief that a political leader’s job was to persuade a majority of people to try something new in the face of crises; that leaders of smaller entities, such as congressional districts and states, were responsible for persuading their constituents that after the policies of the previous administration had so clearly failed, new policies were needed, rather than serving merely as mirrors and echo chambers for worn-out agendas of the other party–or falling into the indebtedness of Corporate America in the form of PAC contributions.

Jumping into bed with Grover Norquist? Well, no, shudder the thought! But pushing and pulling in a new direction, demanding effective action even without a single Republican in line, persuading and cajoling the Steppe Dwellers as needed, demanding that Democrats reject the bribes of Corporate America and be in a position to make a Big Deal about it–yes, that’s in line, that’s what changing the direction of the country is all about, that’s what being a Democrat is about. And we will keep on doing it.