Think of this as Volume 14, Number 10 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.
One of the most difficult aspects of imposing a new political thesis is that, when you start, there's no vocabulary to describe it.
Every political era develops its own vocabulary as well as its own belief system. Once these are imposed, a generation has a common set of touchstones with which to discuss policy.
Lincoln's concept of Union meant southerners were subservient to the north's political will, and could only take command of the government through a loose coalition that included northern political machines and political reformers. Republicans could “wave the bloody shirt” if Democrats became too overt, and did.
- Theodore Roosevelt's concept of Progressivism offered a common vocabulary based on progress, on the public good, on the need to balance the interests of the rich and the poor slowly and carefully. In practice this is very close to the Obama Thesis of Consensus.
- Franklin Roosevelt's concept of Unity meant that “politics stops at the water's edge,” and that all groups had a stake in what the nation was doing through the growth of the middle class, that everyone in fact was part of the middle class.
- Richard Nixon's concept of Conflict held that majorities had to protect themselves from various minorities. Only those who were inside the Thesis deserved protection. Outsiders (and this concept eventually extended to all Democrats) were suspect. Their motives were not those of “us,” they were “them” and they had to be defeated for “us” to be safe.
In practice the Nixon Thesis worked by constantly narrowing the definition of “us” when the coalition grew too large. This was necessary to maintain the sense of being surrounded necessary for the assumptions to be maintained.
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