Avoiding Nixonism

One of my great fears for 2008 is that Democrats will simply recapitulate the events of the last political crisis, that of 1968. (Picture  of the House Democratic leadership from Firedoglake.)

This would mean the narrow election of Hillary Clinton, slight increases in Democratic majorities, followed by a host of actions supported by the political right.

That’s a mirror-image of what happened after 1968. Nixon’s win was narrow, the domestic agenda of his first term was liberal, and his battles against the liberal assumptions of his time made him paranoid, resulting in Watergate. The Watergate scandal delayed the changes movement conservatives desired by over a half-decade. The distance between the 57% vote share by Nixon and Wallace in 1968, and the beginnings of the "Republican Revolution," in 1980, was 12 years.

Democrats can’t afford this. Americans can’t afford this. The world can’t afford this. We can’t wait 12 years to begin the War Against Oil. We can’t wait 12 years for major action against global warming. We can’t wait 12 years for a return to social mobility. We can’t wait 12 years for honest government.

The Democratic outrages of the present day, their repeated capitulation to Republican demands,  and their delight in power without responsibility,  are not new. The Money Party has dominated American politics almost without let-up throughout its history. What New York wants, New York generally gets.

But not always. When the crisis is deep enough, and when leaders are courageous enough, the Money Party can be beaten back for a time.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was from New York, but won his party’s
nomination in 1932 without the support of his state party. He beat the
urban machines and the New York financiers before he beat Herbert
Hoover.

Sure, the Money Party was discredited by the Great Depression, and
Roosevelt used some financiers in his Administration, such as Joseph Kennedy and Jesse Jones (left).
Both acted as reformers, seeing the long-term health of the system as
more important than short-term profit. That’s what we need now.

There are people on Wall Street who want honest business dealings.
They are angry about the Robber Barons of our time as baseball fans are
now about steroids. It’s very important, right now, that Netroots
advocates identify and reach out to such people, right now.

I’m not just talking here of economists like Nouriel Roubini.
I’m looking for bankers, for hedge fund managers, for mortgage brokers,
who know where all the bodies are buried, who may have buried some
themselves, but who want honest contracts, men and women who are willing to roll
up their sleeves, and live on government salaries, to make that happen.

There are such people. There always are. The campaigns which find
them, the party which finds them, the activists who find these people
and bring them into their counsel, will be doing as much of a public
service as the bankers themselves.

It’s something we all need to work on.