Dana Blankenhorn

Pre-Mortem

In a one-word election (Iraq) the post-mortems can begin early.

Most of them are too complex. Other Democratic talking points (Foley, corruption, deficits) merely buttress the main charge. The Republican talking points (terrorism, the economy, immigration) are simply drowned-out.

Take out Iraq and it's likely Democrats still win, albeit more narrowly. But you can't take out Iraq. Iraq is the elephant in the room. How could this happen? What do we do now? What happens next? These are the question Americans want answered. They are looking to Democrats for answers because Republicans haven't dealt with it.

Ironically, this is just what happened 40 years ago, at the previous generational turn. Then the one word was Vietnam. It was a Democratic problem. Republicans won. It was the same in 1930, the word being Depression. And the same in 1894, the word being Money. And the same in 1858, the word being slavery.

A generational crisis is always highlighted by a blow-out election. Sometimes, as in 1930, it presages another blowout, which is what happened in 1932. Sometimes, as in 1894 and 1966, it means there's a re-alignment coming, progressivism-populism in the first case, the Southern Strategy in the second.

Sometimes it means the whole temple is about to fall. That's what happened in 1858. The fear of it happening this time is still very real. And it's this kind of fear which drives the generational re-alignment. Without such fear there can be no political transformation, inside people, where it counts.

Building the Internet Party

After the coming elections there will still be three parties in America.

They will be, in order of power, the Republican Party, the Washington Democratic party, and the Netroots Democratic Party.

While Democrats are currently united and Republicans seem fractured, the opposite is going to happen once Democrats seize Congress. The Democratic party has been papering over its differences. Power will unmask them.

Many of these differences occur on issue relating to the Internet. The Washington party is in bed with the copyright industries. I've seen a large number of Washington-approved ads this year, by Democrats, attacking the Internet as a haven for child predators and terrorists, demanding “protection from” it.

Those of us who have been on the Internet for a time know this is ridiculous. Hiding from the bad actors on the Net does not cause them to go away. It actually makes them stronger. Imagine how much worse the problems of spam and adware would be if we didn't confront those people.

In addition to basic Internet ignorance we still face the problem of over-reaching copyright and patents. Both are antithetical to the way the Internet works. The Internet is a great Commons that allows people to create new works from old. Deny them access to the old works, or allow those who created them a veto, and you don't get the new ones. Other people, who are given this freedom to create, will deliver them to the market.

Then there's broadband. The current duopoly must be challenged in the market, but market conditions must be set allowing that challenge.

In all these cases Washington Democrats are looking for big money handouts from the industries impacted. And they're getting them. The vaunted K Street project is coming apart, becoming once again bipartisan.

And it is this move that the Internet Party must oppose most forcefully. Issues like campaign finance reform, even state financing of elections (the only true reform allowed under Buckley vs. Vallejo) are in the Internet Party's interests.

Why the Generational Theory Works

I come in for criticism here when pointing to the Generational Theory of politics. Today the blog Hullaballoo has a wonderful illustration of why the theory holds.

Digby is complaining about Chris Matthews, a "onetime aide to Tip O'Neill" who now runs the show Hardball. Matthews pretends to be a liberal, but in fact he is constantly spewing right-wing talking points as gospel, and nods agreeably when his guests do the same.

This is not, I submit, because Chris Matthews is evil. Nor is it because he's an idiot. It's because he is a product of his times. At nearly 60, he has seen Republicans frame and dominate political discussions for his entire adult life. It is so ingrained in him that he can't imagine that not being the case.

This is precisely my point.

Beliefs are forged in a crisis. Beliefs consist of myths and values based on those myths. The myths and values aren't just internalized by the majority, but by everyone, including those who disagree with the policies. When the myth is deployed, the knees jerk, and the belief system is sustained.

This is what happened in 2004. The Nixon Myth held, in part because Democrats made the mistake of nominating a man whose entire political career had been lived in opposition to that myth, John Kerry.

This happens in every generation. This was the force behind the Johnson Landslide -- everyone internalized the New Deal myth and when Johnson presented it (in the form of the Daisy commercial) the knees jerked in unison. This is why Herbert Hoover beat Al Smith in 1928, because he represented the dominant myth. This is how Benjamin Harrison beat Grover Cleveland in 1888, and why we had Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. (Hint: Pierce's nickname was "Young Hickory of the Berkshires.")

This Week's Clue: The Silent Majority

The following essay, which leads A-Clue.Com today, was written before La Cage Aux Foley threw Republican chances for 2006 into the gutter. It is an effort to put what is happening nationally into some historic perspective. Those who don't like historic perspective are welcome to go elsewhere.

You can get this kind of insight into your insight every week, free. Sign up today.

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The great silent majority of my fellow Americans-I ask for your support."

This was Richard Nixon, in 1969, explaining how he would end the War in Vietnam by "staying the course." The same speech could be read today, and it is read to us regularly by the present Administration.

Every generational Thesis begins with such a speech. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. I will not be crucified on a Cross of Gold. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Such speeches gain their currency from the reality of their times. They reflect a brand-new political reality, they hold a mirror to the new generation, they speak truth to power, and that power comes from the people.

Some of these are great speeches. Others, like Nixon's, are not. But they are remembered. They cause an arc in history which lasts until those who heard it as young men and women turn old and gray, until they have taught it to their children, who internalize it, and seek only to extend its reach.

It is at this point that any such view can become its opposite. Those who freed the slaves made slaves of workers. The incremental changes of progressivism failed to deal with the Great Depression. FDR's call to fearlessness could not excuse the excesses of the 1960s.

 

Conservatives for Rockefeller?

Markos Moulitsas wrote a post for his community site recently that really took me back.

He was asking his members, who identify themselves as netroots activists, to forgive Washington Democrats their transgressions (like supporting torture) and work hard for the ticket.

He concluded, “What annoys me is when people threaten to leave the party. As though that will somehow make things better.”

All this took me back to my childhood, during the birth pangs of the modern conservative movement.

In my home state of New York that movement was a reaction to the “liberal Republican” party of such people as Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits. Conservatives finally opted-out. They formed a Conservative Party which could endorse Republicans or endorse someone else. And when Rockefeller ran in 1966 they put up their own guy, a tweedy professor named Paul Adams.

These New York Conservatives were major funders of the Goldwater wing of the party outside New York. And they finally got their own form of justice, when their James L. Buckley beat a nominal Republican, Charles Goodell, and Democrat Richard Ottinger in 1970. Of course by that time they had the White House. Nixon's people supported Buckley, who created a “temporary” third party so that Republicans wouldn't have to build the new party in order to get their guy in.

The point is that American political parties are enormous beasts. Much of what we call politics happens inside the parties, and those who opt-out of that, in a competitive state, have to know what they are risking. Those who choose not to participate in intra-party politics of any type, meanwhile, simply give their primary votes to those people who do participate.

Back in 1966 there were two Republican parties in New York, the “official” party that leaned against the Johnson-Truman-Roosevelt New Deal thesis, and the “conservative” party that refused to go along locally and concentrated on ideological combat. History says the conservatives won – game, set, and match.

Days of Denial

There comes a time at the end of every political Thesis where denial becomes so ritualized you feel like your head is going to explode.

We have now reached this point with the Nixon-Reagan-Bush “Thesis of Conflict,” the political assumptions that have dominated this country since the late 1960s, the assumptions of our lifetime.

The Secretary of State denies Clinton left a plan against Al Qaeda even after it's published. The Republican leadership denies an Intelligence Estimate calls the Iraq War a failure even after it's quoted to them. (The “quotes” they want to use which show things are rosy are all conditional – if this happens maybe that will.) The proof of global warming is denied, and a report showing hurricanes relate to it is suppressed.

Yet it's still out there. Reality is still out there.

It's Washington that has gone all Red Queen on us. And not just the powerful. The pundits and the press are acting in the same way. This morning, for instance, the lead interview on NBC (about the intelligence report) was with Newt Gingrich. The lead interview on CBS (about the same report) was with William Bennett. Does either know anything about the subject? No. But they could be relied upon to deliver White House-approved spin on the subject.

Liberals would like to believe this is all part of some great conspiracy of evil, in which everyone in Washington participates. It's not. It's the habits of a lifetime, being shown to be lies. It's people seeing that the rock they stand on is actually sand, unable to comprehend it. A natural disaster on this scale, like Katrina, will leave you to rage, to bitterness, to depression, to suicide, but it can't be denied. A political disaster on this scale, on the other hand, can be denied, and will be denied, until the votes come in.

 

AutoPilot

My confidence over the American political future is not based on the strength of the Netroots, nor on any assumption of evil on the part of the Bush Administration.

It's about time, about the expiration of political assumptions (time wounds all heals), and of a simple observation everyone has made about this Administration.

They're on autopilot. (No offense to this fine database administration package, at right.)

It's the very fact that the Bush Administration refuses to change course in any way that we can be confident, not only that their course is wrong, but that people will demand a new course -- not just a new pilot.

• Did Lyndon Johnson change course on Vietnam? Even when the course was obviously seen to be wrong?
• Did Herbert Hoover change his approach to the Depression? Even when Hoovervilles started springing up and one-third of families had no income?
• Did Grover Cleveland embrace any alternative to the Gold Standard? Even when it was obvious he was bankrupting the countryside?
• Did James Buchanan do anything to reduce the tensions leading to Civil War?

History tells you the answer. No, in all cases. Were these men evil? No, in all cases.

They were on autopilot.

Two Party System

There are actually two Democratic Parties:

• The Washington Party is accustomed to losing, and offers an Anti-Thesis to the dominant Nixon Thesis.
• The Netroots Party is tired of losing, and seeks a new Thesis to destroy the Nixon Thesis.

The Nixon Thesis, remember, is a Thesis of conflict, of enemies within and without. It's the set of political assumptions that have dominated America for nearly 40 years. It's all the Washington Party knows. The Netroots Party understands, instinctively, that the Thesis needs to be overthrown. The Washington Party resists this, afraid of again walking into the trap the Thesis was designed around.

Why is Politics So Quiet

You're right. This political campaign has been quiet, even sedate.

Republicans are taking comfort in that. They jump on every poll which hints people don't hate them.

But the reality is quite different. (Buy the Exploding Penguin here.)

The reality is we have something approaching a consensus. We're so accustomed to narrow divisions we don't see a consensus when it's in front of us.

The consensus is that our present course is a disaster.

Howard Dean has said that Katrina ended the Presidency of George W. Bush. It exposed him as a fraud. He is absolutely right.

This doesn't mean Republicans stopped being Republicans or Democrats stopped being Democrats. We're just agreed that the present direction of world events is unsustainable.

This is the real reason why it sometimes seems that Republicans have lost their marbles. They go down the road they've been traveling for decades, and the road doesn't lead anywhere, so they look for another, more extreme road to walk down. Make all taxes sales taxes. Put up a fence to stop immigration. Nuke Iran. These are ideas which, at a sober time, are simply raving lunacy. Yet they are being purposely proposed by the Party in Power, because otherwise they got nothing (except alliteration).

Democrats and independents, meanwhile, have to fight to find something to disagree about. Mainly it's inside baseball stuff. What role should corporations or political pros play? Who cares? Fact is we agree on the big issues -- Bush is an ass, Iraq is a quagmire, global warming is real, the economy needs to lift all boats and not just Paris Hilton's.

It's like the Monty Python Election Special sketch -- the Silly Party vs. the Sensible Party. Only in the sketch the silly party won. (Hence the penguin.)

Nostalgia for Muscular Liberalism

To start this post, let's play a quick version of our Time Flies game.

I want to go back to this picture of Jerry Ford, Richard Nixon, and their brethren in the mid-1960s Marching and Chowder Society.   

This was a group of mainly Midwestern, Main Street Republicans whose first fight was against a guaranteed bonus for veterans. They were, at their core, nostalgic for a simpler, better time, the early 1920s of Warren G. Harding and his “Return to Normalcy.” There were no big bonuses after World War I. Why did World War II vets deserve better?

In 1965, when this picture was taken, the time they were nostalgic for, the time of their childhoods, was nearly 45 years in the past. Ford himself turned 52 that year. So did Nixon.