More About the Present State of American Politics
A continuation of last week column about "realignment" and the future of partisan divisions in the United States
Loo by
This is a follow up to last week’s blog about the present state of politics in America. If I am right about this being the final stages of a realignment, a reorganization of political loyalties and interests within the framework of a two-party system, then the question becomes “what now?”
As the new majority party how will leaders of the Democratic Party act and how with leaders of the Republican Party accept their new role?
In answering these questions I am straddling the “how will” and “how should” line. And I am perhaps too ready to assume that history is our best guide to what will follow today’s version of a repeated phenomenon of American political history.
The Democratic Party (or if you like the Democrat Party) will return to the business of governing. As the national “big tent,” the Party will welcome diverse interests to the extent that they are willing to play the Washington “power game.” That is, the extent to which they will subject themselves to an ongoing conflict over who will get what, when and how. The hard choices are made at the institutional level. Access is necessarily limited and resources are finite. Many will stand in hallways waiting their turn, or hoping for a turn. New interests will find a welcome, but not necessarily all that they desire.
At the grassroot level the Party will (and here I lean toward should) be as welcoming as possible. The Ronald Reagan 11th Commandment will (should) be in effect: “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.” In this case of another Democrat. At some level of acceptance Democrats will be asked to move beyond tolerance to an active humility. A “we don’t know it all” acknowledgement. And the message from Washington should be “here’s what we are doing for you.”
Republicans will play a different role. At the governing level interests allying with the Party will find opportunities in a government structure that offers so many points of access. Bargains will be made across party line. And, slowly, significant elements of Party leadership will be accused, by the faithful, of too much “metooism.”
That is to say, those aspects of Democratic Party policies that express underlying levels of foundational national agreement (in values and beliefs) will be embraced as “national” objects above partisan politics.
At the same time, the Republicans, as the minority Party, will offer openings for those voices that have been screened out by Democratic Party attempts to maintain a loose, but vital, internal harmony. Republicans will tolerate (welcome?) cutting edges ideas, outside the enlarged mainstream, and consider giving voice to new interests and minorities that cut across the grain of an emerging consensus.
This, it seems to me, is what we can hope for. It is a return to apple pie and county fairs, as well as to aluminon hats and quack remedies for the curious and the credulous and the deluded.