Schism

Michael Totten warns the Democrats that classical liberals are leaving the party, due to its stance on national security. There were only two great inflection points in American politics in the 20th century. We are in the middle of another one - the first of the 21st century.

The first truly great shock was the victory of the progressives in the 1930s. Since the 1890s at least, the progressives had been attempting to push the US from being an isolationist republic with a minimal government, mostly accountable to the voters indirectly (the Representative being the only directly-elected office), into an internationalist republic with a comprehensive government, more powerful but more directly accountable to the voters. The Great Depression brought about a realigning election, putting the Democrats solidly in power, at the same time as the country was wallowing in a deep economic crisis. The combination, and a pliant Supreme Court, allowed FDR to push through reforms that effectively gutted the Constitutional limitations on government, and brought about the governmental norms in place today.

The second political shock was the 1960s cultural upheaval. During this time, the Republicans effectively silenced the moderate New England patricians - the Rockefeller Republicans - and replaced them in control of the party with the populist and more conservative Goldwater Republicans. This culminated in the Reagan administration, and had the effect of drawing a sharp boundary between the Democrats and the Republicans, who until that time were more alike than different. This period saw the self-destructive impulses of the Democrats over Viet Nam and McGovern which would likely have resulted in a realignment back to the Republicans, were it not for Watergate. Instead, it was Reagan in 1980, after the failure of the Carter presidency, who made visible the nation's dramatic shift rightwards. Still, there was no realignment, though the parties approached sufficient equality that by the 1990s, the Republicans were able (for the first time in 40+ years) to hold both the House and the Senate.

This shift rightwards was actually stopped by the end of the Cold War. With the apparent threat gone, Americans wanted to turn back to domestic issues, and Americans have seen the Democrats as being most capable of managing the domestic agenda since at least 1932. With the election of Bill Clinton, the US had its first caretaker president since WWI. This combination of circumstances left the US in a 50-50 split, with half of the electorate being concerned with a basket of issues that led them to vote Democrat, and half being concerned with an overlapping, but not identical, basket of issues that led them to vote Republican.

George Bush would most likely have been a caretaker president, had it not been for September 11. That horrible event plunged the US into war, and the parties took two distinctly different approaches to the challenge we face.

The question for America now is, do we conclude that we've won the war, and go back to the status quo ante, except that Afghanistan and Iraq are domestically changed, treating terrorism like a law enforcement issue and focusing our efforts on attempting to create an American version of the European statist model; or do we view terrorism as an existential threat, to be fought for decades (as was the Cold War) both directly and via proxy, to eliminate not just terrorism and state sponsors of terrorism, but also weapons of mass destruction from the hands of non-democratic states, focusing our effort on creating America-lite in the failed nations of the world?

If we conclude that we have won the war on terror, and now need to treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue, then Americans will elect a Democrat to the Presidency, and retract our military greatly. We will intervene abroad on the Clinton model: only where the only possible goal is humanitarian, and there are no direct gains for America in doing so. We will obsess over health care, business regulation, expanding the scope of entitlements, and merging ever closer to the European-derived "civilized international norms."

If we instead conclude that the terrorist threat is existential, and we are willing to take decades to wipe it out, in the process raising up failed states into free, self-governing and non-threatening republics, then Americans will elect a Republican to the Presidency, and expand our military greatly. We will intervene abroad where failed states exist, solely to reform those states into viable entities, if necessary redrawing borders in the process (particularly in Africa). We will ignore the UN, and possibly even withdraw from it. Our international relations will de-emphasize the socialist-leaning European states, such as France and Germany, in favor of the eastern European states, the Anglosphere and nations like Japan, South Korea, India, Taiwan and Israel. We will work tirelessly to bring Liberty and self-determination to the 3rd world, and in the end we will be engaged in this for a generation.

I think that the inflection point happened between 9/11 and the end of the war in Iraq, and we are now making up our minds. The next election will show us which way the public has decided.

If the public decides to re-elect President Bush, it is most likely true that the Senate and House will swing more Republican, and that the Democratic party will fracture under the strain. I think that the paroxism of the Left will be such that its thrashing will throw off the classical liberals like Armed Liberal and Michael Totten, who didn't move with the "Reagan Democrats" or in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

WARNING: WILD SPECULATION FOLLOWS

The Joe Liebermans and Dick Gephardts of the Democratic party might similarly find themselves out in the cold. Should that happen, I suspect that the Democratic party will split permanently, much like the Whigs did in the 1840s or 1850s. The Left will retain the Democratic party name, while the centrists will form a new party. There would then be a long period of realignment, during which the new part and the Republicans would be shifting members across the lines, with the remainder of the Democratic party consituting about a third of the electorate. It's possible we could stabilize on a three-party state, with two parties (Republicans and new party) fighting the war on terror, while two parties (the Democrats and the new party) determine the domestic agenda. This would put the new party into the kingmaker position, and frankly I wouldn't be unhappy with that.

UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus comments: "I think that it will stabilize at two parties; the outcome will be either an unreformed Democratic Party, a renewed (or remade) one, or a new Party." That may be so. The US has certainly tended towards two-party politics, although a lot of that since the 1890s or so has to do with the kind of regulations adopted by the States (and since Watergate by the Federal government) to make it difficult for third parties to compete fairly. For example, the Democrats and Republicans do not have to get candidates onto the ballot: it's automatic. For third-party candidates, some states (NY is a case in point) are nearly impossible. Campaign finance legislation is similarly weighted to favor large and established parties.

That said, I don't think that there's anything sacred about the two-party system, and a stable three-party arrangement could exist, at least for several election cycles, if it built up from the ground (instead of starting with the Presidency) and had a substantial base to start with. We do not suffer from the parliamentary weakness of requiring a majority coalition at all times. We simply pass bills by majority, and it does not matter where those votes come from. Congress won't fall, nor will the President, on a failure to get the majority party to maintain party discipline. As a result, it is possible for several parties to exist simultaneously in the Congress without causing a crisis. (In fact, I'd bet that we could sustain as many as a half-dozen parties without causing a crisis. After that, there would be a lot of time taken up by partisan dealmaking that would make taking action difficult - that may be a feature.)

Posted by Jeff at July 22, 2003 11:16 AM | Link Cosmos