The American Political Philosophy
written by Lancelot Finn (Fall 2002)
Democrats appeased Bush until they didn’t stand for anything, say the pundits. Or maybe they were too obstructionist (i.e., didn’t appease enough). Anyway, they couldn’t change the subject away from Iraq, where voters favored Republicans. Except that voters told pollsters that the economy was most on their minds. So maybe the Democrats had a small advantage on the economy, while the Republicans had a big advantage on security.
That last shot-in-the-dark is usually the last word. But it misses the forest for the trees. Why was the Democrats’ advantage on the economy narrow—when Clinton presided over an eight-year boom while two Bushes have presided over recessions? Why was the Democrats’ disadvantage on security so narrow—when they backed Bush to the hilt in Afghanistan and when their ambivalence about Iraq mirrors that of the American people? The Republicans won, not on performance, but because they stand for what has become the American political philosophy.
That political philosophy is summer up in the classic phrase the land of opportunity. Americans are proud that the fortunate few rise higher here than anywhere in the world. Voting for Bush is a bit like buying a lottery ticket. You’re voting for a society where you might lose, but you may also win big. Just as people lay down their dollars at 7-11 for the dream of being a millionaire, working Americans vote for upper-class tax cuts to keep that American dream sparkling.
But there’s a difference: where a lottery skims a bit off the top, free-enterprise capitalism accelerates wealth-creation. America not only has more millionaires, but generates more jobs and higher salaries than Europe or Japan. It’s not about class, because America is a classless society at heart. Americans want to make this country suitable for the talented, the ambitious, and the hard-working, because they consider themselves talented, ambitious and hard-working.
That same optimism once led Americans to try to end poverty and build the “Great Society.” Slowdown, stagflation and the rise of dependency culture then taught us a long, painful lesson on scarcity, which plays into Republicans’ hands to this day. Democratic policies, in an age of run-away tax cuts, are if anything more scarcity-conscious than Republican ones. But their rhetoric isn’t. Listen to Democrats on C-SPAN for a while, and you’ll catch that fatal whiff of sob stories, of the old liberal instinct that if you have a problem, whine to the government.
If this seems like a lot to read from one election, well, it’s not just one election talking. Yes, America tends to be a 50-50 nation because parties follow the center, but that “center” has been drifting in a Republican direction for a long time. A tale of two “moderates” will illustrate nicely. Nixon pulled out of Vietnam, expanded welfare programs, enacted major environmental legislation, promoted black capital ownership and entertained a guaranteed-income plan. Clinton ended welfare “as we knew it,” pushed for free trade, cut capital-gains taxes, and increased defense spending.
Clinton half-reinvented the Democrats as a club of market-friendly smooth-talkers, quite at home in America’s political center, and dexterous enough to catch the coat-tails of the New Economy. Voters loved it, man and message. But it’s funny, for a man reputedly so eloquent, that it’s hard to remember what he said, let alone find someone else who can say it. Still, Americans might vote for a party of Bill Clinton clones, if there were one. Democrats don’t have what it takes to be that party. They don’t have the charm, they don’t have the intelligence, and they’ve got one foot in the past.
If Democrats want to get back on top, they will have to, first, learn the American political philosophy, second, infuse it with their own constituencies’ concerns and learn to articulate it differently and better than the Republicans. It would be a glorious transformation to watch, but don’t hold your breath. Democrats are expected on Thursday to choose San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi, a charming, well-funded feminist who voted against welfare reform, as well as the Iraq resolution and homeland security, as House Minority Leader.