Reaping the Political Whirlwind
As the two party system unravels
A s the Northern Kingdom of ancient Israel was falling apart eight centuries before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Hosea observed: “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” An echo of that thought occurred to commentator Saïdeh Pakravan (among others no doubt) as she reflected recently on the spectacle of the Republican presidential primary campaign:
Like most reasonable Americans, which still means half the country and more, I dread the grotesque idea of a Trump presidency, yet can’t help but think of what we humans know but will never ever learn: We reap what we sow. Our actions have consequences. The Republican party — the party of Lincoln, for crying out loud, it bears repeating — lost its soul the day it became the party of NO. No to everything.
But this does not apply only to the GOP. The two party system itself — an accidental artifact external to the Constitution, and one which the framers did not favor — may now be on its last legs.
Both of the two current major political parties have gone through different phases in their long histories. The so-called party of Lincoln did not much follow his example after an assassin’s bullet cut his tenure short. It veered into progressivism with the accidental ascendance of Theodore Roosevelt to the White House. The Democratic Party meanwhile was the party of slavery, the Civil War, and Jim Crow until events began to drag it to address civil rights starting with Harry Truman.
To the extent the GOP “lost its soul,” many would say that turning point came in 1968 with Richard Nixon’s expedient Southern strategy — a successful ploy to recruit disaffected Dixiecrats into the Republican fold.
Now the GOP is acutely divided and fractious. But the media spotlight on the Republicans’ internecine conflict has distracted attention from the steady necrosis of the Democratic Party that has been festering since Hillary Clinton’s disastrous healthcare reform plan restored the GOP to power in 1994. Since then, Republican power and influence has grown to dominate state and local government and the Congress, despite the anomalous election of Barach Obama in 2008.
The two party system may be on its last legs
In 2009, the Democrats — with control of the White House and both houses of Congress — embraced a policy agenda so partisan and so disconnected from most of the public’s sentiments that it inflamed the alienation Clinton fomented 15 years earlier. It also sparked the “tea party” rebellion that has not only vexed the GOP but has eaten a growing sinkhole under the entire two party system.
In a recent column explaining how deadly the candidacy of Bernie Sanders could be for the Democratic Party, columnist Dana Milbank reviewed how parlous the Democrats’ position has become:
“The consequences of the Democrats’ atrophy at the state level are potentially catastrophic for progressives. If the party doesn’t make major gains in the next couple of election cycles, Republican majorities in state legislatures will control redistricting after the 2020 Census, virtually guaranteeing that the party retains control of the House for another decade…. The collapse in state legislatures for Democrats has also left the party with few prospects for statewide and congressional offices.”
The public is in a mood of deep cynicism about the legitimacy and competence of The Establishment. That is worldwide and not just in the U.S. And it applies to just about every “establishment.” Surveys show that public trust in government and an array of other institutions is at rock bottom. That disillusion has been largely earned. The web of social media has exposed institutional deceit, failure, and corruption to public view as never before.
The crucial problem is that institutions require an establishment. And without institutions there is anarchy or tyranny or both.
Old institutions are obsolete, decrepit. New institutions are needed for a technologically and socially changed world. But that requires trust. And trust must be earned.
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Related to this topic, also see my article Is Trump Saving Our Democracy?
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Copyright 2016, Lewis J. Perelman
Picture: Wikimedia Commons
