Any party that reigns unchallenged for a long period of time tends to become corrupt. Acton once said "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Analog editor John Campbell once said that he would change that to "unchallenged power corrupts absolutely." I think that this is largely true.
Recall that for at least a generation after the Civil War, the GOP reigned supreme over the United States, damn near literally. A single act sufficed, generally, to quell any possible Democrat upstart: waving the bloody shirt; a phrase introduced at this time by actually waving a bloody, torn shirt supposedly taken off of the body of a man flogged by unreconstructed Rebels in the South.
Point being that Republicans could taint any Democrat with the slur of "traitor" until the Spanish-American War, wherein the old hostilities finally ended.
This granted the Republican Party nearly unchallenged power for a good generation. This tends to explain the degree of corruption found in Republican politics of the time.
The Democrats, stymied by the perennial charge of treason, and lacking a great leader, found little to lead with until the emergence of the Populist movement just before the turn of the century.
That movement gave them the first impetus to an appeal to populism that has lasted through the 20th century.
Wilson managed to touch many Americans with his idealism, but he ultimately failed as a political leader. It fell to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to bring the populist message into the mainstream of Democratic thought, and his skills allowed the Democrats to regain their supremacy for the first time in over 70 years.
FDR melded together a “party of underdogs,” as it were; all those who weren’t part of the dominant party were attracted to the opposition. By 1932, this included the great majority of Americans, especially after the Crash of ’29…
(an aside: This explains the hoary old myth that the GOP is the party of rich people. The GOP didn’t kowtow to rich men; rather men became so because they joined the Republican Party. This –again- illustrates the principle that any group or organization will become corrupt in the absence of any major external challenge.)
Let us return to FDR. His first two terms were marked by a return of optimism and hope to American political life (one of my favorite quotes of the time comes from Will Rogers: “Even if he burnt down the White House, we can say ‘At least he got a fire started!’” ). The Republicans of the time, in the face of a resurgent Democratic Party, could only regurgitate the ossified slogans of their predecessors. They could offer no new vision to challenge Roosevelt’s work.
(another aside: FDR has to have been one of the most vilified men to ever hold the Presidency, bar one. I would say that, in order, the five worst would be
1. Lincoln
2. FDR
3. Washington
4. Bush Jr.
5. Clinton
One may wish to swap FDR & Washington.)
What really infuriated Republicans was that FDR broke the unofficial, but hitherto sacred precedent of Washington’s “Two term limit.” Worse yet, he did so to the tune of humiliating majorities in both houses for two elections.
When you add to this his brilliant leadership in World War Two, the GOP looked, well, like a bunch of selfish contrarians. They were up against a smart politician with a healthy vision who played it smart in a major war. I imagine they were tempted to cry in frustration more than once…
The Truman administrations can be considered as an extension of the Roosevelt organization, with the additional issues of “who lost what to the Communists,” and the ancient problem of unchallenged corruption. By this time (1952) the Democratic Party had reigned unchallenged for twenty years. Eisenhower was elected for 2 major reasons: he led the Allies to victory in Europe, and he symbolized a return to a less corrupt polis.
I believe it is significant that Eisenhower was the only real challenge to Democratic Party primacy until the 1968 election, and even Nixon’s election was a reaction to the Democrat’s poor handling of the Vietnam War.
It wasn’t until the 1972 election (AKA the “Great Ass-Whup of ’72”) that the GOP scored a major victory over the Democratic Party, as I count the election of 1968 as a negative reaction to the party in power, as opposed to a positive reaction to the party in opposition.
So, really, the Democrats enjoyed nearly unchallenged power from 1932 until 1972; 40 years. This beats the Republican Party domination of 1865-1895 (30 years).
I shall pass on the next few years (Ford was unelected, and Carter quickly dis-elected), and later administrations, except to note that Reagan marked the renaissance of the Republican Party.
My conclusions are:
First: any party in a position of unchallenged power tends to ossify and become corrupt. This happens in other areas as well: American auto manufacturers in the 1970s, for example
Second: when challenged, the dominant party has trouble developing a new meme to suit new circumstances, including a crumbling power base and loss of dominance.
Third: the now-eclipsed party clings to outmoded memes because they have no new ideas: they look back to past greatness and “good times.”
Finally: any renaissance of the now-eclipsed party must come from an outsider (vis: FDR and/or Reagan) as the insiders still cling to past glory.
It should be quite apparent that I consider the Democratic Party to be the current “now-eclipsed” party.
Most of the Democratic Party leaders look back to the halcyon times of the 1960s, when the counter-culture and rebellion were not only stylish, but sexy as well. Rock songs feted their actions, while news organizations hung upon every word.
This was the time of Watergate, and the Washington Post; when the Fourth Estate could bring down Presidents.
Modern leaders, alas, confuse popularity and accolades with leadership and vision. They fail to see that rebellion, per se, is not a virtue, and must be viewed in context.
The modern Democratic Party harks back to old days of glory, when Buffalo Springfield could sing “must be a thousand people / in the streets,” and everyone knew that the government was after, well, everyone. Considering Nixon’s paranoia, this was not too far off the mark.
The problem is that Nixon’s dead, and Vietnam’s over. African-Americans have made great strides economic as well as political leadership, and even the gay-lesbian community has advanced their agenda to the point where gay/lesbian marriage is now considered a mainstream political issue, instead of something that only freaks and perverts worry about.
The problem is that the Democratic Party –as a party- has run out of traditional issues.
I do not claim that America no longer has any social issues, any more than I would claim that (as some have said) that history ended with the fall of Communism and the Soviet Union.
I will also say that, in this context, it becomes understandable why Democratic Party stalwarts fall back on hyperbole and ad hominem attacks on the Bush administration: they have no relevant arguments to put forward as an alternative.
I conclude that the Democratic Party members, and all American citizens, need new memes, and new social paradigms to discuss modern challenges in a relevant way.
Otherwise we face the possibility that the GOP will be able to reign unchallenged for yet another generation, to the detriment of our country. Note that this is not an attack on the Republican Party; merely an observation that both parties are subject to the corruption of unchallenged power.
Who will be the next William Jennings Bryant, and (more important) who will be the next FDR, or Reagan?