I originally put this up in February 2005; I find it to be even more relevant today. Please note that I have taken the opportunity to add some detail wherein I felt the original occasionally lacked.
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.
A review of the political history of the United States does not indicate much Federal corruption for the first eighty-plus years of our existance. This is true mainly for two reasons: the Federal government lacked the political power it has today, and it controlled a far smaller percentage of the national income. Recall that tariffs were the main sounce of income for most of the 19th century; hence their importance for the Civil War-era politicians.
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.
The 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 political power for a good generation. This tends to explain the degree of corruption found in Republican politics of the time, from Grant on forwards. True, the method was frequently financial, but the goal was political.
What financial corruption which existed in the Federal government at the time was related to private corporation influence (rail companies especially) who bribed representatives to allow said corporations to literally charge all the traffic could bear, whether product was coal, clothes, machinery, food, or transportation.
Basically political influence was seen (by the corporations) as a legitimate method of maintaining a laissez-faire economy. In other words, controlling Washington, DC, was a means to an end, as opposed to an end in itself.
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 which lasted through the 20th century. Note here the passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, coincident with the emergence of Populist/Progressive political thought at the national level. The amendment didn't effect any major political changes until the Second World War induced a tremendous increase in spending.
Woodrow 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 seventy years.
FDR melded together a party of underdogs, as it were; all those who werent 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 narration falsifies the hoary old myth that the GOP is the party of rich people. The GOP didnt cater to, or target to rich men; rather rich men became so because they joined the Republican Party, which had been dominant for seventy years. 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 the previous two generations. They could offer no new vision to challenge Roosevelts 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. Or Bush Jr. and Clinton, for that matter. :) -
What really infuriated Republicans was that FDR broke the unofficial, but hitherto sacred precedent of Washingtons 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 One is compelled to conclude that FDR is the most successful president to date, including Reagan, mainly because FDR accomplished far more domestically than did Reagan. Rooseveldt's performance lead to a Democratic Party domination of national political life greater than the previous GOP performance, although of shorter duration.
The Truman administrations can be considered as an extension of the Roosevelt, with the additional issues of who lost what to the Communists, and the accusations of corruption. When put together, the FDR/Truman administrations (1933-1953) introduced tremendously larger Federal budgets, as well as a greatly increased level of Federal intervention in both local politics and private citizens' lives. The impetus was the percieved need to address the Great Depression, then the Second World War, and finally the beginning of the Cold War. The result was a Federal government which provided the winning party access to monies and power hitherto unknown even to the British Empire.
By the 1952 election 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 Nixons election was a reaction to the Democrats poor handling of the Vietnam War.
It wasnt 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). This may appear to contradict my earlier cite of 70 years, but that number includes both the early Republican supremacy as well as their less-powerful domination of the early 20th century.
Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War tended to confuse things for most of the 1970s, so I shall pass on the next few years -Ford was unelected, and Carter quickly dis-elected- except to note that the Reagan administration signaled a renaissance of the Republican Party. The question whether the Clinton administration was a hiccup in the face of new GOP supremacy for the early 21st century I shall leave for the diligent student. :) Both administrations were examples of a nearly-untouchable, popular president contending with an opponent-controlled Congress.
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, or IBM before Microsoft stole their thunder.
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. An example would be the Republican emphasis on "normalcy" during the first part of the 20th century.
Third: the now-eclipsed party clings to outmoded memes because they have no new ideas: they look back to past greatness and good times. I cite the Democratic nostalgia for the ante bellum and the GOP obsession with socialists and financial propriety in the 1920s.
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 Nixons paranoia, this was not too far off the mark.
The problem is that Nixons dead, and Vietnams over. African-Americans have made great strides in economic as well as political terms, 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 claim that the issues we do face are exacerbated by Federal intervention, not ameliorated. Perhaps we should turn away from the governmental Goliath, and turn to the multitudinal Davids.
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 new arguments to put forward as an alternative; only more of the "same old" from the past fifty years.
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 paradign-shifting FDR, or Reagan?
POSTSCRIPT:
In the fourteen months since I originally wrote this, the Republican leaders in Washington, DC have become a living oxymoron: leaders who won't lead. While the Democrats are stuck in the 60s, the Republicans are stuck in some bizarro never-never land where the aquisition and retention of political power have trumped all other considerations.
UPDATE: Thanks to John of Argghhh!!! for the link, and welcome fellow Denizens...
Linked to the Mudville Gazette Open Post May 9, 2006.