Post-Rogersism
John Quiggin has an interesting item about increased party discipline where you least expect it. The old Will Rogers joke – “I don’t belong to any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” – may no longer speak a core truth.
This has interesting implications for fans of divided government. A lot of us have come to prefer an arrangement with a Democratic President and a Republican Senate, but my fallback position has been that a Democratic President and Congress almost counted as divided government on its own, because of the inherent fractures in the Dem coalition. In addition to the social fissures – environmentalists vs. labor; blue-collar whites vs. urban minorities; soccer moms vs. intellectuals – your old-line Democratic legislative grandées were very jealous of their status and perquisites contra the White House, and more inclined to act out of institutional jealousies than the recent Republican Congressional leadership, which functioned as human shields for the Republican White House.
That may be less of a case in the next Democratic Administration. Which just shows that we need to get a real Republican Party back more than ever.
Comment by Jim Kakalios —
May 6, 2007 @ 11:17 am
When I saw your title, I thought you were referuing to John Rogers.
A comci book writer/screenwriter/stand-up comic/physics major who’s blog: Kung Fu Monkey is excellent (though he’s been busy lately and hasn’t been updating in a while).
He had a long essay a few years back titled: I Miss Rupublicans which gets to the heart of your sentiment, I think. Worth checking out.
Comment by Thoreau —
May 6, 2007 @ 12:09 pm
Echoing the Kung Fu Monkey post, I’d love to get some old school Republicans back. Hell, I’d settle for Gingrich. Remember him? The guy who shut down the government (albeit briefly), forced Clinton to accept welfare reform, and let the craziest nutjobs in his party wield subpoena power to investigate the living shit out of Bill Clinton’s administration, giving us nothing but gridlock?
Ah, good times. Yeah, good times.
Comment by mds —
May 6, 2007 @ 2:10 pm
a Democratic President and Congress almost counted as divided government on its own, because of the inherent fractures in the Dem coalition.
Despite your concerns, I think this will still turn out to be a default setting on many issues. Democratic party discipline has been (belatedly) achieved to push back against a dreadful President and the unprecedented corruption wallow and abandonment of oversight that characterized a Republican Congress in recent memory. Let the pressure ease up, and Democrats will fracture once more. I think that’s at least partly because for them party unity is born out of pragmatism rather than ideology. If and when Democratic candidates for office are obliged to crawl on their hands and knees to kiss the liberal equivalent of James Dobson’s ass, I’ll start worrying. (And I mean for real, not yet another rightist fantasy about George Soros / MoveOn / Ward Churchill / The Homosexual Lobby.)
Comment by Tom Scudder —
May 6, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
It could go either way at this point – if the Republicans totally vaporize in the next election (or are driven back to the South and maybe Alaska), I would expect the Democrats to re-fragment. But if they stay at 47 or so senators (or more) and about the same number or maybe a bit more (since some of the scandal-influenced seats are likely to flip back R) in the House as today, you’ll probably see the strict party discipline stick around for a while – and once it becomes an ingrained habit rather than a weapon of last resort picked up because nothing else was working, that will be a significant change in the political system.
Comment by Derek Copold —
May 6, 2007 @ 7:57 pm
If that guy thinks McCain is a sober kind of dude, I want what he’s drinking. He’s more of an interventionist than Bush.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
May 6, 2007 @ 8:13 pm
“but my fallback position has been that a Democratic President and Congress almost counted as divided government on its own, because of the inherent fractures in the Dem coalition. In addition to the social fissures – environmentalists vs. labor; blue-collar whites vs. urban minorities; soccer moms vs. intellectuals”
Wouldn’t it be true to say that after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the South began to leave the Democratic party? And so, you had a long period, at least 1964 to 1994, when the Democratic party was in flux, still holding some old, traditional factions, but losing them all the time? It was a deeply divided party. But the era of the South slipping away is over. The South is gone, and its not coming back. The Democratic Party is based on other things, nowadays. Perhaps its new coalition is fundamentally less fractured than the one that included the South?
Comment by Nell —
May 6, 2007 @ 9:02 pm
mds: Let the pressure ease up, and Democrats will fracture once more. I think that’s at least partly because for them party unity is born out of pragmatism rather than ideology.
Very astute. This Dem, for one, can’t wait until the pressure eases up and she can contribute to the fracturing process.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
May 7, 2007 @ 12:51 am
I keep wishing that someone would start mounting a serious effort to reclaim the Republican Party. There’s clearly a market for it, looking at the gap between the popularity between current party leaders and policies and where the Republicans generally stand, and there are a significant number of folks holding their noses and voting Democrats only because there’s no real alternative right now if you want this Republican bunch out of office. I don’t think a reclamation now could succeed in affecting the 2008 election very much, but I could be wrong, and in any event it could be a much better position for 2010 and 2012.
But there is, so nearly as I can tell, not a thing like that. There’s no organized effort either for a purged Goldwater-style conservatism or a pre-Nixonian moderation, and those both seem like neglected opportunities right now. The marketplace of ideas doesn’t seem to be delivering.
Comment by Thoreau —
May 7, 2007 @ 7:02 am
There’s no organized effort either for a purged Goldwater-style conservatism or a pre-Nixonian moderation, and those both seem like neglected opportunities right now. The marketplace of ideas doesn’t seem to be delivering.
In those days, the GOP base was concentrated in the Northeast and the West. These day, it’s in the South and West, but they are losing ground in the West. With the South the dominant faction, there’s not nearly as much interest in either of those ideas.
Comment by Derek Copold —
May 7, 2007 @ 8:00 am
But there is, so nearly as I can tell, not a thing like that. There’s no organized effort either for a purged Goldwater-style conservatism or a pre-Nixonian moderation, and those both seem like neglected opportunities right now.
You mean bombing Tehran “back to the Stone Age” the way Barry wanted to do to Vietnam? Or maybe act to explode government agencies and enact price controls the way Nixon did? How is this different or better than the current guy?