Everyone knows that prior to the Civil Rights era the Democratic Party was the dominant party in the South, but few people seem to understand what happened when this flipped and how it is about to impact the politics of the early 21st-Century.
The period between 1968 and 2008 was marked by the steady climb of a center-right ruling coalition. But as this evolved the Democratic Party splintered along regional and ideological lines. The first to bolt the party were Cold War hawks that were alienated by the New Left. This is the root of modern day neo-conservatism. The next wave were the so-called ‘Reagan Democrats’: working class Americans with conservative social values and a strong sense of patriotism. They came from the South, rural areas, and the northern suburbs. The final piece of the puzzle was the rise of the religious right. These folks didn’t so much abandon the Democratic Party (although, in William Jennings Bryan, they had once had a strong voice within the party) as drop their traditional political apathy.
The result was that Democrats found themselves pushed to the coasts and the upper Midwest. This was not enough of an electoral base for them to be able to win national elections. The Dems tried to compensate with their vice-presidential picks. Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro, hoping that he could boost female turnout to historic levels. Dukakis tried to repeat Kennedy’s successful formula by picking a prominent Texas oil-man. Al Gore tried to appease war hawks and religious conservatives by picking Joe Lieberman. John Kerry attempted to get some regional balance by picking John Edwards of North Carolina. None of it worked. Despite the Clinton interlude, the Democrats continued to lose strength in the south and border states.
By 2000, the country was locked in a virtual tie, largely drawn along regional lines. But the Bush years would see the country run by a totally southern dominated Republican Party that ran roughshod over their opponents. The Bush era Republicans pushed every advantage, but they were too fundamentalist in their religion, too pro-corporate for their own constituency, and too reckless in their foreign policy for the country.
On top of this, they groomed no heir. The result has been fascinating to witness. The Republicans are no longer viable in the northeast and mid-Atlantic. They are losing consistently in places like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The party has splintered along ideological lines. A fundamentalist Christian won the Iowa caucuses, but he isn’t viable in New Hampshire. Northeastern Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani are not viable throughout much of the party’s southern base.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are no longer plagued by regional differences. No one is talking about the fact that John Edwards is a southerner. In fact, he’s polling third in South Carolina even though he was born there. Hillary Clinton, having split her time between Illinois, Arkansas, and New York, has no regional identity. And no one seems to mind that Barack Obama is a black urban politician from the North. The policy differences between the candidates have nothing to do with regional differences, and any of them will be broadly acceptable to Democrats from Maine to Hawaii.
Part of this is a result of the national media environment. We all watch the same television shows, read the same magazines, and share the same meta-culture. The experience of a child growing up in suburban Boston isn’t much different from the experience of a child growing up in suburban Atlanta. This creates a leveling effect that mutes regional differences.
Another part of it is a broad consensus among Democrats about basic domestic policy. We want more health care, tolerance towards the GLBT community and immigrants, legal and rare abortion,
policy based on science rather than religion, and less corruption. The Republicans are divided on all those issues, largely along regional and/or suburban/rural lines.
It turned out that letting southern culture dominate Washington DC was unpalatable to the country as a whole. It has led to a firming up of the Democratic Party, which has been surging in places like Montana, Colorado…even Kansas. At the same time, it has effectively discredited one Republican leader after another. Look at the following list and ask yourself, ‘where are they now?’: Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum, George Allen, Ted Stevens. These were major players in the GOP who should have been leaders for years to come.
The Republicans still have residual strength in Washington, but only because the Senate only elected a third of its members in 2006. Once they get hit by a second wave election they will be beaten back into a inconsequential southern party. They will be leaderless, and they won’t be able to compete again in the non-southern states until they create a new non-southern platform for their candidates to run on.
Republicans are now entering an era in the wilderness. And it will be lonelier than the Democrats’ turn there, because the Republicans will not see congressional majorities, in either house, for a very long time.
What this also means is that we are entering a new progressive era. And it is going to be driven by the new generation that we are seeing turn out in unprecedented numbers in this years elections. If Obama wins today as big as I think he is going to win (43-plus percent), he’ll probably be unstoppable. He’ll be our next president. And he’ll have huge and sustainable majorities in Congress. This is a return to system we saw from 1933-1968. And we know how much we accomplished in those years.
This likely outcome of the 2008 elections is so foreign to our experience (since 1968) that I don’t see anyone really talking about it. Everyone seems bogged down in the debates from the fall (and from the Bush era, generally). Obama isn’t partisan enough, or Edwards isn’t genuine enough. For Hillary’s part, she’s about the become a casualty of this new progressive era. Her niche of the party was built for a different era…and era where Democratic ideas were stagnant and in decline.
Yes…I can see the landslide from here now. And I can’t wait. It does give me hope. This country still knows how to self-correct, and that is all the faith I need to continue to believe in our Republic.
