A Lesson In Partisanship

I read this Fractured Fairy Tale from David Broder in the Washington Post a few days ago about how, as if by magic, our elected representatives in Congress are all making nice as a new legislative session has commenced (just getting around to it now - sorry).

Sens. Harry Reid (D) and Mitch McConnell (R) have “forged a personal relationship of unusual trust.” Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Mary Landrieu (D) have had breakfasts together to discuss “policy” (and I’ll bet they were served eggs “sunny side up,” of course), and Sens. Lamar Alexander (R) and Joe Lieberman (R) have also spent quality time together to wax nostalgic over the good old days of the 109th Congress, no doubt (and John Conyers has reached out from the House to Trent Lott and encouraged him to watch a “Boondocks” retrospective with him, explaining that Naomi Campbell is really a nice girl who is just “misunderstood” because she is unable to use the latest phone technology properly…OK, you got me on that one).

You, no doubt, can come of your own term to describe this column – “cow chips,” “horse dookey,” something more scatological if you prefer – but I’ll leave that to you. A four-year-old child knows that the minute one of these fine, upstanding, empathic public servants feels that their turf is being infringed upon in any way whatsoever, the long knives will immediately come out (indeed, as noted earlier, Lieberman has already dimed out Mary Landrieu over refusing to investigate Bushco's Katrina performance, which definitely throws a monkey wrench into Landrieu’s hope of reelection next year…and speaking of Lieberman, how pathetic is it that he has to be called on the Iraq war by a fellow Republican, and Sam Brownback no less?).

Fortunately, the day after this dreck appeared, Paul Krugman from the New York Times weighed in on this topic from the reality-based perspective (I can't find the Times link at the moment)...

American politics is ugly these days, and many people wish things were different. For example, Barack Obama recently lamented the fact that “politics has become so bitter and partisan” – which it certainly has.

But he then went on to say that partisanship is why “we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions. And that’s what we have to change first.” Um, no. If history is any guide, what we need are political leaders willing to tackle the big problems despite bitter partisan opposition. If all goes well, we’ll eventually have a new era of bipartisanship – but that will be the end of the story, not the beginning.

Or to put it another way: what we need now is another F.D.R., not another Dwight Eisenhower.

You see, the nastiness of modern American politics isn’t the result of a random outbreak of bad manners. It’s a symptom of deeper factors – mainly the growing polarization of our economy. And history says that we’ll see a return to bipartisanship only if and when the economic polarization is reversed.

After all, American politics has been nasty in the past. Before the New Deal, America was a nation with a vast gap between the rich and everyone else, and this gap was reflected in a sharp political divide. The Republican Party, in effect, represented the interests of the economic elite, and the Democratic Party, in an often confused way, represented the populist alternative.

In that divided political system, the Democrats probably came much closer to representing the interests of the typical American. But the G.O.P.’s advantage in money, and the superior organization that money bought, usually allowed it to dominate national politics. “I am not a member of any organized party,” Will Rogers said. “I am a Democrat.”

Then came the New Deal. I urge Mr. Obama – and everyone else who thinks that good will alone is enough to change the tone of our politics – to read the speeches of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the quintessential example of a president who tackled big problems that demanded solutions.

For the fact is that F.D.R. faced fierce opposition as he created the institutions – Social Security, unemployment insurance, more progressive taxation and beyond – that helped alleviate inequality. And he didn’t shy away from confrontation.

“We had to struggle” he declared in 1936, “with the old enemies of peace – business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering…Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hatred of me – and I welcome that hatred.”

It was only after F.D.R. had created a more equal society, and the old class warriors of the G.O.P. were replaced by “modern Republicans” who accepted the New Deal, that bipartisanship began to prevail.

The history of the last few decades has basically been the story of the New Deal in reverse. Income inequality has returned to levels not seen since the pre-New Deal era, and so have political divisions in Congress as the Republicans have moved right, once again becoming the party of the economic elite. The signature domestic policy initiatives of the Bush administration have been attempts to undo F.D.R.’s legacy, from slashing taxes on the rich to privatizing Social Security. And a bitter partisan gap has opened up between the G.O.P. and Democrats, who have tried to defend that legacy.

What about the smear campaigns, like Karl Rove’s 2005 declaration that after 9/11 liberals wanted to “offer therapy and understanding to our attackers”? Well, they’re reminiscent of the vicious anti-Catholic propaganda used to defeat Al Smith in 1928: smear tactics are what a well-organized, well-financed party with a fundamentally unpopular domestic agenda uses to change the subject.

So am I calling for partisanship for its own sake? Certainly not. By all means pass legislation, if you can, with plenty of votes from the other party: the Social Security Act of 1935 received 77 Republican votes in the House, about the same as the number of Republicans who recently voted for a minimum wage increase.

But politicians who try to push forth the elements of a new New Deal, especially universal health care, are sure to face the hatred of a large bloc on the right – and they should welcome that hatred, not fear it.

And by the way, in Broder’s column, he notes that there’s apparently no similar lovey-dovey spirit in the House, where the now-in-the-minority Repugs are “complaining bitterly that dissenting views have been stifled” (and apparently, one of the chief complainers is former Majority Leader John Boehner, who, of course, got his job when Tom DeLay stepped down because DeLay ran into an teensy weensie bit of legal trouble from that Abramoff guy).

Aaaawwwww……

Gee, Boehner sure showed a lot of “bipartisanship” with this little gem awhile back, didn’t he?

Update: And I suppose, as far as Broder is concerned, Hillary Clinton is the only person guilty of "presidential posturing" (please)...