Arnold Kling has an article posted at TCS in which he suggests that ordinary Americans (and Brits and Israelis) may have quite a different view of things than their leaders. What caught my attention was this part:
My sense is that popular opinion is likely to gravitate toward one of two positions.
- The Middle East is a hopeless cauldron of hatred. We should focus on homeland security, stay out of the Middle East, and have as little interaction with the Muslim world as possible; or
- A major war is inevitable, so that we need to get ready for it. Nothing else will stop Iranian aggression, and nothing else will stifle the funding, sponsoring, and glorification of terrorists.
Those are, respectively, the Jeffersonian and the Jacksonian alternatives in dealing with the Middle East. As I pointed out in my post, “Plan B” more than 18 months ago, the first approach that the U. S. took with the Middle East and the one that prevailed for many years was a Hamiltonian, trade-oriented approach. We’ve been engaged in a Wilsonian experiment for the last several years and it’s clear that people (both in the United States and in Iraq) are losing patience with it.
That leaves Plan C and regardless of which of the two remaining traditional influences on U. S. policy, the Jeffersonian or the Jacksonian, is resorted to there will be hard times ahead.
What’s very interesting is how this plays into the idea I’ve been having for the last couple of years, that the parties in the US are collapsing, with the Democrats likely to schism and the Republicans likely to change dramatically in reaction. To be more specific in foreign policy terms, I think that after the dust settles, within the next 8-10 years (and assuming there’s no dramatic change in the meantime, such as nuking Iran or Iran nuking Israel), the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian positions will be the centers of the two major parties in the US, with the majority of today’s Democrats going to the Jeffersonian party and the majority of today’s Republicans going to the Jacksonian party. What will be interesting to see is where the Hamiltonians and Wilsonians fall out (likely with the “Democrats” and “Republicans” respectively), and how each party will shape its domestic message.
The other interesting thing to watch will be whether, if the Jeffersonian wing gets control in 2008 or 2012, they can avoid the disaster that seems so apparent to me: a terrorist-sponsoring country obtaining and using (or passing along to their proxies for use) a nuclear weapon. I do not think that ignoring the Middle East will solve that problem; indeed, it will hasten the problem. I think a Jeffersonian policy suite — not kill-’em-all, but rather kill a lot now rather than more later — has a chance of averting the greater disaster, though with much after-the-fact soul-searching and self-recrimination on the West’s part. But in the end, if either or both of those policies fail to rein in the threat, it’s a better than even chance that there will be a nuclear war in the next 20 years.
The anarchists only killed a few thousand people, and only a very few of them were presidents or aristocrats. But one of them was Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the repercussions of that death were the millions of deaths in WWI. If we are not very careful with how we fight the terrorists, we could see something equivalent, but terribly worse, in the too-near future.
As I think that I’ve mentioned before I think that the political parties are losing relevance and that they’re likely to be replaced with, essentially, no parties at all.
I once heard a party convention in California characterized as “two people and a television set” and I think we’re seeing that phenomenon spread all over the country and substantially magnified.
The first part of the economic rationale for political parties vanished when the patronage system was dismantled. The netroots phenomenon doesn’t, as its advocates believe, just change the center of gravity of the Democratic Party by doing an endrun around the current ensconced powers: it demonstrates that political parties are superfluous. If you can raise funds and mobilize a support base electronically, what do you need a political party for? Presumably, branding (in the marketing sense).
Branding is, basically, a frivolous notion with the present parties. What do the Democrats or Republicans stand for? I dare you. They have no coherent message and without a coherent message you don’t have a brand. That’s what New Coke demonstrated.
The last remaining function for political parties is as a rallying point for voting blocs within the legislature. They’re not necessary to do that—it’s just the way it’s been done.
Just as many companies don’t really know what business they’re in the Democratic Party doesn’t really know what it’s about. I think it’s the party of Fordism. Problem is, Fordism is collapsing under a combination of its own internal contradictions, modern technology, and the enormous Asian labor pools.
Fordism will prevent the Democratic Party from becoming the party of the Hamiltonians (economic nationalists). The historic home for Wilsonians has been the Democatic Party (most of the neo-cons are recovering Democrats).
I honestly don’t think there’s an even marginally stable re-alignment to be had. Jeffersonians and Wilsonians are natural enemies just as Hamiltonians and Jacksonians are. The Jeffersonians and Wilsonians represent the idealist strains while the Jacksonians and Hamiltonians represent the pragmatists.
The two major political parties ( or alternatively, self-identification as ” conservative” or “liberal”) aren’t simply brands, for a segment of the population they’re functioning as virtual tribes. As in ” those in my tribe are the humans – those outside are something less”.
An exceedingly dangerous mentality and one that is not only cultivated intentionally, it’s reaching a state of critical mass.
Dave, your Jeffersonian/Jacksonian prediction has coming to pass in the wake of the failures of Hamilton and Wilson. Unsurprisingly, the present situation is very reminiscent of the build-up to WWII, where the Jeffersonian impulse dominated domestic politics until Pearl Harbor opened the Jacksonian flood gates. I envision a comparable situation in the days ahead.
I’m looking forward to your analysis of the irrelevancy of party politics. I’ve been ruminating on the notion; haven’t reached any conclusions. My mind is an open slate.