| A similar form of magic thinking was pictured in the Oval Office in the movie "W." where Colin Powell credits the 40 year long policy of containment for ending the Cold War while Bush favored bluster from Saint Ronnie ("Take down that wall", "the Evil Empire" speech). In fact, the far less bellicose George H.W. Bush presided when the Wall came down and the Soviet Empire fell apart.
Lind and Friedman point to the Great Depression and the political upheaval threatened by Huey Long as a parallel to the Great Depression in US history. Although data from the 1830s and 1840s is certainly limited, Friedman's pronouncement that only the Panic of 1837 rivalled the Great Depression in both length and depth is obviously flawed at both ends of the statement.
Nothing, and I repeat nothing, in this country's history rivalled the Great Depression in either length or depth. Unemployment during the Great Depression topped 10% for 10 consecutive years from 1931 through 1940 peaking at 24.9%. Its nearest parall, the Panic of 1893 produced 6 straight years of double digit unemployment peaking at 18.4%. Although Friedman claims that the Panic of 1837 was similar to the Depression it lasted six years including aone year remission in 1838-39 when the economy was OK. That's five years total. Not as long as either the Panic of 1893 or the Great Depression. There is no measure of the unemployment rate listed in the Census Bureau's Hisorical Data version of its Statistical Abstract ("Colonial Times to 1970"). With most Americans at the time working as farmers rather than as non-agricultural workers, the unemployment rate would effect a smaller part of the population and I doubt things were as severe. So Friedman's conclusion does not seem supported by the facts.
What were the political ramifications of these huge economic meltdowns. During the Great Depression, power swung from the Hoover Republicans to the Democrats. The Senate was not popularly elected until 1914 so only House comparisons are valid. In 1930-32, Democrats picked up 147 House seats or 34% of the membership. This is slightly less than the turnover in 1894 alone when Democrats lost 125 seats in a 357 member House (35%). In 1838 (-3) and 1840 (-27) turnover in the US House was nowhere near as strong as in the later downturns.
In all three instances, new political parties formed. Jackson era Democrats functioned as nearly a one party system with Jacksonians opposed by anti-Jacksonians. The Panic of 1837 may have been an important factor in developing a formal opposition party, the Whigs. The Whigs lasted less than 20 years and elected two war heroes who (with their successors) lasted one term, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor. Slavery demanded more answers than the Whigs could provide. Democrats main foe in 1856 was no longer a Whig and by 1860 lincoln and the Republicans assumed power.
In the 1890s Cleveland and the conservative Democrats were tossed out of office. The Populist Party emerged and pretty soon a radically dissident 36 year old took over the Democratic Party and allied with the Populists. William Jennings Bryant was not the answer. Populism splintered in the south on the lines of racism with Jim Crow and segregation winning out over clas based or populist appeals. Blacks were officially disenfranchised. (see The Strange Career of Jim Crow and The Mind of the South for plenty of details) In the West and Farm states the appeal of populism waned as the economy staggered back to health following 1898. The change implicit in the widespread disconnect of the Panic never came off at the ballot box. It was the bullet that installed Theodore Roosevelt and TR's later break with Taft and the Republicans that installed Wilson.
Only the FDR years saw one Party emerge in charge of the whole recovery period as third party attempts from the left and right foundered based on Roosevelt's economic progress and political skills. The lesson is not too clear.
Sustained economic hard times will bring a challenge to the political system and to the party in power in the United States. It is easy to gain in the short term but much harder to gain in the long term. By introducing long term systemic changes that benefitted many, FDR introduced long term systemic change in the political system. Is there an equivalent to social security, the Wagner Act, Glass-Steagall, the WPA, the NRA, disbility insurance, the FDIC and so many more within the Obama Administration? If so, Obama and the Democrats will probably be safe. if not, it may follow the two earlier upheavals shifting from Party to Party in search for an answer. Democrats lost seats in 1838 and more and the White House in 1840 but roared back in 1842 and 1844. Not a permanent change.
The answer see3ms to lie not with the Republicans and the waves of politics but with the Democrats and Obama. Lind is striking around some trends and answers; he just fails to hit the mark. |
