| First off, we're working with a very small data set here, so there's no pretense of statistical scientific reasoning. We're talking about historical arguments that try to make sense of surprising regularities that still encompass a good deal of non-repeating variation.
In particular, both the examples referred to saw the second parties disintegrate before the realigning elections referred to. In one case, the party that died was replaced by another sub-dominant party, in the other, it was replaced by the new dominant party, so that prevents any sort of too simplistic reading of what's involved. However, in both cases the previously-dominant party diminished significantly in terms of cross-regional vitality.
I think it's highly unlikely that either party today would cease to exist the way that first the Federalists, then the Whigs disintegrated in the 19th Century. The institutional structures of the parties are vastly more deeply entrenched at this point in time, and our entire political system is far more developed than it was 150 years ago and more. And yet, it is possible that massive reorganizing shifts could take place in a relatively short period of time that would leave one or both parties substantially changed from what they are like today. So let's review the historical logic of how these realignments came about.
The First Party System pitted the Federalists against the Democratic-Republicans. At first, there were no parties, and the Federalists existed pretty much in the sense of the Washington Administration and its allies. It was the Democratic Republicans who actually initiated the idea of organizing outside of officeholding--something that so offended the Federalist's delicate sensibilities that they passed the highly repressive Alien and Sedition Acts, which took dead aim at foreigners and opposition newspaper editors--though it also ended up putting one Congressman in jail. The ultimate result was a sweeping victory for the Democratic-Republicans in 1800, after which they never lost a national election.
The 1816 presidential election wasn't even close:
But in 1820, they didn't even really have an election. And in 1824, it was strictly an intramural affair, with all the presidential candidates coming from the Democratic-Republican Party, which ended up being decided in the House of Representatives. The winner, John Quincy Adams, was the son of the John Adams, the only unambiguous Federalist candidate to win the presidency. Adams left his father's party because he came to feel it had become a regional party, representing regional interests rather than the national interest. A telling sign of what was to come.
The Federalists failed as a party for a very simple reason: they could not abide an opposition party to exist, and they tried to stamp it out, seriously misjudging how people would respond to that. The Democratic-Republicans enjoyed a brief period of complete dominance, but failed to develop a means for ensuring an orderly succession of power. While the emergence of regional and ideological differences was surely inevitable, a more rationally constituted party was certainly possible... or at least conceivable.
As it was, the Democratic Party that emerged under Andrew Jackson from 1828 onward was relatively coherent as long as Jackson was around. And so was the opposition--they opposed Jackson. Coalescing eventually into the White Party, they were the oddest of our major parties: anti-Jackson in the North because he was too decentralist, anti-Jackson in the South because he wasn't decentralist enough.
Eventually, this split would tear the party apart, as the issue of slavery turned this basic contradiction into one that could no longer be finesses away. The Whigs badly lost the last election they contested:
After which the Republican Party and the American Party (the anti-immigrant "Know-Nothings") battled it out to replace the Whigs. The Republicans were a clearly regional party in their 1856 runner-up role, capturing the lion's share of the former northern Whigs:
And four years later, they triumphed with Lincoln winning less than a 40% plurality, as the Democrats followed suit and split sharply between North and South, backing two different candidates: Stephen A. Douglas, who won almost 30% as the Northern Democratic candidate, but won only a single state, and John C. Breckinridge as the Southern Democratic candidate, who won just over 18% of the vote, but carried every Southern state from Texas to North Carolina:
I first conceived this diary as a simple reminder that it was guite possible for both parties to fail in fundamental ways as part of the same political dynamic, even if one did fail well before the other. The caution is directly relevant to us today: just because the GOP is in total failure mode, it's not without precedent that Democrats are showing themselves to be only marginally better, even in a purely functional sense, without any regard to our judgment of how decent their policies may or may not be.
But in light of the discussion that unfolded in my previous diary, "What's Wrong With The Democratic Party, Part #74,397", in which there was much talk of abandoning the Democrats and starting third parties, I think there's a second lesson to be learned from these examples: Party fragmentation is a very real political threat. However tantalizing it may be to dream of a party that purely represents us and only us, there is no precedent for such a party in American history--although there are brief moments when it does appear otherwise.
While I fully share the disgust that others have expressed here, the reality is that American political parties are not so much homes as they are arenas for conflict, or "sites of struggle" as they say in the trade. My own view is that one should look for purity and unity of purpose in issue activism--and devote one's energy accordingly. Make the party a vehicle for advancing your issue activism, do not expect it to be more than that, and you will have created realistic expectations which it can fulfill--if you do your issue organizing well enough.
But if you try to make the party--any party--the be all and end all of your political activism and political identity, then you are bound for disappointment at best, and may well find yourself lost and abandoned as the forces of history have shown themselves quite capable of tearing parties apart, and scattering their pieces to the wind.
To end on a more prosaic note, Ian's "Shorter Sebelius" diary highlights one of the most pressing problems we face: under Obama, the Democrats seem determined to pass "health care reform" that will tax tens of millions of Americans who can't afford it to fill the coffers of insurance companies.
It's like a plan that Karl Rove would dream up--except that he's nowhere near clever enough to figure out how to get the Democrats to propose something that politically stupid. Only the Democrats could come up with that on their own. Fortunately, the plan doesn't go into effect immediately, so that if it is passed, we will have an election cycle in which to make repeal of this idiocy the defining issue of primary fights that could and should be like none the party has ever seen.
But we can't do that if everyone who's feed up just leaves the party in disgust.
And good luck getting the voters to follow you.
What voters usually do in such terrible circumstances is simple: they just stay home.
So, again, my plea is simple: don't think with your gut. Consider the lessons of history, and think strategically. Things are very grim right now, much, much grimmer than most folks probably thought possible a few short months ago. But they've been far, far grimmer at earlier points in our history.
Persevere. |
