Full Circle

Every few decades there is realignment in American politics. Parties’ platforms undergo significant changes, as do the self-impressions of their members. With the presidential election near, the positions and themes adopted by the Democrats and Republicans hint that such a shift is beginning to take place.

Before current Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, the biographies of the last two Democratic presidential candidates were woefully lacking in any sort of military accomplishment. Far too much has been written already about Clinton’s draft dodging and Al Gore’s “front-line” reporting, and I will not devolve into tired character attacks. While neither man could be accused of dereliction of duty or outright cowardice, it was certainly true that they preferred to focus on domestic concerns at the expense of foreign policy and military issues. Their contrast with Kerry in this respect is remarkable. Can anyone imagine either Clinton or Gore “Reporting for duty,” as Kerry did during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

The old Democratic penchant for sidestepping military matters makes Kerry’s all-out focus on his Vietnam record all the more interesting. Only a year ago, in the midst of Howard Dean’s fifteen minutes of fame, the likelihood that the eventual Democratic presidential nominee would be a decorated soldier seemed remote. Indeed, the spectacle of tens of thousands of passionate leftist Democrats cheering someone’s Vietnam service as “noble” seemed a sight about as likely as Dick Cheney attending a MoveOn.org block party. One is tempted to ask people when the Vietnam War became something to brag about, but that is missing the point. When all is said and done John Kerry went to Vietnam, and his experience has provided enough biographical ammunition, if wielded capably, to deflect most any charges that he is weak, inept or inexperienced.

The Republicans are not immune from this sort of thing; many of their talking-points seem as though they were taken straight out of a “Gore-Lieberman 2000” pamphlet. In the midst of the “Republican revolution,” with Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga, in charge and government agencies such as the Department of Education in real danger of being axed, who would have guessed that the next Republican president’s main domestic accomplishments would be more educational spending, a new Cabinet-level agency, and a new Medicare entitlement? And who would have thought that Bush’s prime international accomplishment would be precisely the kind of “nation building” for which he once mocked Gore? Bush is now running an ad that unapologetically brags about increasing the number of democracies, whereas just a few years ago he thought this was largely none of our business.

In yet another interesting reversal of expected positions, the Republicans are the ones favoring radical changes to the status quo in all sorts of situations. Republicans now want to remove large numbers of troops from Germany and South Korea, democratize the Middle East, follow the “Bush doctrine” of preemption, and amend the constitution to ban gay-marriage. While not textbook “liberal” positions, these policies are nonetheless very serious changes to the status quo. “Liberal” can have all sorts of different meanings, but in modern American parlance it has come to denote someone who is left wing—someone who favors changing existing arrangements. Likewise the typical definition of “conservative” is someone who tends rightwards, someone who favors retaining the existing government structures. So it’s surprising that “liberal” Democrats have been reflexively defending existing arrangements: the party has been busy fighting charter schools, battling social security privatization, preaching cooperation with our allies, advocating greater U.N. involvement, and eschewing involvement in Iraq and the Middle East. Perhaps the time has come for a realignment in the terms we use to describe the two parties. Anti-Bush protestors marching in New York won’t suddenly be seen wearing “W” hats, nor will they flock to reelect Bush. Nevertheless, the Democratic party is acting to maintain the status quo in America while their Young Republican counterparts are seeking to change many of our country’s institutions.

The sorts of changes we are seeing are not just examples of the “move to the center” that government texts so assuredly predict in two party presidential systems like our own. The contradiction in this presidential election—Democrats favoring “muscular internationalism” Republicans preaching “Compassion”—reflects not merely the usual slide to the center, but a profound confusion in our country as a whole. Americans are stuck in a Blue State-Red State rut and profess a deep division over just about everything. The past two presidential campaigns were particularly good indicators of this growing polarization. In practice, all of this means that American political parties are getting harder and harder to label.

But the posturing of Republicans and Democrats is symptomatic of a larger identity crisis within America. We seem, as a country, to be searching for our role in a very rapidly changing world, in which we are, for now, the only superpower. There is very little margin for error, and new challenges are constantly arising. Regardless of which party wins in November, or whether America follows a Republican, Democratic, Liberal, or Conservative path, our increasingly volatile and realigned political system will be saddled with real dangers that can’t be easily addressed with polling, platforms or sound bites.

Mark A. Adomanis ’07, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator in Eliot House.