Let's Get this Through Our Skulls Shall We?

DeDurkheim is right, that in many ways, the William Jennings Bryan of latter life's ideology has managed to triumph in the South at this moment.

BUT,

There are two sides of the Bryan populist coin and it is the one he always advocated that Democrats have to remember.

I said this is a post below, but I'll say it again.

There are several times in our history when a single party has emerged and dominated the political discourse for generations. But there only three that really stand out -- and in each instance the parties successes ultimately brought about, over time, a reaction to the times. While issues differed, there are some strong similarities in each.

They are:

The Jacksonian Revolution, which shaped the political discourse in the mid-1820s and pretty much lasted 30 years. In that time, Democrats were small-government populists, while Whigs (GOP Precursors) were in favor of strong centralized government and public works projects.

Jackson only really drew the line at one Federal issue, and that is the ability of the States to be independent of the Federal Government. That occurred in his famous stand-off with his Vice President John C. Calhoun.

The Jacksonian revolution eventually petered out as the issue of slavery became untenable and split both the Whig and Democratic Parties apart, the Whigs first.

The Republican Era

From the election of Lincoln through the end of the 19th Century the GOP became the predominant party, as the party of Civil Rights and Corporate Interests, the latter coming to dominate once slavery was eliminated. This was an era of a fractured nation-state as the Democrats dominated in the South on the basis almost exclusively of the civil war, while the Northern Democrats were rudderless. This period of dominance came to an end during the early 20th century when both parties, to an extent coopted the strongest portions of a third party, progressive and grange movements. This ended in a relative split in the parties (the GOP got Roosevelt and LaFollette, the Democrats Bryan and Wilson) and a thirty year period of relative parity until the GOP ascended just in time to be blamed for the depression.

The Democratic New Deal Period

This is the most successful and dominant of the three major eras and the longest lasting. Out of the wake of the Depression, butressed by the success of winning the cold war, starting with its Patron Saint FDR (notice each era is established by a dominant personality) the Democratic Party established both a Keynesian model of government involvement with the economy, a social safety net, a strong central government in regulation, making permanent the aspirations of the Progressive Era; won a World War; developed the nuclear bomb; established the strongest economy in world history; grew and entrenched a permanent middle class; controlled speculation; extended civil rights; established the winning framework of the civil war; oversaw the complete modernization of industrial society through public works projects; and went to the moon.

So successful was the New Deal era, that the GOP has only attacked it at its margins, it still is. The New Deal became accepted by both parties, when Eisenhower accepted it, and extended it in his own fashion. Even Reagan, the patron saint of the current GOP, never really attacked the heart of the New Deal...FDR, despite his protests to the contrary, was Reagan's model of being President.

But there is no doubt that we are currently in a flux period.

Bush is attempting to craft his own era, his own model, God Help Us.

But the way to do it, isn't to fight it at the margins, it is to attack it head on.

Which brings us back to Bryan.

No Doubt that Bryan was a fundamentalist christian, but he was also, importantly an economic liberal. Read the Cross of Gold speech, but here is just an excerpt:

We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day--who begins in the spring and toils all summer--and who by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this broader class of business men.

Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic coast, but the hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose--the pioneers away out there [pointing to the West], who rear their children near to Nature's heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds--out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their young, churches where they praise their Creator, and cemeteries where rest the ashes of their dead--these people, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of our party as any people in this country. It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them.

There is nothing wrong with economic populism. It has been almost the exclusive province of the Democratic Party for 110 years. In fact, from 1933 to the present it created the most successful society, economically and militarily the world has ever seen. There is no reason to be ashamed of it, it is the greatest success in the history of American Politics.

It's time that we remember that and push it, rather than pushing the position that was are "less crazy than the GOP".

There is more than just the morality of who gets married, there is the morality of preventing poverty; the morality of economic fairness; the morality of a better life for you and your children. The GOP has no answer for it, but "Class Warfare", well fuck the class warfare defense. They beat down most of their supporters everyday in the pocket book.

Take it to 'em.