The Partisan Divide (Part One)

During the 2008 election campaign Barack Obama was often made out to be an heir to the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. His humble origins and his amazing oratory skills were compared favorably to those of Lincoln. It was hoped that Obama would end the Iraq war, win the Afghan one, restore America’s economy and fix the environment. It was also greatly hoped that he would heal the partisan divide that had opened up during the George W. Bush years, the one which pitted red state against blue state.

Heal the partisan divide?

If healing the partisan divide is something that Obama is supposed to do, then comparing him to Abraham Lincoln is perverse. No American president before Lincoln or after Lincoln has created more of a partisan divide than Lincoln himself managed to do. We complain in modern times that America is divided into red states and blue states, but for the moment that divide is purely political. Lincoln’s presidency literally resulted in the physical division of the country. The idea of living under his rule was so odious that seven states seceded before he was even inaugurated. Nor did Lincoln ever actually heal that divide. He closed it with military force. He may have healed it had he lived to see the end of his second term in office, but that is a question for historians. The fact is that even in the states that remained in the Union his conduct of the war and the extralegal means by which he waged it created no end of controversy.

Regrettably the direction that America is moving in politically does indeed indicate that President Obama may indeed be the heir to Lincoln’s legacy. Like Lincoln, there is a segment of the nation which does not consider the current president to have any legitimacy as a leader.

What we are seeing now is the final unraveling of the Cold War consensus on the conduct of American politics. Partisanship is as old as the republic, but after World War II it subsided to levels that would have astounded those living in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Republicans and Democrats fought election battles against each other and squabbled over various issues, but even when the country found itself bitterly divided over questions likes race rights and the Vietnam War the political elites still maintained civil relations with each other in tackling the problems. My father once told me that at the height of the youth rebellion in the late 1960’s there were many people who expected there to be a second American Revolution. That it did not come to pass probably has much to do with the fact that none of America’s elites had any real interest in tearing down the system. They respected each other’s legitimacy, even when many citizens did not, and could thus meet the challenge in a reasonably unified manner.

The process by which these elites began to strip each other of that legitimacy began in the 80’s, but it wasn’t until 1994 that it truly exploded onto the national scene when the Republicans gained control of Congress after a long reign of Democratic dominance. This was a type of partisanship that was frighteningly in-your-face to observers who had not previously seen such political feuds in their lifetimes. The new face of the GOP still embodied many of the old conservative political beliefs, but unlike the old timers they had no shame in getting cocky about it. They were confident – even arrogant – and they were against abortion, taxes, gun control, homosexuality and the removal of Christian symbols and ideas from public life. In this they were supported by a newly reorganized base of religiously conservative voters who liked to claim that values were at the front of their agenda. And they hated Bill Clinton. Oh how they did hate him.

What Bill Clinton actually did to deserve all the vitriol that was aimed at him has confused observers both here and around the world. As far as presidents go he was hardly the liberal monster that the right wing made him out to be. Yes he raised taxes, but even after he did so the top marginal rate was still nowhere near where it had been for much of the Cold War period. And he made deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility – normally a conservative concern – centerpiece of his economic strategy. He spoke the language of universal healthcare and labor rights, but he also supported NAFTA. He cut the size of the military, but he continued America’s commitment to her NATO allies, to her Asian allies and to her (unofficial) ally Israel, not to mention followed the first Bush Administration’s hardline containment policies against Iraq. In short, Bill Clinton was a centrist politician who leaned left at times and right at others, and America’s elites continued to prosper under his rule.

So why demonize him and attempt to drive him from office? Those who could not understand this failed to grasp the reason because they failed to see that the underlying politics of American conservatism had changed. The new GOP simply did not see Bill Clinton as a legitimate ruler, and the gentlemen’s agreements that had been prevalent for so many years were not going to be honored by the new right wing movement. America’s elites (and by elites I do not simply mean just wealthy businessmen, but also intellectuals, media professionals and those in government) were themselves divided, with more centrist and left-leaning members happy with Clinton and the right-leaning members unhappy to have given up any economic ground. The right-wing philosophy of illegitimacy was passed on to the rank and file in the movement where it became fixed in a tangible form on Clinton’s personal failings. Clinton was a liar, a draft dodger, a drug user, a flower child of the 60’s and a womanizer. His support for abortion and gay rights further riled up the conservative rank and file, and the support he enjoyed from America’s black community did not sit well with the racism (both outright and latent) that many of those in the movement still harbored.

With a conservative elite who wanted to persecute Clinton for economic reasons pulling the strings on a conservative rank and file who wanted to persecute him for his liberal image, moral failings and racial progressiveness, an entire right wing industry of radio, book publishing and (later) cable TV was born. The result was six years of partisan fighting, investigations and recriminations that culminated in the national embarrassment of a sitting president impeached for crimes stemming from one of Clinton’s sordid sexual relationships.

And then came the presidency of George W. Bush. But that will be a subject for my next post.