The Informationist

Recalibration and Realignment?

I’ve been noodling over a political quandary for a while now. I left the Democratic Party because, in my opinion, it has drifted very far into dangerous leftist territory. Conventional wisdom in the MSM, on the other hand, has spun the story in precisely the opposite direction. The conventional story seems to be that the recent injection of pro-life, anti-gun-control advocates has moved the Party to the center. Why has my perception been so different?

I found the answer in last week’s Weekly Standard, in an article about Rudy Giuliani and social conservatives. So here’s a conjecture that helps me make sense of many seeming anomalies:

For the past few decades, the polar issues were all social. The parties organized around rigid social agendas, while allowing a fair bit of flexibility on other issues. The Democrats were staunch social libertarians who maintained a range of economic positions (from distributionist to pro-market), and a full spectrum of foreign policy stances. The Republicans were staunch social conservatives who maintained a different range of economic positions, but an equally broad spectrum of foreign policy stances. This polarization created problems for people--and in particular, for politicians--out of step with the poles. Neither a dovish, pro-life, socialist, nor a hawkish, pro-choice, tax cutter had any realistic hope of assuming a position of national leadership.

The Democrats changed the rules in the 2006 election. They dropped their insistence on social libertarianism, and required instead only opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq. As a result, the Party has coalesced around a narrow range of foreign policy positions, from pacifism to realism. Those outside that range were either pushed out (e.g., Lieberman), or forced to lay low (e.g., Clinton). The surprising unanimity of the Democratic caucus in opposing the “surge” proved the new polarization of the party. Such unanimity on foreign policy is rare; the Republican caucus, which split between a group opposed to the plan, a larger group favoring it, and a middle group uncertain of their views but unwilling to cross their Party’s president, was much more typical of past voting behavior. This change in polarization also explains Barack Obama’s amazing popularity: He is positioned perfectly to heal last decade’s wounds--a critical point in allowing the Democratic Party to welcome its new-found foreign policy allies.

The question now is whether the Republicans will respond in kind. It is important to recall that in 2000, a growing sense of isolationism led the Republicans to choose a safely realist candidate. That the post-9/11 Bush foreign policy confounded those expectations says little about where the party stands. Did Bush draw the Republican Party into an idealistic muscular liberalism? Or did he leave the Party itself untouched? We can only conjecture about the answer until we see who it chooses to bear its standard in 2008.

A Giuliani candidacy would be the strongest indication that the re-polarization of American politics is complete. The Republicans would open their doors--and their leadership--to an erstwhile nemesis on social policy. And we would emerge with two parties, polarized on foreign policy, skewed on social policy, and still skewed on the economy. We would face new litmus tests in American politics, and the next era would begin.

Posted by Bruce Abramson from on 03/12 at 12:50 AM in American Government, Politics, and Domestic Policies, Foreign Affairs and the World beyond Our Borders