If I had the novelist’s privilege
and somewhat more than the novelist’s usual power, I would be inclined to look
to history for writing the story of this year’s coming election.
Specifically, I would look to
1852, when, on the fifty-third ballot,
the Whig Party—passing over incumbent President Fillmore and the fiery,
principled Daniel Webster—nominated General Winfield Scott, a showy, fussy
military man whose platform ended up being virtually indistinguishable from
that of the Democrats. It didn’t help
that Scott himself was known for being quite antislavery, while the party
platform was pro-slavery, which meant that neither the anti-slavery northern
Whigs nor the pro-slavery southern Whigs could feel happy voting for Scott.
The similarity of platforms led
to a personality-based campaign, low voter turnout, and a landslide win for the
Democratic nominee, Franklin Pierce.
Scott won only four states: Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and
Vermont. Daniel Webster, who had run as
the Union Party candidate when the Whigs failed to nominate him, had died
during the campaign, but nevertheless won significant votes in Georgia and
Massachusetts … which says something about how the voters were feeling about
their choice of Pierce vs. Scott.
For Scott, read Trump; for Pierce
read Clinton; for the Whigs, read the Republicans.
(Personally, in a
Trump/Hillary campaign, I’d feel
strongly tempted to
write in Antonin Scalia.
Heck, what harm could it do?)
By the next presidential
election, in 1856, the dying Whig party held its last convention, where they unanimously
endorsed not a candidate of their own, but the American Party candidate,
Fillmore. The Whig party never regained
its former political clout, and dissolved a few years later—some Whigs from
both geographical sectors had joined the nativist American “Know-Nothing” Party
, while many of the anti-slavery northern Whigs had been instrumental in
creating the new Republican Party.
The Republican Party in 1856 nominated
Frémont, with the slogan “Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Frémont,
and victory!” The Democrats, having
nominated Buchanan, threatened that a Republican victory might lead to civil
war. Buchanan won, perhaps in part due
to a rumor, started by the American Party and capitalized on by the Democrats,
that Frémont was—horrors!—a closeted Roman Catholic. Significantly, however, Frémont beat Buchanan
in free states, while in the South the campaign became a contest between
Buchanan (D) and Fillmore (A).
In my fantasy world, after the
Republican Party dies in the Trump/Hillary contest, Paul Ryan and a Few Good
Men (and Ladies) would found the Good Young Party (ahem), while the remaining
Republicans would be free to endorse whatever spoiler candidate best represents
their emptiness (Mitt Romney? or is that too unfair, even to Mitt Romney?). The GYP would probably lose the 2020 election,
but it would be a glorious defeat.
In 1860, of course, the
Republicans famously came back with Lincoln, who was seen at the convention as
a moderate, compromise candidate: the front runner, William Seward, was
considered too radical, while Salmon Chase and Edward Bates had made choices
which alienated various segments of the Republican coalition. The party platform notably did not call for
the abolition of slavery, but opposed its extension; abolitionists were angered
by the decisions, and general did not trust Lincoln.
Meanwhile, the Democratic convention
in Charleston was so contested that, after Douglas still failed to gain the
necessary votes for nomination on the fifty-seventh ballot, the party adjourned
without a nominee. Reconvening a month
later, they managed to nominate Douglas—but only after a substantial number of
the most radically pro-slavery delegates had walked out due to disagreements
over the party platform.
Ultimately, of course, Lincoln
won, firmly establishing the Republican Party as the successor to the Whigs;
the South seceded; and the progress of the Civil War led to the Emancipation Proclamation
and eventually to the freeing of all slaves.
Once again in my fantasy world,
the GYP party candidate wins in 2024, and ends up sends a resounding number of
federal programs back to the states during his term (though his campaign
promise was limited to a humble vow to balance the budget).
A part of me (probably the part
Treebeard would label “hasty”) enjoys imagining this all happen. It’s tempting to see, in the current Republican
Party, one that—as the Whigs were—is made up of unsustainable coalitions which
need to be realigned. But even if today’s
Republican coalition is unsustainable (and that diagnosis may be more of a wish
than a fact) there is no guarantee that the results of its dissolution for the
country would be anywhere near as salutary as they (eventually) were in the
nineteenth century. There is no reason,
in other words, to think that a better party might rise out of the ashes. And in fact, there are reasons to assume the
contrary.
For one thing, there were no less
than seven parties in 1852, and the American Party did remarkably well in the
1856 campaign, suggesting that there was already a willingness among Americans
to experiment with voting outside of a two party system. We are not so norm-defiant today: not even
Ross Perot’s spoiler in the 1990s quite reached the epic proportions of the
American Party’s success in the South in the 1850s.
It also doubtless helped the burgeoning
Republican party of 1856 and 1860 that the Democrats, as the Whigs had been,
were increasingly divided over slavery.
But the Democratic party of today—despite punishing “front-runner”
candidates like Hillary with insurgents like Bernie—seems to have no great
difficulty in coming to compromise at the end of the day.
More importantly, whereas the
Whigs were specifically divided over slavery, today the Republican Party is
divided on multiple issues—making it more difficult to create a new emergent
coalition if the party were to break down.
It may be that the cry for a smaller federal government could perform a
similar function to the cry to stop the spread of slavery; but I suspect that such
negative messages, while they can
work, tend to fly better when there is a clear human rights aspect. “Stop spreading slavery!” is (and should be!)
a more effective message than “Stop federal encroachment!”
Moreover, the Democratic Party of
today is not so clearly the enemy when it comes to federal encroachment as
Democratic Party of the 1850s was when it came to slavery. While it is true that most Democrats have hardly
seen a government expansion that they don’t like, it is also true that they
don’t advertise this fact as one of their good qualities. The Democratic Party of the 1850s, however,
were proudly and adamantly pro-slavery.
It’s much easier to critique one’s opponents on the basis of a flaw
which they own than on the basis of a
flaw to which they occasionally coyly admit.
Finally and perhaps most
importantly, there does not seem to be any degree of willingness among the Republican
Party leadership to part ways over the issues that divide the party’s
constituents. Republican voters may be
exercised about immigration, abortion, regulation, failures in education, economic
malaise, the collapse of the family, or what have you; but Republican Party
leaders have shown no interest in leaving the party, as Whig leaders were once
willing to do. The “Tea Party,” while a
valiant effort to start the debate on tired political doctrines afresh, has
largely remained subsumed under the Republican banner (though both the
“establishment” Republicans and the “Tea Party” types remain uncomfortable with
the alliance).
Overall, I think our problem is
that there are so many problems—not
just in American government but in American society—that
hoping for them to be altered by a political realignment—as opposed to good
old-fashioned one-on-one proselytizing by individual citizens amongst their
neighbors—is futile. The society of the
1850s was sick when it came to slavery, and the glaring nature of that abuse is
so great that it is almost impossible to compare to any other matter. But our society is sick on a whole range of
things, most of which (with the possible exception of abortion) are less
obviously evil to many than slavery was.
As I suggested above, there might
be hope for a party or a candidate who, consolidating the various issues facing
the party into what seems to be a major concern of many voters—the excessive expansion
of government power—could simultaneously show that the real and potential
abuses produced by a large federal government are in fact problems on the order
of a grave moral evil. But to
convincingly make such a case to the public at large would demand a level of
rhetorical and dialectical eloquence which no candidate in recent years (no,
not even the Great Communicator) has achieved.
And even if a politician were to
make such a case as well as such a case could possibly be made, it still might
fall on deaf ears. For to argue that the
government is taking away your liberty presupposes that you have some
appreciation of and desire for that liberty; and the love of liberty—as opposed
to the love of license—cannot exist in a soul that does not also possess certain
other qualities. Civic virtue is based
on one’s broader moral health; civic virtues cannot exist in a soul that does
not possess moral virtues.
And our culture has lost the moral
virtues. We lack, rather obviously, the virtues
understood as being “religious” or “theological”: faith, hope, and charity. But we also lack the virtues that Nature
herself cries out to us that we need: the cardinal moral virtues of temperance,
prudence, justice, and fortitude. And we
not only lack these virtues: we do not always even admire them anymore. Until
that admiration, at least, is restored, I see no particular reason to look
forward to a change in our political structure, in the vain hope that it might
prove more salutary for our societal health than current arrangements.
“Our Constitution was
made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate
to the government of any other.”—John Adams.
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