In today’s Washington Post, David Broder makes an excellent argument for the proposition that America’s two party system is broken, with the public distrusting Democrats as much as they do Republicans.
Broder starts by restating the events that led to the Democratic rout of 1994:
To understand why the level of public disillusionment with politics is so high in this country right now, it helps to go back a dozen years.
The Democrats took power in 1993 with a young and obviously talented Bill Clinton succeeding George H.W. Bush, who seemingly had played out the string on the shift to conservative government Ronald Reagan launched in 1980. Clinton took office as a plurality president, but with Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate seemingly primed for action.
His first year did not go well. His first budget — with a tax increase for top-bracket earners and benefits for lower-income families — barely survived in Congress. He found himself snarled in unproductive fights over gays in the military and other side issues, and in the fall, his big initiatives — reorganization of government, approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement and passage of health care reform — were piling up in Congress.
By the spring of his second year, the most politically important of those priorities — the overhaul of the health care delivery system — was hopelessly mired in committee, unable to muster enough support even to bring it to a floor vote in the House or Senate. The problem that Clinton had recognized as most disturbing for families, for business and for all levels of government was left to fester, unsolved.
What that meant, of course, was a disillusioned Democratic Party which had hoped Clinton would be the man to lead them out of the wilderness of a 25 year period that saw the Democrats control the White House for only 4 years. That, combined with an energized Republican opposition led to what can only be described as a political revolution in 1994, with the GOP gaining control of both Houses of Congress. The Democrats, Broder argues, are still feeling the consequences of this defeat:
The lingering effects of that failure in one-party Democratic government are still felt. While Clinton was able to win a second term and to avoid conviction on the Lewinsky scandal impeachment charges, he was never again able — while campaigning for himself or others — to persuade voters to entrust his party with the reins of government.
At some level, the message that many voters took away from the experience was that Democrats may talk a good game, but they don’t deliver. It has not helped that the subsequent Democratic nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry, were people who had built their careers in the Senate, a place where the public knows that talk is cheap and action rare.
And, now, the Republicans find themselves in a remarkably similar position to the Democrats in 1994:
Well, as promised, taxes have been cut, more for the wealthy than for others, but that promise has been kept. The overall economy has grown, but — in part because of tax policy — the gap between the rich and the rest has increased. The nation, caught unawares, has suffered a grievous homeland attack, and the chief instigator of that Sept. 11 savagery remains at large. We have invaded two countries seeking out terrorists — and years later, violence continues to cost the lives of Americans trying to pacify both Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Bush’s chief domestic initiative — reform of the Social Security system — suffered the same fate as Clinton’s health care effort: so little agreement within his own party that he was never even able to bring it to a vote.
And, more importantly, the Congressional Republicans who came in to office in 1994 opposing the arrogance of power of the Democratic leadership have themselves become arrogant leaders who have abandoned their principles:
Meanwhile, after 11 years of unbroken majority, congressional Republicans are displaying the same personal arrogance (in grabbing for favors) and the same penchant for petty scandals that plagued the Democrats after their 40-year run.
There is one difference. Congressional Republicans by and large have maintained greater cohesion and discipline than did the Democrats under Clinton. But the price has been subservience to White House whims and wishes. This has been the most compliant congressional leadership in modern times, one that until very recently was unwilling or incapable of asserting itself against even a minor presidential preference.
But the GOP Congress has begun asserting its independence from the White House to a degree unseen in the 5 years Bush has been President. One need only point to the Harriet Miers debacle for confirmation of that fact.
So, here we are with a Democratic Party that has no ideas except being anti-Republican and a Republican Party that has seriously lost its way. And, as Broder asks:
When both parties have lost public confidence, where do voters turn?
In 1992, they turned to Ross Perot, who turned out to be a megalomaniac and false prophet and, at present, it seems unlikely that a viable third party will arise any time soon. More likely than not, the answer to Broder’s question will be record-low turn out in the mid-term elections in 2006.
Linked with Don Surber and The Political Teen and Basil’s Blog and TMH’s Bacon Bits and Outside The Beltway
