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Party Like It’s 1988
Remember how well that went? We should.
Disappointment comes from events failing to meet your expectations, so I understand why many here are disappointed, angry, disheartened, and depressed. Plenty of folks hoped and expected that Tuesday night would end You-Know-Who. But I am not disappointed in the slightest with the results because I’d been expecting them for months. This is not to say I rejoice in them, am satisfied with them, or relish them in any way; merely, that I was prepared for them. And really, everyone else should have been prepared, too. We are seeing echoes of 1988.
Amidst all of the crushed optimism and the pronouncements that “this is the strongest field we’ve had in years,” our side has consistently overlooked something very important: That the people of the United States of America freely elected Barack Obama in 2008 and then — despite the ruinous havoc he and his party wreaked upon our economy, culture, freedoms, and the very rule of law — re-elected him four years later. The American people chose Obama twice. Moreover, they saw what we were selling and decided to pass, also twice. And if I am reading things correctly, they are prepared to do it a third time.
I imagine this is how the Democrats felt in 1988. They were utterly convinced that — with eight years of that horrible, demonic, senile demagogue Reagan behind them — their message would at last be heard. After all, they had controlled the House for all of Reagan’s term, and the Senate for six of those years. Surely the nation was tired of Reagan and would embrace their enlightened message, especially if it came packaged with a young, heart-throbish, charismatic candidate named Gary Hart. Yes, the field was crowded, but it was the strongest they’d had in years. Optimism ran high that the party and nation would come together in a referendum to repudiate the prior eight years.
Nothing went as planned.
For starters, there were too many candidates (nicknamed, for a time, “Snow White and Seven Dwarfs”) and they were all of the sort we would find familiar today: a mix of ideologues, hacks, in-it-for-vanity types, and improbable long shots. Hart, the hope of many, was embarrassed out of the race before the primaries even began (though he later tried to jump back in). Of the strongest at the start of the primaries, we had a matchup of Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Jesse Jackson, Paul Simon, and, of course, Michael Dukakis. Jackson and Gore would take most of the southern states in a manner reminiscent of Huckabee decades later. Gephardt squeezed a few wins in, and even Paul Simon got a state. Dukakis — probably the worst imaginable representative for the party due to his utter lack of charisma and doctrinaire liberalism — won just enough states at just the right times to win the nomination with a plurality of votes. He was the purest liberal, at a time when the party demanded ideological purity (thinking this was what the electorate wanted).
As you may recall, he won a mere seven states in the general election that November.
You see, the Democrats had convinced themselves that — because everyone else must hate Reagan as much as they did — all they needed to do was make their case and the electorate would call on them to rescue the nation and save its soul. They utterly failed to consider that the American people hadn’t been bamboozled and actually chose Reagan three times (once via proxy) because they honestly wanted to.
But, of course, George H. W. Bush was no Reagan. He lacked the old man’s charm, convictions, and ability to troll the Democrats. With the help of Perot’s wildcard candidacy in 1992, the Democrats finally came back into power.
We are now experiencing our own version of 1988. We have had a crowded field, ideologically pure candidates (Rubio and Cruz), and a hotly-contested primary with the leading candidate someone winning by pluralities. Moreover, we are failing to grasp — and forgive me the repetition — that the electorate freely chose Obama twice, and seems to be looking for his successor, either to cement his ideological legacy (Hillary Clinton) or someone to rule, like Obama, with pen, phone, and bluster.
We should also grasp that, like Bush 41, this successor is inheriting a whirlwind of events and may not last beyond a single term. The debt crisis ever looms. The world order of the last 20 years is crumbling. The economy is in poor shape. The electorate is more fractured than perhaps any time since the 1850s. Obama’s coalition will not hold together in the hands of anyone less capable, and the Trump coalition has its own deep fault lines and capacity for self sabotage.
A lot can happen between now and the convention, of course, and Cruz or Rubio may indeed prevail over Trump and win the nomination. But looking ahead, we need to learn what the Democrats failed to learn in 1988: Our party, despite holding Congress, is ideologically out of step with the nation. The electorate is not buying what we are selling. No matter how disastrous we think the last eight years have been, the American people chose it, re-affirmed that choice, and seem poised to do it again.
But, as with Bush 41, either Clinton or Trump will have to reap events they are not prepared to face and — in another four years — our party may learn what it needs to win.
Published in History, Politics
Huh. My second guess would been the bullpen.
Points about Trump himself aside, the core issue goes back to this: The GOP is not selling its ideas very effectively, and the electorate seemingly wants a strongman or thug in the executive.
WC, I brought up Pinochet to knock him down – that is not what people are interested in when they support Trump (again, caveat that nothing is monolithic including Trump’s supporters and some may indeed be stimulated by Pinochet).
Otherwise I blew by the statement about limiting principles because it applies to everyone. We don’t really know anyone beyond what they say, and disagreeing with conservatism is not prima facie evidence if fascism or burgeoning murderous characteristics.
Beyond a basic setting that I require positive proof of his desire/intention to dispose of people in order to overcome the presumption of paranoia in such claims, he’s further limited by what limits all other Americans: law, checks and balances, and elections.
I recognize that. I get that most people neither know or care why that’s antithetical to our Founding Principles. And that’s not completely the Republican’s fault — our teachers bear a lot of blame too. Yet another reason to homeschool. And frankly, those who support Trump out of ignorance aren’t the ones who bug me so much.
But conservatives are supposed to be the people care about the Constitution, who don’t put their faith in princes.
Now we’re getting somewhere: petty and vindictive are much more believable and effective criticisms than worrying about disposing of opponents. I agree those are both more than likely true. However, I believe that most politicians have both of those in spades and more to boot. So what? As much as I don’t want that in my friend, I can also see how it comes in handy on the field.
As far as “he doesn’t seem to feel that laws ought to restrain him” – well that’s not as bad as calling him a murderer-in-waiting but I think that’s a stretch too.
I don’t think that’s obviously true, and it also depends on what you mean by strongman. If you mean it along the lines that WC and Amy have been using it on this thread then I don’t think most people want anything like that. If you mean it like President Camacho from Idiocracy then I don’t think people want that either.
Then why is he being sued for fraud over his Trump University scam?
Oh boy, if getting sued were evidence of feeling like the law shouldn’t constrain you, then it’s a wonder we’ve managed to avoid rule by the brownshirts for son long.
Even if Trump is legitimately in the wrong on Trump University, that still isn’t evidence that he thinks the law shouldn’t constrain him. He’s in court defending himself, isn’t he? If he loses he’ll end up paying out as ordered, won’t he?
It’s not just that. It’s him settling cases with attorneys general to avoid prosecution. It’s him getting his own libel case thrown out because he refused to provide unaltered tax returns that would prove that the defendants had misstated his personal wealth. He has a pattern of doing whatever he wants and when the courts interferes, he just pays them off.
Ok, then once again stick to the legitimate criticisms like cronyism instead of making overly broad statements like “he doesn’t seem to feel that laws ought to restrain him” because that is a matter of opinion at best whereas cronyism is fact.
Although, settling cases isn’t necessarily an example of cronyism either. Two bit criminals do it too, as do innocent people who don’t want to risk losing and getting a worse punishment. These are hardly cronyism in action.
There is a side point here that could just as easily be made during any other anti-Trump discussion or post – whom are you trying to persuade, or are you merely lamenting? Most people on Rico in particular are loudly and frequently condemning and mocking Trump and decrying his supporters – to what avail? Getting worked up over Trump’s many failings is not going to move the needle here. Better to learn the lessons of why has succeeded thus far, and why Rubio and Cruz have not, and apply those lessons to the battles yet to come. That was one of the points of my post in the first place.
We do not need to argue anymore about what kind of man is Trump. I have laid out here and elsewhere, at length, the sources of Trump’s appeal, and how to deal with his supporters. Deal with what is, not with what you wish it to be. Stick to the facts on the ground and needed strategies, and spare the laments and anger.
Agreed. First step is to reel in the excess because there is no learning going on when there is also a fear that he will round up opponents to dispose of them or when the only lessons agreed upon are that the electorate is craven or stupid. Trump has at least some overlap with conservatism, and that’s a hard pill for people to swallow especially after things like the NR Against Trump issue and all the he’s a fascist stuff.
From your keyboard to god’s inbox.
Inshah’allah.
But that’s legal, yes?
Thank you Aaron! People! Play with this! You can blow his hair sideways and make his eyes spin. (I feel like a 5 year-old)
And if you tap fast it blows confetti !!!!
I brought up “round up his opponents and dispose of them” to knock it down, too. You’ve been putting the word “fascist” in my mouth. I’ve also said people are interested in supporting Trump to push back against Obama and the Left. Repeatedly.
Maybe you’d prefer we use the term “tough guy” over “strongman.” I’d be okay with that if Trump weren’t so thin-skinned. To me, “bully” still works best [He’s like Obama that way, but on the opposite side of some issues (immigration, trade?, strong military). He’s on the same side as Obama when it comes to the individual mandate/single payer, campaign finance (just listening to him today), and isn’t credible on others — abortion, for example)] .
I just want us to be honest about the character of the man we’re voting for.
But, I think you have a different agenda. Are you trying to keep Republicans in the fold? I’m sympathetic to that. I change my mind about withholding my vote from Trump about twenty times a day. I understand wanting to do almost anything to beat Felony. And I’m not a fan of empty gestures.
Fantastic post.
We can enter the convention with conservatives having more delegates than Trump, then negotiate. If it’s Trump we must have the Court and Treasury, perhaps State. If not we’ll need to know what gets us Trump’s support. The next administration will indeed face economic challenges and the more it fixes things, the worse it could be. Like the Democrats, Trump or the others for that matter, may prefer stagnation as it’s safer and personally more lucrative in the short run. Trump is obviously not up to it and could go off in nationalistic militaristic directions were he to face rampant inflation followed by a serious recession.
Great post.
We are as far from Reagan’s election as Reagan’s election was from the end of World War II. It can’t be any wonder that the coalition he assembled rose, grew, corrupted itself, then splintered? Key battles were won, the world has changed, but a large, diverse, and growing professional conservative class remains.
The conservative movement is now a large, brittle conglomerate. Trump and the seventeen candidate field finally shattered it.
1988 has always stuck with me because it was the first election to which I paid any attention – it was the beginning of my becoming a political junkie. I was 12, which ought to say something of my early interests.
1988 also represents a high water mark of sorts for Republicans – hence the constant references to “what would Reagan do?” around conservative writing.
But, as you say, 1988 is as far from us today as WWII was from 1988, and (though this is a subject for a different post) we must get out from under Reagan’s shadow. Reagan was a high water mark, to be sure, but so was FDR for the Democrats (with Kennedy being a near miss in their memories). It arguably took the Democrats until 1992 to get out from under FDR’s shadow, and face the world and modern economics as it had been remade. 1988 was, for them, their last big crack at trying to run on FDR-type policies. I see in Cruz and Rubio still the same echoes vis. Reagan.
Given the hagiographic depictions of Obama, his very real domination of his party, and that, as a young-ish man he will be around to physically haunt the party for another 30-40 years, I suspect that the Democrats will themselves be dominated by the memories of his presidency for decades yet to come, even as the world moves on.
The Democrats only controlled the Senate for 2 years, not 6 years of Reagan’s presidency — four years with Howard Baker and two years with Bob Dole. Many of the weaker GOP candidates that were spent into office due to disgust with Jimmy Carter lost election in 1986; my home state of Missouri was the only one to switch in the other direction that year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_1986
…
I was thinking about the 1988 election regarding Cruz and Rubio. In 1988, the ridiculed Dan Quayle won his home state while Mr. Gravitis Lloyd Bentsen lost his home state.
But there was someone else from Texas, you say — the GOP candidate George H. W. Bush. That doesn’t matter when you are trying to win an election.
Is Rubio going to say the same thing about Trump who has a home in Florida, if he loses his home state of Florida?
Yes, even my dad–who worked for JFK–finally broke down and voted for Bush 41. I remember walking to the polls with him and assuming he’d voted Dukakis. Nope…the Duke was an embarrassment not worthy of his vote.
I look at Clinton as an echo of Reagan as much as an answer to Reagan. Never mind the policy stuff: Bubba was a small town boy with a tough upbringing who made good.
But after sixteen years of Bush and Obama, no one buys a Horatio Alger story anymore. Bush was an elite who played at everyman, and Obama is an affirmative action baby who got all the breaks. Why not a guy who was wired for success, but looks like a traitor to his class?
Which brings us back to FDR.
WC, I’m not putting anything into your mouth. The whole reason I commented in the first place is because “strongman”, as used in the context it’s been used here, means exactly something like a Pinochet or a Papa Doc or somebody like that. All I’m saying is that that is paranoid exaggeration based on an intense dislike of the man. I understand the intense dislike, but I think the paranoia and exaggeration are counterproductive.
Great. I’m all for it. Exaggeration doesn’t help. I’m not pinning this to you, by the way. Just general pushback against terms like strongman and thug and sincere worries about him rounding up opponents and disposing of them. Hell, I’d bet he has rubbed up against organized crime (construction industry in NY probably can’t avoid it); if he wanted to dispose of people I think he probably had plenty of opportunity.
Based on nothing more than his behavior in the debates, this strikes me as extremely overgenerous.