THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF AMERICA

• First, a comment on the dominant ideology of the political culture.  David Brooks has written a powerful editorial that captures this shift in dominant ideologies.  Between 1932 and 1968, liberalism dominated American politics.  The major achievements of this period were Social Security, Medicare, and the civil rights movement, to name a few.  Between 1980 and 2006, conservative ideology was dominant.  The major accomplishments of this period were the defeat of communism, the reinvigoration of the economy through deregulation, tax reform and the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, and the emphasis of key values that impact family, work and individual responsibility.  However, in between these two periods was a short period of no dominant ideology.  The 1970s are an example of this.  There was disillusionment and a mixing of the categories of right and left, with a listless quality to the political culture.  It would seem, Brooks argues, that we are about to enter another one of those periods where no ideology is dominant, for clearly, the recent election marked the end of conservative dominance.  Why?

1. Conservatives have exhausted their agenda.  They have lost their edge on fiscal discipline and foreign policy.  Conservatives have little to offer in this stage of the political game.



2. Scandals now characterize conservatism.  This is the “kind of institutional decay that afflicts movements at the end of their political lives.” 



3. The Reagan coalition is clearly splintering.  The best example of this is the significant success of the Democratic Party in the West, once a bastion of Reagan conservatism.



4. There is at this point no viable conservative candidate for the 2008 presidential election.  Bill Frist, Rick Santorum and George Allen are gone—and McCain, Giuliani and Mitt Romney do not fit the typical conservative definition.



5. The center of the political culture is shifting.  In the liberal era, the urban Northeast dominated the political landscape.  In the conservative era, the South and the West were dominant.  In this new era, the West and the Midwestern plains will be dominant.

What will be the defining problems of this new era where no ideology is dominant?

1. Obviously, terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism will be paramount.



2. Entitlement spending and the ineffective and irresponsible nature of government.



3. Internationally, the emergence and China and India will dramatically affect the economic devotement of the US.  The outsourcing of jobs, tougher competition and the extreme fiscal imbalances with China will all shape the American economy.



4. The critical importance of stable families and the effect on children.  Whoever is in power in this time of transition must not lose sight of this reality.

The absence of a dominant ideology will lead to pragmatism and an emphasis on simply what works.  That has its benefits and its great dangers.  With the absence of any governing ideology, America may be entering a dangerous period where a radical pragmatism will drive policy decisions and ethics within this political culture.  History does not look with favor upon decisions and polices that are made purely for pragmatic reasons.  See Brooks’s insightful analysis in the New York Times (26 October 2006).

• Second is the political culture and Iraq.  Tom Friedman, in a recent editorial, suggested that Iraq is “so broken it can’t have a proper civil war.  There are so many people killing so many other people for so many different reasons—religion, crime, politics—that all the proposals for how to settle this problem seem laughable.”  Iraq is divided among warlords, foreign terrorists, gangs, militias, parties, the police and the army, such that in many ways, it has moved a stage beyond civil war.  The moment the US leaves Iraq, the nation will collapse.  A self-sustained, stable Iraq seems beyond reach for the near future.  Citing Lawrence Harrison’s argument about the difference between “progressive-prone” and “progressive-resistant” nations, Freidman contends that Iraq is progressive-resistant and it therefore seems impossible to establish durable democratic institutions within Iraq.  It was, after all, Tom Friedman who used the metaphor of the pottery store to describe Iraq.  He argued in 2003 that if we break Iraq we will own it.  He now suggests that he was wrong, for Iraq was broken before we entered on the scene—“broken, it seems, by 1,000 years of Arab-Muslim authoritarianism, three brutal decades of Sunni Baathist rule, and a crippling decade of UN sanctions.  It was held together only by Saddam’s iron fist.”  The American “fist” cannot hold this broken nation together.  “That vacuum [the collapse of Saddam] was filled by murderous Sunni Baathists and al Qaeda types, who butchered Iraqi Shiites until they finally wouldn’t take it any longer and started butchering back, which brought us to where we are today.”  The driving consensus of all these murderous factions is that America must fail!!  America must fail in its efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East.  Its brand of progressive political culture must fail—and we must do everything to ensure that failure.  So, the US has two choices:  Either agree to phase out within 10 months, or agree to stay in Iraq 10 years to rebuild the nation from the bottom up.  The American political culture will not sustain a 10 year commitment, so the only option seems to be a phased withdrawal over the next 10 months.  It is quite frankly difficult for me to see the results of our short-term withdrawal as positive.  An already broken Iraq will further deteriorate into bloodshed and anarchy until a strongman emerges to fill the vacuum.  That strongman will either be a Shiite aligned with Iran, or a Sunni.  See Friedman’s analysis in the New York Times (30 November 2006).