There are actually two Democratic Parties:
- The Washington Party is accustomed to losing, and offers an Anti-Thesis to the dominant Nixon Thesis.
- The Netroots Party is tired of losing, and seeks a new Thesis to destroy the Nixon Thesis.
The Nixon Thesis, remember, is a Thesis of conflict, of enemies within and without. It’s the set of political assumptions that have dominated America for nearly 40 years. It’s all the Washington Party knows. The Netroots Party understands, instinctively, that the Thesis needs to be overthrown. The Washington Party resists this, afraid of again walking into the trap the Thesis was designed around.
It’s important to note, however, that none of this is new. As we came
upon every generational crisis in our past, there was division on how
to attack it:
- Republicans were split in precisely this way in 1966, with
"movement conservatives" bemoaning the weakness they saw in leaders
like Everett Dirksen and Gerald Ford. - Democrats were split in precisely this way in 1930, between
Southern Populists such as Huey Long and neo-Progressives like Franklin
Roosevelt. - Both parties were split in 1894, Democrats falling to Populists,
Republicans divided between regulars and reformers known as "Mugwumps."
In all these times there was a fear that freedom would not continue,
that incumbents would act ruthlessly to retain power. Just like today.
And it’s important to realize that these fears were realized after
1858, in the form of the Civil War.
But in every case, in each and every case, a new Political Thesis
emerged from the crisis which lasted for a generation. And it came from
the new force within the opposition party. It came from the Goldwater
Conservatives (who had never held power before), from the
neo-progressives of the 1930s (who had never held power), from the
Populists and Progressives (who had never held power) from the
Republicans (who had never existed).
Why is this so inevitable, so certain?
