Why the Generational Theory Works

I come in for criticism here when pointing to the Generational Theory of politics. Today the blog Hullaballoo has a wonderful illustration of why the theory holds.

Digby is complaining about Chris Matthews, a "onetime aide to Tip O’Neill" who now runs the show Hardball. Matthews pretends to be a liberal, but in fact he is constantly spewing right-wing talking points as gospel, and nods agreeably when his guests do the same.

This is not, I submit, because Chris Matthews is evil. Nor is it because he’s an idiot. It’s because he is a product of his times. At nearly 60, he has seen Republicans frame and dominate political discussions for his entire adult life. It is so ingrained in him that he can’t imagine that not being the case.

This is precisely my point.

Beliefs are forged in a crisis. Beliefs consist of myths and values based on those myths. The myths and values aren’t just internalized by the majority, but by everyone, including those who disagree with the policies. When the myth is deployed, the knees jerk, and the belief system is sustained.

This is what happened in 2004. The Nixon Myth held, in part because Democrats made the mistake of nominating a man whose entire political career had been lived in opposition to that myth, John Kerry.

This happens in every generation. This was the force behind the Johnson Landslide — everyone internalized the New Deal myth and when Johnson presented it (in the form of the Daisy commercial) the knees jerked in unison. This is why Herbert Hoover beat Al Smith in 1928, because he represented the dominant myth. This is how Benjamin Harrison beat Grover Cleveland in 1888, and why we had Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. (Hint: Pierce’s nickname was "Young Hickory of the Berkshires.")

They had a name for this in Cleveland’s time, when the Civil War myth dominated American political thought. It was called Waving the Bloody Shirt.

The bloody shirt represented the Civil War dead. (Here it is being used by Thomas Nast in 1876.)  The Democrats had
either appeased Confederates during the Civil War or had been
Confederates outright. The Bloody Shirt worked for a generation, and it allowed Republicans to rule in
a corrupt Gilded Age manner until the 1890s.

That’s precisely what Swiftboating was. It worked because the knees were prepared to jerk in response to the stimuli. It was the Bloody Shirt.

But at some point, a political myth outlives its usefulness. This is
what the 1890s were about. This is what the Great Depression was about.
This is what the late 1960s were all about. The old political myth
died, because the lessons of one generation fail when the problems
fundamentally change.

This is what is happening right now. The Nixon Theory of Conflict
doesn’t work against Iraq. It doesn’t work against global warming. It
has been pursued to its natural, surreal conclusion. It can go no
further.

Yet for the generation in Washington that has made a living off
this myth for its entire career — both Democratic and Republican —
it’s the only prism they have to see events. So they use it.

This is why it is so vital that a new myth be crafted, one that
works for our times, that works on our problems. This is what my Open
Source Thesis is all about, using the new values of this medium —
connectivity, openness, cooperation — to address the real problems of
today and tomorrow.

But we won’t be able to make people like Chris Matthews see it.
Ever. Stop pretending that we will. He is like a native on the beach at
Hispanola, in 1492, and Columbus’ longboats are coming ashore. He can’t
see them because he has no concept such things can exist.