“Mr. Head Democrat”: The Future of American Politics
September 9th, 2010 // 11:39 am @ Oliver DeMille
In my recent book, The Coming Aristocracy, I wrote that the United States now lives in the era of the permanent campaign.
A young pollster in the Carter administration, Patrick Caddell, coined the term back in 1976, and he hit the nail right on the head. America used to gear up for campaigns, elect one of the candidates, and then settle down to let the winner lead the nation.
Not anymore.
Now we elect a candidate and then immediately increase the fervor of the debate. We pick sides before an election, and once the election is over we get really serious about the fight.
In the modern era of politics since Watergate, this permanent battle trend has continually increased. It is a new kind of politics, where few things are about leadership or wisdom and everything is about beating the other side.
In the last presidential campaign, I expected Senator Clinton to win the election — and I was surprised when Barack Obama took his party’s nomination. I quickly set out to learn everything I could about him, from original sources — his writings, speeches and public utterances.
What I found was interesting: Obama’s pre-presidential record and especially his book, The Audacity of Hope, was a blend of dynamic-populist leadership with an old-line liberal politics. The Democratic Party hadn’t seen that mixture since JFK.
My prediction was that Obama’s populism would him bring him a victory and then we’d see whether he emphasized leadership or liberalism. If he emphasized the leadership aspect, I said, he would become one of the great presidents of American history.
It was Leader Obama versus Politician Obama, and I was very interested to see which one would win out in the realities of modern Washington.
Three Americas
So far Politician Obama has dominated. This leaves the United States in an interesting place. In fact, it changes everything.
If you watched the historic night of the 2008 election and listened to the now-famous “Yes We Can” speech, you may not realize that this was the height of the Leader Obama.
Politician Obama has changed everything since that night.
For example, Leader Obama did something truly amazing in the modern political era — he carried a majority of the wealthy voters (those who make over $200,000 per year). He was the first Democrat to do so in the post-Watergate era, and this amazing statistic seemed to indicate a new type of politics ahead.
But his hard shift to the left after inauguration has changed this dynamic.
Note that the change isn’t among conservatives — they never liked him and few voted for him. The shift is in the 39% of the voting population that now don’t want to be called either liberals or conservatives.
This tri-lateral divide of the American political landscape is fascinating. There are roughly 28% of us who would donate to the Sierra Club, a competing 28% who would donate to The National Rifle Association, and a whopping 39% made up of two kinds of people: those who would donate to neither, and those who would donate to both!
We have the liberals in one camp, the conservatives in another, and in the largest faction we find a mixed group called independents. The far left and extreme right form their own small camps at the fringes.
“Mr. Head Democrat”
When President Obama took office he had a 70% approval rating — liberals, most of the far left, and nearly all of the independents. By September 1, 2009 his approval rating was down to 50%.
This is the biggest fall in the history of new presidents in so short a time, as David Brooks recently wrote in The New York Times. Brooks also noted that national anxiety is higher now than before Obama took office, and 59% of Americans now think the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Three events have underscored just how wide the divide in our nation has become. First was the outcry against President Obama’s address to school children — clearly many saw him as a politician rather than their president.
Second was the surprising money-raising power generated by Congressmen Wilson shouting “you lie” during the President’s speech (which the Senate rewarded by promptly adopting what Wilson was promoting with the outburst).
Third was the interesting way that President Obama managed to use his speech on health care to effectively accomplish two things: appear totally in charge and at the same time give up on many of the main points the Obama Administration had earlier supported (e.g. deficit spending on health care, no capped tax exemptions on health care, and raising taxes on the rich to pay for health care, etc.).
The strategy seems to be to get any bill called “Health Care” to pass.
These three concurrent events all point to one thing: President Obama is seen less as President of the United States and more as the Head Democrat. Politician over leader.
Ironically, this was the same story in the Bush Administration. Conservatives saw him as the President and liberals as the Head Republican. Today the roles are reversed.
But the telling point is how independents see the president. When they see a president as leader, popularity and support soars; the opposite occurs when independents see a president as politician.
Independent Power
The power resides in the independents, though neither major party has yet to admit it. Independents want three main things:
- Wise use of money by government.
- Strong national defense.
- Decentralization of power along with maintenance of state, local and individual powers.
Independents are more pragmatic than ideological, they don’t engage in emotional party-supporting, and they just want things to work.
Independents want to be safe from international and terrorist attacks, free, and prosperous. They want a strong government that does certain things very well and leaves the rest to the state, local or private sectors.
When the Bush Administration started its tenure with these goals, it won the conservative and independent votes and support, but lost independents when it turned to big government answers and huge spending increases (much higher than Clinton Administration budgets) in its final term.
When Leader Obama promised to cut foreign spending and bring a new era of real leadership to Washington, independents supported his candidacy against the daunting possibility of continued Bush-like policies under McCain.
Where liberals voted for Obama in the 2008 election, many independents voted more against Bush/McCain.
Later, as President Obama shelved his Leadership hat and flexed his Liberal-Partisanship muscles, independents were disappointed and reluctantly began to wane in their support for the Obama Administration. This trend is just getting started.
Independents are also withdrawing their support from the Democratic Congress — as they watch it too turn to party politics and shun leadership.
Of course, liberals still consider the President a great leader, as many conservatives did even when President Bush tried to spend and regulate his way to popularity.
But independents aren’t tied to any one party. They want results, and they’ll support candidates, Presidents and other officials who get the results they seek.
In this environment, leadership means getting support for your projects from your own party plus independents. Anything else fails.
Three issues drive presidential politics in the U.S.: national security, the economy, and a sense of leadership. Win two, and you win the presidency. Win three, like the Republicans did with Reagan and the Democrats did with Obama, and you win the Congress too.
In the fall of 2009, President Obama is winning only one — the leadership thing — and this because he is a superb speaker, and so far independents see no true alternative to his leadership.
He must pass a health care bill, no matter what it actually does or says, just to maintain this leadership edge. Lose that, and the nation will return to a Carter-like period of no-trust and malaise.
A Tipping Point Trend
Of course, liberals naturally think President Obama is winning all three and conservatives say he is losing them all. That’s normal.
The fact that he has also lost the majority support of independents is the issue. He won on the leadership thing, but has turned increasingly politician ever since.
This rise of the independents is creating an interesting tension between the two-party system and the voting electorate.
If the Obama Administration backs away from hard-line liberalism, the expansion of government, and attempting to solve everything through increased regulation, and instead emphasizes leadership and pragmatic policies that really work, independents will swing Democrat in the polls and future elections. If not, they won’t.
Either way, the power of the independents will increase the divide between the left and the right. Indeed, divisiveness is a hallmark of an era of shifting like the one we are experiencing.
The first two such shifts in American history created a new political party — the Democratic Republicans in 1798 and later the Republicans in 1856.
The last time we faced such a major shift we totally restructured government power by creating the Social Security Administration, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, a host of secretive agencies in Washington, and a drastic increase in government regulations and red tape.
Whatever the current shift brings, let’s hope for more of a Freedom Shift than a transfer of more power to Washington.
Some may say that a rebirth of freedom is too hard, that we can’t do it. Our response should be, “Yes we can.”
In truth, it is a matter of leadership over politics.
If independents keep being stifled in both of the major parties, their frustration will continue to grow.
When they side with the Democrats, the result is usually more spending on national programs that further undermine America’s fiscal strength, free-market system, and national defense.
When they side with Republicans, the result has been increased spending on international projects and even corrupt governance that weakens the economy, freedom, and American power.
In short, at some point independents are likely to either totally reform one of the parties or just start their own.
Investing in the Future
On a personal level, many independents are investing in gold (which always seems to increase in value when the government spends beyond its means) and McDonald’s (which grows when the economy is booming and keeps growing internationally even when the U.S. economy recedes).
On a national level, during a time of shifting it is natural to see people a little confused about where they stand. After all, the constants they have believed probably don’t apply anymore.
For example, Republicans are no longer the party of the rich and Democrats have quit being the party of the little guy. Also, voters can no longer count on the old certainties that Republicans want to reduce the size of government and Democrats want to decrease foreign involvements and focus on domestic policy.
Indeed, now both Republicans and Democrats drastically increase government spending and foreign entanglements — whoever is in office.
Learning From Both Sides
I once invited a regional politician, a well-known liberal and vocal Democrat, to speak at a graduation ceremony. His speech was liberal and, well, liberal.
Afterwards conservatives railed and argued for days about my selection of speaker. The students, in contrast, learned a great deal and the speech provided material for many long discussions and assignments.
A few liberals congratulated me on our selection of speaker, but conservatives called with their frustration. A few donors even stopped sending contributions.
A few years later we invited a conservative talk-show host to speak, and the entire process repeated itself — this time the conservatives were happy, the liberals were upset, and once again the students and anyone willing to relax and listen learned a great deal.
The most intriguing lessons from both of these events came from the few who made a point of really listening and learning from views not naturally their own. We often learn more in our disagreements than from those who just repeat what we already believe.
Nearly all who closely listened and learned from the speaker of a differing viewpoint exhibited the basic views of independents. This is a rising power in America, as of yet mostly unnoticed, but sure to shift everything in the years ahead.
Winning Elections Through Leadership
I doubt that any U.S. President, liberal or conservative, will be seen by the nation any time soon as truly “Mr. President” rather than “Mr. Head Democrat or Republican.”
When it does happen, it will be because Mr. or Madam President drops partisan politics and adopts the values of independents: strong national defense, a free economic system that spurs prosperity, and a strong and active government that does what it should and also leaves the rest to state, local and private entities.
I look forward to being led by a President, current or future, whose policies win the long-term support of Party + Independents. That’s leadership. Anything else is merely partisan politics.
Frankly, the next election feels a long ways away, and I hope President Obama will shed his partisan hat and take on the mantle of leadership that comes through so clearly in his book The Audacity of Hope. (I had the same hope with President Bush and his promise of compassionate conservatism, but it never materialized).
If not, other elections will come and the biggest block of voting Americans will go searching for a leader who will finally represent their goals. Whatever happens in elections, this growing group is poised to remake the future of American politics.
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Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Education &Featured &Government &Independents &Liberty &Politics
What Does the Health Care Law Really Mean?
March 27th, 2010 // 1:28 pm @ Oliver DeMille
If you listen to conservative leaders or Fox News, the passage of the Health Care bill that President Obama signed into law is, and I quote, “the apocalypse.”
Democrats and MSNBC, on the other hand, are hailing it as everything from the greatest legislative accomplishment since Civil Rights to a modest first step in a long line of needed government interventions in our society.
Pundits from the right are calling it the advent of a new era of worsened socialism, while liberal icons like Al Sharpton say that if it is socialism, then we voted for socialism in the last election—because the Obama Administration is simply delivering what Candidate Obama promised.
The sides are as furiously divided as when Jefferson and Hamilton laid into one another or when Nixon left office.
Liberals announce that Republicans hate children and families (or they would have supported the Health Care Bill) while Tea Parties urge their supporters, “Don’t Retreat; Reload!” Weekly network and cable news shows are full of experts heatedly or rapturously speaking in extreme terms—depending on which party they support.
As for the official political parties, they are vocally gearing up for the 2010 mid-term elections. One side claims the momentum of victory, while the other promises to “Repeal and Replace” the new Health Care law—and both provide long anecdotal lists of offenses as they protest the lack of civility.
But what does this all mean for the regular people, citizens, families, entrepreneurs, small businesses and workers of America? News reports, periodicals and websites from both sides of the aisle and numerous other organizations give answers to this question. Again, those that lean left tend to expound the great benefits of the new law while those that tend right outline its failures and even perils.
A Different Viewpoint
I’m coming at this from a totally different outlook. I’m hoping that all of us, whatever our political views, will realize that the passing of the Health Care law signals something much bigger than political parties. It is even bigger than the future of our economy, or of liberalism or conservatism.
It isn’t Armageddon, and it’s not the end of our challenges and time to wildly celebrate. It’s something different, something very real, and something every American should know about.
One of the great imperatives of a classical leadership education is innoculation against the political or expedient fury of the moment, to acclimatize the individual to a broader view in the context of history and principle—because as important as any event may be, it is best understood in the larger perspective of broad historical flows, patterns, waves and cycles. The passage of Health Care is no exception.
Indeed, the one thing that both sides and pretty much all independents and moderates agree upon is that passage of the Health Care law is incredibly important. This is true. It becomes even more significant to us when we see its real place in the patterns of history. So, what are the broader patterns and trends that point to the real significance of this law?
The Fourth Turning
For well over a decade I have been recommending a modern classic by the name of The Fourth Turning
For those who have never read it: authors William Strauss and Neil Howe describe a historical cycle where periods of Crisis are followed by a new Founding, then an Awakening where people challenge the principles of the Founding, then an Unraveling where two sides engage in culture wars, and finally another Crisis.
Then the pattern repeats—again and again for centuries of recorded history, and likely before.
Strauss and Howe call each phase of the cycle a “turning,” with Founding eras as first turning, Awakening and then Unraveling periods as second and third turnings, and Crisis eras as fourth turnings. Each era, as they documented, typically lasts about 15 – 25 years.
Thus the Civil War crisis was followed by Reconstruction (first turning), the Progressive era (second turning), the Roaring Twenties (third turning), and then the crisis-era fourth turning of the 1929 stock market crash, the descent into the Great Depression, and World War II.
Then (as cycles do), the pattern repeated: first-turning founding in the late 1940s and through the 1950s, second-turning awakening in the 1960s and 1970s, third-turning culture wars of the 1980s and Roaring Nineties, and an impending crisis. The pattern is quite persuasively established, and offers insight into our present circumstances.
The Fifty Steps of Crisis Eras
Strauss and Howe’s book, written before 9/11, was a warning that a new fourth turning was imminent. They predicted that it would start with a major catalyst event that would shock everyone—just like Pearl Harbor, the election of Lincoln, and the Boston Tea Party started the last several fourth turnings in American history.
They went so far as to predict the kind of catalyst events that could start a new crisis era—one of which was a global terrorist group using an airplane as a weapon.
Remember, they wrote this in 1996.
In 2008 I taught a three-day seminar at on the Fifty Steps of Crisis Periods—from the catalyst event (like Pearl Harbor or 9/11) all the way through 15 – 25 years of challenges, and up to the new legal structures which always signal the end of crisis and the start of a new founding period (e.g. the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, or the establishment of the IMF, World Bank, GATT, and United Nations in 1944-1945).
These broad historical patterns teach us a lot about current political developments and challenges. Those who focus solely on the (admittedly important) issues can tend to miss the forest for the trees.
For example, many of today’s Democrats blame the economic crisis on President Bush’s deficient leadership, while many Republicans point to Clinton Administration pressure on banks and lenders to lower mortgage standards so the lower income buyers could buy homes.
Actually: a larger historical perspective clarifies that a major economic downturn—whichever policies and presidents followed patterns and contributed to the progression—was probably unavoidable, given the societal and historical factors that were in play.
One definition of modernism is the arrogance to believe that we can control everything in our world—that economists, bankers and Presidents can control the economy, fix its problems, and keep everything always growing without waves, cycles or economic recession. We want the economic graphs of history to be up, up, up—never down.
Put simply, this has never happened in history and likely never will.
Indeed, the greatest advances of history come during founding eras; and founding eras only come after crisis periods have reshaped the economic, philosophical and institutional landscape so that the people are prepared to accept and work toward real, positive change.
The delight of summer is sweeter after winter and spring; regions with nothing but cloudless, warm and sunny days are called deserts with good reason.
In that 2008 seminar, I outlined and discussed the fifty predictable steps of crisis eras one-by-one. This dry approach admittedly didn’t drastically alter the way our national leaders responded to events; though, hopefully, it was valuable to those who attended and deeply considered the content.
They were less surprised by the advent of the Great Recession, bailouts, election results and subsequent path pursued by the Obama Administration. Events are closely, almost exactly, following the steps.
I believe we would be following the steps no matter who had won the election. Perhaps we would have varied in the details, but I do not think we would have disrupted the pattern.
Most importantly, those who understand the steps know what to expect in the decade ahead, and how it differs from party-line predictions.
For example, we have arrived at steps 15 – 19:
15. Increased regulation of business (supply your own examples here)
16. Many foreign conflicts (again—these are obvious)
17. Many government scandals (cynicism is so high on this point that these are hardly news anymore)
18. Widely increased stress among citizens across the nation
19. An economic downturn which looks bad, but seems to bounce back for a brief time
Steps 25, 26 and 43 are still ahead, along with many others:
25. Major economic downturn (likely to reach depression levels as in the 1780s, 1860s and 1930s)
26. A major war begins (replacing smaller conflicts with a war against a truly dangerous enemy like the British in the 1780s, the North and South in the 1860s, and Germany and Japan in the 1940s)
43. Leaders establish a new social contract (with a mixture of government and private institutions such as schools, health care, insurance, technology, arts, etc.)
Whatever the specifics, clearly great challenges and opportunities are still ahead in the next fifteen years—give or take. (You can get a pdf download of this article, including a complete list of The Fifty Steps of Crisis Eras, by completing the request form on the right.)
Health Care is the New New Deal
In short, whatever your political views, there is at least one non-partisan way to analyze the Health Care law: The passage of Health Care is the New Deal of our time.
If you tend to celebrate the legacy of the Roosevelt’s New Deal, you are probably glad Health Care passed.
If you dislike the New Deal, you probably object to the Health Care law.
In either case, it gives us a correlative benchmark in the pattern of history, and may indicate our place in the cycles or turnings.
If you are happy for the new law, note that history suggests that major changes are ahead and that the whole system will be revisited and revised in the next fifteen years. And by “the whole system,” I mean The Whole System, not just health care. A major remodeling of the economy, politics, views on morals, and general societal goals takes place by the end of a crisis era.
Now: for those who are frustrated, scared, or even downright furious about the new law, note that major changes are ahead and The Whole System will be revisited and revised in the next fifteen years.
Whatever your feelings about the current political climate and issues, the real battle is ahead. Indeed, as far as the steps of crisis periods go, the passage of the Health Care law signals the beginning, not the end, of the major domestic debates and internal conflicts of our time.
With the assumption that 9/11 was the catalyst event to a present fourth turning, we are only 9 years into a 15 – 25 year period of crisis.
Of course, I do have strong opinions about the Health Care law. But I hope that in the name of such sentiments I do not fail to recognize and illustrate the bigger picture.
From here on, the stakes will continue to rise and the challenges will increase. The battles ahead are much bigger than those we’ve just witnessed.
The patterns of history are belligerent on this point.
Those who care about the future of freedom would do well not to burn bridges by depending too much on the current two-party monopoly. As the challenges increase, the parties will scream louder and louder but the solutions will become less and less party affairs.
There will probably come a point when anti-partisan cooperation will be essential and even critical to the outcomes for our future.
Freedom Shift Needed!
From medical professionals to skilled laborers, much of our society’s most important work is done in shifts; these shifts often also represent a considered, organized division of labor.
In a broader perspective, the cycles of history, or turnings, are also “work shifts,” and a society’s choices and response to their current events and historical trends represent the labor of a generation in building that society’s future. In America today, a Freedom Shift—with a double entendre implied—is needed in this moment of history.
Citizens, families, communities, entrepreneurs, small businesses and leaders will have to solve things more and more in non-governmental ways. We are reaching the point where the government is overwhelming itself, and if major war arrives during the next decade (as it has virtually every other time in recorded history), government will have its hands more than full.
It will be up to us “regular people” to lead out in reforming societal views and ideas and creating and staffing a powerful and desperately needed FreedomShift.
In each major era of history (each first, second, third and fourth turning), there is a general leaning either away from freedom or toward it. And during fourth turnings, the freedomshift or forceshift, whichever wins out, drastically impacts the focus of the next sixty years. Right now we need a FreedomShift to ensure that the 21st century leans toward freedom instead of force. That decision will be made in the next fifteen-or-so years.
It will be made by you and me and others like us. It will be made by the regular people in our nation. Are we ready for such a choice?
If it were made today, I fear many of us would select any government-compelled program that promised to take care of all our needs—without consideration of the cost to freedom.
As our crises deepen and escalate, the world, our society and our minds will change, and we will have the chance to rethink this view.
Leaders are needed—thoughtful, articulate, visionary and prepared—to make sure our generation shows up for its Freedom Shift, and that a FreedomShift occurs.
If we are indeed following the historical pattern, as have thirty generations before us, we are at a banner point in history: We have now adopted our “New Deal.” This means it is time to prepare for leadership in the depression, war and societal reformation ahead in the next fifteen years.
These predictions may sound as extreme right now as predicting a 9/11 catalyst or a major economic recession did in 1999 or 2005. But the pattern predicted both; and depression, pandemic or war, and a significant societal restructure are coming.
What remains to be seen is whether we will turn these events into a Forceshift or a FreedomShift. It is up to us, and our future hangs in the balance.
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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
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