A Parable for 2008

Once upon a time there was a horse, who along with a man, shared a dangerous enemy, a wolf.

Seeking a solution to the danger, the horse approached the man with a deal. "You may put a bridle and saddle on me if you will help me by hunting and killing a wolf." To the man, aware of the dangers of the wolf, this seemed like a good offer, and so the man agreed.

After saddling the horse, the man mounted it, armed with sword and bow. After a short hunt, the man on horseback caught and quickly slew the wolf.

Happy at being freed of the menace of the wolf, the horse said. "Thank you for your help in slaying the wolf. You may now remove my bridle and saddle."

"Remove your bridle and saddle?", the man laughed. "The hell you say. Giddy up, Dobbin." The man then spurred the horse on to return homeward.

What to do about the southern United States, that states that once formed the Confederacy, the states that invented the term of Southern Democrats, has been a vexing problem for this country for 232 years. The text of the Declaration of Independence was altered to appease the region, as Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner himself, was asked to delete a reference to the slave trade in order to avoid offending southern sensibilities by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.

The Constitution, as originally written, of course, attempted to deal with the North's population preponderance in the union (and by definition, in the House of Representatives) by counting slaves as 3/5 of a citizen for census reasons.

The country of course, ultimate fighting a long and bloody civil war over the issue. But the problem didn't stop there. The Democrats came back to power briefly in the late 19th Century by appealing once again, to Southern Democrats. Eventually, of course, the Republican party defeated that coalition, and might have continued to, were it not for the Great Depression, and the utterly ineffective Hoover response to it.

FDR came to power in 1932, buoyed by an uneasy coalition of the working urban poor, the fundamentalist South, and impoverished farmers. It was a coalition that enabled FDR to win four terms, with Truman riding it into the Presidency upon FDR's death.

Ultimately, however, the country, and the Democratic Party could no longer ignore the elephant in the room, the country's original sin of racism. Changes in the 1948 Democratic platform, while modest, led to southern Democrats putting up their own champion, Strom Thurmond, and FDR's old Democratic coalition, while limping to reelection in 1948, came apart in the 1950's.

JFK's magic won election in 1960, and there was even a faint echo of FDR's coalition in Johnson's landslide against Goldwater. However, the passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act destroyed the 100+ year old alignment of the Democratic Party with conservative, fundamentalist (and by extension racist and chauvinist) majorities in the South. By 1968, Nixon was openly courting these voters across the country, and would ensure Republican success, at least in Presidential elections, for the next 40 years.

So how does this relate to the parable above? For 40 years, the real base of the GOP, the CEOs, the hereditary rich, white power structure that has been the real base of the GOP since the 1850's, despairing of ever becoming a majority party again, cast about for an ally that could provide them with the manpower, the numbers, to win elections again.

Looking about for such a group, they fell upon the religious right. It was a convenient marriage. The religious right had no love for women's rights, the rights of minorities, labor unions, gays and lesbians, or any of the other groups which gravitated toward the Democratic Party in the 1960's and 1970's.

The GOP willingly co-opted the Religious Right, offering them the bridle and saddle. The trouble is, new members of coalitions, and particularly energized members, expect results. When the relatively moderate, pro-business GOP of the 1960's and 70's didn't deliver for them on abortion, or rolling back civil rights, or the rights of women in the workplace, they decided to take over. They mounted the horse. They began to run for office, and fund raise. And they began to win, first in primaries, and then more frequently, in general elections.

By the 1990's and the first decade of this century, the GOP had become an organ of the religious right (as well as the neocons, but that is a subject for another post).

Now, the pro-business right didn't really mind wearing the saddle, because the Religious Right was doing a tremendous job at slaying the Democratic wolf. Eventually, of course, the saddle began to chafe. Then in 2006, the wolf took a good bite out of the man and horse. Finally, this year, 2008, the wolf gravely wounded both.

So now, the pro-business right has found a new enemy, the very people they once courted. They realize that nobody in the 60-70% of the country that isn't a fundamentalist, a CEO, or a neocon finds their party unappealing. And it's not as though the business interests can really become Democrats. The scales have fallen from their eyes, and they realize that the kooks have taken over their party.

They don't like it, and they will do something about it. The result, what we're seeing in editorials, and in the pushback against Sarah Palin, is likely to be civil war, and a long time in exile as a minority party.

Who will win this fight in the GOP? It's hard to see anybody winning but Democrats in the short-term. In the long term? I suspect the rich base that owns the GOP will regain control of much of their party back. And the fundamentalists will crawl back under the rocks, much as they did after the demise of Huey Long in the 1930s.

And then, perhaps, the political process in the country will grow healthy again. Or not. Either way, it will be interesting, it will be bloody, and it will translate into a lot of lost elections for the GOP. Stay tuned.