Let Obama be Reagan

I think the first midterm elections I paid close attention to were in 1982.  I was in college, and no fan of Ronald Reagan or his policies.  Two short years after the desolation of 1980, there was a sense of jubilation among liberals that Reagan's presidency was effectively at an end.

Tom Wicker in the New York Times wrote a premature obituary of the administration:

There is no Reagan Revolution. American voters made that clear on Nov. 2, by substantially strengthening the Democrats' control of the House of Representatives and of state governments, and narrowing Republican control of the Senate.  Thus just two years after the Reagan landslide of 1980, the electorate reaffirmed the essential centrism of American politics.

This memory is prompted of course by the hubris of Republicans after Tuesday's election results.  Perhaps they will be right where Wicker was wrong.  But before declaring the end of the Obama administration and its policies, it is perhaps worth taking a deep breath and thinking about that first Reagan midterm election.

In its aftermath, moderate Republicans panicked.  ''You can't govern this country when it's polarized,'' said Senator William Cohen, a Republican moderate from Maine. ''I think the President has got to compromise on most issues until the unemployment rate comes down.''  The election results meant that Reagan was damaged political goods, a New York Times new analysis concluded: "In sum, the President's political impact has diminished. He is not the feared figure of 18 months ago."

The parallel of 2010 with 1982 is flawed, of course.  Republican losses in 1982 were not as great as those suffered by Democrats this week (Republicans in 1982 lost 26 House seats or 13.6% of their pre-election total, while Democrats this year seem to have lost at least 60, perhaps 25%).  The result, however, was worse for Reagan: a 269-166 Democratic majority.  At the moment, the projected Republican majority is 242-193.

Nonetheless, Republican leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, clearly reading from the same script, have argued that the elections mean that President Obama must "change course."  The irony is that their hero, Ronald Reagan, did precisely the opposite.  His theme was "Stay the course."  In his State of the Union address in January 1983, Reagan did not change course at all (despite the fact that his approval rating was at 35%).  In fact, he blamed Jimmy Carter for the economic situation that hurt Republicans the previous November:

The problems we inherited were far worse than most inside and out of government had expected; the recession was deeper than most inside and out of government had predicted. Curing those problems has taken more time and a higher toll than any of us wanted. Unemployment is far too high.

Imagine the howls of indignation on the right if Obama were to say the same thing today, and use that as justification for staying the course!

Instead, the president has struck a conciliatory tone, and has spoken of compromise.  While this has earned him the wrath of the commentators on MSNBC, I suspect Obama has the Reagan model in mind.  In the same address quoted above, Reagan also talked the bipartisan talk:

So, let us, in these next 2 years – men and women of both parties, every political shade – concentrate on the long-range, bipartisan responsibilities of government, not the short-range or short-term temptations of partisan politics.

This, of course, is not what we remember about Reagan, because it did not mean he did not also "stay the course."  Yes, Reagan worked out a bipartisan deal on Social Security, but he also defended his signature issues: tax cuts and increased defense spending.  And he won re-election in 1984, with a higher percentage of the vote than he got in 1980.

No one knows today if Barack Obama will be able to replicate that record.  (Much depends on the economy: if it improves, he will likely be in good shape in two years; if not, he will be vulnerable to any potential Republican nominee.)  But my hunch is that he will try.

Most commentary in the last few days has taken for granted that Obama will have to emulate Bill Clinton after the 1994 midterms and move to the center.  I'm not so sure.

Remember that during the 2008 campaign, Obama said that he wanted to be a transformative president like Reagan, a comment that was taken as an implicit shot at Clinton.  He also said earlier this year that he would rather accomplish great things than be re-elected.  If he meant both of those things, he will be like Reagan and stay the course.  But whether it will work is anyone's guess.

What the Tea Partiers don't get about Democracy

Part of me wants to like the Tea Party movement. After all, for an American historian, a group that looks to American history for inspiration is at least showing some of the correct instincts.

Reading an account in the local newspaper about the Tea Party meeting in Boiling Springs, SC, I found a few things that seemed in the spirit of the Sons of Liberty from the early 1770s: for example, a casket with a sign saying "Life, liberty and property" and "Rest in Peace." That sounds like something the Sons of Liberty would have liked.

Many observers, including the president, have pointed out the irony of the anti-tax protests on tax day given the fact that for most people, their taxes have not increased, and in fact have gone down. But in reading up on the original Tea Party, I found that the Tea Act, which led to the dumping of the tea in Boston Harbor, also did not raise the tax on tea. What it did was reassert Parliament's right to tax the colonists, and that's what prompted the protest. So there's actually a nice parallel there.

The Boiling Springs protest made references to tyrannical government, of course, and certainly the rabble-rousers of 1773 did that too. But that's ultimately where today's Tea Partiers go wrong. One Republican precinct leader from here in Spartanburg said: "We are faced today with a tyrannical government that is going to tax us, tax our children, forever."

Note the offense--taxing, in and of itself, is tyrannical. Anyone with even the most superficial understanding of the American Revolution should know that the dispute the American colonists had with the government back in London was not that governmental taxation was tyranny. The catch phrase was, of course, "No taxation without representation." For today's Tea Party supporters, however, that last part is strangely missing--or perhaps not so strangely. To remember that the crux of the disagreement in the 1770s was having a voice in how you were taxed is to demolish the source of today's outrage. These are people angry that they are taxed. This is a political temper tantrum. Their argument is not with the process, but with the outcome. Their anger springs not from a lack of a voice in government, but from their perception that they have not gotten their way.

This is a profoundly anti-democratic sentiment, one that has become far too common in conservative circles in the last 20 years. The essence of democracy is commitment to the process, not the outcome. One of the Tea Party protesters captured this outcome-oriented perspective perfectly: "The message is 'Remember in November.' We have to take this country back, and if we don't do it by the end of 2010, it's a lost cause." Aside from the alarmist and apocalyptic tone, so far so good: you have a grievance, so you engage in the process, you organize and vote. But what he said next revealed the fundamental (and frightening) flaw in his thinking: "I'm not calling people to arms, yet. But that may be what it comes down to at the end of 2010."

This man's view of democracy is entirely tied to results. If the mid-term elections in the fall produce a result he likes, great. If not, it may be time to take up arms. This is an alarmingly corrosive concept, one that reveals a basic misunderstanding of the American system of government. In this warped view, tyranny is defined by one's political opponents being in the majority. Losing an election becomes a cause for armed rebellion.

I don't take this person seriously, nor do I take seriously the idea of armed rebellion. But the man's words do reveal something seriously wrong at the heart of this movement. An ostensibly serious candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in South Carolina, Attorney General Henry McMaster, also spoke to the rally, and compared the federal government to America's cold war opponent: "We fought the Soviet Union. But ladies and gentlemen, the enemy is now in the room. The enemy is in Washington, D.C."

This is terribly irresponsible rhetoric. Comparing our own government to that of the Soviet Union is beyond the normal hyperbole we expect in politics. Calling our duly-elected government "tyrannical" is absurd and, even worse, dangerous. In another rally, Rep. Michelle Bachmann continued to discredit herself and this movement by referring to the "gangster government" in Washington. As former president Bill Clinton rightly noted, "They are not gangsters. They were elected. They are not doing anything they were not elected to do."

Unfortunately, for this uninformed and undemocratic movement of self-described "patriots," that's sin enough.