how did we get here

            I was 9 years old (actually, 8 and a half) when Dwight Eisenhower was elected president.  I had followed the progress (or lack thereof) of the Korean War with great interest initially, great repugnance eventually, during the final years of Harry Truman’s presidency.  When Eisenhower almost immediately made it clear he was serious about ending that conflict, I became a fan—which I suppose means my first party affiliation was Republican.

            In those days, however, being Republican or Democrat didn’t mean you considered members of the other party satans incarnate.  Democrats didn’t consider Republicans innately stupid, nor did Republicans consider Democrats innately evil.  The two parties, and their members, differed with one another on the role of government, on economics, on most aspects of foreign policy (everyone agreed that Russia was bad), but the disagreements were—for the most part—philosophical not personal.  And that was important because it meant two politicians could debate an issue without despising each other.

            Equally important, during the Eisenhower years, and the Kennedy/Johnson years that followed, both parties operated under the premise that, once an election was over, it was the obligation of the people elected to actually govern the country—not spend 80% of his/her time meeting with focus groups and consultants and lobbyists to plan out the next campaign. 

            Just as significantly, maybe more so, most members of both parties accepted the idea that, for the moment at least, the party with the majority represented the most accurate reflection of the country’s image of itself, and so that party’s ideas should be given a certain degree of deference.  In practical terms, that meant there were times when Democrats had to work with Republicans to achieve Republican goals, and other times when Republicans needed to work with Democrats to achieve Democratic goals.  Eisenhowever didn’t create the interstate highway system by executive fiat; he needed and got help and support from Democrats in Congress.  Similarly, Lyndon Johnson didn’t get the Civil Rights Act passed by willing it so; he needed and got help from Republicans (Republican Everett Dirksen was a lot more helpful than Democrat Strom Thurmond). 

            It’s hard to escape the conclusion that civility and recognition of a shared responsibility to govern eroded substantially during the Nixon years.  Aided and abetted by minor league Machiavells like John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, Nixon pushed the Republican party very hard to see things in an “us against them” light, with “us”—the Republican party—always being right and “them”—the Democrats always being wrong.

            Ironically, his election in 1968 came as a result of a campaign built on the need for “reconciliation.”  Vietnam and the age of Aquarius had badly shredded the social and cultural fabrics of the country and Nixon presented himself as someone who could weave them back together.  And for most of his first term, that’s what he did. Domestically, he introduced revenue sharing with the states, sponsored a number of strong anti-crime laws, even started this country’s first federal environmental protection program.  Internationally, he defused rapidly increasing tensions with China by visiting The Great Wall, and negotiated the first treaty with Russia to limit strategic nuclear weapons.

            He was undone of course by Watergate, the very existence of which pointed to the underlying paranoia of his administration and its determination to remain in power at any cost.  The Watergate scandal essentially ended when Nixon resigned in 1974, but the damage it did to American political life unfortunately didn’t die with it.  Nixon had been the head of the Republican party long enough, and had made enough appointments of like-minded people that far outlived his own tenure, that a “win at all costs” mentality was firmly planted in the Republican party.  Just as importantly, Democrats became infected with the notion that all Republicans were liars, schemers, or simply political hacks.

            The two men who succeeded Nixon, Republican Gerald Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter, were, ironically, almost the antitheses of the poisonous attitudes that had begun to infect their parties.  Politically, Ford was clearly right of center and Carter just as clearly left of center, but both believed that men of good will working together  could solve problems.  Neither, unfortunately, had the power of personality to force their parties to behave accordingly.   

            In my next blog, I’ll take a look at what happened inside the Republican party during the Reagan years—most of which had much more to do with Nixon attitudes and Nixon appointments than with Reagan.  Not sure when that post will happen because I’m having some surgery this week, but hopefully it will be next weekend.