Riding the Wave

The death of Hunter S. Thompson put Publius in a reflective funk:

As I get older, I’m beginning to fear that my generation has been cursed to live an age of no progressive victories – of waves rolling back.

...And then I read people like Hunter S. Thompson writing about the brief flash in history when they got to win, when they got the ride the wave. And then I wonder if I’ll ever get to do the same. I wonder if our generation will ever live to see its collective energy coming together for some higher progressive purpose – like the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. I have no doubt that progressivism will come back - all historical movements ebb and flow. But I’m increasingly afraid I may be an old man when it does – or worse.

I certainly understand Publius' frustration, especially after last year's election. What helps me at the instant is playing FDR in DMTC's version of the musical "Annie," especially in the Cabinet scene:

FDR: Harold Ickes, stand up.
Ickes: What?
FDR: You heard me, stand up!
(Ickes slowly stands)
FDR: Now Harold, sing!
Ickes: Sing?
FDR: Yes, sing. Like Annie. I've just decided that if my administration is going to be anything, it's going to be optimistic about the future of this country. Now Harold, sing!

Even better, though, is looking back in history. Many years ago, in a used book store, I picked up a battered copy of "What We Are About To Receive," written by Jay Franklin, an observer of contemporary events, and popular writer. Jay Franklin was the pseudonym for John Franklin Carter (1897-1967), Diplomat.

"What We Are About To Receive" was published in 1932 and serves as a snapshot of what an intelligent observer regarded as the signal issues of the day during that watershed electoral year. The New Deal was a veritable tsunami of Progressivism. But what did the American political scene look like just before the wave hit?

Regarding Progressive hero FDR, Carter writes:

If he gets into the White House, it will be as a blank cheque. Nobody has the slightest idea of whether he is "another Roosevelt" or just another Democratic candidate. No one knows whether he is a statesman or just another name. There is much to be said for the novel idea of putting a politician in the White House, after our depressing experiences with an engineer, a college professor and a judge in that august residence, but politicians can degenerate into wire-pullers, and a weak politician can do almost as much harm as a well-meaning plumber in national politics. If Roosevelt becomes President we will have to take him pretty much on faith.

So, Carter feels a nervousness about Roosevelt, despite his pioneering efforts in New York with old-age pensions and other Progressive reforms. Roosevelt, ever eager to please, had promised every faction at least a little bit, and as far as anybody knew, might be quite unprincipled:

On every other issue-tariff, farm relief, disarmament, foreign policy, banking policy, social unrest - (Roosevelt) is as hard to pin down as a live eel on a sheet of oilcloth."

Carter surveys the political landscape: stolid Herbert Hoover, divisive "Happy Warrior" Al Smith, William Borah, Charles Curtis, Hiram Johnson, Dwight Morrow - all the has-beens and wannabes, particularly the Democratic rising star I've never heard of, Newton D. Baker of Ohio. Looking to the past for inspiration, and at the Democratic platform fight to come, Carter observes:

Grover Cleveland stood for uncompromising honesty in public life - he was not a clever man, but he was a fighter. Woodrow Wilson stood for uncompromising intelligence in public life - he was not a good party leader, or even a nationalist, but he was a fighter. Both men won the nomination against stubborn opposition and carried the country because the American people like fighters and prefer a fight to coolly scientific statesmanship or to honest party leadership.

On that account, we don't worry much about the platform or the principles of our minority party, except as a political scarecrow. We know perfectly well that the Democrats can't control Washington long enough to execute a radically new national policy. So it happens that the Democratic platform fight will be a side show, designed at most to enable the party leaders to remain in good humor. Win or lose, the Democratic Party won't need a platform in 1932. Their experience in 1928 has convinced them that people vote against one candidate rather than for his opponent. For the Democrats, the platform will consist of two words: "Herbert Hoover."

Half-right, half-wrong Carter was! Even keen observers like Carter didn't have perfect powers of perception. Carter didn't forsee the New Deal. Carter was right about the slogan "Herbert Hoover," though. I distinctly remember, as an eight-year-old child, still hearing Hoover's baneful name being used in LBJ's presidential campaign of 1964, thirty-two years after 1932 (just as we are likely to hear Republicans use Jimmy Carter's name, in a less-effective way, even until 2012). But it's true, Americans like fighters. Think Howard Dean, who even today ruffled feathers, and for whom the Republicans feign shock:

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, (Dean) added: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."

When told of Dean's remarks, Derrick Sontag -- executive director of the Kansas Republican Party -- said he was "shocked."

"My immediate reaction to that whole dialogue is, it's full of hatred," Sontag said. "The Democratic Party has elected a leader that's full of hatred."

Myself, I think the "evil" angle has legs for the Democrats, especially given Abu Ghraib. But I digress - back to Carter.

We are in a different era now - we are spendthrifts, when people of his era were misers - but just as some things change, some things stay the same:

The real reason for the depression was bad leadership, both political and business leadership, for generations. The leadership which produced the Great War - for which we are still paying - also produced the Great Panic. We are still, in the fourth decade of the twentieth century, being ruled by a group of men whose ideas were formed by the horse and buggy era. The underlying cause of this bad leadership, and of the disasters which it produced, was greed - simple, human greed, naked and unashamed.

Despite a new-fangled academic superstructure and publicity apparatus, and despite well-funded think tanks, conservative ideology still drinks at the disreputable trickle-down fountain. Greed rules today, and Democrats need to produce a fighting alternative, so that the fruits of labor reach the people who produce them!

We'll get that thrill of riding the wave soon enough, when we've dealt the electoral TKO, and not a moment before.