It has been said over and over that it is the delusion of the young that they believe much of what transpires in the world is in any way new. The technologies, personalities, and names may change across the ages....but we're all still human beings and as groups of human beings we tend to have roughly the same dreams, arguments and conflicts whether we were born 3,000 years ago or today.
For me, I always look back to ancient Rome. After all, our government was founded to actually be a modern version of Rome. I don't think I'm alone. In fact, I'm pretty sure that was the whole reason Latin and ancient history were required courses for most of American History.
So, how does one interpret current political events in light of roman history?
Anyone who knows anything of Roman history, knows that there were essentially five stages:
a) Pre-Rome (Government is ad-hoc and essentially hereditary with frequent changes and violence, focus is on survival and growing faster than neighboring cities over a ~300 year period.)
b) The Roman Republic (The civilization that America's founders wanted to emulate and which relied on a culture that valued liberty, reasoning, rhetoric, universal military service, and human achievement. Not that everything was perfect as there was a constant class warfare, but the society as a whole was dynamic enough to take on any challenges thrown against it for almost 350 years).
c) Civil War ( Shortly after the Roman Republic reached it's peak, the classes of society became increasingly polarized and over a 100 year period decided that they couldn't stand anything but the total subjugation of the other...... The winning side killed off the leaders of the other and shredded the equivalent of their constitution, resulting in the death of the republic and birth of the empire. )
d) Emperors ( Except for a few exceptions, the emperors who ruled Rome presided over a 500 year decay of its power and the loss of cultural identity/virtues which had kept the civilization together ) .
e) Living Dead ( Various external powers, especially in Europe, fight until the renaissance (~1000 years) over the remains of Rome and pretend to bring it back to life (the most notable being Charlemagne), but what was undone could not be brought together again. )
I would argue that if the life of the United States mirrors the life of Rome in general form, then the Presidential Election of 2000 signaled the move from the Era of the Republic to Civil War. Note that in Rome, this was almost a 100 year process, which could have been stopped at any point.
The year 2000 is when Americans first started hearing signs of "The victor is not our president" from a losing party, which is as good a sign of real polarization as any.
In 2004, after losing again, moderates in the Democrat party were essentially thrown out (Lieberman/etc) and a more extremist message proved to be a winning strategy in 2006 and now 2008. This message was accompanied by thuggish actions of Obama supporters and directly encouraged with statements from party leaders that they should "Get in the face" of their opponents.
Also, in 2008, the golden American standard that politics ended at its borders was eliminated for good. The chance of using the worldwide popularity of a candidate became a political yardstick (whether the candidates positions are good for his country, or even correct, becomes irrelevant.) There appears to even been a silent effort to accept cash from anyone, whether they were a foreign power at war with the United States or not, as long as it gave one a political edge.
I have the feeling that now the Democrats are going to suffer the same vilification (within the USA) as Bush did. Whereas it might have been bearable for Republicans to lose the Presidency to a moderate democrat who might compromise as needed, they will not suffer having the presidency and both houses of congress in the hands of the non-compromising extreme side of the Democrat party. Therefore, they will not provide any honeymoon to Obama and will work harder than they ever to obstruct him. Remembering their treatment by Obama "thugs", they're also going to loosen the definition of acceptable behavior of a "Loyal Opposition." And, since the have now lost nearly all power in blue states (including the entirety of New England), they will no longer be required to "moderate" their positions. Indeed, you can already see the complaints being made by extreme republicans, that McCain lost because he was too "bipartisan".
It is certainly possible that we will see an ever expanding cycle of each party attempting to nullify the accomplishments of the other over the next 20-30 years (Society is certainly not growing any more cohesive, and I have no reason to believe their Obama ever meant his bipartisan overtures as anything more than a way to score political points for his side.)
Furthermore, consider that in Rome's case, once a party loses it becomes harder to win again, therefore losing becomes an unacceptable option - a situation in which we are doing our best to replicate via:
a) Each decade, the winning party exerts ever more control over the drawing of voting district boundaries.
b) With each election, Money becomes more important, and the loser having lost influence with lobbyists has less of getting it.
c) More and more of Government employees are politically chosen, meaning that the government functions more on behalf of the parties than the people.
d) The winning party attempts to exert more and more control over the media to stop the distribution of the other sides message.
e) The winning party does not moderate its goals and attempts to destroy those things which are "sacred" to the other party.
We're still far from being stuck in a loop, and up until the last minute, we can step back....but I have no reason to believe that the US populace will not continue down its current path.
After all, look how easy it was for us to think of ourselves in terms of "red states" and "blue states". And, due to hyper-partisanship, a renown novelist (Orson Scott Card) has recently written a plausible novel about an American Civil War that gathered significant attention.
Just this week, Obama's current victory was being described as a "non-violent revolution".
If America had wanted to avoid this pessimistic future, the GOP could have nominated McCain in 2000 - but they thought it was more important to gain power than to have a qualified man to use it. Likewise, the democrats could have nominated a moderate in 2004 or 2008 (Instead they killed off the moderates). I was hoping their strategy would backfire this year, but it didn't (another article on that later).
Regardless, Seeing their success, the GOP is sure to mimic the democrats tactics in 2012. Short of a repeat of the carter years and a new highly popular candidate, the GOP will have no choice but to do so if it wants to regain any power.
A study of history does make one optimistic about human nature. I'm still waiting for my change that I can believe in.
