Class War Politics
By PAUL KRUGMAN,
OP-ED COLUMNIST, NYTimes on the Web, June 19, 2006
In case you haven't noticed, modern
American politics is marked by vicious partisanship, with the great bulk of the
viciousness coming from the right. It's clear that the Republican plan for
the 2006 election is, once again, to question Democrats' patriotism.
But do Republican leaders truly believe that they are serious about fighting
terrorism, while Democrats aren't? When the speaker of the House declares
that "we in this Congress must show the same steely resolve as those men and
women on United Flight 93," is that really the way he sees himself?
(Dennis Hastert, Man of Steel!) Of course not.
So what's our bitter partisan divide really about? In two words: class
warfare. That's the lesson of an important new book, "Polarized America:
The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches," by Nolan McCarty of Princeton
University, Keith Poole of the University of California, San Diego, and Howard
Rosenthal of New York University.
"Polarized America" is a technical book written for political scientists.
But it's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what's happening
to America.
What the book shows, using a sophisticated analysis of Congressional votes and
other data, is that for the past century, political polarization and economic
inequality have moved hand in hand. Politics during the Gilded Age, an era
of huge income gaps, was a nasty business — as nasty as it is today. The
era of bipartisanship, which lasted for roughly a generation after World War II,
corresponded to the high tide of America's middle class. That high tide
began receding in the late 1970's, as middle-class incomes grew slowly at best
while incomes at the top soared; and as income gaps widened, a deep partisan
divide re-emerged.
Both the decline of partisanship after World War II and its return in recent
decades mainly reflected the changing position of the Republican Party on
economic issues.
Before the 1940's, the Republican Party relied financially on the support of a
wealthy elite, and most Republican politicians firmly defended that elite's
privileges. But the rich became a lot poorer during and after World War
II, while the middle class prospered. And many Republicans accommodated
themselves to the new situation, accepting the legitimacy and desirability of
institutions that helped limit economic inequality, such as a strongly
progressive tax system. (The top rate during the Eisenhower years was 91
percent.)
When the elite once again pulled away from the middle class, however,
Republicans turned their back on the legacy of Dwight Eisenhower and returned to
a focus on the interests of the wealthy. Tax cuts at the top — including
repeal of the estate tax — became the party's highest priority.
But if the real source of today's bitter partisanship is a Republican move to
the right on economic issues, why have the last three elections been dominated
by talk of terrorism, with a bit of religion on the side? Because a party
whose economic policies favor a narrow elite needs to focus the public's
attention elsewhere. And there's no better way to do that than accusing
the other party of being unpatriotic and godless.
Thus in 2004, President Bush basically ran as America's defender against gay
married terrorists. He waited until after the election to reveal that what
he really wanted to do was privatize Social Security.
Pre-New Deal G.O.P. operatives followed the same strategy. Republican
politicians won elections by "waving the bloody shirt" — invoking the memory of
the Civil War — long after the G.O.P. had ceased to be the party of Lincoln and
become the party of robber barons instead. Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic
presidential candidate, was defeated in part by a smear campaign — burning
crosses and all — that exploited the heartland's prejudice against Catholics.
So what should we do about all this? I won't offer the Democrats advice
right now, except to say that tough talk on national security and affirmations
of personal faith won't help: the other side will smear you anyway.
But I would like to offer some advice to my fellow pundits: face reality.
There are some commentators who long for the bipartisan days of yore, and flock
eagerly to any politician who looks "centrist." But there isn't any center
in modern American politics. And the center won't return until we have a
new New Deal, and rebuild our middle class.
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