Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Political Paradigm Shifts
Looking at the situation during the last couple of months, I believe that we’re at the beginning of a political paradigm shift. Time will tell whether I’m correct or not, but, the more I think of it, the more I’m convinced this is happening. Most often, a paradigm shift is only noticed years after it begins, but, if history is a guide, it would seem that one is beginning right now. What we won’t know for sure is its outcome.
There are different types of paradigm shifts. Those that are social or cultural come about when new inventions are made, and people’s lives are profoundly affected by them. The automobile and airplane did this in the early part of the last century. The personal computer and the internet did it just a decade or so ago. These inventions didn’t touch ordinary lives right away, but when they became common-place, their impact has been so profound that we can’t imagine ourselves without them.
Political paradigm shifts also happen, except that they depend more on ideas and perceptions, which is why they don’t get noticed right away. I can give two very important examples in U.S. History that affected how the government worked and how Americans lived.
The first occurred in the decade before the Civil War. For those who studied this era during high school history, we may remember how glass-eyed we were when reading about the Kansas-Nebraska Act or the Missouri Compromise. Yet, however boring it was for us to read about, it was extremely significant for the people who lived in that era. In fact, the presidents who were in power at that time are still remembered as among the worst we have had.
For brevity’s sake, I’ll confine myself to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. During the 1850s, the most important issue was not the abolition, but the spreading of slavery. Most Americans, even in the North didn’t care much about the slaves, let alone seeing them free. What many Northerners were concerned about was seeing the spread of slavery into the new western territories. They feared that this would give more power to the Southern states.
What we may not understand now is the fact that the U.S. South had more political power then. This forced the Northern states to compromise with the South on many important issues. Even though most people and most industries were in the North, this didn’t translate into political power. Most presidents were from the south, but even the northern presidents (Van Buren, Pierce, Buchanan) had southern sympathies.
All of these factors made compromise the only option to help keep the peace. One such compromise was the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. As the territories west of the Mississippi River became states, the issue was whether they would allow slavery or not. What the Kansas-Nebraska Act did was give the choice to the states. This opened the door for pro- and anti-slavery border ruffians to cross their respective borders and wage war on each other. It didn’t affect Nebraska since it bordered only northern states, but Kansas, which bordered the slave state of Missouri, erupted into Civil War.
Characters such as John Brown and William Quantrill acquired violent reputations and made Kansas bleed. The bloody mess sickened and horrified many people around the country. Most blamed the president Franklin Pierce who did nothing to stop the violence. In fact, he was blamed for letting it happen since the Act was based on his policy of accommodation. His own party (the Democrats) didn’t even bother renominating him in 1856, giving it instead to James Buchanan who was no better.
Some Democrats were even more disgusted and helped form a new party with the defunct Whigs. This was how the Republican Party was born. Among those who joined was a former Whig Congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln. After his stint in Congress in 1848, Lincoln had retired from politics. But, after seeing the mess that was occurring in his country, he decided to rejoin the fray. First, he ran for Senate in 1858, but lost. Then, he ran for President in 1860 and won, becoming the first Republican president.
This is where the political paradigm shift occurred. A social paradigm shift happened when the North gained in population and became increasingly industrialized. However, this hadn’t resulted in any significant political gains. The South still controlled the federal government in key areas. Beginning with the election of Lincoln, the North would wield federal power for close to a century.
The Civil War, which occurred at this time, merely accelerated the process because the southern states seceded, and therefore didn’t participate in the government for a few years. Yet, even if they hadn’t seceded, the paradigm shift would have occurred anyway. Looking back, one could see its start when many Northerners saw their country being torn apart in the 1850s and decided “enough was enough”, and did something about it.
Another paradigm shift occurred during the economic crisis called the Panic of 1893. Until the Great Depression of the 1930s, this was the worst economic crisis to happen in the U.S. Many businesses went bankrupt and many farmers suffered. Despite the fact that the country was in crisis, the president of that time, Grover Cleveland, did nothing to help the people. Following the general philosophy of that time, he believed that businesses will settle the matter, and that government should not interfere.
This didn’t go well among the struggling masses. The depression went on for four more years, but cries for economic and political reform began in earnest. The Progressive Movement began in full swing. This culminated in 1896 with the Democratic nomination of William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, a leader among populists and progressives alike. He lost a close election to the Republican William McKinley, but this was mainly because the corporate elites of that time did their best to see Bryan defeated.
Nevertheless, the cry for reform wouldn’t die down, and the coming 20th Century would see the beginnings of the Progressive Era, and later the landmark legislation of the New Deal and the Great Society. The paradigm shift here was the fact that the common man saw his life being trampled by the corporate elites called Trusts. The Panic of 1893 made many of them realize that their government won’t help them on its own accord. What they needed was new leadership that would redefine the role of government. As we saw in the next century, that new leadership under the names of Roosevelt and Wilson came forth.
Whereas before under Grover Cleveland and others, the role of government was kept to a minimum, the Progressive Era began the process where the Federal Government would play a leading role in the economic and social life of the country. Theodore Roosevelt would enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act which was on the books for a decade but not fully enforced. The breaking of the Trusts meant that businesses couldn’t consolidate into huge powerful entities.
Roosevelt also saw the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which was to help regulate the processing and manufacturing of the nation’s food supply and health products. Woodrow Wilson saw the creation of the Federal Reserve (which just recently acquired a new chairman). As those who followed the words of the previous chairman might know, the Federal Reserve was the entity that would help control the U.S. economy so another economic panic wouldn’t occur.
As time went on, the government became even bigger and bloated. Many saw it as being too intrusive in their daily lives. By the time of the 1960s, the beginning of another paradigm shift occurred. Even though many landmark laws were passed during Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the social and cultural crises that occurred at that time made many people question how much government can and should do. This first showed itself with the election of Richard Nixon, but even under Nixon, government expanded its powers of oversight with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The paradigm shift which started in the 1960s really showed its result with election of Ronald Reagan. This began the era of reducing the power and presence of government. (“Government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem.”) As the years went on, the bloated bureaucracies began to shrink. The problem was that they became less efficient, not more. But, this didn’t matter to those who let this happen. The era of Big Government may have been over, but this didn’t result in efficient government.
Now, we’re seeing the end-result of this policy. It’s not just inefficiency we need to worry about, but incompetence. And, as we saw with Hurricane Katrina, this incompetence has deadly results. Yet, as we’ve been hearing lately, the spin machines are in overload in trying to explain away this incompetence. (Why is it the government’s business to help the poor anyway? This actually mirrors what President Cleveland and others said during the Panic of 1893.) It would seem that those who claim to have new ideas are just repackaging old ones.
The defenders of this policy can spin away all they want. This won’t stop the paradigm shift that is just now beginning. Like Abraham Lincoln back in 1854, there are a growing number of people who are seeing the mess that is happening in their country and are saying “Enough is enough!” Time will tell when and how this paradigm shift will be fulfilled. Just consider yourself privileged to be present at its creation.
There are different types of paradigm shifts. Those that are social or cultural come about when new inventions are made, and people’s lives are profoundly affected by them. The automobile and airplane did this in the early part of the last century. The personal computer and the internet did it just a decade or so ago. These inventions didn’t touch ordinary lives right away, but when they became common-place, their impact has been so profound that we can’t imagine ourselves without them.
Political paradigm shifts also happen, except that they depend more on ideas and perceptions, which is why they don’t get noticed right away. I can give two very important examples in U.S. History that affected how the government worked and how Americans lived.
The first occurred in the decade before the Civil War. For those who studied this era during high school history, we may remember how glass-eyed we were when reading about the Kansas-Nebraska Act or the Missouri Compromise. Yet, however boring it was for us to read about, it was extremely significant for the people who lived in that era. In fact, the presidents who were in power at that time are still remembered as among the worst we have had.
For brevity’s sake, I’ll confine myself to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. During the 1850s, the most important issue was not the abolition, but the spreading of slavery. Most Americans, even in the North didn’t care much about the slaves, let alone seeing them free. What many Northerners were concerned about was seeing the spread of slavery into the new western territories. They feared that this would give more power to the Southern states.
What we may not understand now is the fact that the U.S. South had more political power then. This forced the Northern states to compromise with the South on many important issues. Even though most people and most industries were in the North, this didn’t translate into political power. Most presidents were from the south, but even the northern presidents (Van Buren, Pierce, Buchanan) had southern sympathies.
All of these factors made compromise the only option to help keep the peace. One such compromise was the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. As the territories west of the Mississippi River became states, the issue was whether they would allow slavery or not. What the Kansas-Nebraska Act did was give the choice to the states. This opened the door for pro- and anti-slavery border ruffians to cross their respective borders and wage war on each other. It didn’t affect Nebraska since it bordered only northern states, but Kansas, which bordered the slave state of Missouri, erupted into Civil War.
Characters such as John Brown and William Quantrill acquired violent reputations and made Kansas bleed. The bloody mess sickened and horrified many people around the country. Most blamed the president Franklin Pierce who did nothing to stop the violence. In fact, he was blamed for letting it happen since the Act was based on his policy of accommodation. His own party (the Democrats) didn’t even bother renominating him in 1856, giving it instead to James Buchanan who was no better.
Some Democrats were even more disgusted and helped form a new party with the defunct Whigs. This was how the Republican Party was born. Among those who joined was a former Whig Congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln. After his stint in Congress in 1848, Lincoln had retired from politics. But, after seeing the mess that was occurring in his country, he decided to rejoin the fray. First, he ran for Senate in 1858, but lost. Then, he ran for President in 1860 and won, becoming the first Republican president.
This is where the political paradigm shift occurred. A social paradigm shift happened when the North gained in population and became increasingly industrialized. However, this hadn’t resulted in any significant political gains. The South still controlled the federal government in key areas. Beginning with the election of Lincoln, the North would wield federal power for close to a century.
The Civil War, which occurred at this time, merely accelerated the process because the southern states seceded, and therefore didn’t participate in the government for a few years. Yet, even if they hadn’t seceded, the paradigm shift would have occurred anyway. Looking back, one could see its start when many Northerners saw their country being torn apart in the 1850s and decided “enough was enough”, and did something about it.
Another paradigm shift occurred during the economic crisis called the Panic of 1893. Until the Great Depression of the 1930s, this was the worst economic crisis to happen in the U.S. Many businesses went bankrupt and many farmers suffered. Despite the fact that the country was in crisis, the president of that time, Grover Cleveland, did nothing to help the people. Following the general philosophy of that time, he believed that businesses will settle the matter, and that government should not interfere.
This didn’t go well among the struggling masses. The depression went on for four more years, but cries for economic and political reform began in earnest. The Progressive Movement began in full swing. This culminated in 1896 with the Democratic nomination of William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, a leader among populists and progressives alike. He lost a close election to the Republican William McKinley, but this was mainly because the corporate elites of that time did their best to see Bryan defeated.
Nevertheless, the cry for reform wouldn’t die down, and the coming 20th Century would see the beginnings of the Progressive Era, and later the landmark legislation of the New Deal and the Great Society. The paradigm shift here was the fact that the common man saw his life being trampled by the corporate elites called Trusts. The Panic of 1893 made many of them realize that their government won’t help them on its own accord. What they needed was new leadership that would redefine the role of government. As we saw in the next century, that new leadership under the names of Roosevelt and Wilson came forth.
Whereas before under Grover Cleveland and others, the role of government was kept to a minimum, the Progressive Era began the process where the Federal Government would play a leading role in the economic and social life of the country. Theodore Roosevelt would enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act which was on the books for a decade but not fully enforced. The breaking of the Trusts meant that businesses couldn’t consolidate into huge powerful entities.
Roosevelt also saw the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which was to help regulate the processing and manufacturing of the nation’s food supply and health products. Woodrow Wilson saw the creation of the Federal Reserve (which just recently acquired a new chairman). As those who followed the words of the previous chairman might know, the Federal Reserve was the entity that would help control the U.S. economy so another economic panic wouldn’t occur.
As time went on, the government became even bigger and bloated. Many saw it as being too intrusive in their daily lives. By the time of the 1960s, the beginning of another paradigm shift occurred. Even though many landmark laws were passed during Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the social and cultural crises that occurred at that time made many people question how much government can and should do. This first showed itself with the election of Richard Nixon, but even under Nixon, government expanded its powers of oversight with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The paradigm shift which started in the 1960s really showed its result with election of Ronald Reagan. This began the era of reducing the power and presence of government. (“Government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem.”) As the years went on, the bloated bureaucracies began to shrink. The problem was that they became less efficient, not more. But, this didn’t matter to those who let this happen. The era of Big Government may have been over, but this didn’t result in efficient government.
Now, we’re seeing the end-result of this policy. It’s not just inefficiency we need to worry about, but incompetence. And, as we saw with Hurricane Katrina, this incompetence has deadly results. Yet, as we’ve been hearing lately, the spin machines are in overload in trying to explain away this incompetence. (Why is it the government’s business to help the poor anyway? This actually mirrors what President Cleveland and others said during the Panic of 1893.) It would seem that those who claim to have new ideas are just repackaging old ones.
The defenders of this policy can spin away all they want. This won’t stop the paradigm shift that is just now beginning. Like Abraham Lincoln back in 1854, there are a growing number of people who are seeing the mess that is happening in their country and are saying “Enough is enough!” Time will tell when and how this paradigm shift will be fulfilled. Just consider yourself privileged to be present at its creation.
