I woke up Saturday morning blown away by Charles Blow. His witty defense of PBS in his column is perfect. PBS as the enactment of the ideal of a democratic culture: refined, enlightening, open, inclusive, transforming. Blow presents not only illuminating personal reflections gleaned from the one gaffe of the Presidential debate on Wednesday, the dissing of Big Bird and PBS, as Aron Hsiao’s post yesterday analyzed, Blow also significantly addresses one of the crucial fields of contestation in American history: the perils to and promise of cultural excellence in a democracy. I have been thinking about this issue for much of my career. It was at the center of my book The Cynical Society: The Culture of Politics and the Politics of Culture in American Life. Blow shows how Big Bird and his Sesame Street friends, along with much else in PBS programing, contribute in a significant way to the health of the republic and its citizens.

Blow celebrates the character of Big Bird as it contributed to his own character. “I’m down with Big Bird.” Being black and poor in rural America, in the absence of good schools, PBS became his top quality primary and secondary schools. His uncle daily cared for him and permitted only one hour of PBS TV each day. (The same regime, I used with my kids. I wonder: how many millions were so raised?)

Blows imagination was sparked. His thirst for knowledge was quenched. He learned about science through nature programs, to his mind his SAT prep. He devoured arts programs, which he believes enabled him, a college English major without formal art training, to work as the design director of The New York Times and the art director of National Geographic magazine.

“I don’t really expect Mitt Romney to understand the value of something like PBS to people, like me, who grew up in poor, rural areas and went to small schools. These are places with no museums or preschools or after-school educational programs. There wasn’t money for travel or to pay tutors.

I honestly don’t know where I would be in the world without PBS.”

In the debate about what is the impact of democracy on cultural excellence, there are essentially two radically opposing positions, each unsatisfying: the elitist and the populist.

Elitists see a danger. Democracy weakens cultural excellence. If the majority rules in cultural affairs, mediocrity results. Distinguishing the good from the bad, the important from the insignificant and the creative from the formulaic involves hierarchical judgment. Elitists, such as Alexis de Tocqueville, want to preserve excellence in the face of the merely popular. The broad public be damned.

Populists have a problem with this. They rebel against elitism, while they defend the popular. Hierarchical judgment is seen as a defense of privilege. The tastes of the folk and the people are celebrated. The folk music coming out of the popular front in the thirties and forties, of the Weavers and Pete Seeger, express this position. It is also embraced by Seeger’s musicologist father, and the distinguished sociologist of the arts, Howard Becker. In the praise of the popular, concern for and support of “high art” is questioned.

Most of course try to square the circle, including the aforementioned, and try to figure out how the pursuit of cultural excellence and the pursuit of democracy involve a creative tension that supports both democracy and excellence. They further recognize that democracy and cultural excellence are mutually supportive, not only in tension.

Cultural work beyond elites is enriched by the insights and creativity of more diverse perspectives and cultivated capacities. In The Cynical Society I highlight the accomplishments of the American literary renaissance of the mid 19^th century, something that Tocqueville did not perceive or anticipate.

On the other hand, the rule of the people cannot be wise unless they are well informed and well educated. Excellence has to reach not only the privileged. Thus, Blow’s demand to not mess with Big Bird.

Romney made a cute comment, highlighting his antipathy towards government, shared with his fellow Republicans, in favor of minimal government. In contrast, in the view of Obama and the Democrats, the government can and should facilitate the development not only of the economy but also the society and American democracy. It is the government of the people, for the people, by the people, Obama emphasizes, not an alien force. It supports public goods, such as Big Bird and his friends. The stakes of the election for Obama are personified by Big Bird.

P.S.

As I was writing this post, I received Aron Hsiao’s “Romney’s Big Bird Moment” and decided to publish it immediately. He first brought to my attention the importance of the Big Bird gaffe in a response to my earlier post on the debate. I was pleased he expanded his at first tentative speculations into illuminating analysis tied to Chinese – U.S. history and the Republican approach to the political economy.

Big Bird went to China as educator and diplomat, showing an alternative to cold war antagonisms then and thoughtless self-destructive anti-China sentiments now. Hsiao concludes that Romney and the Republicans attempted “to liquidate Big Bird for their own gain—a startling parallel to the Bain Capital narrative that has dogged the campaign now for some time.” Hsiao thinks that “The moment may help to solidify the notion that Romney remains (perhaps intentionally) the quintessential private equity CEO, despite his presidential aspirations—a “one percenter” disdainful of publics. One who knows and exploits the prices of things without having any particular interest in their value.”

As a Democrat and strong Obama supporter, I hope he is right about the potential political impact of the Big Bird gaffe, though I am not sure. As a sociologist, on the other hand, I marvel at the power of democratic culture as revealed in a yellow muppet. As individual citizens such as Charles Blow have greatly benefited from the broad array of programing on PBS, American political culture has been enriched by the creativity that PBS has made possible.

Iris responded to my post on the President’s address at the Democratic convention, underscoring that citizenship was the central theme of Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention. Although I didn’t emphasize this, I agree and want to expand upon her point today by highlighting the president’s words and adding a few reflections. The citizenship theme, the way it was presented and imagined, not only tied the Democratic Convention itself together. It promises to make coherent the Obama campaign and contribute to the possibility of a transformational second term of the President Obama, as Andrew Sullivan explores in his Daily Beast essay today. It also has provided a way to read the day to day events of the campaign, such as the joint appearances of Romney and Obama on last night’s Sixty Minutes.

As I have emphasized, the way the president presented himself, his serious demeanor and mode of address was as important as the content of his address. Non-verbal communication mattered. But so did the verbal.  The President told a simple story with a beginning and a middle, inviting his audience to write the end. Vote. Stay active. Engage in citizenship responsibilities to your fellow citizens and country. It’s all there in his words.

He told a personal story:

Now, the first time I addressed this convention in 2004, I was a younger man, a Senate candidate from Illinois, who spoke about hope — not blind optimism, not wishful thinking, but hope in the face of difficulty; hope in the face of uncertainty; that dogged faith in the future which has pushed this nation forward, even when the odds are great, even when the road is long.

But the personal had a political – public message:

Eight years later, that hope has been tested by the cost of war, by one of the worst economic crises in history, and by political gridlock that’s left us wondering whether it’s still even possible to tackle the challenges of our time.

He wanted his audience to see the big picture. He counseled them “to keep the eye on the prize”:

I know campaigns can seem small, even silly sometimes.  Trivial things become big distractions.  Serious issues become sound bites.  The truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising.  If you’re sick of hearing me approve this message, believe me, so am I.

He comically criticized his Republican opposition:

Now, our friends down in Tampa at the Republican Convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America.  But they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right.  (Applause.)  They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan.  And that’s because all they have to offer is the same prescriptions they’ve had for the last 30 years — Have a surplus?  Try a tax cut.  Deficit too high?  Try another.  Feel a cold coming on?  Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations and call us in the morning.

But the joke was serious. They were proposing solutions that caused many of the problems that the country faces.

Over and over, we’ve been told by our opponents that bigger tax cuts and fewer regulations are the only way — that since government can’t do everything, it should do almost nothing.  If you can’t afford health insurance, hope that you don’t get sick.  If a company releases toxic pollution into the air your children breathe, well, that’s the price of progress.  If you can’t afford to start a business or go to college, take my opponent’s advice and borrow money from your parents.  (Laughter and applause.) As Americans, we believe we are endowed by our Creator with certain, inalienable rights — rights that no man or government can take away.  We insist on personal responsibility and we celebrate individual initiative.  We’re not entitled to success — we have to earn it.  We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk-takers, the entrepreneurs who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system, the greatest engine of growth and prosperity that the world’s ever known.

Yet more is necessary. America is a country of striving individuals, but also people with connections, commitments and responsibilities:

But we also believe in something called citizenship.  (Applause.)  Citizenship:  a word at the very heart of our founding; a word at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations.

We believe that when a CEO pays his autoworkers enough to buy the cars that they build, the whole company does better.  (Applause.)  We believe that when a family can no longer be tricked into signing a mortgage they can’t afford, that family is protected, but so is the value of other people’s homes and so is the entire economy.  (Applause.)  We believe the little girl who’s offered an escape from poverty by a great teacher or a grant for college could become the next Steve Jobs or the scientist who cures cancer or the President of the United States, and it is in our power to give her that chance.  (Applause.)

As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us; it’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government.  That’s what we believe.  (Applause.)

So, you see, the election four years ago wasn’t about me.  It was about you.  (Applause.)  My fellow citizens, you were the change.  (Applause.)

He went on to highlight the major accomplishments of his first term in highly personal terms, linked with citizenship.

Healthcare reform:

You’re the reason there’s a little girl with a heart disorder in Phoenix who will get the surgery she needs because an insurance company can’t limit her coverage.  You did that.

Education reform:

You’re the reason a young man in Colorado who never thought he’d be able to afford his dream of earning a medical degree is about to get that chance.  You made that possible.

Immigration reform:

You’re the reason a young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag will no longer be deported from the only country she’s ever called home.

Gay rights:

… selfless soldiers won’t be kicked out of the military because of who they are or who they love; why thousands of families have finally been able to say to the loved ones who served us so bravely: “Welcome home.”  “Welcome home.”  You did that.  You did that.  You did that.

He returned then to his story, emphasizing citizenship responsibility:

I recognize that times have changed since I first spoke to this convention.  The times have changed, and so have I.  I’m no longer just a candidate.  I’m the President.  (Applause.)

And that means I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return.  I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

If the critics are right that I’ve made all my decisions based on polls, then I must not be very good at reading them.  (Laughter.)  And while I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved together, I’m far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, “I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.”  (Applause.)

But as I stand here tonight, I have never been more hopeful about America.  Not because I think I have all the answers.  Not because I’m naïve about the magnitude of our challenges.  I’m hopeful because of you.

The young woman I met at a science fair who won national recognition for her biology research while living with her family at a homeless shelter — she gives me hope.  (Applause.)

The autoworker who won the lottery after his plant almost closed, but kept coming to work every day, and bought flags for his whole town, and one of the cars that he built to surprise his wife — he gives me hope.  (Applause.)

The family business in Warroad, Minnesota, that didn’t lay off a single one of their 4,000 employees when the recession hit, even when their competitors shut down dozens of plants, even when it meant the owner gave up some perks and some pay because they understood that their biggest asset was the community and the workers who had helped build that business — they give me hope. (Applause.)

I think about the young sailor I met at Walter Reed hospital, still recovering from a grenade attack that would cause him to have his leg amputated above the knee.  Six months ago, we would watch him walk into a White House dinner honoring those who served in Iraq, tall and 20 pounds heavier, dashing in his uniform, with a big grin on his face, sturdy on his new leg.  And I remember how a few months after that I would watch him on a bicycle, racing with his fellow wounded warriors on a sparkling spring day, inspiring other heroes who had just begun the hard path he had traveled — he gives me hope.  He gives me hope.  (Applause.)

I don’t know what party these men and women belong to.  I don’t know if they’ll vote for me.  But I know that their spirit defines us.  They remind me, in the words of Scripture, that ours is a “future filled with hope.

And if you share that faith with me — if you share that hope with me — I ask you tonight for your vote.  (Applause.)  If you reject the notion that this nation’s promise is reserved for the few, your voice must be heard in this election.  If you reject the notion that our government is forever beholden to the highest bidder, you need to stand up in this election.

Thus, when Governor Romney criticized the forty-seven percent, Obama’s response was not simply situational and tactical, it was part of the citizenship story he told at the convention and has been telling, in fact, since he first became visible to the nation in his keynote address to the Democratic Convention of 2004.

His criticism of the Romney – Ryan plan for Medicare and healthcare reform also is part of the coherent story, not ad hoc. The same is true of his foreign policy. His sober appraisal of economic and geopolitical progress, with significant challenges ahead, informs his response to the good and bad daily news, as it is clearly built upon the tough words of President Clinton at the convention.

Obama’s appeal, the American ideal as an ideal of citizenship, individualism properly understood, as Tocqueville put it, not the naked individualism of the Republicans, informs the conduct of his campaign, including the advertising that he knows often seems silly. But it also has informed his sober actions as he has governed and hopes to continue to govern for four more years, with promise for greater success. If the citizenry supports the narrative, it is more likely Obama will win the election and have coattails, as is apparently now happening in Senate and House races. The narrative presented in the convention may also, I think likely will, constrain the opposition to his policies, as his second term begins.

The “Storyteller-in-Chief” added another chapter to “The American Story,” this time as he accepted his party’s nomination for a second term of President of the United States.

One Russian blogger has dubbed his country’s current developments “Russia’s Great December Evolution,” a quip on the Great October Revolution of 1917, and many mass media have eagerly reported the signs of a Russian Winter, following the Arab Spring. Interestingly, almost all Russia watchers who for years have categorized the new Russia as an increasingly authoritarian state where democratic reforms have ceased or failed altogether, are warming up to the possibility of a more democratic Russia.

However, some very significant developments that have been mostly overlooked by both researchers and journalists are aspects of social transformation in the past twenty years combined with long existing germs of democracy. These phenomena have convinced me that democratic ideas and practices exist in Russia. Hence, I was happy to see that during one of the recent demonstrations a participant carried around a sign that read, “We exist.”

Yes, of course it is important to note that Russia’s current political system can be described as a façade democracy or managed democracy, whose leaders are neither interacting with the citizens nor showing any interest in letting them participate in a meaningful way. Nor have these leaders been capable to respond appropriately to social change. This Potemkin political system ignores but has not killed the citizens’ democratic values. Developments such as changes in work ethic, entrepreneurialism, increased foreign travel, and the rising use of new (social) media all need to be taken into account when analyzing the political values of Russians in their daily lives, and ultimately, understanding the country’s political reality.

Part of that political reality is the understanding that Russia’s aspirations for democracy go far back, thinking mainly of the alternative political culture that Russian emigrants and Soviet dissidents helped flourish, even though it was not manifested publicly. Soviet citizens had learned to cope with many of the practical difficulties and hardships of daily life through an effective system of social informal networks. Over time, Soviet citizens had created varied responses to resist the control of state officials. An official sphere existed, in which the party ideology of the Communist Party defined the values – political, social, economic, philosophical – of the institutional order. Simultaneously, in everyday life, an alternative, informal culture existed, which gave citizens opportunities to cope with the ills of the powerful bureaucracy, the shortages of consumer goods, and the privileges of members of the Communist Party. This alternative culture brought forth the system that is known in Russian as blat. This kind of old-boy-network offered people a back (or underground) channel to exchange goods and information informally. The existence of “kitchen circles” is another example of resistance to the overwhelming control of Soviet officials. During these social gatherings, people would come together, sit around the table, drink, eat and talk. While the topic of the discussions could vary between subjects such as anecdotes, poetry, philosophy or music, the critique of Soviet bureaucracy and politics always formed an all-embracing component. Also, reading and writing between the lines, and underground publishing – or samizdat – were elements of resistance among citizens in the informal sphere.

These rituals both upheld the institutional order, and enabled the development of a space in which new definitions, or alternative definitions could be formed. Next to the official networking existed an unofficial network for the exchange of information and goods.

The real question then becomes, “To what extent can society’s democratic values become institutionalized into the political system?” There were high hopes in 1990s. The regular demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of people who came together to voice their opinions on the squares of Russian cities, and in countless other places in the former Soviet Union speak of successful mobilization of the people. But also before the current massive protests in Moscow and some 60 other Russian cities, there have been signs of democratic practices. Both on site and online, citizens have been involved in political and social issues, and have booked some results. The protests ranged from environmental causes to a particular driver who was wrongfully accused and imprisoned.

In De Tocqueville’s study of American democracy, he explored historical and geographical conditions, public morals, and the ruling institutions of the country and strongly emphasized the culture – the habits, mores and practices – of the American people. Based on the results of the revolutions in America and France, De Tocqueville did not believe in path-dependency. Among many scholars of the Soviet Union and Russia, the idea persists that it will be problematic for Russians to embark on a democratic form of life because Russia lacks the experience of democracy and the cultivation of civil society throughout its long history. Following this thinking, Russia is forever stuck in, as the scholar Tismăneanu has described it “a culture of statist authoritarianism, bureaucratic obedience, Oblomov-style fatalism, subservience to hierarchy, a crippled civil society, xenophobia and military adventurism.” Following De Tocqueville’s lead, both by rejecting this idea and by taking a more detailed look at Russian history, one can discern trends in Russia’s past that have an important significance for the study of current public morals.

I have focused my research on the political values of Russians as they discuss them in mostly online media outlets. These activities disprove stereotypical findings of Russians’ unstoppable proneness to strong central authority and Russia’s lack of democratic potential. The current political upheaval show us how these manifestations of democratic culture co-exist with non-democratic sentiments and institutions and even suggest that they may prevail.

I am teaching the foundations course in our graduate program this year: “Classical Sociological Theory.” It’s a challenge. The last time I taught such a class was thirty years ago. Yet, it’s a challenge worth taking. Aside from the matters of departmental needs and resources, this is something that I believe will be particularly interesting for me, and also for my students. Over those thirty years, I have actively thought about the events of the day, and about my research, using foundational thinkers (though some more than others), “standing on the shoulders of giants.” It is exciting to revisit old friends, including, among others, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel and George Herbert Mead, and spend some time, introducing them to students at the beginning of their professional training.

The first theorist was easy, Alexis de Tocqueville. I have taught an undergraduate class on his masterpiece, Democracy in America, frequently. My new book, Reinventing Political Culture: The Power of Culture versus the Culture of Power, is not only informed by Tocqueville’s approach to culture and democracy. It is in a sense in dialogue with Tocqueville. And as the readers of Deliberately Considered know when I look at current events, I often interpret them using the insights of Tocqueville from understanding the nature of the American party system and for contemporary political debate, such as the struggle over workers’ rights in Wisconsin.

Karl Marx, the second theorist we examined in our class, is another matter.  Like many intellectuals since his time, I have a history with Marx. As I told the class in an introduction to our discussions last week, when I was young and especially critical, I thought that to be critical required one to read, know and act through Marx. I remember having a course in high school which I found particularly upsetting, “The Problems of Communism.” The author of the class text was J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the F.B. I. Talk about the state ideological apparatus, as the orthodox French Marxist, Louis Althusser, would have put it. In reaction against this nonsense, I found The Communist Manifesto in my local public library, and started my long relationship with Marx and Marxism.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Marxist, to paraphrase the terms of the anti-Communist witch hunt of the 50s and early 60s. But I was a Marxist wannabe. In high school, I found the propaganda I was fed so infuriating that I thought the enemy of my enemy must be my friend. But I didn’t have the knowledge or capacity to understand whether this friendship was genuine.

Bas-relief of an iron forger in Warsaw's MDM neighborhood (Plac Konstytucji) © Piotrus | Wikimedia Commons

As a college student, I developed my skills and expanded my knowledge. I became particularly enchanted with the Frankfurt School, especially Herbert Marcuse and his One Dimensional Man, as did many student radicals of the time. Indeed, I still find this neo-Marxist, heterodox school of thought quite enlightening, as my class will discover when we discuss Max Weber in a few weeks. Theirs is a cultural critique of capitalism, which has its problems, but also carries important insights. I think of the position as left-wing Weberian thought, informed by Weber’s understanding of the relationship between the economy, the state and various cultural endeavors. But when it came to Marx’s focus on productive forces and the centrality of class, I tried, even pretended to be convinced, but I never was.

My failure as a Marxist was consummated when I did research in Poland. I saw that environmental degradation wasn’t controlled under socialism, that, in fact, it was worse. Sexual and gender equality were more distant ideals under communism than they were under capitalism. Bourgeois democracy was real, while people’s democracy wasn’t, or, at least, democracies of the U.S. and Western Europe were much closer to democratic ideals than were the people’s democracies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I came to think that these shortcomings were not unrelated to Marxist analysis and politics.

I didn’t talk about these political issues in class. I just maintained that despite my history with Marx, I think of him as a great 19^th century social thinker, along with others, and that our task was to try to understand his position as it might inform ours today. Our task was to learn Marx, not to bury him (as was the goal of my high school communism text).

In the class, I want to let the important works of early sociology speak for themselves, without imposing my specific and often idiosyncratic interpretations. With Marx I thought the way to do this was to ironically tell the class a little about my “personal relationship” with him. I’m pretty sure the session was successful, but I do have a regret.

When I explained that I had been a Marxist wannabe, I didn’t adequately explain why my project failed. I have concluded that Marx’s central notion that man is the producing animal is too thin, and that the sociological implication he draws from this notion, i.e. that the history hitherto is the history of class struggles, is reductive. He presents important insights using this frame, but too many important issues are best understood outside the frame, including the sorts of issues I have focused on.

Yet, and this yet is important, Marx demonstrated that class matters and how it matters. From the sociological point of view, this was his great accomplishment, one that is important for scholarship and has great political importance today. Class is not an illusion, as many on the American political scene maintain. Class analysis, informed by Marx, provides a way to systematically study inequality. Such study in an America where the rich are getting rich, and the poor are getting poorer, is of the foremost importance.

As a foreigner, I am sometimes mystified, and sometimes awed, by the radical consequences of the foundational freedoms in the U.S.. For instance, the freedom to say anything, including, to cite a recent Supreme Court decision, the freedom to hurl anti-gay slurs at mourners attending a funeral. Even such speech acts are protected under a firm system of liberties, the firmest that I know of. On the other hand, I am also bemused when friends at a restaurant divide the bill to exactly reflect what each one of the eaters has consumed, dollar by dollar, with due attention to the price of each and every item. A “depraved taste” for equality, de Tocqueville would say.

De Tocqueville argues that liberty and equality are always in tension in America; economic liberty, for example, may go against the principle of equality, as it often does. Or, vice versa, the push for equality may curtail some liberties. But the system, he adds, has built-in mechanisms designed to keep the needed equilibrium in place. Again, I am being schematic: of course the system is more complex and there is more to America’s history than the principles of equality and freedom.

My point is that Obama is right about the strength of this country. As Max Weber has demonstrated in his great comparative studies of the world religions and in his investigations of economy and society, ideas matter. The powerful Soviet empire collapsed not only under external forces, but primarily because its institutional order was based on unsustainable principles. The same can be said about right and left-wing dictatorships, which also tend toward instability and collapse. And also in the U.S, the basic political principles and ideas matter as they have proven to provide stable support for the institutional system, and thus underlie the country’s considerable strength.

With this in mind, let me follow Sherlock Holmes’s method and think like a terrorist. If it is true that ideas are the main strength of, arguably, the strongest country in the world, then, the terrorist’s primary targets should not be military, economic or infrastructural. They would have to be ideological. If de Tocqueville is correct, as most experts agree, the terrorist would focus his or her attacks on the principles of equality and liberty to erode the country’s institutional apparatus, to create unrest and systemic instability.

To accomplish this, the terrorist would have to target key decision-makers, beginning with the President and the members of Congress. The terrorist would try to encourage them to change the basic rules, t0 diminish the role of the judiciary, to suspend principles such as habeas corpus,  to undermine the fair treatment of presumed criminals and the humane treatment of actual criminals, and to undermine the principle that the country has to wage wars according to established rules and conventions. A goal of such an extremist would be for the U.S. to wage war following undemocratic means, fostering a sense that legality can be dispensed with. Another front of attack would involve freedom of expression and the free circulation of ideas. The terrorist would hope to increase the degree of policing and surveillance of private information. Executive capacities should be transferred to specialized branches in the military and to intelligence agencies, as dictatorships do. Freedom of worship should be dealt with also, preventing religious groups from houses of worship, for example.

For all this, the terrorist would have to enlist, above all, his or her most radical opponents. With their help, the terrorist can weaken the foundations of democratic practice and social order of America, turning the country against the very principles that sustain its distinctive social order.

Years ago, I would have been convinced that such a plan would be impossible, even ridiculous. But after George Bush, I began to wonder. And even under Obama, I am concerned.

Alexis de Tocqueville thought, as I observed in an earlier post, that after the grand principled politics of the earliest years of the Republic, American parties and politics would be about minor issues.  About dividing up the spoils, not about the definition of what democracy is and how it should be enacted.  His important insight was to distinguish between two different forms of political contestation. He correctly noted that American politics would be mostly about dividing the spoils, resting upon a general consensus about fundamental principles.  But what he missed is that fundamental conflicts have a way, episodically, of reappearing, sometimes quite unexpectedly, and even with a slight of hand.  Such is our present situation.

This became clear to me as I was surfing the web this morning and came across a post by Jonah Goldberg at the National Review online.  He openly made the move from petit to grand politics in Tocqueville’s sense.

“The protesting public-school teachers with fake doctor’s notes swarming the capitol building in Madison, Wis., insist that Gov. Scott Walker is hell-bent on “union busting.” Walker denies that his effort to reform public-sector unions in Wisconsin is anything more than an honest attempt at balancing the state’s books.

I hope the protesters are right. Public unions have been a 50-year mistake.”

Goldberg argues against the very idea of public employee unions, going a step further than the aggressive Governor of Wisconsin. For Goldberg it is all about the principle, as he supports a politician who must get on with practical political concerns.  As Max Weber would put it, Walker uses an apparent ethic of responsibility, fiscal balance, to hide his ultimate ends; attacking the public employees’ unions.   Walker governs responsibly, moving toward the principled goal.

But there is more than meets the eye in Goldberg’s essay, which is framed around the idea that unions in the private sector fought a valiant and historic struggle against capitalist exploitation, while public unions  just stand for stealing from the public coffers. On the page where his post appears, there is a standard right wing advertisement, that takes the issue one step further from fiscal responsibility to opposition to public employee unions by calling for an anti-union petition.

The libertarian call for anti-union ‘right to work’ laws has been standard fare at the National Review dating back to its founding in the fifties.  Back then, it was a voice in the liberal wilderness, i.e. from its editors’ point of view. Back then there existed a social contract in the nation, supported by a broad spectrum of Democrats and Republicans alike, that prevented sustained attacks on workers’ rights.  Goldberg presents an argument that purports to adhere to that position.  But the anti-Obama, libertarian ad makes clear not all are interested in a social truce. It is not about the spoils but about a principled choice between individual liberty and the primacy of the right to property on the one side, and worker collective action and the struggle for social justice, on the other.

I suspect that Goldberg didn’t object to the ad’s placement, it communicates the logical conclusion of his and Governor Walker’s positions.  It revealed to this reader what is at stake in the Wisconsin events.

The Republicans won. The Democrats lost.  Obama faces a significant challenge to his leadership.  The Tea Party has come to town.  Politics in the Capital are about to become very interesting.   The political scene has changed.  Now we must deliberately consider: what the play will look like, who the actors will be, what will be their roles, how will they play them, and are we in for a comedy or tragedy.  Some initial food for thought using Alexis de Tocqueville as our guide.

Tocqueville in the 1830s described two types of political parties, great political parties and small political parties.  He explained:

“What I call great political parties are those that are attached more to principles than to their consequences; to generalities and not to particular cases; to ideas and not to men.  These parties generally have nobler features, more generous passions, more real convictions, a franker and bolder aspect than others. Particular interests, which always plays the greatest role in political passions, hides more skillfully here under the veil of public interest…

Small parties, on the contrary, are generally without political faith.  As they do not feel themselves elevated and sustained by great objects, their character is stamped with a selfishness that shows openly in each of their acts. They always become heated in a cool way; their language is violent but their course is timid and uncertain.  The means that they employ are miserable, as is the very goal they propose for themselves. Hence it is that when a time of calm follows a violent revolution, great men seem to disappear all at once and souls withdraw into themselves.

Americans have had great parties; today they no longer exist: it has gained much in happiness, but not in morality.” (link)

Tocqueville thought that the fundamental principles of American political life were established in the great debates between the Democratic – Republicans and the Federalists, between Jefferson, Hamilton, et.al, and that once the order was set, politics would be of a more mundane sort about dividing the spoils and pursuing narrow interests, battles between Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum about who would deliver the goods. This is what he thought he saw in Jacksonian America.  He illuminated a contrast in the type of parties in democratic politics, but he missed the principled issues that divided the nation, which ultimately led to a civil war.  Contrary to his expectations the contrast between great and small parties is an ongoing aspect of democratic politics, not a thing of the past.  And it was again in play yesterday.  One of the remarkable aspects of the results last night is how politics, great and small, were both present, in sensible and confused ways, with intriguing practical consequences.

As I indicated yesterday, I think that we are living through a great debate about commonsense, concerning the role of the government in the pursuit of the common good.  It is ironically cast as a debate between two highly successful Republican Presidents, Reagan versus Lincoln, between “government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem” and “government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves.”  In Tocqueville’s terms this was an election about this great contrast, and the Republican Party, as the party of Reagan, achieved a great political victory over the Democrats, as the Party of Lincoln.

But clearly many of the people voting were not thinking about such abstract “great” concerns.  They want jobs and an economic recovery, were frustrated by the depth of the economic crisis and weren’t convinced that the programs of the President and the Democrats were effectively addressing their problems.  Deficit reduction sounds good to them, large government bailouts of Wall Street don’t.  But will that lead them to support libertarian positions on Social Security and Medicare, or for that matter repeal of the very desirable benefits of “Obamacare?” Probably not.  And it is beyond me how tax cuts for the very wealthiest and slashing of government programs that benefit the vast majority of the population is either a way of getting out of an economic recession or the road to political popularity.

As the Republicans, led by its Tea Party faction, attack government, as a matter of principle, the small concerns of the American people, those who want practical action to address their very real practical problems, will become disaffected.  But as the small concerns are addressed, those committed to high Tea Party principles will condemn compromise.  It strikes me that there are profound tensions within the Republican Party on these matters, between its identity as a grand and a small political party.  I don’t think the Democrats are so conflicted.  Their ideas about the pragmatic use of the state to address pressing problems permit them to both address small concerns and enact their fundamental principles.  Their challenge is to show that this approach works.  They were unsuccessful at this stage of the deep crisis. It is likely to be more successful as the crisis abates.

In the coming months and years the interplay between grand and small politics will define American politics.  The struggle for each party will be about commonsense, but also about practical everyday concerns.  More about this in my next post.