What Happened?

There will be all sorts of explanations to account for the election outcome, most of them connected to the limitations of Obama as a political actor, most of them, also, not really serious.  In the past two elections, the Democrats gained a large number of seats in traditionally Republican districts, and thus they were not particularly solid, and when times are tough, as they are now, it is not good for incumbents in marginal districts. I have nothing particularly to add to this. I recommend an excellent, realistic election preview of the likely post election storytelling by Bendan Nyhan, which I think gets it right.

Why?

But beyond the outcome is its meaning.  Although Nyhan and other election realists are surely on target when they underscore that the old slogan “it’s the economy stupid” goes a long way in explaining the results, the results’ meaning will be less clear and more important as we proceed.

While I’ve suggested in my most recent posts that the power and limitations of Obama’s speech-making will be revealed by the voting, I don’t think that this is of crucial importance in understanding the meaning of the elections.  That was how the battle looked on the ground, as Obama tried to maximize his and the Democrats’ advantage.  Now there is the question of where the country is at this moment and where it’s going.  The Republican victory does reveal Democratic failures, which need examination, which I hope we discuss here at DC in the coming days and weeks.

I think that the primary issue is commonsense.  I have long maintained that Obama, and the Democratic Party under his leadership, is not leftist, but centrist, that his project was to move the center a bit left and to change commonsense understandings of central problems: key are issues of race and difference, more broadly about American identity, and the relationship between the state and the economy.

These issues have been discussed on this blog in posts on “Gates – Gate,” “Park 51,” healthcare reform, and on Obama’s election itself.  While I don’t think that the results tonight will indicate a complete failure and repudiation of the Democrats’ approach under the leadership of President Obama, I do think that the election results will show how the Democrats have been engaged in an ongoing struggle about commonsense, which has thus far not been successful.

Since Reagan persuasively convinced the American public that the government is the problem, not the solution to our problems, America indeed has been a center right nation, as conservative observers often assert.  Reagan’s obsession with “welfare queens” added a touch of racism to the consensus he forged.  But there is nothing natural about this.  Obama sought to change it and made inroads with a record of legislative accomplishment and of course by his election itself.

But commonsense changes slowly, and there has been significant resistance, including an impassioned social movement, The Tea Party. In the coming months, in post – election posts, I hope to discuss the battle over American common sense with the D.C. community.   Why have people held firm in their obsessions about government spending and balanced budgets while in an economic recession?  Why must we take steps backwards, after moving so convincingly forward in electing Barack Obama in our struggle against racial, ethnic and religious discrimination and injustice?  Will the change again proceed?  What strategies and positions can facilitate this?  What strategies and positions will block it?