Ideology and the US… or what the latest election tells us about the developing political landscape of the United States.

The recent election has clearly redefined US politics. But in ways which are more complex and nuanced than is often thought. Currently there is talk that the new Congress will be filled with so-called ‘New Democrats’, socially conservative, fiscally conservative. Implicit in this is a continuation of the argument that the US is somehow uniquely conservative or right wing. Well, yes, it’s certainly further to the right than Europe. But in reality the same spectrum of left centre and right exists, even if the underlying assumptions are different to those we are familiar with. Indeed what’s interesting is how exactly the same structural issues are discussed, pensions, welfare, health care and so on , and how the proposed solutions are similar even if the context is markedly different in some instances.
But because this is an event occurring in a pluralistic democracy let’s first consider what’s happened to the Republicans – which in some respects is the real story here. Karl Rove did great work over recent years to cement a solid Republican Congressional majority. However, in doing so he tended to promote the more right wing candidates over more centrist candidates or RINO’s (Republican in Name Only) such as Lincoln Chafee – although it’s worth noting the effort poured in by the Republican Party to prop him (Chafee) up over the past months. A sensible tactic if you want to be certain of the loyalty of your foot soldiers but a fairly lousy tactic if the public should shift to a more centrist position, and that is what happened over the past number of months and even years. The US electorate did not pitch left, but rather centre. Even as it stands the national divide remains largely intact, a country fairly evenly balanced between left and right. Or more accurately, leftish, centre and rightish.

So it’s also unsurprising that Rahm Emanuel (chairman of the Democratic campaign to win back the House of Representatives) often selected moderate, centrist candidates in seats which had moderate centrist Republicans. Iraq as an issue then gave the Democrats an edge in a contest where their candidates could legitimately portray themselves as the true centrists. The greatest coup of the campaign to my mind? Selecting Jim Webb, a former Republican Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration as the Democratic challenger in Virginia to take on George Allen for his Senate seat. While his success was never assured he was the right candidate at the right time to take the opportunity to best Allen. Which he did. That he is still a conservative, although of the moderate variety – an advocate of gun control amongst other things – is largely irrelevant. Already within the Democratic caucus there are the New Democrats as noted above, and the “Blue Dogs”, Southern Democrats who take up centrist or even centre right positions.

Yet even to talk about them in such categorical terms is difficult. As noted in today’s Irish Times [sub required] by Denis Staunton, John Tester, the new Senator for Montana is pro-gun and anti-gay marriage, but economically is left of centre and is antagonistic to the Patriot Act, the War in Iraq and so on. Is that a right wing or a left wing political credo? In a sense it’s neither, but again an expression of a centrist approach. Candidates with anti-abortion views are now mainstream within the Democratic Party, although the party remains firmly pro-choice.

To my mind this isn’t inconsistency, but is indicative both of how broad the tent is in US politics on both sides of the political spectrum and also of a fairly laudable political pluralism. US society is difficult to map onto our largely social democratic societies. It’s different, well…because it’s different through history, development and circumstance. Therefore it’s hardly sensible to expect everything to conform to our expectations. That a somewhat progressive party, such as the Democrats can encompass such seemingly contradictory candidates (as has the Republican party in better times) can only stand to it in a political system which is a continent wide and half a continent deep.

Would I want the same system here? I certainly would not – our system has served us reasonably well in the context of a small rather limited polity, although it’s worth pointing out that our largest political formations accommodate similar internal ranges of opinion quite comfortably (and the same is true on certain social issues with our smaller parties).

A truth that is useful to take away from this? That people, humans will disagree quite naturally and entirely honourably. That broadly speaking such disagreement should not be seen as a reason to shut the door on those with different opinions. This isn’t yet another plea for ‘a little understanding’, but instead one for a more reasoned approach to political conflict. One of the most dispiriting aspects of Republican rule over the past six years in Washington has been how the public discourse has been limited to simplistic formulations of ‘us and them’ leading to a vainglorious triumphalism and ‘winner takes all’ mentality. Of all people I recognise the reality of difference in policy belief and so forth, but I see no reason to pretend that someone with a different viewpoint is unworthy of engagement or that their beliefs are also unworthy of consideration, indeed it is intellectually suspect and self-defeating not to continually question one’s own beliefs in light of others. The Republicans by shifting too hard to the right, appearing unamenable to discussion or rationality and rather foolishly buying into their own rhetoric of a ‘conservative country’ lost the centre ground, as we saw British Labour lose it in the 1980s and the British Conservatives lose it in the 1990s.

I suspect in the US Presidential Election in 2008 we’ll see an effort to reclaim that ground by the Republicans, if not sooner…

A final thought, is it the enormous scale of US politics, played out across continental backdrops which leads to both the disproportionate role of finance, and the significant blurring of ideology in both representative and Presidential Elections, or is it the very nature of an executive Presidency and enormous constituencies? Is this something we in Europe should be thinking long and hard about as we too struggle with the forms of representation which are best suited for our own transcontinental endeavour?