Politics Turned Upside Down

Think about it!
The political parties seem to have traded places. Where once the Democrats were the party of the people, they now seem to be the party of Big Government. Similarly, where once the Republicans were the party of big government, they have apparently transformed into the party of the People.
Consider how the parties began. The Democrats were founded by Thomas Jefferson. He adamantly opposed large government and sought at almost every turn to reduce its size. His ideal was a nation of yeoman farmers who managed their own affairs on their own plots of land. The goal was therefore to prevent the government from interfering with their freedom.
The Republicans, in contrast, got their start under the auspices of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a Federalist, believed in a more robust central government. He sponsored a central bank and the federal assumption of state debts in the hope that this would promote economic growth. Later on, Henry Clay, then designated a Whig, promoted what he called the American System intending to do the same. He believed that government sponsored roads and a federal university would promote commercial development.
Today things are remarkably different. Nowadays it is the Democrats who sponsor additional government programs. Thus, they want Washington to administer health care and to coordinate an aggressive energy policy. Nor do they have any compunctions about increasing federal spending to prime the economic pump. Indeed, to hear them tell it, this is the central duty of any government.
The Republicans, to the contrary, favor decentralization. They intend to cut federal spending and to delegate greater authority to the states. Likewise, if they get their way, government regulations will be reduced so as to allow individual citizens more latitude in making independent decisions. To hear them tell it, the less government the better.
Further evidence of this switch can be found in the party’s attitudes toward ordinary people. The Democrats seem to have lost faith in them. As the party of big government, they are supported by trial lawyers and crony capitalist companies such as General Electric. Ordinary citizens, however, when they take to the streets to protest government actions are derided as “Astroturf.” They are dismissed as airheads and potential terrorists.
Now it is the Republicans who express more faith in the common Joe. They disparage the pointy-headed intellectuals who run things from Washington, showing instead a preference for the man and woman on the street. If you ask them, regular Americans are more prudent in spending their own money than are government functionaries. They do not have to be protected from themselves as the Democrats repeatedly allege.
How then did this happen? What brought about this political world turned upside down?
The culprit seems to the Industrial Revolution. Paradoxically, the economic growth that the early Federalists favored has altered the emphases of the respective parties. It has changed their fundamental focus because it has changed the nature of the society they supervise.
Where once the United States was primarily agricultural, nowadays it is post-industrial. As a result, new theories arose to protect people against this threat. Perhaps the most important of these was the collectivism inherent in socialist systems. These promised to tame industrialists by making them subservient to the people. Since elected representatives were smarter and better situated than ordinary folks, they would act as stand-ins for their constituents. Their decisions would, therefore, be more democratic by being more elitist.
The Republicans, in contrast, noticed the changes in how post-industrialism was organized. They realized that proprietor-entrepreneurs no longer ran big companies. Instead professional managers had taken over. As importantly, most new jobs were being created by small business owners. It was, therefore, these more professionalized individuals who had to be cultivated. Their decisions, because they were closer to ground-level, were more sensible than those of far-away bureaucrats. So too were the choices of ordinary people who were the best stewards of their own resources.
Putting all of this together, it is evident that the political landscape has become quite different from what many people suppose. Today, it is the Democratic politicians who are arrogantly dedicated to centrist policies. Meanwhile, it is Republican politicians who are liable to be the sons and daughters of working people. More fundamentally, this is the reason the little people are beginning to gravitate toward a party that was once perceived as scorning their interests.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University