In the last post, I explained how the Cold War greatly influenced the way Americans thought about themselves, and how the end of the Cold War destabilized our national identity. Today, I want to consider how that in turn has led the country to lean right during the last thirty years.
It began with increasing partisanship.
Ironically, the Soviet Union’s collapse and improved U.S.-Chinese relations made it more difficult for Democrats and Republicans to work together. Previously, the Cold War had papered over longstanding partisan divisions as the two parties rallied around common enemies: Russians bad! Americans good! More bombs protect us! But once the Cold War was removed from the scene, a major political set piece for finding common ground evaporated with it. Everything was suddenly up for grabs.
Perhaps predictably, partisanship quickly filled the void, and was soon running amok. Dems and Reps have since turned on each other with unapologetic ferocity. Less predictably, much of America’s political philosophy has moved to the Right during that adjustment.
The first major sign of America’s rightward turn appeared with the election of President Bill Clinton in 1992. On his path to victory and throughout his presidency, Clinton made no bones about dragging his party to the Right and sublimating its Liberal wing. As the Democrats moved rightward, so too did the Republicans, for many, many reasons, but one of which was 
simply the practical concern of needing to differentiate themselves from the loyal opposition.
Twenty years later, the change is real. Whereas the pre-Clinton Democratic Party used to be a center-left and dead-center institution, it is now decidedly center-right. Likewise, the once dead-center and center-right Republican Party has since moved to the far right. Political ideologies in this nation have shifted, and as I pointed out earlier, the recent fight over “ObamaCare” only reinforces that; what clearer evidence could you find than the otherworldly reality that most Americans seem to think this measure is a “liberal” healthcare reform?
As American politics have moved to the Right, so too has the larger culture. Political changes have had ripple effect. Americans have reconfigured their national identity, and that too has drifted rightward.
Over the last thirty or so years, Americans have struggled to decide just what it means to be “American.” Why? Because once the Cold War ended, everything was subject to change, including the national identity it had so strongly informed. With the Soviets turned back to mere Russians, like Cinderella’s carriage popping into a pumpkin, Americans were forced to re-imagine their essence of being and their role in the world. Did they still wear the glass slipper?
As it turned out, Americans’ need to re-invent themselves played to one of the Republicans’ fortés: controlling the narrative by presenting simple and alluring story lines.
- Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. He was a hero.
- Capitalism saved the world. It’s ascendancy was inevitable.
- Conservative values saw us through the Depression and WWII. Liberalism was a luxury.
- Government never did anything for you. Conservativism equals freedom.
The Democrats’ alternative narrative? Often there was none. And beginning with Clinton, the party’s subtle message has been: We’re more like the Republicans than we u
sed to be. We’re the real party of centrism. Essentially, it has been a narrative of marginal surrender, a declaration of: If you can’t beat `em, join `em. And it has continued through the Barack Obama era.
I remember watching candidate Obama speak at a campaign rally in Baltimore in February of 2008, when he was beginning to really challenge Hillary Clinton. People had lined up around a city block, enduring frigid temperatures for a chance to glimpse the new Liberal prophet. Once inside, the crowd of 10,000 was electric, his soaring rhetoric quickly whipping it into a near frenzy.
“I’m against tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas,” Obama warned. Then, just as confidently: “I’m in favor of tax breaks for companies that create jobs right here in America!”
The crowd roared.
I thought to myself: “Tax breaks for companies are a Liberal proposal?”
That line would remain a prominent part his stump speech throughout the campaign.
Perhaps Liberals and Democrats didn’t lose the battle for a dominant political narrative to shape American identity. Maybe they just gave it away. Maybe they willingly traded it, a powerful chip in their quest for partisan victory.
Either way, I now live in a country where the Democratic Party is center-right and the Republican Party is far-right. A nation that’s wealthier th
an any other by far, but still has no nationalized healthcare system, and a body politic that no longer even considers the idea. A place where most people think that a law, which addresses the problem by greatly expanding the existing and almost universally reviled private sector model, is a Liberal solution.
This is today’s United States.