Historians often refer to the period in American history from
1815 to 1825 as the Era of Good Feelings. During this decade, the
nasty squabbles of the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans
subsided; the divisive debates over the issues of the day —
slavery, war, tariffs, the Second National Bank — had, for the
moment, disappeared. President James Monroe enjoyed sustained
popularity and bipartisan support few chief executives have
known.
On election night, President-elect Barack Obama peppered his
victory speech with words of humility and cooperation. He urged
his followers to “resist the temptation to fall back on the same
partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our
politics for so long.” The gathered throngs in Grant Park
approved enthusiastically. We will surely hear much about “unity”
and “coming together” in the coming weeks and days; our media
will breathlessly await the coming epoch.
Given all this, observers might deduce we are headed towards a
second coming of the Era of Good Feelings. However, it would
require a mild case of amnesia for anyone who has been paying
attention to our national dialogue since 2001 to believe this.
The past eight years have not merely been partisan, but full of
dangerous and unhinged hatred for President George W. Bush. And
the engine of much of that bile were the men and women in the
crowd at Grant Park, the rank and file of the next president’s
party, and the compliant media who did so much to destroy Bush
and deify Obama.
Those who will now ask for bipartisanship are also those who
waited in line to see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11
(which alleged Bush’s complicity in 9/11) or Oliver Stone’s
W (which painted Bush as Jesus-loving doofus with a
serious case of daddy envy) or even Gabriel Range’s Death of
a President (which played out the left’s fever dream of
Bush’s assassination on the big screen).
They are the same people who slapped “Bush knew about 9/11”,
“1/20/09 — the End of an Error” or “Not My President” bumper
stickers to the back of their Volvos. They are the same
individuals who accused Bush of stealing the 2000 election in
Florida and the 2004 election in Ohio.
Those who will now call for us to move beyond division are the
ones who bought copies of venomous anti-Bush tomes such as
The I Hate George W. Reader, The Bush Hater’s
Handbook, or Nicholson Baker’s novel Checkpoint
(whose main character, plotting Bush’s assassination, concludes,
“I’m going to kill that bastard”).
The advocacy journalists, who gush over the coming
non-ideological age of Obama, are also the scribes who attacked
Bush for the duration of his presidency. They are the ones who
gave us a legacy of journalism that includes the New
Republic’s “The Case for Bush Hatred” and the
Rolling Stone’s “Worst President in History.”
Those who urge us to look beyond party and support the next
president are the ones who nodded approvingly when San Francisco
attempted to name a sewage plant after the sitting president.
They are the actors, musicians, and entertainers who littered our
public space with infantile attacks on Bush. And they are the
people so many of us have met and known, from work to school, or
seen and overheard in public spaces who have cruelly prefaced or
followed their comments about their own president with words such
as Nazi, dictator, evil, racist, hate and even kill.
After nearly a decade of this toxic behavior, they now ask us to
join hands in supporting the new president.
At least one Republican has obliged that request. On Wednesday
morning, Bush publicly offered Obama his best wishes. The
occasion was most likely melancholy for a president whose own
party (from which he has been increasingly shunned) had been
crushed by the opposition for a second consecutive election.
Looking at his face, it was clear the struggles and
disappointments of the past few years have taken their physical
toll. But there he was, the most maligned man in the world,
delivering an elegant and gracious congratulations to his
successor — who rode to the White House in no small part by
relentlessly attacking Bush and his “failures.”
Given the hoopla surrounding Obama’s election and his coming
administration, it will probably be a little noted moment in the
whirlwind of history we have been living in. Nor will it be
noticed by the Bush haters during their ongoing ecstasy over the
change of the guard at the White House. Yet, opponents of Obama
should take note of Bush’s words and the left’s current plea for
bipartisanship.
The next four years will surely provide ample opportunities for
criticism of the incoming president. And, in staggering contrast
to the Bush haters, the new opposition should provide that
criticism in a thoughtful and civil way. The national discourse
does not need any further degrading.
But rest assured, in the coming years critics of President Obama
will be blamed for breaking our national unity, accused of being
unpatriotic, or told to keep quiet lest we divide the country and
disrupt the second Era of Good Feelings. When such accusations
are made, always remember these past eight years. Never forget
who exactly shattered the unity, who behaved unpatriotically, and
who did the dividing.
