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The Problem With the Future

By Robert Stacy McCain on 10.24.08 @ 11:53PM

The future has never happened before. Those who expect the political future to replicate the past will inevitably be disappointed. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we have lived through an age of extreme political turbulence. The election of 1994 commenced a series of high-profile partisan battles -- the 1995-96 budget battle, the 1998-99 impeachment battle, the 2000 Florida recount battle, etc. -- in which the contending forces were very closely matched. After substantial GOP victories in 2002 and 2004, Karl Rove convinced many that the "permanent Republican majority" was at hand, a conviction that has rapidly unraveled since.

Beware, then, the confidence with which Marc Ambinder predicts the future:

[I]f there's an enormous Democratic sweep, the odds of a reverse sweep two years from now are slim. 2010 won't be like 1994, where Republicans allegedly punished a Democratic Congress and president for the health care debacle and gays in the military. (Would the nation dump 70-80 Republicans over two years only to return them to power two years later?)

We have no idea what voters will do in 2010 or 2012 for the simple reason that we have no idea what the political environment will be like in two or four years. Not everything that affects politics is within the control of the political class. Mohammed Atta and Hurricane Katrina were such transpolitical phenomena.

Obviously, the larger the Democratic majority in Congress, the more difficult it will be for Republicans to take away that majority. QED. Still, we have no definite idea what policy disputes or scandals will erupt over the next few years, or what transpolitical events might shape public attitudes.

Go back to 1964, and see if any pundit predicted, on the eve of LBJ's landslide, the coming Nixon presidency. Go back to 1976 and the triumph of Jimmy Carter and see if you find any predictions of the looming Reagan revolution. Or go back to 1988 and see if, in the ashes of the Dukakis debacle, anyone foresaw the future Clinton presidency.

View all comments (5) | Leave a comment

dad29| 10.25.08 @ 10:33AM

One 'transformational event' would be the highway-robbery of 401(k)'s.

OCPatriot| 10.25.08 @ 3:09PM

I predict that a Democratic sweep will, indeed, change the face of politics in the U.S. ... for a while. Then the same-old, same-old syndrome will begin its insidious unwinding and the Democrats, entrenched in power, will begin to assume the world has given them the license to do whatever they can conceive of (just like the Republicans), and they will slowly become corrupt and over-blown with righteousness. As Lord Acton has said, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. By then, when the abuses have become so outrageous, the Republicans (or whatever the party will be called by then) will be able to step in and start the cycle all over again. The only problem with this analysis is that the lines have become blurred, and political names mean nothing any more. Under a "compassionate conservative", under an initial Republican majority, government grew at its fastest pace ever, and debt skyrocketed to beyond the ozone layer. And a Socialist is now a Conservative who has lost money in a financial institution in his or her personal asset account.

OCPatriot| 10.25.08 @ 6:12PM

Dear Dad29:
The hi-jack of 401Ks has already begun. How much has yours lost already and when will it be restored? If you think the unfettered deregulation, under a primarily Republican Treasury and SEC, hasn't been a cause of the home mortgage meltdown, which started this stock market decline, then I'd like to hear something better than, Bill Clinton caused it, or Obama wants to gut your pension.

Thomas| 10.25.08 @ 7:32PM

Gentlemen,

You are all forgetting one tiny little thing; we are not alone in the world. There are plenty of bad people out there that wish to destroy this country just as much as our own homegrown problem children do. So, those of you who think that we are in as good a position to hold off the barbarians as we were when Eisenhower was President, or LBJ or Carter or Clinton or even G.W.Bush, think again. Our world may not end in a crash, but a BOOM. So decide who you would rather have standing in the White House situation room when the balloon goes up. Now is not the time to feel sorry for ourselves, but to hold politician's feet to the fire to provide the service to the citizenry that they have promised for years. We may not have four more years to wait for competent leadership.