Walter Russell Mead takes the occasion of President Obama’s
attempt to
reenact a historic speech by Teddy Roosevelt
to reflect on the unchanging nature of political disagreements.
Mead argues that political battles in the near future correspond to
the Hamilton vs. Jefferson debates of the early Republic, with
Obama (and also everyone else) standing in for Hamilton, and Ron
Paul for Jefferson:
Either way, a long revival of American traditions of
individualism, skepticism of elites, and distrust of the federal
government is a rising force in this country. Add to that
suspicions of finance and of the influence of firms like Goldman
Sachs in politics, and a full blown Jeffersonian reaction is
beginning to emerge.
The decline of the blue social model, part Hamiltonian, part
social democratic, is the reality that shapes the debate.
Jeffersonians like Ron Paul argue that the decline of the blue
model exposes the essential fallacies of Hamiltonian governance and
that the US needs to rebase itself on a Jeffersonian foundation.
Hostility to the Federal Reserve echoes Jefferson’s hostility
to Hamilton’s First Bank of the United States; the desire to limit
federal authority and revive states’ rights similarly echoes some
of the country’s oldest political arguments.
In Osawatomie and beyond, President Obama will run for
re-election as a Hamiltonian and a custodian of the 20th century
progressive state. He will argue that modest and careful
reforms, trimming a few excesses here, making some innovative
policy shifts there, can keep the old ship afloat in the twenty
first century. Like JFK, he will argue that the best and
brightest can develop government policy that will guide the nation
to a brighter future through collective action and state
investments.
Kate| 12.6.11 @ 1:55PM
Thank goodness, this guy--Obama; will be gone soon--American will not stand for this anymore--the Press may want to Praise him--real Americans know what is best for America--it is not this current Obama DISASTER!
Huttah| 12.7.11 @ 12:04AM
Jefferson was hardly dubbed the "American Sphynx" for nothing. Neither Hamilton nor Jefferson fit into easy correspondence with modern political categories. Jefferson promoted an agrarian vision of America because he believed that was the most promising way to maintain a rough equality of economic opportunity and outcomes in American society. He was not afraid to adopt loose Constitutionalism and "big government" (by 19th century standards) to achieve his ends. Hamilton's vision of America was utterly indifferent to economic inequality so long as an aristocracy of merit was never supplanted by a nobility of birth.