Back to the Future

In perusing some of the latest poll results, it strikes me that the decline and fall of the Republicans is easily explained. Republicans lost their most basic rationale: promoting fiscally prudent government and a sound economy.

For most of my adult life, the most common theme in politics was the Republican attack against Democrats as "Tax and Spend Liberals." The charge stuck, for the simple reason that Democrats were, in fact, Liberal tax and spenders. It stuck so well that Democrats have all but dropped the Liberal label in favor of "Progressive."

Over the years, however, the Tax and Spend charge lost its effectiveness. There were many different reasons. One important factor was the masterful triangulation of Bill Clinton's Presidency, which muddied the political waters. But more significant was the Republican take-over of Congress in 1994, ending 40 years of continuous Democrat dominance. Since then, an entire generation of voters has grown up without any experience of real, unrestrained Democrat governance, while older generations lost interest in the subject. As a result, the Tax and Spend charge became all but anachronistic, a shop-worn political cliche from an older politics that seemed no longer relevant.

The Bush Presidency exacerbated these trends of muddiness and forgetfulness. Bush's signature "Compassionate Conservatism" meme served over time to identify Republicans in the public mind with bigger Washington government and deficit spending. At the same time, the Democrats pounded away on the rhetorical front, beating the drums for fiscal prudence and responsibility in order to rectify a failed economy. The fact that they obstinately opposed any measures to rescue Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy meant very little; as the party out of power, their disingenuous opportunism was little noted.

The net result, then, by the end of the Bush Presidency was a reversal of the parties' historic positions in the public's mind: Republicans were now inside the beltway plutocrats, pockets bulging with earmarks and disdainful of the economic consequences of their profligacy, while Democrats became lone voices in the wilderness pleading for fiscal responsibility.

Ten months into the Obama Presidency and this decades long re-labeling of the parties has suddenly reversed course.

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A recent Democracy Corps survey finds that Republicans have climbed back into parity with Democrats as the party better able to run the economy, recovering a whopping 16 point deficit on the issue since May. Democrats may take some comfort in the fact that they are still viewed positively on the issue by 50% of the voters, but I think they are mistaken. The Republican's 16 point jump is only a freeze-frame of a rising trend, wherein the voters are being reminded and awakened to old political truths: that the Democrats are Tax and Spend Liberals whose policies are devastating for an economy.

It's really quite marvelous to watch, actually. Cultural memory is real; it can be hidden or suppressed for a while, but long term trends in the body politic will erupt upon any crack in the surface. And the Democrats, with their trillion dollar deficits, proposals to construct massive clanking government machinery like National Healthcare and Cap and Trade, and their utter cluelessness about the connection between these and a faltering economy, have set off a bomb at the very fault lines of American politics. The resulting earthquake, estimated to occur in November of 2010, looks to be a doozy.

Republicans should dust off their old yard signs. "Tax and Spend Liberals" is a political slogan that is back in vogue.

With a vengeance.