The Death of the Democrat Party? (Part 1)

redstate.com

In an earlier column, I discussed Elon Musk’s plan to create a new political party. His idea is unlikely to succeed, since he wants to replace the Republicans, and his main issue – cutting government spending – is a long-time component of the Republican platform.

But that column got me thinking – is there a potential opening for a new political party in our two-party system?

I believe there is. All indications are that the Democrat Party is in big trouble.

Let’s look back at American political history. This country has had a tradition of having two broad and ideologically fluid coalition parties that contest with each other across the nation. Over our history, two of these American parties have disappeared from existence – the Federalists and the Whigs.

How and why did this happen?

The Federalists

The Federalist Party was heavily centered in New England, and its leader was Alexander Hamilton. Its general philosophy was the “big government” party, although back then, that meant promoting small national improvements, like building new waterways and roads, raising some federal taxes (but not income taxes), creating an army and navy, establishing banks, and favoring the implementation of tariffs. The Federalists were also known as the party of the educated American elites; they famously were disdainful of the common workers and farmers. As a result, they were often characterized as monarchists by their opponents, the Democratic-Republicans.

The Federalists fell apart because: 1) they had weak and fratricidal leadership; 2) no control over the federal government from 1801 on, and thus, no patronage; 3) focused on elite opinion and were disdainful of the common man; and 4) were promoting policies that the (expanded) voter pool was simply not buying. Part of their problem was that the first President, George Washington, was basically a Federalist, but he refused to join them to stay non-partisan. When he left office, John Adams, who was a party member, became president. But Adams was not the Federalist leader, and he and Hamilton famously did not get along.

In fact, Hamilton tried to defeat Adams in 1796, and as a result, put Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the Democratic-Republicans, in the Vice Presidency. In 1800, Jefferson swept Adams out of office, the Federalists lost their majorities in Congress (which they would never win back), and just four years later, Hamilton was killed in a duel.

For the remainder of their time in existence, the Federalists had no strong leadership, and in the 1812 election, a Democratic-Republican named Dewitt Clinton, the mayor of New York City, took advantage of Federalist weakness by winning the endorsement of the party, despite not being a member (a la Bernie Sanders). Clinton ran with an ambiguous position on the War of 1812; the Federalist party was strongly against that war. But he failed to win the electoral college or even the popular vote. With General Andrew Jackson’s later victory in that war, the Federalist Party was derided as a party of cowards and ceased to exist after 1816.

The Whigs

When Andrew Jackson, as a presidential candidate and then as a president, created his Democrat Party, his opponents fell into their own party coalition to oppose him (eventually): the Whig Party. The Whigs were a very loose combination, which sometimes had party segments that joined and then left, in rapid succession, which often tried to avoid being pinned down on the issues because of its conflicting factions. When in office, it tended to promote the “American System”, which was a “big government” ideology like that of the Federalist Party.

Its main leader was Henry Clay, who, despite his constant scheming for it, never won the presidency. The Whigs fell apart for essentially the same reasons as the Federalists, because: 1) they had weak and fratricidal leadership; 2) little control over the federal government, and thus, little patronage; 3) were heavily focused on avoiding issues and catering to the elites; and 4) were promoting policies that the (expanded) voter pool was simply not buying.

There were a total of four Whig presidencies; however, only over eight years. And it got worse for the Whigs – when William Henry Harrison died, his successor, John Tyler, was a WINO (Whig In Name Only) who had largely identical beliefs to Southern Democrats but had joined the Whigs because of his opposition to Andrew Jackson personally. As president, Tyler was expelled by the Whigs for refusing to implement the American System, appointed Democrats to his administration, and even made a play for the Democrat Party presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, later, in 1848, Whig nominee Zachary Taylor won the presidency with a plurality because a former Democrat president ran as a third-party antislavery candidate. Taylor won while his party lost their House majority and failed to carry the Senate. He died less than 2 years later, with Vice President Millard Fillmore succeeding to that office. Fillmore backed the “Compromise of 1850” legislation that attempted to paper over the nation’s divisions on slavery, which divided his own party, and prevented him from winning the Whig presidential nomination (as the sitting president) in 1852.

The Whigs rarely controlled Congress during their 22 years in existence - only managing four years each of leadership over the Senate and the House.

It is well-known by historians that the issue of slavery was what finally ended the Whig coalition. Both the Whigs and the Democrats had Southern and Northern wings, which had opposing views on slavery. Of the two, the Southern Democrats were more viscerally pro-slavery; the Southern Whigs largely tried a “me-too” strategy, where they attempted to keep that issue off the table and focus on promoting their American System, which was more popular with their elites.

So, when slavery became the burning issue in the 1850s, the Southern Democrats refused to abandon it, essentially taking control of their party, and the antislavery people in both parties spun off to create a new party that was exclusively opposed to slavery, the Republicans. And the Whigs fell apart.

Today’s Democrat Party seems to be following in the footsteps of the Federalist and Whig Parties.

To be continued in Part 2...