For obvious reasons, there has been considerable discussion about political revolutions lately. Whether it is possible to have a revolution, whether a revolution is sufficient for this or that purpose, whether it’s desirable, and whether this thing or that thing is a revolution: these are some of the discussions on the topic that have been popping up here and there.
My thoughts turned to what one would have to do under the American system in order to have a successful political revolution, where successful is defined as being able to implement a program of fundamental, structural changes in the structure and process of government.
My first thought was that obviously it isn’t possible to do this with only a president. For federal laws to get passed, you also need majorities in both houses of Congress, with a supermajority in the Senate. But even that isn’t sufficient: under our system, the States have an unusual amount of power to comply with or interfere with federal initiatives (a case in point is the havoc wreaked by Republican-led States with respect to Medicaid expansion). So, you also need to have control of most State governments, meaning the governor and both houses of the state legislature. Finally, under our system, it is quite possible for a minority group to block policies of the majority. The primary way that this is done is through the State and Federal court systems, from the Supreme Court all the way down. Even the most progressive and beneficial law, even supported by a strong majority, can be annulled by the courts (a case in point here is a number of FDR’s initiatives).
At a minimum, you need to start building your revolution in Congress long enough in advance to win all three Senate elections, so six years in advance. However, there are many judicial positions with much longer terms, some with life terms. So while six years is a practical minimum, it could take longer than that to get to the point where you could really implement a political revolution. It’s also worth mentioning that in order to get all of these majorities, from bottom to top, you have to get a majority of the American electorate with you, but from a pragmatic point of view, that’s rather a side effect.
As I was pondering all this, I was actually surprised by how difficult it would be to get all the pieces into position so that you could have a truly successful political revolution. I was thinking in terms of increasing participation in off-year elections, and of increasing support for down-ballot elections, including not only at the State level, but also at the local level, because new candidate at both State and Federal levels tend to come up from local city councils, school boards, sheriffs, and so on.
In order to make this work (I realized), it would be necessary to have a unified political party. Everyone at every level would need to be more or less on the same page. This would require both education and discipline, things we have not been wonderful at over the years.
And it was then that I realized something incredibly depressing.
Yes, in fact, there exists a model of how to do an American revolution: the Republicans. Starting with Newt Gingrich around 1992, the Republicans have been doing all of the above. They started with education—some might say indoctrination—and discipline. They ruthlessly kicked out their RINOs, in two generations. First, the moderate/liberal Republicans that were still in office before the 90s were gotten rid of and replaced with Gingrichite super-conservatives, all speaking the new, rightwing dialect invented by Gingrich and his fellows. The second generation was the teabaggers: this got rid of a number of additional, relatively more moderate (i.e., slightly less mean-spirited) Republicans.
They worked locally first and built up from there. They now control the States, for the most part; the Judiciary, to a considerable extent; and both houses of Congress.
In fact, they are primed to have their revolution succeed. Imagine what could be done if a Gingrich-style conservative Republican won the White House, given the power they have in Congress and in the State governments. It would be immense. What couldn’t they do?
For example (not that they would actually do this), they could easily, with a Republican president, implement free university education and public healthcare. I mean, who would stop them (not that we would actually want to)? On the other hand, they could easily do what they actually do want to do: dismantle the ACA, turn welfare into a block grant to States that they could do what they like with, start a huge military buildup, open national parks to mineral exploitation—whatever they wanted. Again, who could stop them?
Fortunately, it appears that they are not going to get a Gingrich-style conservative Republican president this election cycle. Neither Trump and Cruz would get much cooperation in Congress or the judiciary, even if one of them won, which I don’t believe they will. Because of the bizarre way their primary has gone, their revolution will not reach successful completion in 2016. (But don’t doubt for a minute that they’ll just regroup and aim for a later year, always aiming to control more and more of the States, the Judiciary, and Congress.)
Anyway, it appears that there is a model for how to make a political revolution that means something under the American system, but it’s really, really hard, and takes a long time—a generation or more. There are likely to be reversals (e.g., Trump). And, it really was Newt Gingrich that realized this and set in motion the one effort in recent memory that actually has a shot at doing it.
If we want to make a political revolution on the Left, we could perhaps use some of Sanders’s ideas as goals. But if we really want to make one happen, I think we’d be better served by examining Gingrich’s approach (not the contents or the ideology of it, but the approach). Under the American system, I think that’s what it would really take.
Or, we could just muck along as we always have.