A reader prompts me to look again at what Tocqueville wrote about American political parties and associations. Tocqueville essentially contrasts American political parties with those in Continental Europe by drawing a distinction between parties that seek to convince and those that seek merely combat. In Europe, he argues that many political parties are so convinced deep down that they could never persuade a majority in a free argument that they give up on free dialogue and resort to propaganda, collective orthodoxy and, if necessary, extra-legal maneuvers. I think we could say that in the last decade or so, this tendency has infected both major political parties in this country. The Gingrichites didn’t try to persuade; they acted like revolutionaries. The religious right equally tended to treat their opponents as moral degenerates to be overcome rather than citizens to be engaged. Similarly, the Carville-Begala wing of the Clintonites launched a literal “war-room” to fight the political fight. Under Clinton and then Gore, any means necessary was the essential motto of the Democrats. It’s a sign of the health of our democracy that most Americans found both tendencies repugnant. George W’s civility is not simply politeness. It’s a political argument for a new kind of civil discourse. It is, however, an old kind – and an American kind.
Here’s the relevant passage from Tocqueville’s <a HREF = http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226805328/qid%3D983583836/105-5057869-2241534 TARGET = NEW>”Democracy In America,” in the pellucid new translation by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Hard to beat. The argument against this kind of association is particularly acute for those claiming to represent the oppressed. If you can’t see the tragicomic figures of Lanny Davis, Barney Frank, and Joe Conason behind these words, you’re wearing blinders:
“The members of these [European-style] associations respond to the words of an order like soldiers on a campaign; they profess the dogma of passive obedience, or rather, in uniting, they have made the entire sacrifice of their judgment and their free will in a single stroke … That very much diminishes their moral force. Thus they lose the sacred character that attaches to the struggle of the oppressed against oppressors. For one who consents in certain cases to obey with servility some of those like him, who delivers his will to them, and submits even his thought to them – how can that one claim that he wants to be free?”
The Dish 