The Two Americas Are we split between optimists and pessimists?

There are many ways to parse political divisions in contemporary America. There’s left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican, liberal vs. conservative, pro-lifers vs. pro-choicers, free-traders vs. protectionists and red staters vs. blue staters, to name just a few.

They’re part of the shorthand many of us use to signal to others, at least in a general way, where we stand on the issues of the day, and position ourselves along a political spectrum that stretches from far left to far right. But they’re often crude approximations prone to blur or break down under closer scrutiny and over time. And that’s why it’s always interesting when someone comes along with a new and possibly improved way of categorizing Americans, not that we don’t have enough already.

There’s a novel way of looking at those divisions presented in a recent piece by the token Republican among regular New York Times columnists, William Safire. In a recent column, mainly focused on the issues of trade policy and jobs, Safire concluded that there do, in fact, seem to be the “two Americas” frequently bemoaned by Democratic presidential challenger John Edwards.

“Pessimistic America is pandered to by politicians demanding tariff walls and costly entitlements, preaching resentment, envy, anger, class war,” Safire wrote. “Optimistic America responds to competition, opportunity, openness, freedom — ready to do the business that not only creates tomorrow’s jobs but spreads the prosperity that leads to peace around the world.”

Safire indicates that he stands steadfastly in the latter camp — where we gladly join him — and implies that Democrats such as Edwards and John Kerry cater to those in the former. So now, once again, with a presidential election looming, it’s time for the rest of Americans to begin to choose sides. Will we be pessimists or optimists on trade, jobs and a host of other issues that divide America between those who would rather do for themselves, and those who reflexively look to the state for assistance and intervention?

We’re not sure whether the labels of “pessim” or “optim” will ever supplant the comfortable old standbys such as left and right. But they help draw meaningful distinctions.

There is a narrow temporal window we must deal with in terms of whose worldview will triumph in America for most of the 21st Century. We must look at the mix of age groups and ethnicities in this country and understand demographics.

Members of the G.I. or "Greatest" Generation, those born between 1905 and 1929, are disappearing from the population as Father Time takes his toll. Less than one quarter of those who wore Uncle Sam's uniforms in World War II are still alive; this percentage will fall below 10% by 2010. Only a very few political leaders, such as Senator Byrd of West Virginia, are World War II veterans.

The reins of power, political, social, cultural, and economic, in America are almost exclusively held by members of the Silent (1928-1945) and Baby Boom (1946-1964) generations. To a great extent, their political and social views were shaped in the cultural revolution of the 1960s. Politics in America have been molded along the fissure lines engendered by Vietnam and the hippie movement. The likely contenders in the upcoming Presidential election are representative of the fissure: George W. Bush, an early Baby Boomer, a born-again Christian, a man who has cultivated a cowboy image, and never active in the antiwar movement, vs. John F. Kerry, a late Silent Generation member, a nominal Catholic, an unabashed Eastern elitist and an unrepentant antiwar activist. (At least Bill Clinton cultivated a "good ol' boy" Southern image for himself and distanced himself from his 1960s era antiwar activities.)

Remember that while the antiwar protesters were mostly in their late teens and 20s, so were many of the policemen and National Guardsmen who fought them on the campuses and in the streets. The battle lines of 2004 are largely those drawn in Chicago in 1968 and Kent State in 1970. The predominantly moderate (economic liberal and social conservative) tone of the G.I. generation has faded as G.I. Joe and Rosie the Riveter have gone to their eternal state or at least to nursing homes. Their kids remain, middle aged now, but still at odds.

Liberals predominated in the mainstream news media, the mainline Protestant churches, the education establishment, and the entertainment industry when the G.I. Generation was in control. However, in the ensuing decades, the liberals' domination became an exclusive monopoly with political correctness used as a tool to "purify" the institutions of political and cultural conservatives. Furthermore, liberalism became more blatantly relativist and multicultural, dropping the masks of respect for Judeo-Christian morality and Western civilization the liberals of the G.I. and Lost (1880-1904) generations wore. No actor can be as openly conservative as, say, John Wayne was 35-40 years ago, and expect to work in the mainstream movie industry.

In response, a parallel information network developed, first through talk radio and later via the Internet. (Free Republic is one segment of the construction of a counter-information system.) Evangelical churches expanded rapidly, as did the number of nonbelievers, even as the mainline churches declined in gross numbers and their denominations appeared well on the path to extinction by mid-century. Private schools and home schooling boomed, although a large majority of conservative and moderate Baby Boomer parents kept their children in the public school system.

Despite the construction of a parallel news and information system, the rapid growth of conservative Protestantism, and the opting out of the public school system and the mainstream entertainment media by a substantial minority of conservative parents, the long term success of the historic Christian faith (temporally speaking, of course; the Book of Revelation shows the ultimate triumph of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ) and of traditional moral and cultural values is doubtful. Consider the obstacles:

* The "Iron Triangle" of the Ivy League and major state and private universities, the Fortune 500 corporations, and prestigious positions in the nonprofit and government sectors remains unbroken and consumes a large portion of the nation's "best and brightest," even those from conservative families.
* The pernicious influence of the mainstream culture, which seemingly becomes more vile every year, becoming ubiquitous and seducing even the sons and daughters of conservative Christians.
* Massive immigration (both legal and illegal) into the United States of millions of people not of European descent, who, while not necessarily buying all the values of the mainstream culture, are political allies of the liberals because of the "bread and circuses" they promise.
* The love affair that many conservatives have with big government, at least when they perceive, as with the Bush Administration, that the Feds act in their interest.
* The pernicious influence of narcotics, especially those, like methamphetamines, that are home grown and almost impossible to stop with law enforcement tactics short of those employed by Mao in Communist China (execute both dealers and users).

As immigrants and the members of Generations X (1964-1982) and Y (1982-2000) come "on line," the political and cultural spectra will move increasingly leftward. (Of course, defining what constitutes conservatism leftward has been going on since the New Deal era.) Unless conservatives, Christian or not, become increasingly militant and determined to preserve their nation and civilization, by 2020, America may be unshakably gripped by the forces of secular humanism and moral relativism. Even in places like Texas and Oklahoma, Christians and traditionalists will be driven underground or placed in "reeducation" camps. The American nation will more resemble the Soviet Union than pre-1960 America. Nikita Khrushchev, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley will be considered prophets. When the inherent economic contradictions of socialism and the debilitation caused by all but universal immorality cause the defeat of American arms on the battlefield, America will go the way of Babylon and the Roman Empire on the ash heap of history. The authoritarian liberals will cease being our masters, but may be replaced by Chinese, Muslim, or Latin American ones.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country!

It's hard to find people who are entirely optimistic or pessimistic about everything. It also looks like a mistake to base a theory of American politics on one -- or two -- losing political campaigns. One could have made the same observation about Clinton vs. Bush in 1992, but the pessimists won, and a few years later they were wildly optimistic, predicting the end of the business cycle.

Candidates -- especially Democrats -- try to win by arguing that their opponents have brought doom and gloom, and only they can dispel the storm clouds. Incumbents try to win by arguing that the future is clear, bright, and sunny. It's hard to see that there's much more behind Edwards or Kerry than that. The money is on the side of globalization, and any Democrat president would be likely to follow his contributors.

Libertarian Virginia Postrel has a similar notion, contrasting pessimistic "staticism" or "statism" or "stasisism" and optimistic, change-oriented politics. But the problem is that change isn't good in itself, any more than optimism is. The problem with globalist optimists is that they seem too quick to jettison much of our cultural heritage, including the nation-state itself. Rapid economic change brings about radical change in other areas, and tearing down trade barriers can lead to the collapse of social taboos.

Economic optimists do what it takes to promote bring growth and when growth comes and the malls are built people become more consumerist and less self-reliant, hence more liberal. That's certainly not to say that pessimism is preferable to optimism, just that optimism and pessimism aren't the best categories to describe current political divisions.

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