A bird's eye view of the 2008 elections beheld a tremendous political shift in American political and social life. Democrats added to their congressional majorities won in 2006 and we elected a very progressive, leftist president. The poll results revealed, it seemed, that a majority of Americans wanted to live out the conclusion of Newsweek magazine, that we are all socialists now.
That was nineteen months ago. Now things look considerably different.
To interpret 2008 as a watershed election on par with 1800, 1860, and 1936 wherein the center of politics shifted enough to dominate all future legislative policy, one has to make the convincing argument that a majority of Americans have embraced the idea of living under a European style cradle-to-grave nanny state.
Now, we continue to witness the sustained energy and vocalized dissent of Americans through movements like the Tea Party where there is a shared interest in limited government, freedom, and a return to the Constitution. We see the popularity of Glenn Beck's 5 o'clock show that offers more history and book reviews than news. We watch the skyrocketing sales of classic works on freedom like The Road to Serfdom
(Amazon's top-selling book in June), written in 1944. And consider that,d due to overwhelming interest, the Austrian economics think tank Foundation For Economic Education had to turn away applicants from their summer seminars.These social indicators paint a different political landscape that what Newsweek was so giddy to report. And they tell us two things: America is not primed to become France, Jr., and that the 2006 and 2008 elections were not the seismic shift in politics hoped for by those wanting us to become France, Jr.
Rather, the public seemed primed to vote for Candidate Not-Bush, and give the Not-Republican Party an opportunity at power. Democrats never gave the public substantive reasons to take back Congress other than reminding us how long Republicans were in the majority. Presidential candidate Senator Obama campaigned on "hope" and "change," avoiding even marginally substantive talk on concrete issues that would have indicated his desire to "fundamentally transform" America. He waited to tip his hand to that little ambition days before before the election.
Hope, change, and "he's not the other guy" are not the grounds upon which realignment elections are built. And they certainly are not principles upon which the public places currency, much less confidence, embraces unequivocally, and holds up as reasons to socialize the country.
Now that we've had a taste of what America could become, if the majority of Americans embraced what this administration and Congress is placing upon them, the public's reaction gives us confidence no such majority exists. The voice of the minority in the technical sense---those of us not represented by the party in power---is the voice of a larger, deeper, and wider political sentiment in the country. That voice, then, is really not one of a minority but one of a true majority, preferring freedom, that was waiting to be woken up.
And it shows no signs of falling back asleep.
What happens this fall and in the next two years will depend on this voice of dissent, and how much effect it has on both political parties. We've seen we cannot wait for top-down reform (real change, that is) so we have to rely on ground-up pressure on the powers-that-be. A policy of freedom is what the majority of Americans truly want, and political parties can act oblivious for only so long.
That's how it is, for now.
