Progressive States of America

Here is where the United States is at:

The regime of public spending has at last drawn so many groups into the public arena in search of public dollars that it has paralyzed the political process and driven governments to the edge of bankruptcy.

Rent-seeking coalitions have little interest in moderating their demands in the interests of the broader economy ... (Future Tense – The Fourth Revolution)

President Obama is right. We can’t go back to the failed policies of the past. Progressive tax and borrow and spend does not work.

James Piereson has written an article entitled Future Tense – The Fourth Revolution. In it he explains that the US government, rather than being equally shared by two parties, has actually always been dominated by one party or the other that sets the “regime” that the other party must work within. The regime continues until a “revolution” happens that breaks the grip and ushers in something new.

Three Revolutions

The United States has been shaped by three far-reaching political revolutions: Thomas Jefferson’s “revolution of 1800,” the Civil War, and the New Deal. Each of these upheavals concluded with lasting institutional and cultural adjustments that set the stage for new phases of political and economic development. 

The dominant parties in each of these eras might be called “regime parties” because they were able to use their political strength to implement and carry forward the basic themes around which these political settlements were organized.

In this sense, the United States has rarely had a two-party system but rather a one and one-half party system consisting of a “regime party” and a competitor forced to adapt to its dominant position.

Are we on the cusp of a new upheaval, a “fourth revolution” that will reshape U.S. politics for decades to come?

... based on the evidence of the three previous revolutions, American voters are unlikely to support for very long any party that fails to enhance their standard of living or the nation’s position in the world.
[…]
... each of these realignments discredited an established set of governing elites and brought into power new groups of political and cultural leaders. After reorganizing national politics around new principles, these new elites took control of the national government, staffing its departments and agencies with their political supporters. As they strengthened their control over the system, they also gradually extended their influence into important subsidiary organizations, such as newspapers, college and university faculties, book publishers, and civic associations. 

College and university faculties and our major newspapers today are overwhelmingly Democratic; from the 1870s into the 1930s, they were generally Republican. This is one of the factors that cements any realignment in place and gives it the stability to persist over many decades. (Future Tense – The Fourth Revolution)

It makes sense. It explains why even Ronald Reagan, with the electorate overwhelmingly behind him, could not roll back government. Skilled communicator that he was, he was debating issues framed by FDR and LBJ.

It's FDR’s World, We Just Live in it…

In the midst of the Great Depression, FDR’s Democratic Party organized the modern system around the politics of public spending and national regulation. (Future Tense – The Fourth Revolution)

The FDR system is collapsing--It's unsustainable...

The question today, then, is whether or not the party system formed in the 1930s and 1940s is about to exhaust itself in a new upheaval that will lead to some new political alignment around a new constellation of issues. There is little doubt that many of the political signs present in earlier upheavals are increasingly in play today. (Future Tense – The Fourth Revolution)

He concludes that the answer is yes…

This point will arrive fairly soon for the following reasons: (1) unsustainable debt; (2) public promises that cannot be fulfilled; (3) stagnation and slow growth; and (4) political paralysis. The last point is important because it means that the parties will fail to agree on any preemptive solutions to the above problems until they reach a point of crisis.

I agree. The way ahead? Booming Sweden’s Free-Market Solutions