The Historic 2010 Midterms

This is a misleading title. There is nothing historic about incumbent party losses in a midterm cycle. Those of us who have living memory of 1994 know just how profound the changes can be. We'll leave aside for a moment how the undemocratic nature of the Senate has prevented the democratic majority (small "d" here--the ones who voted Republican) from claiming a total victory as well. There's nothing historic about that; it's just ironic.

I'm more interested in the historic narrative. I listened to Rand Paul's victory speech last night, which I think is a pretty typical rendering of how the Tea Party has sought to cast itself in terms of its own historic role:

Why is America great? Why are we the greatest, richest and freest country ever known to man? (Applause.) America -- America -- is exceptional, but it is not inherently so. America is exceptional because we embraced freedom, because we enshrined it in our documents and because we have lived and fought for the principles of freedom. (Cheers, applause.)

America will remain great if we remain proud of America, if we remain proud of the American system, the system that is enshrined in our founding documents, the system that protects and promotes the free exchange of goods, the system that protects capitalism that has made this country great. (Cheers, applause.)

This is historical fundamentalism at its most simple. Read from the back forward, it can be further summarized thus:

1. our Constitution and Declaration of Independence codify liberty and capitalism.

2. These values have made America the richest nation in the world.

3. And this has made (all) Americans an exceptional people.

4. 2010 is about restoring these fundamental values to again make us an exceptional people.

As a narrative, this invokes several complex literary tropes: the tragic flaw; the nation as prodigal son; return to original virtue. It is rather amazing to think that so short a narrative can encompass so many concepts without expressly stating them. This, of course, is the power of narratives, and precisely their purpose. The ability to position one's self in a historical continuum is how we orient ourselves to project a possible future. This, I would argue, is why the Tea Party has made so much of its connection to the founders, which Rand Paul invoked when he directly (mis)quoted Thomas Jefferson in his speech: "that government is best which governs least." But the misquote is not important. Jefferson may never have written the above line, but he vaguely stood for a smaller federal government, and in that sense Rand Paul got his Jefferson right.

The invocation of exceptionalism is worth noting for two reasons. First, exceptionalism as a historical concept is really a nineteenth century invention, associated with the historian George Bancroft. It had racial overtones, suggesting that the favor bestowed upon America was really the Anglo-America. Second, exceptionalism was a matter of Puritan faith. (Anglo) Americans were God's chosen people, and America's history was a chronicle of divinely-inspired events. There was very little choice in it, although those muddling through history had made plenty of choices themselves.

Rand Paul explicitly rejects the second assumption. His exceptionalism is a matter of libertarian will rather than religious faith. We are not predestined for greatness; we must earn it. The immediate prescriptions seem to be deregulation and an end to deficit spending, although Mr. Paul did not have time to draw out a plan to greatness.

As for the racial overtones, the Tea Party is stuck with it, even though they don't like it. Even when we dismiss the nuttier elements (former Tea Party spokesman Mark Williams's satiric historical letter, e.g.), we cannot dismiss the party's demographic makeup. This is a party of disaffected, middle-class white Americans who feel marginalized and voiceless. Hence the "take back America" slogan.

And Rand Paul's victory speech verifies this. The historic(al) nature of the speech was its invocation of a simpler, whites-only history--one that quotes Thomas Jefferson for demanding less government without acknowledging the daily theft of liberty and labor that was necessary to sustain Jefferson and his ilk. Those who truly believe that our nation is founded upon laissez-faire principles are guilty of serious amnesia. The exercise of direct power on the vast majority of people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries regularly invaded people's liberty and property. Jefferson was aware of this. He condoned it in many cases, and fought against it in others. He was complicit in its crimes and his conscience bore the burden of this complicity his whole life.

Let me be clear here--I am not accusing Rand Paul (or the Tea Party) of racism. The vast majority do not see themselves in this light. Their invocations of historical narrative have a practical purpose: to connect their visions of a possible future with a real past. But in the margins of their historical invocations lie some unsettling truths, conveniently ignored. If we are to be honest about the problems America faces today then we might want to start by being more honest about our country's past. And that will require some thinking about the losers as well as the winners, both then and now.