Who is the party of hope?

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: State Of The Nation

SEVERAL DECADES AGO, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., said the Democrats were the party of hope and the Republicans were the party of memory. While the words of this eminent historian--who was an ardent Democrat--may have been an oversimplification, they harbored a great deal of truth. From Woodrow Wilson to John F. Kennedy, the Democratic Party had captured the language of political idealism. They articulated a vision that American power, if effectively applied, could be a moral agent for change at home and around the globe. The wars fought under these presidents (World Wars I and II and the Cold War) were framed as moral crusades to curb aggression and protect democracy. By its intervention, the U.S. would lead the Old World of Europe and Asia out of its darkness into the light of freedom and prosperity. During those years, the Republican Party had no compelling alternative vision, beyond those who clung to isolationism. Conservatism was defined by its opposition to liberalism. William F. Buckley, Jr., one of the most accomplished spokesmen of conservatism, wrote in the inaugural issue of the National Review in 1955 that the magazine stood, "athwart history, yelling 'Stop,' at a time when no one else was inclined to do so."

In the decades that followed, Buckley and his fellow conservatives would have a lot more to say. Nevertheless, during the years of mid-century America, conservatives and many Republicans were the party of memory, some arguing against the U.S.'s excessive internationalism and others against the legacy of the New Deal welfare state. Regardless of the merits of their policies, the Democrats had captured the moral high ground in American politics.

Pres. Lyndon Johnson set out to continue this tradition and did so with the passage of the Civil Rights law. Nonetheless, as a consequence of the Vietnam War, his presidency ended in disillusionment and defeat. Vietnam was a traumatic event for the Democrats and introduced a degree of cynicism about the role of America's military might into the party. The Dems' left wing harbored some of the country's most vehement critics of U.S. foreign policy. This critique, which in the 1960s found its notable spokesman in the scholarly J. William Fulbright, now finds its voice in the clownish Michael Moore--a sad journey indeed. The two post-Vietnam Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, stirred none of the idealism of Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or Kennedy. Despite...