Post-New Deal: The Democrats’ Dilemmas since 1980

• In Event: New Approaches to American Party Development

Abstract

The Democratic Party in the decades since 1980 is identifiable more by the political era that preceded it—as the post-New Deal party—and by the adversaries that it faced—as the loyal opposition in the Age of Reagan—than by any overarching claims of its own. This paper attempts a synthesis. Its theme is Democrats’ inability to bring their fractious coalition together in common purpose as a party with a project to wield power. Various authors have emphasized polarizing effects on the party as moderate and conservative Democrats left the fold, while others have pointed to the influence of neoliberalism and the New Democrats as the party retreated from its historic commitments. Accounts of broader changes in the party system note the shift in power from formal parties to allied groups, yet without identifying its full implications for the fissiparous Democrats. These partial stories, we suggest, all contain ample doses of truth, but fail to identify the central dynamic across the entire party: the failure to build collective capacity for an explicitly partisan vision supported by robust partisan institutions. We emphasize especially the travails of the post-1968 generation as it ascended, uneasily, to power in a party whose establishment it had once viewed with such disdain. We make use of extensive archival research at the papers of Tip O’Neill, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, the National Organization for Women, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Democratic National Committee, the House Democratic Caucus, and the Democratic Study Group.

Authors

• Daniel Schlozman

• Sam Rosenfeld, Colgate University