Symmetrical Politics: Presidential Governing Styles in the Progressive Period

• In Event: The Historical Presidency, Populism, and Politics

Abstract

Grossman and Hopkins (2016) contend that the two major American political parties have adopted different governing styles since the 1930’s. In this paper, I would like to explore how the Democratic party and Republican party’s coalitions structured the governing style of presidents in the Progressive period (1890-1920). The party coalitions differed significantly from the post-New Deal coalitions. The Democratic party coalition in the late 1890’s did not include many of the social minorities as it does today. After 1896, the Democrats were largely confined to the South and with repressive voting laws, African-Americans were not allowed to vote. The main base of the Democratic party consisted of Southern whites, immigrants in the North, and Catholics. The Democratic party had typically been the party that opposed tariffs but over this time period adopted a position toward stronger state intervention in the economy. In contrast, Republicans arguably had as diverse a coalition as the Democrats, including northeastern financial interests, industrial capital, farmers in the Midwest and Plains states, and many urban workers. Although identified with business, Midwestern progressives became more important in this period, challenging the Republican establishment as exemplified in Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 challenge of William Howard Taft.

Did the coalitional patterns of the Democratic and Republican parties during the Progressive period lead to different governing styles at the presidential level? For this purpose, governing style encompasses the rhetorical positions, their embrace of compromise, their openness to research and evidence, and their stance toward government power. To assess the governing style of each party, I will examine presidential campaign speeches, State of the Union messages, and party platforms. By examining the relationship between party coalitions and governing style, I hope to explore if the party asymmetry that marks today’s polarized politics can be applied to the Progressive Period.

Author

• Terri Bimes, University of California at Berkeley