Will political parties be the end of us?

In times of economic or social upheaval, there is an understandable tendency to narrowcast on the worst demons of our nature, to flip Lincoln's famous saying on its head.

The estimable Chauncey DeVega writes:

"A healthy American democracy is prefaced on responsible political parties and a responsible electorate that works in the interest of the Common Good. In the Age of Obama and the Great Recession, the Republican Party with its cultish followers have abdicated their seats at the table of good sense in order to play a game of ill informed political brinkmanship with the U.S. economy as the ultimate victim. It would seem that once more the Federalists were correct in their worries about the rabble and the dangers of vested interests in the form of a political party that has lowered itself to the level of a brutish faction. "

Doth DeVega protest too much? The apocalypse only seems to be nigh, methinks. American history is strewn with the debris of irresponsible political “factions.” None of it has proven fatal to date. The brawl over the debt ceiling today is a friendly chat over bourbon compared to the 1798 “nuclear exchange” between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans over the Alien and Sedition Acts. Think of the nativist "Know-Nothing Party" which sprang to life in the 1840s when the Whig Party collapsed. Today’s Tea Partiers project the Wisdom of Solomon by comparison. And think of the pro-slavery wing of the Democratic Party in the 1850s, the soulless folks who put the "I" in irrationality.

And yet, the body politic survived these factional nightmares, emerging even stronger. From the moment Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson breached the wellspring of American factionalism through mutual diatribe; subsequent parties have always advanced their dogmas, often with reckless zeal. But instead of blowing up democracy’s boiling kettle, the ensuing chaos has curiously served as a safety release valve. For it ultimately forced cooler/wiser heads to seize the reins before horse & cart went over the cliff. Granted, it came to Civil War once. But Providence preordained that ghastly affair when the first African slaves waded ashore in chains at Jamestown. It had to happen. Yet, out of the cataclysm came Lincoln.

Two months before the US invaded Iraq, John Le Carre famously wrote, “America has entered one of its periods of historic madness, but this is the worst I can remember.” Yes, right up until Abu Ghraib took us even deeper into the heart of darkness a year later. Today, as both Le Carre and DeVega would agree, we’re having yet another bout with “historic madness.” But if our maddening, cantankerous past is any guide, I dare say it won’t be the last.