Remains Of The Aristocratic Party

      Sorry if this is rambly, but if the events of the last 4 years had not convinced me of this belief then the events of this past week with the Re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency certainly would have. I am now fully sure that what we are witnessing is a New Jacksonianism, a rebirth of the Democratic ideals that began that party 200 years ago. I believe Trump and his ideas will go down in history as another touchstone in the renewal of American Democratic Ideals, one that started wtih Jefferson and Jackson, leaped through Bryan and Roosevelt, down to today. Much like Donald, Andrew was absolutely hated by everyone in the present political sphere, and often he supported downright genocidal ideas - he was nevertheless a champion of democracy and is remembered across history as that figure. I believe Trump will see the same fate - that though his actual policies are reprehensibly damaging and disgusting, what his movement meant is so much more than that.
      This is a bad thing for the opposition, the Democrats, just as it was for the antijacksonian Whigs and ex-Federalists. Jackson beckoned in a new and radical era of American politics that contrasted heavily with the respectable, elitist, republican politics of the founding fathers in the previous age. The sticklers for that system who ardently called Jackson a corrupt tyrant and denounced Democracy were rightly called out for being gross elitists and if the current opposition wants to avoid that Damnatio ab Historias, that condemnation by history - they need to focus not on the populism that Trump heralds but on the actual policy. They need to meet populism with populism, not with elitist disdain.
      I will now relate a chapter from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, to better relay the effect:

Remains Of The Aristocratic Party In The United States: Secret opposition of wealthy individuals to democracy -Their retirement -Their taste for exclusive pleasures and for luxury at home -Their simplicity abroad -Their affected condescension towards the people.
      It sometimes happens in a people amongst which various opinions prevail that the balance of the several parties is lost, and one of them obtains an irresistible preponderance, overpowers all obstacles, harasses its opponents, and appropriates all the resources of society to its own purposes. The vanquished citizens despair of success and they conceal their dissatisfaction in silence and in general apathy. The nation seems to be governed by a single principle, and the prevailing party assumes the credit of having restored peace and unanimity to the country. But this apparent unanimity is merely a cloak to alarming dissensions and perpetual opposition.
      This is precisely what occurred in America; when the democratic party got the upper hand, it took exclusive possession of the conduct of affairs, and from that time the laws and the customs of society have been adapted to its caprices. At the present day the more affluent classes of society are so entirely removed from the direction of political affairs in the United States that wealth, far from conferring a right to the exercise of power, is rather an obstacle than a means of attaining to it. The wealthy members of the community abandon the lists, through unwillingness to contend, and frequently to contend in vain, against the poorest classes of their fellow citizens. They concentrate all their enjoyments in the privacy of their homes, where they occupy a rank which cannot be assumed in public; and they constitute a private society in the State, which has its own tastes and its own pleasures. They submit to this state of things as an irremediable evil, but they are careful not to show that they are galled by its continuance; it is even not uncommon to hear them laud the delights of a republican government, and the advantages of democratic institutions when they are in public. Next to hating their enemies, men are most inclined to flatter them.
      Mark, for instance, that opulent citizen, who is as anxious as a Jew of the Middle Ages to conceal his wealth. His dress is plain, his demeanor unassuming; but the interior of his dwelling glitters with luxury, and none but a few chosen guests whom he haughtily styles his equals are allowed to penetrate into this sanctuary. No European noble is more exclusive in his pleasures, or more jealous of the smallest advantages which his privileged station confers upon him. But the very same individual crosses the city to reach a dark counting-house in the centre of traffic, where every one may accost him who pleases. If he meets his cobbler upon the way, they stop and converse; the two citizens discuss the affairs of the State in which they have an equal interest, and they shake hands before they part.
      But beneath this artificial enthusiasm, and these obsequious attentions to the preponderating power, it is easy to perceive that the wealthy members of the community entertain a hearty distaste to the democratic institutions of their country. The populace is at once the object of their scorn and of their fears. If the maladministration of the democracy ever brings about a revolutionary crisis, and if monarchical institutions ever become practicable in the United States, the truth of what I advance will become obvious.

      Hamilton may have gotten a musical but that doesnt mean hes not still an elitist, we - as the opposition to Trump - need to proceed and react with the supreme understanding that antidemocratic and elitist reactions will find us no friends when we're beyond the Styx. Populism is the name of the game now, and we need to play that game and offer a liberal response to conservatism before they stake their claim upon all populism for a generation. We must not make the same mistake as Clay and Adams and make ourselves the party of aristocrats and old money. We need to accept this, because there are many reasons to hate Andrew Jackson - but expanding Democracy isnt one of them.
      What I believe the Democratic party needs, now that people have clearly expressed a desire for populist - not conservative merely populist - politics is their own populist to answer the call. Keep in mind Missouri, who voted with solid majorities to enshrine abortion as a right and raise the minimum wage while voting for an overwhelmingly MAGA government, I think the implication is clear that progressive policies are popular. We need to offer our own populist who will champion the US as a populist and back it up not with racial posturing but with progressive policy. Jackson was right and good and we cannot fight against the endless march of liberty, we need to accept populism and keep fighting for liberalism.






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