Trego's Mountain Ear

So I ran across an X post by John Ringo, showing similarities between the current political situation and that of Andy Jackson.  Ringo’s whole article is here .  If you’re not ready to click immediately and read the whole thing, here are a few comments taken from his essay:

Wilsonians are the Clinton wing of the Democratic party. They are also all through the State Department and to a great extent the the ‘permanent bureaucracy’ in DC. (Though they’ve lately been overtaken by Jeffersonians in that.)

Madisonians are the Bush wing of the Republican party. They’re all about ‘Government exists to create a better business climate especially for my friends.’

Jeffersonians for a very long time were sort of in the background of the Democrat party, pushing it left but not controlling it, then started to take over under Obama and are the ‘woke’ part that’s controlling it now.

Jacksonians have ALWAYS been the silent majority in the US political system. They mostly were ‘leave me alone and I’ll just vote D/R whichever.’ And, like Jeffersonians, often didn’t vote because neither party represented them very well. (Nor cared much about them at all.)

These observations are outside my expertise – there is some relationship between sociology and political science, but I’ve kind of specialized in studies that could be expressed numerically.  On the other hand, I’m comfortable believing that neither party has done a good job of representing me.  Hell, Zooey Zephyr, Missoula’s transexual state representative, did a better job with my two issues last session than either Mike Cuffe or Neil Duram.  Alexander Pope’s 9th Beatitude -”Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not know disappointment.”  By Ringo’s analysis, I’m either Jeffersonian or Jacksonian. 

His analysis comes from applying an essay written by Walter Russell Mead – you can get to a copy at thoughtsaloud.com

If you haven’t clicked the link, this excerpt may convince you that Mead’s analysis is worth reading:

Suspicious of untrammeled federal power (Waco), skeptical about the prospects for domestic and foreign do-gooding (welfare at home, foreign aid abroad), opposed to federal taxes but obstinately fond of federal programs seen as primarily helping the middle class (Social Security and Medicare, mortgage interest subsidies), Jacksonians constitute a large political interest.

In some ways Jacksonians resemble the Jeffersonians, with whom their political fortunes were linked for so many decades. Like Jeffersonians, Jacksonians are profoundly suspicious of elites. They generally prefer a loose federal structure with as much power as possible retained by states and local governments. But the differences between the two movements run very deep—so deep that during the Cold War they were on dead opposite sides of most important foreign policy questions. To use the language of the Vietnam era, a time when Jeffersonians and Jacksonians were fighting in the streets over foreign policy, the former were the most dovish current in mainstream political thought during the Cold War, while the latter were the most consistently hawkish.

One way to grasp the difference between the two schools is to see that both Jeffersonians and Jacksonians are civil libertarians, passionately attached to the Constitution and especially to the Bill of Rights, and deeply concerned to preserve the liberties of ordinary Americans. But while the Jeffersonians are most profoundly devoted to the First Amendment, protecting the freedom of speech and prohibiting a federal establishment of religion, Jacksonians see the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, as the citadel of liberty. Jeffersonians join the American Civil Liberties Union; Jacksonians join the National Rifle Association. In so doing, both are convinced that they are standing at the barricades of freedom.

It does give me an appreciation of the differences – I recall attending a couple of ACLU organizational meetings in Bozeman, and finally walking out after explaining that, by excluding the second amendment, the ACLU was picking and choosing which civil liberties they wanted to support.  I guess part of it is that I took an oath to preserve and protect the constitution – and I still believe that it meant the whole thing.  I guess that makes me leaning toward life in the Jacksonian camp.

Ringo ends with:

This is also MASSIVELY confusing on the international front because NOBODY ever lets the Jacksonians near international politics. They are strictly invisible.

Now, all of a sudden, the international community is seeing this snarling pit bull of Jacksonianism rising in the US and it has no clue how to react.

Anything absolutely new is terrifying. And Jacksonianism is pretty scary. When we get mad, we don’t think in terms of ‘negotiated settlements.’

The near future appears to continue to be the Jacksonians and Jeffersonians fighting it out with the Wilsonians and Madisonians increasingly sidelined.

What the long term holds will be interesting to see.

But the world had better get used to the Jacksonians.

Click both links – read both essays.  Ringo has a framework that provides a way to understand today’s political happenings and the past dozen years of increasing political animosity.