The answer is not obvious. People forget that over the years the nation’s much derided and despised capital has seen political power go recurrently to groups that promised to overthrow the place, but which, in the end, either became an only slightly different variation on the establishment–a little more right, a little more left–or went away still ideologically pure but defeated and in deepened disgust. The Nixon administration, the Carter administration, even, in its way, the Reagan administration were all ultimately victims of the great swallowing-up. They came to town committed to throw the rascals out, to obliterate everything from bureaucratic sloth to the three-martini lunch. But one thing just led to another–kind of the way it can be with martinis–and before they knew it, they were, in the eyes of many of their once ardent supporters, just one more bunch of co-opted rascals who had gotten too comfy with power and too cozy with the other side.
I’m not saying that this is the outcome I expect this time. The dislodging of the party hierarchs on Capitol Hill after so many years in power is bound to have a tremendous effect. The Democrats in the administration and in Congress, especially the liberal Democrats, have clearly lost almost as much in self-confidence as they have in absolute numbers of members and committee chairmanships: they cannot dismiss a vote of such magnitude across the country as merely the work of meanies and freaks. They are going to have to face up to the fact that they have formulated a lot of policies and promoted a lot of programs–not all, but a lot–that are not faithful expressions of their core values, but often travesties of them. It’s the policies and the programs, not the values that need work, if that’s any consolation. In addition, there is a great driving energy on the right as a result of this victory, a giddy sense of being invincible agents of history and the rest. And finally, a commitment was made in the novel “Contract with America,” a sort of congressional party platform, that will require the Republicans to get going with their revolution right away.
It is thus a pretty evenly matched fight, On the one side, the all-engulfing capital, famous for disarming and eventually ingesting all manner of sworn enemies, and on the other, the newly victorious congressional Republicans, electorally empowered and pledged to cut the place down to size and to do away with much of its most cherished legislative and bureaucratic handiwork.
These are some of the things to watch as guides to the way the contest will come out. First, watch how quickly the Republicans are able to get their troops together and start on the business they have in mind. The most overwhelming political victory has only a brief span of time in which to get its main agenda enacted. The glow wears off. The participants grow a bit peevish and grabby among themselves. The air of invincibility, so useful in frightening opponents into passivity or at least into a relatively cooperative state of mind, diminishes, and the counterattack begins.
Time, in fact, is the ultimate enemy of all reform, revolution and even mild change. Sooner or later the reformers start liking the perks of office, the power and the rest. Watch for this too. Every time in the last few days that I have heard one of the victors saying words to the effect that “now it’s our turn” and listened to talk about “payback time” and turning tables and so on, I have thought: this is the most dangerous impulse you can act on; it will turn you into a variation of what you profess yourself to be trying to uproot. I know it doesn’t seem fair and that revenge is sweet; but there is–does anyone doubt it?–a public out there just waiting to say: “So you guys are no better than the rest–off with your heads.” It is the political refrain of our times.
Watch how the leaders work among themselves as well as with their new and old troops. Some of the representatives and senators who will take over important committees have been in Congress for ages, have their own fixed ideas and are uncomfortable with the more militant ideology and uninclined to be pushed around by those they considered rank newcomers. Some of them think the provisions of the “contract” are wonderful; others think the same provisions are nuts. A huge amount of internal diplomacy is going to be required. Leaders in Congress these days, in addition, have greatly less authority than they used to; the members tend to be in political business for themselves. So it takes much more effort to achieve consensus. And, given the attitude that senior Republicans like Sens. Pete Domenici and Bob Packwood and Mark Hatfield, among others, have shown concerning fiscal responsibility–insisting on truth in budgeting–there is likely to have to be much internal negotiation before everyone who matters is aboard on the “contract’s” proposed financing schemes.
They could bring it off–who knows? The congressional Democrats are certainly demoralized enough, and the administration is stunned. But to do so they have to be quick and they have to be careful and they have to be patient with each other and, above all, they have to be able to resist the terrible temptation to become what they have been denouncing all these years. The most poignant (and hilarious) descriptions of this phenomenon I know are to be found in histories of the Crusades. They are accounts sent back to Europe from second-wave crusaders, who had gone out to the vanquished Holy Land only to find their fellow Franks lying around in silk robes on couches, adopting the luxurious ways of the East and behaving for all the world like the hated infidels. Newt Gingrich should get copies and read them daily to his troops.
