Skowronek has been on the radar since before Trump took office. Some on the left pegged Trump as the next Carter (in the Skowronek view of presidents, that's how it played out), and expected a reconstructive/transformational president to follow. Their mistake was thinking that would be a Sanders or Warren type. But Biden is actually a better fit -- a non-ideological pol who was electable (!) and with the know-how to respond to a crisis.
It's not the ideology of presidents that drives big change. It's a crisis that gives gives them the opportunity.
Seems like you haven’t read many articles by/about Skowronek. His theory is actually fine with a bunch of bouncing between Articulating Presidents and Preemptive Presidents between the first Reconstructive one and last Disjunctive one of a party system. As well as multiple Articulating Presidents in a row (since they are in the dominant party of that time, they would win more often while the lesser party can’t manage to string together back-to-back Presidents). And your “Simple Skowronek” is . . . essentially what Skowronek says. The old orthodoxy becomes tired and doesn’t meet new challenges well and even supposed adherents of the old orthodoxy aren’t true believers any more and just mouth mantras while all the fervor and rush of new ideas is on the other side.
BTW, if you know history, it’s not hard to see Biden as our current-day FDR at all. If you read up, you’ll know that FDR was actually the candidate supported by the conservative (and at that time powerful...and racist) Southern wing of the Democratic Party in the 1932 Dem nomination fight.
At the risk of curve fitting I sense that we are entering a new 40 year cycle of liberalism/socialism that follows the 40 year period of conservatism/free markets ushered in by Regan/Milton Friedman. Which followed the 40 year period of liberalism/socialism that followed WWII. Which followed the 40 years of conservatism/free markets that culminated in the Depression. It seems to take 2 generations: One to fix the problem and then one to take it too far and create different problems.
Some observations. First, Skowronek's theory is, as you have said, overfitted. What is actually going on politically can be summed up in four words: stability, crisis, response, and stability.
The center of the American political body is conservative in nature, although it is not reactionary. Those are two different concepts. Reactionaries want the good old days, whatever is percieved as better then. Chopping wood to provide heating for the home is high on their agenda. The center, operating in the here and now, is generally happy to have stability. And, as long as they can earn a living, send their children to decent schools, and have the potholes filled filled in their roads, they will tend to vote for more of what they are getting with some adjustments to make it better. Why?
Because, it is working for them. Progressives, on the other hand, want change. They see problems that seem to need fixing. But, the center will not budge from the center for either the reactionaries or the progressives because what they have is working for them
That is to say, the center is not only conservative in nature, it is incredibly pragmatic. When the system ceases to function for it, the center votes for change, to create a new stability that will take care of the percieved problem. The problem always comes as a crisis. The first major crisis we faced was what to do with the British. Well, we got rid of them, and formed a compromise of a government that allowed the country to expand westward and for most people to thrive. That lasted about 70 years until the South's incessant demand to EXPAND slavery created a crisis and Lincoln was elected to preserve the union, a conservative ambition if ever there was one. Take the great depression. With 25 percent unemployment something had to change. We elected Roosevelt and that created yet another balance that the center could stabilize around, profitably do business with and/or earn a living. The response to the civil rights issues of the 60s and Vietnam was to give some ground, elect Nixon, get out of Vietnam, and stabilize. The reaction to hyper inflation and the Iran hostage crsis of the late 70s was to elect Reagan, and to stabilize. Once you have a stability that is working for most people again, the center tolerates some modest changes to keep the system balanced. Stability is paramount so that the business of the country can be done.
The next observation is that although you can be elected as either a political progressive or a political reactionary, you will end up ruling from the center, with the center. The center is the political sweet spot in the United States. If you are perceived as either too progressive or too reactionary, the midterm elections will kill all hope of further change just as it did for Obama and Trump. The center is not only conservative and pragmatic, it is downright vicious in taking back trust when it feels betrayed.
President Biden has two years to convince the CENTER, not the progressives, that he is their man. If he is too progressive for the center and upsets too much of the balance, then both the evenly divided Senate and the nearly evenly divided House will be in Republican hands again.
And pigs will fly. He has no intention of doing anything to help anyone that isn't a billionaire. And if you think promising people "$2k checks immediately" only to try and be too cute and say you really only meant $1400 and to less people is somehow going to be so popular it rebounds to substantial democrat wins you need to put down the blue kool aid.
Odd how it's always the "help poor people stuff" that goes on the chopping block, instead of SALT cap. The Democrats know which voters they care about and which ones they don't.
The Reagan analogy is interested but I'm more taken with a different one: Pope Francis. He was elected following the long papacy of a very charismatic Reagan-like figure (John Paul II) and the George H.W. Bush-like successor (Benedict) and despite his advanced age (and belief of some that because of that he might be a placeholder for the next generation) has been aggressive about trying to modernize the Church in various ways, root out corruption, and accommodate it more to new concerns like climate change.
The analogy breaks down if you look at it too closely, as all analogies do, but my main takeaway is that one shouldn't underestimate the ambitions of leaders to make long-lasting, fundamental change just because of their age.
The theory you mention in your post makes me think of a similar theory by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. He believed there where cycles of progressive reform followed by reaction followed by progressive reform and so on. I think in a very general sense it's probably true but I wouldn't have blind faith in that way of looking at history.
What you wrote about how a lot of what Reagan did was done through appointments and regulation made me think about the Day One agenda that the American prospect has been writing about:
They even are keeping track of all the executive actions he has taken so far.
Like you I think Biden could be a transformative President or at least achieve more than expected through appointments, regulations and executive orders even if big legislative bills don't make it through Congress.
Imo, it’s horrifying that the next few Presidents will be like this, according to the theory. There’s no serious voice for non-state-intervensionism anymore, because the Republicans have figured out that welfare buys votes too. I hold out hope, at least, that immigration might turn into a cultural issue with the Democrats winning, but I hardly think that more government is a thing to be celebrating.
Skowronek has been on the radar since before Trump took office. Some on the left pegged Trump as the next Carter (in the Skowronek view of presidents, that's how it played out), and expected a reconstructive/transformational president to follow. Their mistake was thinking that would be a Sanders or Warren type. But Biden is actually a better fit -- a non-ideological pol who was electable (!) and with the know-how to respond to a crisis.
It's not the ideology of presidents that drives big change. It's a crisis that gives gives them the opportunity.
“ And though Biden doesn’t have a Reagan-like landslide under his belt,”
Reagan 50% - Carter 41% - Anderson 7%
Biden 51% - Trump 47%
It wasn’t an electoral college landslide, but Biden beat Trump pretty handily.
Perhaps you've already read this, but this was also discussed by Corey Robin a few years ago in the context of Trump being disjunctive: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-politics-trump-makes/
"incrementalist Obama administration" - perfectly describes it. Unless something is done about the Senate, it will be all hat and no cattle.
Seems like you haven’t read many articles by/about Skowronek. His theory is actually fine with a bunch of bouncing between Articulating Presidents and Preemptive Presidents between the first Reconstructive one and last Disjunctive one of a party system. As well as multiple Articulating Presidents in a row (since they are in the dominant party of that time, they would win more often while the lesser party can’t manage to string together back-to-back Presidents). And your “Simple Skowronek” is . . . essentially what Skowronek says. The old orthodoxy becomes tired and doesn’t meet new challenges well and even supposed adherents of the old orthodoxy aren’t true believers any more and just mouth mantras while all the fervor and rush of new ideas is on the other side.
BTW, if you know history, it’s not hard to see Biden as our current-day FDR at all. If you read up, you’ll know that FDR was actually the candidate supported by the conservative (and at that time powerful...and racist) Southern wing of the Democratic Party in the 1932 Dem nomination fight.
Wake me up when in 2036 the Dem primary contestants are trying to claim the crown as the most Biden-like of the candidates.
Obama will be the Reagan of the left.
At the risk of curve fitting I sense that we are entering a new 40 year cycle of liberalism/socialism that follows the 40 year period of conservatism/free markets ushered in by Regan/Milton Friedman. Which followed the 40 year period of liberalism/socialism that followed WWII. Which followed the 40 years of conservatism/free markets that culminated in the Depression. It seems to take 2 generations: One to fix the problem and then one to take it too far and create different problems.
Some observations. First, Skowronek's theory is, as you have said, overfitted. What is actually going on politically can be summed up in four words: stability, crisis, response, and stability.
The center of the American political body is conservative in nature, although it is not reactionary. Those are two different concepts. Reactionaries want the good old days, whatever is percieved as better then. Chopping wood to provide heating for the home is high on their agenda. The center, operating in the here and now, is generally happy to have stability. And, as long as they can earn a living, send their children to decent schools, and have the potholes filled filled in their roads, they will tend to vote for more of what they are getting with some adjustments to make it better. Why?
Because, it is working for them. Progressives, on the other hand, want change. They see problems that seem to need fixing. But, the center will not budge from the center for either the reactionaries or the progressives because what they have is working for them
That is to say, the center is not only conservative in nature, it is incredibly pragmatic. When the system ceases to function for it, the center votes for change, to create a new stability that will take care of the percieved problem. The problem always comes as a crisis. The first major crisis we faced was what to do with the British. Well, we got rid of them, and formed a compromise of a government that allowed the country to expand westward and for most people to thrive. That lasted about 70 years until the South's incessant demand to EXPAND slavery created a crisis and Lincoln was elected to preserve the union, a conservative ambition if ever there was one. Take the great depression. With 25 percent unemployment something had to change. We elected Roosevelt and that created yet another balance that the center could stabilize around, profitably do business with and/or earn a living. The response to the civil rights issues of the 60s and Vietnam was to give some ground, elect Nixon, get out of Vietnam, and stabilize. The reaction to hyper inflation and the Iran hostage crsis of the late 70s was to elect Reagan, and to stabilize. Once you have a stability that is working for most people again, the center tolerates some modest changes to keep the system balanced. Stability is paramount so that the business of the country can be done.
The next observation is that although you can be elected as either a political progressive or a political reactionary, you will end up ruling from the center, with the center. The center is the political sweet spot in the United States. If you are perceived as either too progressive or too reactionary, the midterm elections will kill all hope of further change just as it did for Obama and Trump. The center is not only conservative and pragmatic, it is downright vicious in taking back trust when it feels betrayed.
President Biden has two years to convince the CENTER, not the progressives, that he is their man. If he is too progressive for the center and upsets too much of the balance, then both the evenly divided Senate and the nearly evenly divided House will be in Republican hands again.
And pigs will fly. He has no intention of doing anything to help anyone that isn't a billionaire. And if you think promising people "$2k checks immediately" only to try and be too cute and say you really only meant $1400 and to less people is somehow going to be so popular it rebounds to substantial democrat wins you need to put down the blue kool aid.
Odd how it's always the "help poor people stuff" that goes on the chopping block, instead of SALT cap. The Democrats know which voters they care about and which ones they don't.
The Reagan analogy is interested but I'm more taken with a different one: Pope Francis. He was elected following the long papacy of a very charismatic Reagan-like figure (John Paul II) and the George H.W. Bush-like successor (Benedict) and despite his advanced age (and belief of some that because of that he might be a placeholder for the next generation) has been aggressive about trying to modernize the Church in various ways, root out corruption, and accommodate it more to new concerns like climate change.
The analogy breaks down if you look at it too closely, as all analogies do, but my main takeaway is that one shouldn't underestimate the ambitions of leaders to make long-lasting, fundamental change just because of their age.
Two things:
- Generational waves: Boomer average age in 1980 (~26) and 1984 (~30). Millennials average age 2020 (~30) in 2024 (~34). Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/30/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate-2/
- Biden's 2020 win (81,268,924 votes/239 million eligible votes ~34% of eligible votes) vs Regan's 1980 win (43,903,230/ 159 million votes~27%) vs Regan's 1984 win ( 54,455,472/168 million votes ~ 32% of eligible votes). Not to take anything away from Regan's victories, but I think Biden's victory is somewhat skewed through the prism of the electoral college and historic voter turnout in the United States. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_United_States_presidential_election, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidential_election, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
The theory you mention in your post makes me think of a similar theory by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. He believed there where cycles of progressive reform followed by reaction followed by progressive reform and so on. I think in a very general sense it's probably true but I wouldn't have blind faith in that way of looking at history.
What you wrote about how a lot of what Reagan did was done through appointments and regulation made me think about the Day One agenda that the American prospect has been writing about:
https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda
They even are keeping track of all the executive actions he has taken so far.
Like you I think Biden could be a transformative President or at least achieve more than expected through appointments, regulations and executive orders even if big legislative bills don't make it through Congress.
Seems more likely Biden is a disjunctive president.
Discussion footnote.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4620688/user-clip-women-scotus-justices-jimmy-carter
Imo, it’s horrifying that the next few Presidents will be like this, according to the theory. There’s no serious voice for non-state-intervensionism anymore, because the Republicans have figured out that welfare buys votes too. I hold out hope, at least, that immigration might turn into a cultural issue with the Democrats winning, but I hardly think that more government is a thing to be celebrating.