By Steven S. Berizzi
Will hyper-partisanship, the tendency of the major parties to polarize toward the outer limits of mainstream politics, increase or decrease during the coronavirus crisis? A multi-dimension emergency calls for national unity, but history suggests that the stress of crisis often makes partisan politics worse.
Bitter partisan conflict has recurred in United States political history since the original parties emerged in the 1790s. The first two-party system was created when Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists were vigorously opposed by the Republicans led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Relations between these early parties were highly contentious and contemptuous. Late in the decade, the Federalist-dominated Congress passed the notorious Sedition Act of 1798, effectively making it a federal crime to criticize the national government, and several Republican newspaper editors were arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned.
Extremism provoked reaction, Federalist President John Adams was denied re-election, Jefferson became president in 1801, and he frequently governed as a partisan. Late in the War of 1812, New England Federalists met at the Hartford Convention, perhaps the most famous political event to occur in Connecticut. By criticizing the Republicans firmly in control of both elective branches of American government, the Federalists effectively committed political suicide. Americans called the next 10 years the “Era of Good Feelings” because the Republicans dominated national politics, but consensus was short-lived.
Partisan politics revived, then intensified in the 1850s. Modern Republican Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865, wisely brought a few War Democrats into his cabinet, but anti-war Democrats, called “Copperheads,” opposed every facet of Lincoln’s policies.
During the Progressive Era, 1901-1921, which included World War I, there was occasional bipartisan economic and political reform, including four constitutional amendments, which signifying national consensus. However, conservative Republicans denounced progressivism as socialistic. That was an exaggeration because the Progressive Era was not as progressive as its name suggests.
Democratic Governor Franklin Roosevelt of New York was elected president in 1932, during the Great Depression. FDR was elected four time, twice while World War II was in progress, but partisan critics frequently called him a dictator and a socialist. After Roosevelt’s death in 1945, those critics found a new target and heaped bitter scorn on his successor, Harry Truman. In 1948, during the early Cold War, Truman was under fierce attack, and his election to a full four-year term was a great surprise.
In 1968, after about 15 years of occasional “Cold War consensus,” Richard Nixon became the first of four conservative Republicans to serve as president almost continuously between 1969 and 1993. Since then, Democrats and Republicans have traded the presidency every eight years. Partisan conflict today is amplified by the 24-hour news cycle, the Internet, and, especially, passionate social media.
What does this mean as President Donald Trump seeks re-election during an international public health crisis that threatens world-wide recession? Writing in early April, the most recent polls indicate the public is losing confidence in Trump. Even if the electorate changes course in November, the forces of divisive, disruptive hyper-partisanship will remain strong.
Steven S. Berizzi is a professor of History & Political Science at NCC.