It was the year of the dogs that didn't bark. A newly dominant Republican Party was supposed to use its position to simultaneously transform American public policy and render the Democrats a permanently irrelevant minority party, isolated in a few coastal enclaves.
It didn't happen.
And, in fact, it started to unravel almost right away. The Bush administration went for broke with its plan to end Social Security as we know it and instead move to a system of individual stock ownership. The pretty version of how this was supposed to play into the Republican quest for a perpetual majority was that privatization would create a larger "investor class" of stockowners, people who, in virtue of their shares, identified with corporate managers rather than workers or consumers, and therefore supported conservative economic policies. More prosaically, privatization was simply the latest iteration of GOP money-in, money-out machine politics. The distributive implications of privatization were something Republicans didn't like to talk about it, but it would have been a windfall for most rich people. Growing inequality, in turn, benefits the GOP as it concentrates more resources in the hands of those likely to give money or votes to the Republicans. The financial-services industry would have reaped huge profits that would be partially plowed back into funding the conservative apparatus in Washington and around the country.
But the Republicans turned out to lack the courage of their convictions. They were happy to screw over most people in pursuit of their agenda, but only if they could dodge the blame. They had the votes to pass privatization, or anything else they wanted, but they couldn't get any cover from Democrats. The hope was that at least a handful of moderate Democrats would sign on to privatization, or that the bulk of the Democratic caucus would coalesce around some alternative version of privatization. With the waters thus muddied, the knife would be driven into the backs of the middle class and then dropped out of sight.
Democrats, resisting the conventional wisdom for once, stood firm and the GOP lost its nerve. Thus began the year of unraveling that was 2005, and that one hopes will last for at least another year or so.
Twelve months ago, many read the polls indicating that "private accounts" were popular, and advised the opposition to get on the bus. This strategy was rightly rejected. Democrats instead chose to bet on the fact that if people understood what privatization would entail, they would reject it. And the rejectionists were right. The lesson here is not just about political strategy, but about the proper relationship of principles to tactics--Democrats ought to respect their tacticians enough to ignore them from time to time. The job of the strategist, at the end of the day, isn't to tell you what you should do. Rather, once you've decided what you want to do, the strategists are supposed to tell you how to do it in a politically effective way.
These days, the big story is the revelation that the Bush administration has, over a period of years, been conducting illegal surveillance on American soil. Many worry that engaging this debate will play into Bush's hands, allowing him to portray Democrats as not serious about terrorism. There is reason to worry--the risk is real. But the worries should ultimately be rejected. The program began in fall 2001, when the Bush administration's political power was at its height. If, at that moment, the White House felt it could not obtain congressional authorization for what it wanted to do, then we should have faith that the truth will not reflect well on the administration.
Bush tried to defend the program Sunday by saying "it seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al-Qaida or an al-Qaida affiliate and they're making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why." And it does make sense. So much sense that it's impossible to see why the FISA Court wouldn't grant warrants in such cases; so much sense that it's impossible to see why Congress wouldn't agree to change the law to allow such surveillance if for some reason FISA was preventing it.
Clearly, something else is going on here.
As with Social Security, what's needed is a strategy for stripping the debate of mumbo-jumbo. As with Social Security, yes, this will be a loser for Democrats if and only if massive deception is allowed to pervade the public discourse. And as with Social Security, such deception will work if and only if Democrats refuse to challenge it. If, by contrast, the public can be made to understand the issue, then grants of dictatorial power and an effort to place the White House above the law will not prove popular. The task of Democratic politicians is to take a stand--some things simply cannot go unchallenged by the opposition, however risky opposition may be. The task of the strategists is to find a way to make opposition effective. It's been done before, and it can be done again.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.
