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What was signified by all this sound and fury? Is this passion brought to a boil by contending programs to save Social Security and provide prescription drugs to the elderly? The mind-numbingly dull campaign may have been simply the just deserts of creating candidates by focus-group testing, as if they were a brand of breakfast cereal whose market share is dependent on appealing to the consumer's unexpressed desires. But perhaps the very Coke-vs.-Pepsi choice presented to voters in 2000 is in itself a symptom of a wider malaise.
Rewind to the 1992 election: With the Cold War over, Bill Clinton makes the defining issue of domestic politics the economy. It becomes passé in the '90s to use the term "commander in chief" for the President, and not just because Bill Clinton was a draft dodger. The President becomes the CEO of America, Inc., and his job is to keep the engine of business humming smoothly. And if the economy is the defining issue of national politics, then the most notable feature of the past decade is how little the parties differ on the core questions. Bush may have tried to label Gore a big-spending liberal, but the facts simply don't support that. Balancing the budget, paying down the debt and dismantling welfare have been hallmarks of the Clinton years. Despite their differences on specifics, Gore is essentially a fiscal conservative, same as Bush. Presidents come and go, but Alan Greenspan has been running the economy since midway through Ronald Reagan's second term. There is no longer one "party of business"; both parties are the party of business — and corporate America donates accordingly.
Oh, for an enemy
The business of Washington over the Clinton years, has been business, and making the world safe, not for democracy, but for investment. (Just look at the China policy of both parties — human rights issues come a poor second to copyright issues.) Where once America's interests were threatened by tanks and missiles, today they are threatened by tariff barriers and the arcana of trade regulations. Osama Bin Laden isn't likely to cast much of a shadow over Washington: He may be a maniac who thinks nothing of blowing away scores of civilians on any given day, but his overriding concern is to get the U.S. out the Middle East, not to impose Islamic law in Milwaukee. And when the President fires a few cruise missiles in his general direction five days after confessing to his scuffles with Ms. Lewinsky, we're all tempted to wonder whether he's wagging the dog.
The Cold War demanded self-discipline among Washington's partisans, but over the past decade, they've allowed themselves the liberty to systematically debase their leaders and institutions in pursuit of political advantage. And the ferocity of this contest is intensifying despite the steady blurring of ideological differences among the partisans, leaving the TV nation with the impression that they're watching one of those survival game shows in which all the competitors share the same craven careerism. There's no reason to suspect the current changing of the guard in the White House will change that.
It's likely to take a lot more than patriotic rhetoric by both parties to restore a sense of purpose in the politics of the most powerful nation on Earth. Indeed, if President-elect George W. Bush hopes to put together that which has been torn asunder over the past decade, he may need another Cuban missile crisis.