{"id":13281,"date":"2023-08-08T14:14:30","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T14:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13281"},"modified":"2023-08-08T14:14:30","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T14:14:30","slug":"new-america-vs-old-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13281","title":{"rendered":"New America vs. Old America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bill Schneider<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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It\u2019s time for the Great Showdown between the Old and New Americas. The Old America met in Tampa. The New America met in Charlotte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the country wants to know is: Which America can manage the economy better? The answer is not clear. That\u2019s why this election is so close. The Old America got us into this mess. The New America can\u2019t seem to get us out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Old America\u2019s rallying cry at the Republican National Convention: \u201cRestore Our Future.\u201d Take us back to the days when America was rich, great and powerful, the undisputed leader of the world. GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney declared, \u201cYou might have asked yourself if these last years are really the America we want, the America won for us by the greatest generation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Old America looked overwhelmingly white and middle-aged \u2014 or older. The Hollywood celebrity who captured the spirit of the Old America was Clint Eastwood, age 82.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New America\u2019s rallying cry at the Democratic National Convention: \u201cForward, Not Back.\u201d President Barack Obama declared, \u201cWhen Gov. Romney finally had a chance to reveal the secret sauce, he did not offer a single new idea. It was just retreads of the same old policies we\u2019ve been hearing for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New America celebrated diversity in age, race, sexual orientation and lifestyles. (The Old America doesn\u2019t have lifestyles. They have lives.) The Hollywood celebrity who captured the spirit of the New America was Scarlett Johansson, age 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the two conventions, we saw the ultimate triumph of the great-values divide that first became visible in California in the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 1967, political scientist James Q. Wilson, who grew up in what he called \u201cReagan country,\u201d wrote an article in Commentary in which he tried to explain \u201cthe political culture of Southern California\u201d to Eastern intellectuals. The Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan movements were protest movements, Wilson argued, but they were not expressions of personal unhappiness, frustration or despair. Just the opposite, in fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In describing Goldwater and Reagan supporters, Wilson pointed out that \u201cit is not with their lot that they are discontent, it is with the lot of the nation. The very virtues they have and practice are, in their eyes, conspicuously absent from society as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same year, Richard Todd, who went to school in California, wrote an article in Harper\u2019s in which he tried to explain \u201cthe Berkeley phenomenon\u201d to puzzled outsiders. Why had that campus become the focal point of student unrest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was it true, as many commentators suggested, that Berkeley students were frustrated and dehumanized by the mega-university and that their political protest was an expression of personal anger and discontent?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Todd found little evidence of despair or alienation at Berkeley. What he found instead was \u201ca sense of rightness, the peculiar kind of joy that is the result of self-absorption.\u201d Berkeley students lived by a code of tolerance, openness, free expression, nonviolence and permissiveness.Both the New America and the Old America draw support from people who feel certain about their own values and resentful that the rest of society does not accept them. Each has captured a political party. As New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote last week, \u201cWe have two parties that are really into themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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After nearly 50 years, the two Americas have fought each other to a standoff. Though not in California, where the New America \u2014 and the Democratic Party \u2014 are ascendant, mostly because of the voting power of the newest Americans \u2014 Latinos. That\u2019s why Republicans are worried about how they can survive without increasing their appeal to Latino voters. They are terrified that the U.S. may become California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both parties represent upper-middle-class elites, but they are bitterly competitive elites. Romney represents the elite of wealth, or as Republicans prefer to put it, \u201csuccess.\u201d Romney said in Tampa, \u201cThe centerpiece of the president\u2019s entire reelection campaign is attacking success \u2026 In America, we celebrate success, we don\u2019t apologize for it.\u201d Obama represents the elite of education. The president told the Democratic delegates, \u201cEducation was the gateway of opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. It was the gateway for most of you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither candidate has a populist bone in his body. Romney keeps calling attention to his wealth (or hiding it in his unreleased tax returns). Obama seems disdainful of people less enlightened than he is (or as he once described them, people who \u201ccling to guns or religion\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats had to trot out their old warhorse, former President Bill Clinton, to get populist juices flowing. Clinton is uniquely qualified to make the case that the New America knows how to manage the economy. Voters associate Clinton with good times (in every sense of the term).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Democrat on the ballot in 2012 is not Clinton. It\u2019s Obama, and he has failed to deliver on the one thing both parties claim is their top priority \u2014 economic growth (\u201cgood times\u201d). Republicans believe economic growth is sufficient. Government has to keep the economy growing and then stay out of the way. Democrats believe economic growth is necessary but not sufficient. Government must protect the economically vulnerable, even in a growing economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama failed to deliver on another promise as well. \u201dThere\u2019s not a liberal America and a conservative America,\u201d he said in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh yes there is. One met in Tampa, the other in Charlotte. And despite Obama\u2019s appeals to post-partisanship, the two Americas show no sign of reconciliation. Instead, it\u2019s a showdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill Schneider is professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University and a resident scholar at Third Way.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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follow us on facebook<\/a> and twitter<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bill Schneider It’s time for the Great Showdown between the Old and New Americas. The Old America met in Tampa. The New America met in Charlotte. What the country wants to know is: Which […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13283,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13281\/revisions\/13283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}