by Brian Tobin

Created on: September 24, 2008   Last Updated: October 01, 2010

The 2008 elections are making history for the simple reason that for the first time, the country will either have an African-American president or a woman Vice-President. In a larger sense, however, the 2008 elections will be a watershed event in American history. The American economy is in crisis and American foreign policy is a shambles. A one-hundred year run of American economic hegemony and relative Pax Americana may be ending. Every end brings a beginning. History shows parallels and may portend the future depending on the choices the American people make.

In 1896, the frontier was closing and the United States was eager to expand into new frontiers. Also, the Jeffersonian notion of a nation of small towns and farms with small town and farm values had given way to burgeoning cities teeming with a motivated immigrant workforce which brought its own values to the American Dream. Almost overnight, the United States was fast becoming the manufacturing capital of the world.

The presidential election of 1896 pitted the perfect champion of rural interests against the disengaged instrument of cities and industry. William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, the "Boy Orator of the Platte," was the Democratic candidate who was part-preacher, part-politician and full-time champion of rural interests. He thumped his bible and railed against the evils of cities, booze, and the secular world in general.

His opponent, the Republican William McKinley of Ohio, ran a "front-porch" campaign organized and orchestrated by a political professional named Mark Hanna. Bryan got clobbered. He would run twice again and get clobbered twice more. McKinley ushered in modernity and with it came instant empire. His untimely assassination would introduce progressivism into American politics in the dymnamic presence of Theodore Roosevelt. T.R. created the modern presidency by bringing government intervention into the common weal. When T.R. split the Republican Party in 1912, the messianic progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson decided that he would make a world ruled by "good men" and "make the world safe for democracy."

This rural/urban conflict has simmered just beneath the surface of American politics for the past one-hundred plus years. Now, the elections of 2008 are returning the conflict to its boiling point. The Republican Party has become the champion of rural interests with an added irony of Wilsonian idealism. John McCain fashions himself a tough guy who wants a world ruled by "good men."

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