Eric Foner
1988: The Year the Establishment Failed
In 1988, Rumsfeld was deposed, and a bunch of zealots seized control of the organs of power and destroyed constitutional government,
Within a year, a continuity of governance that lasted for over 200 years, a system that had survived civil war and previous economic depressions, and a system that had produced the world’s richest and most powerful nation, and a system that prided itself on the separation of powers crumbled under the weight of extremism and violence.
Historians to this day still ask why it happened, a more importantly, why so quickly?
Historians on the left are quick to denounce the obvious elephant in the room, to scream “Rumsfeld” in reply to such questions, saying that his rule and terror had undermined the rule of law. Historians on the right, like Newt Gingrich, craft complex arguments in favor of a CV coup that had been in the works since the early 1980s. Both arguments have merit and will be included in this paper. But most ignore the state of the Establishment in 1988.
The term Establishment, a term often used in populist politics to describe some mysterious elite, has lost much of its meaning. But a broad definition are the leaders that govern and make decisions for a nation.
Many historians, especially those of Marxist and Soviet backgrounds, compare the year 1988 of America to year 1917 of the Russian Empire, in which two world powers were pretty much undone by internal pressures and external breakdowns. These were the years when establishment forces couldn’t triumph. But in order for us to understand why, we need to look a year where the establishment of these two countries were able to triumph. 1905 and 1973 for Russia and American respectively.
In 1905, The Russian Empire was engulfed in violent tumult. The combination of the disastrous Russo-Japanese War, pursued by an intransigent Tsar Nicholas, and some particularly brutal oppression pushed many to violence. While the devastation was terrible, nobility and army both collaborated to bring about the return to business as usual. Within a year, business appeared to back to normal, and Tsar Nicholas’ power, despite promises of reform and democracy, remained as entrenched as ever.
In 1973, the United States was in a similar state of turmoil. Like Russia, a hardheaded leader- Spiro Agnew- threw American soldiers recklessly into a long and futile war. The rushed strategy lead to some acts of insubordination, like the resistance by Dan Quayle. The international scene was at a boiling point. A constitutional crisis virtually paralyzed American government. The economy went into turmoil. And the scandals of Nixon and Agnew rattled the American populace, albeit not to its core.
But like 1905 Russia, the Establishment prevailed. America was still a two party system. While the 1973 crisis of succession did create a partisan divide, as well as few rumored stories of insomniac congressman getting into serious brawls, both parties understood the course that Agnew was leading them was a disastrous one, and united (except for a few intransigent senators) to impeach Agnew from power. The Establishment, the leaders of both major parties, were able to come together to protect themselves from destruction.
In 1917 and 1988 are often compared because of how events played out. In both countries in those years, the leaders of both nations were removed relatively peacefully and quickly, only for violence and civil war to engulf them within months.
The Establishment of Russia and America in those years again faced probably greater threats to its well-being. Tsar Nicholas’ disastrous governance during the First World War was a major factor. Russian soldiers were virtually marched to deaths, being sent to battle with few weapons or supplies. His choice of Rasputin as an advisor had wrecked his popularity, even among the clergy and nobility. Soldiers no longer listened to Nicholas, his advisors ignored him, and he couldn’t even get his train to Petrograd. Eventually his support evaporated, and the forces that also governed Russia, like the Duma, forced him to step down.
Donald Rumsfeld’s impact on nation was in many ways, far more damaging than Tsar Nicholas’. In Rumsfeld’s America, the economic system was ripped apart, its global standing and international alliances were curtailed, freedoms that were cherished were crushed under a jackboot, and finally there was the disastrous invasion of Cuba. Soldiers weren’t just being given bad equipment like the Russian army, but were being murdered by American forces in a twisted attempt at saving money. Like the tsar, Rumsfeld had lost all respect by the Establishment and he was suddenly ignored by everybody, although he apparently was under greater delusions than even Nicholas, since he apparently didn’t realize his time was up until members of his own Executive Protection Agency dragged him away to one his own asylums.
While they managed to get rid of their obvious menace, the Establishments of Tsarist Russia and the United States couldn’t prevent their collision with disaster. Why? Both sides ultimately couldn’t stop the suffering caused by Nicholas’ and Rumsfeld, and failed to grasp the political climate and the extremists looking for power.
In 1988, the Establishment was dominated by a bloated Republican Party, famously dubbed the Last Congress by Bob Woodward’s award winning book. Due to the electoral fraud and electoral reforms that disenfranchised many in the 1986 midterms, the Republicans held, on paper at least, a clear majority on power. They controlled a majority of lawmaking and judicial seats. And they were backed by the business interests that at one time supported Rumsfeld. The Democratic Party, though weakened by Rumsfeldian oppression, still held enough power that it could have provided assistance to them. It appears that the Last Congress could have found a way to bring the country to a semblance of order, but were unable. The reasons are somewhat complex.
One was the virtual loss of legitimacy among the American populace. Under Rumsfeld, the very soul of America had been undermined. Economic mobility and political freedoms had been obliterated for short-term gain. The middle class was eviscerated and turned into virtual serfs for the increasingly powerful corporatists whom Rumsfeld supported. Hundreds of thousands had been denied due process to languish in fake mental-health centers, and millions were locked up in prisons. Social and environmental reforms were declared acts of socialist tyranny and abolished. And the US armed forces, which at one point were able to win wars on two continents, was defanged and turned into a cash machine for Rumsfeld’s chosen few. And this was well before the full extent of Rummy’s abuse would be uncovered by later inquiries.
The Republicans, though still a diverse party, were seen as collaborators in this wholesale destruction of what America was supposed to be. The Republican Party had lost the respect of vast majority of the populace.
Arguably, however, popular opinion was irrelevant. The population had been virtually disenfranchised due to electoral fraud and the Rumsfeld amendment, which filled the US Senate with Rumsfeld appointees, and the House with Republicans who benefited from voter fraud and intmidation. But this also undermined their reputation, since their ascension to power was seen as illegitimate.
The Republicans, despite their great power, were demoralized and divided. Many Republicans responded with revulsion over what Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney had done, preventing them from pursuing a strong agenda. While Republicans agreed that reforms were needed, they were also divided over what needed to be fixed. Trent Lott, Speaker of House, in a May 1988 interview responded to question about reversing the Rumsfeldian trend of corporatism with the words, “Stability and prosperity must be restored, but we must not damage the economic leadership.” He answered the question, but offered no clear solution except baby-steps, as did other Republicans.
It is now clear that many Republicans like Lott were in the pocket of TRW and other mega-corporations that had benefited from Rumsfeldian backing. Other Republicans were independent of the Rumsfeldian corporate network and wanted to restore the pre-1981 America. Thus the ability of the Republican Party to act against Rumsfeldia was held back by a conflict of interests, as was their ability to forge a new path.
The party itself, though large, did not have the necessary super-majority needed to pursue agendas, like the Denton amendment, which needed ratification at a state level, and needed help from the Democrats. In 1973, the Republicans were able to collaborate with the Democratic Party to achieve national goals. In 1988, the Democrats still had a sizable number of seats and could have worked with Republicans, but wouldn't, or couldn't.
The Democratic Party had become a target of Rumsfeld’s abuses. Under his rule, one of America’s most powerful parties was ground under his heel. At best, many Democrats had been subjected to a vicious smear by the Hughes Network. They and their political idols, like FDR and JFK, were accused of being members of a Stalinist conspiracy. At worst, they found themselves incarcerated under fabricated corruption trials, murdered, or locked up under a guise of a nervous breakdown treatment and subjected to a brutal regimen of sedatives. Others were driven into exile or bullied out of seeking political office through threats of prosecution against them and their families and friends. In 1984, they had been denied a presidential election, and other local elections, due to voter fraud.
The remaining Democratic Party politicians had seen their colleagues subjected to horrendous abuses, and with Rumsfeld gone, they directed their righteous anger toward the Republican Party members.
“I still remember when (Senator Robert) Byrd walked in”, recounted Senator William Roth, one of the few Republicans independent of Rumsfeld, “I was in the room with Lott and (Senator Jesse) Helms in the Speaker’s Office. Lott offered Byrd his hand, and attempt to welcome him gregariously and oily. Byrd looked at Lott’s hand like it was covered in toxin, and gave him a withering stare that had such force, it could have turned West Virginia coal into a diamond. He then sounded a few powerful obscenities at the two men and stormed out.” Stories similar to Roth’s were found. The Republican Party leadership tried to contact the Kennedy family in their exile in London, but the Kennedy’s, still mourning the murder of RFK Jr., rebuked these calls. The Democrats, instead of collaborating with Republicans, treated them like pariahs, and negotiating rooms became bully pulpits where Democrats would shout at Republicans and order them to resign. Interparty conferences degenerated into yelling matches.
The divisions within Democrats that Rumsfeld exploited did not end with the fall of Rumsfeld. They too became divided over the course of actions, namely whether to work with the Republican Party. One group, which included Sam Nunn, whose moderate political stances kept him out of Rummy’s jail, and Milton Shapp, who was willing to serve as a caretaker vice president for Jeremiah Denton, argued for reconciliation. Another group, led by Robert Byrd and Thomas P. Salmon (himself given a nervous breakdown), demanded a Nuremberg-style tribunal against Rumsfeld’s political supporters. Passion overwhelmed patience, and the Democratic Party was unable and unwilling to work with the Republican Party.
Unlike 1973 also, 1988 America had other political parties that held a small but important measure of political power that the Republicans needed to pursue an agenda. The Christian Values Party, as history books explained, used their political power to prevent any reforms, since Rumsfeld’s policies gave them a political edge, which they used to pretty much seize power. But simply explaining their rise to power through political machinations, as Gingrich and others have done, is incomplete. Throughout Rumsfeldia, they built a reputation as both spiritualists and humanitarians, with all but the most liberal voices ignoring their repressive social policies. Rumsfeld's tax policies gave them the resources they needed to provide such aid, with which they used to gain proxy votes. They, and not the gutted federal and state governments, were far better organized. Despite their role in Rumsfeldia, they were never a really visible part of it. Thus, they were seen by many, especially in the South, as people who could bring about a return to virtue.
The Libertarian Party, which had built a political stronghold across the Mountain West and in New Hampshire, was a lost cause for Republicans. If the Democrats had become hostile to the Republicans over Rumsfeldia, the Libertarians had gained a virulent hatred. Many Libertarians were themselves former Republicans who by the early 80s were already disgusted with the direction the GOP was taking, and expressed that early in the 1984 election. The abuses of Rumsfeld only crystallized their contempt. The defeat of the Denton Amendment, while largely blamed on the Christian Values, was also because of the Libertarian consensus which opposed any attempt by Republican lawmakers at further amending the Constitution. Ed Crane, governor of Idaho at the time, gave a voice to this consensus, saying before the Idaho State Capitol ,“Once (the Republicans) get their amendment, it means they’ll have another year to continue their distortion of the Constitution. They’ve already robbed us of our ability to choose our leaders. Will we give them the time they need to burn out the Bill of Rights. NEVER!”
We The People, for obvious reasons, wouldn’t even answer the calls of Republicans, and in New York City, they became little more than gangsters who were unable to collaborate with the established political forces of the time.
There was also issues with the man who held executive power at the time, Jeremiah Denton. Despite his social conservatism, Denton was haunted by the abuses that his predecessor implemented, and sought repentance through rebuilding the US. He sought to be like James Gavin, a man ascended to the presidency to rescue the ship of state.
But in the end, he was more like Alexander Kerensky, the ill-fated president of the short-lived Russian Republic, both of whom were unable to stop radicalism from destroying their countries. Marxist and Soviet historians have also made this comparison. Although the nature of their failures was different. Kerensky started out with legitimacy, only to lose it with bad decisions, while Denton arguably never held any form of control.
Alexander Kerensky was a man who ascended to power with the aid of the political forces that controlled the Duma. He had some legitimacy, both as a member of the Duma and as one of the tsar’s most influential opponents. But his disastrous choice to continue Russia’s involvement in World War I, and inability to build a national agenda undermined his legitimacy. And his opposition to the right-wing forces in the Provisional Government left him with zero military, and his short-lived rule collapse within days of the Bolsheviks organizing.
Unlike Kerensky, Denton used his political power to reverse the disastrous military interventions of his predecessor. He tried to pull out of Cuba, and he cut off aid to Magnus Malan’s South Africa.
But ultimately, he was no James Gavin. Gavin’s ascension to power was a bipartisan decision made by party leaders in 1973. In other words, Gavin was chosen by the establishment. Denton’s ascension to the Vice-Presidency was not a choice of the establishment, but an act of desperation by Rumsfeld to cling to power after Jack Edwards, his own Republican vice-president, joined in a coup against him. In fact, many Republicans voted against confirming Denton. Denton was not even a member of the Christian Values elite, but at best a spokesman. When Denton came to power on an appeal to normalcy, the Christian Values base turned on him.
Denton was ultimately a man without any political pull. While moderate politicians rallied to him, hardline figures did not.
Denton's association with the CV alienated him from We The People and the Libertarians. Denton didn't do himself any favors with the two parties by frequently professing his desire to "return our society to morality and virtue." While Denton clearly meant a return to the pre-Rumsfeld state of affairs, Libertarians and WTP assumed he was using the same dog-whistle rhetoric that Rumsfeld and the Christian Values implemented in their "morality and order" laws that were used in political repression. Denton was seen as no different than Rumsfeld.
WTP was constantly attacked by the Christian Values, the latter blaming them, particularly their "socialist-liberal heathen policies", for the deterioration of the American city. WTP constituents, many of whom- but not all- were ethnic minorities, were wary of the white supremacist elements of the Christian Values.
The Libertarian Party, meanwhile, had vigorously pursued a policy of social liberalism-one that was considered extreme even by We The People members, in order to distinguish themselves from the Religious Right. Christian Values members frequently attacked Libertarians. In the October 1984 debates between Richard Viguere and David Bergland, the former famously slandered the latter as "a protector of sodomites, lesbians, and other deviants who would destroy the family and convert America's children if given the chance".
But their were also practical concerns among members of the Libertarians. The social policies that Ed Crane and others had been able to institute at a state level allowed economic activities that were banned elsewhere to emerge, such as craft beers, biotechnology, and the growing of hemp. They created jobs and income, but they were the antithesis of what the Christian Values called "wholesome living." They and other conservative Republicans called on Rumsfeld to shut these activities down, but Rumsfeld understood how politically damaging it would be to attack a party that called for small government, and refused. But with Denton's ascension to power, Libertarians feared the loss of their livelihoods and refused to support him.
When it was clear the 1988 elections were not going to be postponed, the leaders of both Republicans and Democrats struggled to find candidates for president, but were unable to find figures of standing and merit who could run.
The Republicans, having impeached their president for the second time in a generation, were leaderless and could not find anybody who could unite them. Some party leaders tried to bring Ronald Reagan back from his exile in London, but he too found himself repulsed by the Republican Party, and anyways he was far too old to govern or mount a campaign. There were also talks of bringing Nixon back, and while he would eventually chair the Provisional American Government of the Second Civil War, he was still too marked his scandals. Other Oxford Republicans, themselves angered by the crimes of Rumsfeld, also refused.
Domestically, few Republicans were able to be candidates. Many were seen as part of the Rumsfeld web, and thus were not trusted by the populace. Other Republicans who had been opponents were shoved into asylums, and were not fit to serve re-election. Former Vice President Jack Edwards and Former Texas Governor George H.W. Bush could have been potential candidates, among others, but by November 1988, they were still in withdrawal from the drugs they had received as part of their nervous breakdown treatments. It is even speculated that Republican opponents who had been thrown into asylums received worse treatment than Democrats, as Rumsfeld really came down on critics within his own party, hence Goldwater's incarceration as early as 1982. Rumsfeld never had tight control over his own party, and thus he saw other Republicans as severe threats to him.
Spiro Agnew was suggested as a Republican candidate. He had become governor of New York on the back of a strong following and an independent ticket. And had finally come to oppose his own former chief of staff. But his disastrous presidency still blemished his record, and while he was not directly implicated in Rumsfeld’s abuses, his militarization of the NYPD and construction of walled ghettos reminded many people of Rumsfeldian policies that turned cops into a secret police, and which divided people across literal barriers of wealth and race.
The problems of finding a unifying figure were also true for Democrats. Richard Lamm, the Colorado governor who had managed to avoid a nervous breakdown by being hidden by supporters in a Bozemanian commune near Aurora, was suggested as a candidate, but he refused to work with Republicans. He was still smarting over his denial of the Vice-Presidency in 1979 by Trent Lott, his disdain for Republicans was only fueled by the excesses of Rumsfeldia. Former President George Wallace was also a serious choice. Having been re-elected governor of Alabama, he revitalized his career as a powerful opponent of Rumsfeldia. However he publicly refused the Presidency, and although he denied it, his health was too poor for him to be re-elected. His time was being occupied by attempts to resist the trend of CV dominance in the Deep South. The machinations of the Alabama Christian Values Party were also putting a severe strain on him. Despite his popularity among Alabamians, he never had the same pull he had on the state previously. The CV members of Alabama's legislature were able to block his attempts to ratify the Denton Amendment. Many other Democrats were also recovering from nervous breakdown treatments, or driven into exile.
Pete McCloskey was strongly suggested, but he understood the political situation better than most did, and thus he refused any of Denton's overtures, or an attempt to run for president.
With partisan division, passionate calls for justice overwhelming the need for compromise, and intransigent political forces, the Establishment was unable to save itself as it had done in the past. The CSA rose to power, and the US Constitution was burned in a matter of months, as a culmination of seven years of decision that were the wholesale destruction of everything America stood for, made by an Establishment eager for easy profit.
