In 1837, the founder of the modern Democratic Party, Martin Van Buren, achieved his longtime goal of becoming president of the United States. He had spent many years organizing the system of spoils, patronage, and mass politics in New York that would become the basis for the Democrats.
Following his time building the New York machine, Van Buren guided Andrew Jackson to the presidency in 1828. He was so successful that the nation’s Jackson opponents could not even agree on a challenger in 1832, instead running several opponents in different regions. Jackson beat them all, and following his eight years in office his final Vice President believed it was his turn to shine.
The panic
But soon after this victory, the Panic of 1837 set in and ruined any of Van Buren’s aspirations in office. Unemployment ran high, banks went under, and the nation’s currency seemed questionable at best. Van Buren’s party, the Democrats, began to freak out. They became defeatists. They complained that their opponent, William Henry Harrison, was a fake and a fraud. Democrats found that the 1840 form of “misinformation” proliferated. People believed that the aristocratic Harrison had grown up in a log cabin and that the middle-class Van Buren was addicted to finery. Harrison ended up defeating Van Buren in a landslide.
Ever since the dark days of 1840, Democrats on the state and national level have panicked at the first sight of potential loss. Fear of losing elections has baked discord into the very structure of the party. It was the Democrats who floundered and wavered on the slavery issue and the Civil War throughout the 1850s and 1860s. The Democrats failed throughout the late 19th century, had a brief resurgence with Woodrow Wilson, and then became dysfunctional again for the 100-plus ballots required to nominate John W. Davis in 1924. It was that convention that resulted in the most famous quote about Democratic panic by Will Rogers: “I’m not a member of any organized political party…. I’m a Democrat.”
Why Democrats panic
One reason for the panic is that Democrats are constantly stuck in a cycle of overconfidence and dashed dreams. Their connection to professionals and intellectuals in the past century has led the party to become convinced that their side is backed by science, religion, and common sense. Such feelings produce overconfidence in election after election.
When their overconfidence proves to be wrong, the party swings wildly back in the other direction and becomes convinced they will never win another election. Intellectuals were convinced in 1952 that Adlai Stevenson would win the election despite his opponent being the hero of the Second World War. They believed that George McGovern had a chance in 1972, that Jimmy Carter would defeat the movie star Ronald Reagan, and that Democrats in the age of Obama had a permanent majority. But they also fretted incessantly over polling for candidates from nearly every cycle, even in 1996 when Bill Clinton won reelection in a landslide.
The problem with Democratic panic is not that Democrats should expect to win every election. They need to respond in a calm, reasoned way to the strong conservative elements throughout the electorate. Democrats cannot associate their inability to win every election to fraud, conspiracies, or the inherent failure of the party. Instead, they need to always see their opponent as the well-matched other party in a two-party system and plan accordingly.