Are the country’s deepest political instincts undergoing fundamental change?

Are We There Yet?

By ROBERT O. SELF, NYT

PROVIDENCE, R.I.

BARACK OBAMA has arrived at a historical moment enjoyed by only one other Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt: he gets to deliver a second Inaugural Address.

The second inaugurals we remember bear witness to political realignment. The words of Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, in particular, testify to the closing of one era and the opening of another. In 1936 and 1984, Roosevelt and Reagan each won big. Their triumphs consolidated political transformations that had been building for some time and allowed their respective parties to reset the nation’s political center of gravity.

Without the benefit of historical distance, how do we judge whether we are in the midst of such a realignment? Are the country’s deepest political instincts undergoing fundamental change? Coming up with an answer is not easy.

Roosevelt and Reagan were historical opponents in the 20th century version of our longstanding battle between empowered and limited government. Roosevelt argued that “we have begun to bring private autocratic powers into their proper subordination to the public’s government.” Reagan might as well have been talking to F.D.R. when he countered, “We asked things of government that government was not equipped to give.”

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