Whither America?

Here is what Clive Crook, senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly, a columnist for National Journal and a commentator for the Financial Times thinks:

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration did make a serious attempt to deregulate parts of the economy. Particular industries, notably banking and the airlines, were transformed. In other cases, such as the utilities, it was not so much a case of deregulating as replacing one scheme of regulation with another. But these were exceptions to an ongoing trend of regulatory accretion. ...

Could the lines even cross? Could America ever become more European than Europe?It seems unlikely, but not unthinkable. The Democrats, taken at their word (which would be rash), seem to be proposing exactly that. Elements, at least, of the programs outlined by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during their nomination contest are significantly to the left of where Britain's Labour Party, post-Thatcher, post-Blair, now stands. (Think about that.) But let us suppose, less adventurously, that American capitalism and Europe's social market merely continue to approach each other in the center. For good or ill, the era of the American economic exception is coming to an end.

I think he is wrong. I expect the Democrats will move to the left with the upcoming national elections, but there is something irreducible about the American spirit -- as reflected in the myths that the people tell themselves -- which will keep them to the right of Europe. In other words, don't expect the NRA to pack it in, don't think Fox News will close up shop, and don't think that people's views on freedom and rugged individualism will dry up and blow away. Maybe in 50 years or a 100 years the US might move to the left of today's Labour Party, but I just don't see it. In the US party platforms are window dressing for elections. There is no party discipline to force Congress to abide by the election "platform" of a presidential candidate.