Historically Speaking

Michael Bowen
The Lessons of 1948
Historically Speaking - Volume 10, Number 3, June 2009, pp. 43-44

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Project MUSE - Historically Speaking - The Lessons of 1948 Project MUSE Journals Historically Speaking Volume 10, Number 3, June 2009 The Lessons of 1948 Historically Speaking Volume 10, Number 3, June 2009 E-ISSN: 1944-6438 Print ISSN: 1941-4188 DOI: 10.1353/hsp.0.0033 The Lessons of 1948 Michael Bowen In the aftermath of the 2008 election, two narrative themes quickly emerged in the national and world media. The first, of course, was the historic selection of Barack Obama as the first African-American president and, along with it, a reaffirmation of our national principles and the repudiation of the country's legacy of racism. The second, perhaps less important in light of the significance of the first, was the fate of the Republican Party, an organization that emerged from the last eight years with a tattered reputation and a decreasing base. Many pundits, despite the narrow 52-48% split in the popular vote, interpreted the Electoral College landslide as a mandate for liberalism and a flat-out rejection of the policies of the Bush administration and the ideology of conservatism. Conservative journalists in publications such as the National Review and the Weekly Standard responded with calls for a reassessment of principles. Some of them, including syndicated talk show host Mark Levin, urged National Review readers to wage a pitched fight against the new Democratic administration. Others, such as Ross Douthat in the Atlantic and Ramesh Ponuru in the...