Dynasties and Democracy

The 2016 election looked like it was going to be a battle between two powerful political dynasties. After all, in only eight of the last 28 years have we had a president not named Bush or Clinton, and early on, many people predicted that either a Bush or a Clinton would once again be living in the White House in 2017. Despite the fact that each president is elected, and that the presidency is not actually inherited, the familial element seems to trouble democratic politics. This essay examines the ways in which that is both a historical and a contemporary phenomenon, as the fear of political dynasties has been a long-standing, if intermittent, element of our national politics. To better understand the role of dynasties in national elections, I first look very briefly at the historical context, then take up the question of how we might understand dynasties. I then look specifically at the 2016 election before concluding with some comments about dynasties and democracy more generally, especially in the aftermath of the 2016 election.

Dynasties and the Front Stage of American Politics

Historically, Americans tend to be nervous about dynasties. This goes back to the Revolution and is undoubtedly connected to the fear, prevalent at the time, that the American experiment in crafting a democratic republic would fail, and the nation would inevitably return to monarchy.¹ This fear was reflected in very conscious actions on the part of the founders to enact and embody what they considered to be republican norms.² Accusations of being “monarchial” had the same weight that similar accusations of communism would have later. But from the founding forward, whenever there has been a national sense that wealth is being concentrated, or that political power is being used to advance the interests of a specific class, the idea of “dynasties” tends to get floated. I want to underline that in the United States, wealth is always concentrated, and political power is always in the service of the interests of specific classes, but sometimes we are more conscious of this than at other times, and sometimes it aggravates us more than at other times.

So it is true, for instance, that in 1848, some 15 percent of congressional seats were filled by family members of previous members. But this did not seem to cause significant comment. And members of some of the nation’s most obvious dynasties have earned for themselves reputations as dedicated public servants, not public parasites. Think of the Adamses, the Harrisons, the Tafts, the Fishes, and the Breckinridges, for example.³ Other family names just seem to recur in politics, with greater or lesser degrees of success. The Freylinghuysens, now known only to the wonkiest among us, or the Roosevelts, some of whom achieved the presidency, but others of whom failed at more local office, come to mind. So too do the Kennedys, the Daleys, the Cuomos, and the Bushes. These examples indicate that a family history of political involvement isn’t enough to ensure any individual’s political success. Some family members seem to be better at campaigning and governing than others. One of the themes of 2016, for instance, was the comparative lack of political skill displayed by Hillary Clinton, who doesn’t have her husband’s ease with crowds, and of Jeb Bush, who is a less adept candidate than was his brother. There is something comforting in these examples, as they indicate that family isn’t destiny, and that our politics depend on merit rather than dynastic connections. The other kind of dynasty, however, brings deeper sorts of concerns.

Back Stage Dynasties; Front Stage Problems

Instead of looking only at the public face of political dynasties, we might be better served to think about them as occurring on either the front or the back stage of politics. There are those families whose members run for office and who therefore exert a very public kind of power—certainly the Kennedys might serve as a good contemporary example here, as do the Bushes. The...