Is there something happening here?

For politics-watchers like myself, sometimes it's hard to tell whether events that the media hypes as "a major sea change" -- growing opposition to the Iraq war (even in Kentucky!), the 2006 mid-term elections -- are in reality just small and fleeting episodes, or truly a sign that something deeper is happening in the country.

In many cases, it's only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that we realize the real "turning points" and "watershed moments" of history -- for example, President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act and changing the course of Southern politics (and by extension, national politics) forever.

Today, with President Bush's poll numbers precipitously sinking, and disaffection with foreign wars and domestic scandals growing, there's a sense that the pendulum of U.S. politics may be swinging -- not just a little, but with certainty -- away from the conservative dominance seen at least since the Reagan era.

But is a deeper, lasting shift truly underway? Prof. Lawrence Goodwyn, a long-time scholar of U.S. politics with whom I co-taught a class at Duke University, believes it could be. The Texan, who wrote one of the first major studies of U.S. populism, writes a fascinating piece in The Nation this week in which he argues that the "intransigence and myopia" of the current administration, coupled with growing fortitude on the part of Democrats in challenging the war and unequal economy, have created a moment ripe for "political realignment."

It's a "deep" think piece, and worth the read. Here are a few choice excerpts.

[I]n climes far from comfortable lobbyists, activists have organized petitions for local environmental laws even as people in midsize towns stepped up pressure for living-wage ordinances as benchmarks for all city workers. Indeed, agitation for a revived push for an Equal Rights Amendment, visible at local levels soon after the November election and at state levels in December, has now gathered momentum in both the House and Senate. This kind of politics is not about the next election; it is about people coming up for air and getting something done that has a chance to get done. Nor is this effort a magic bullet to dispatch globalization. It is not instant and it does not begin large-scale but emerges from the interaction of popular aspirations and cooperating elites. It is out there in America now--much more vividly than before the November elections. It will be expanding. [...]

The Iraq disaster undermines the Republicans but will not in itself bring party realignment. Rather, the energizing momentum is economic--and it is driven by abiding public anxiety here in America. Ahead in Washington are the sharpest kinds of party divisions over domestic policy. The signals are everywhere. The new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, began by mobilizing all 233 Democrats to co-sponsor the minimum-wage bill. On their first opportunity to decamp, eighty-two Republicans did so. The final tally--an early harbinger of the realigned future--was 315 to 116. After redistricting in response to the 2010 census, it does not seem out of line to envision something approaching a Democratic margin of 275 to 160. The path to these numbers travels through Social Security, the issue that, as Bush has already experienced, remains the third rail of American politics. Debate before the 2008 election should produce the first of many win-win options for the Democrats: Either enough GOP senators defect to protect themselves as well as Social Security, or they don't defect and boost their own vulnerability at the polls. Of forty-nine GOP-held Senate seats, twenty-one are up for grabs. [...]

Goodwyn also compares our current moment to 1930-1932, when President Hoover was disgraced and a certain politician named Roosevelt stepped forward with a different vision (although, as Goodwyn is careful to note, FDR himself didn't bring change -- it was forced on him by progressives, especially unions -- but he at least put up less resistance).

Just like 77 years ago, Goodwyn believes, our economy is facing a deep crisis -- then is was the depression, today it's a warped form of globalization that's cheered by Wall Street but causes deep insecurity on Main Street.

But this grim situation -- and growing discontent across the country -- are no promise of political change. I agree with Goodwyn that this depends largely on the clarity and power of the vision that those opposing the current agenda offer -- which requires both compelling leaders and a political movement.

Only when people see powerful alternatives to the status quo will the events unfolding around us today truly become "a major sea change."