In the 1960s and 1970s, the political class in this country was operating under the Narrative of the time. The Narrative is the underlying assumption against the backdrop of which that the elites function. It transcends political parties and provides the Establishment with its directional core. Regardless of what the voters actually want or think they want, the Establishment ensures that it continues to operate under the Narrative, because everybody knows that the Narrative is right, and that the folks are wrong.

At that time, the Narrative was the one that had been developed after World War II. It went something like this: in order to achieve long-term peace and prosperity for America, the U.S. must maintain a strong, active welfare state at home, must fund it through highly progressive taxation, must enact cultural change from the top down when necessary for societal advancement, and must contain Communism through an endless series of small wars throughout the world. The Establishment believed that these policies would ensure that America would be able to co-exist with Communism and would continue to progress as a society, the hallmark of which was a strong middle class.

But then something interesting happened. The folks on the ground started challenging the Narrative. They didn’t think things were working out as planned. At first, only a few things went awry. The Vietnam conflict took a lot longer than expected, and didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything. Then the Supreme Court decided to end the national debate over abortion by enshrining it in the Constitution. Then the economy started to collapse, and remained collapsed, while inflation began to increase. And so on and so forth. And ultimately, Americans began to wonder whether the Narrative was correct. And because the political class refused to listen, with Democrats like Johnson and Republicans like Nixon both operating under the Narrative, a variety of anti-establishment movements sprang up, some on the left, others on the right, and yet others in the center. Let’s call these folks the Disaffecteds.

The Disaffecteds of the era were not natural allies. They were in many cases adversaries. But they all had one thing in common: they knew the Narrative was incorrect. On the right, the Disaffecteds consisted of folks who refused to believe that government had to continue to grow, that taxes had to remain high, and that Communism couldn’t be destroyed. On the left, the Disaffecteds were largely opposed to endless war. In the center, the Disaffecteds wanted both an end to Vietnam and to Communism overall, as well as lower taxes without losing their New Deal safety net, and the end of the ever-increasing nanny state. Even though the anti-war McGovernites and the anti-Communism Goldwaterites had little love lost between them, both essentially agreed that the Narrative was wrong about Communism, and that containment was a foolish policy that had to be replaced.

But the political class didn’t listen. They liked the Narrative. The Narrative made sense to them. So the Disaffecteds began to vote with their feet. They threw the Democrats out, and then they threw the Republicans out. Nothing changed. So they began to pack the primaries. The right-wing Disaffecteds nominated Goldwater. The left-wing Disaffecteds nominated McGovern. Jimmy Carter came out of nowhere to win the nomination in 1976 thanks to the Disaffecteds. And Ronald Reagan became the president who toppled the Narrative once and for all, ushering in a new Narrative and ending the post-war consensus on American domestic and foreign policy.

Today, we have a new Narrative, and new Disaffecteds, and probably a new revolution in the works that will topple the Narrative, though that revolution may take awhile and could come from either party. I laid out the Narrative in an earlier post. The Narrative that the political class is currently operating under goes something like this: in order to achieve peace and prosperty in America, the U.S. must maintain strong entitlements at home, must fund these by running deficits so that taxes remain low, must maintain a strong partnership with the nation’s large economic interests, must increase imports and immigration to ensure a supply of cheap goods and cheap labor, and must contain jihadism through an endless series of small wars. This is the Narrative. The Clintonites accepted it. The Bushies accepted it. Obama accepts it. There’s just one problem: the folks aren’t buying it.

I’ve already described the Disaffecteds on today’s right and center. There are the Palinites, the Paulites, the Beckians, the Dobbsians, and the radical middle. None are natural allies but all agree that the Narrative must change. But now tremors are coming from the left, as Disaffecteds appear to be popping up in Obama’s own party that agree that the Democratic Establishment is buying into the Narrative and that this must stop. So who are these left-wing Disaffecteds?

Exhibit 1: Howard Dean. The former liberal presidential candidate slams ObamaCare and suggests that Republicans are right about it! According to Ed Morrissey, “Dean insisted that the current efforts did nothing to control costs, and amounted to nothing more than a bailout for the insurance companies.” This is in direct opposition to the Narrative, which says that the bailouts are good for America, and that protecting and strengthening our major economic players (like trial lawyers, the big insurers, and big pharma) will benefit us all. Even though Dean and Beck disagree about which way to take health care reform (Dean wants a strong public option of course; Beck probably wouldn’t mind being able to shop for insurance across state lines), both agree that the Narrative is incorrect.

Exhibit 2: Huff Puff ‘n Stuff. Arianna Huffington derides the Administration’s efforts on the economy and asks why Obama didn’t, oh, I don’t know, cut the payroll tax or taxes on small businesses to stimulate the economy. Arianna has apparently forgotten that the Narrative suggests that big business and big government are what makes this country work, all financed by debt, hence the need for the stimulus and the bailouts.

Exhibit 3: Andrew Sullivan. Okay, I know he’s not technically on the left, but he is an Obama supporter, and he blames Obama’s establishmentarianism for his sinking poll numbers. Says Andrew:

Now wait will Gitmo remains open through the middle of next year, finanical re-regulation gets gutted by Geithner, gays keep being fired from the military, unemployment plateaus at 12 percent, and more troops are sent to Afghanistan even as withdrawal from Iraq is postponed because they cannot even agree on an election date or terms despite months and months of negotiations.

Of course, there’s a very very long way to go. And if health reform passes, unemployment begins to drop before next November, some movement occurs on Iran, and troops come home from Iraq in larger numbers … anything can happen.

Notice that the things that Andrew says that the Disaffected Left wants are a) very similar to the things that many of the Disaffecteds in the center and on the right want and b) all challenge the Narrative of the political class. Opposition to endless war in the Middle East is shared by the radical middle and the Paulites, and while not shared by the rest of the Disaffected Right, the Palinites and Beckians have no love for the U.N., the Dobbsians want less immigration, and both are opposed to amnesty, i.e., all of the Disaffecteds are opposed to ever-increasing internationalism in one way or another, one of the major components of the Narrative. The Disaffected Left, says Andrew, is against Geithner’s economic policy, but so are all of the other Disaffecteds, and the Disaffecteds on the right like Beck have been the harshest and loudest critics of the bailouts.

Ultimately, what’s happening is that the folks at the grassroots of all political stripes are starting to suspect that the Narrative is a false one, and that boundless-internationalism-plus-corporatist-government-plus-infinite-debt does not peace and prosperity make. Today’s Disaffecteds don’t like one another any more than did the McGovernites and the Goldwaterites. And the direction they each want to take the country is very different. But all agree that the Establishment has it wrong. As such, I suspect that a series of anti-establishment candidates will do quite well over the next few election cycles, wresting the party nominations away from the elites, probably starting with the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. I also think we may see some interesting third-party candidates in the coming years. It may take awhile, but Americans have given up on the Narrative, and they will eventually force the Establishment to go along with them. The exact form of this revolution, and the revolutionary politician who will make this happen — our era’s Reagan — are yet to be identified.