The first and maybe only thing people will see from a party platform is the preamble, so if we’re going to have one at all, we want a good one. But what does a good preamble look like?
I think a good preamble a) is brief; b) contains some specific action items or pledges; and c) is clear on the principles to which all committed to the platform are beholden.
Let’s step back and look at the original — the Republican Party’s first platform in 1856. The whole thing is short and to the point, and the preamble in particular embraces brevity. And yet, despite being just one super long sentence, it calls out specific items members of the party are opposed to and supportive of — for example: opposed to the extension of slavery, in favor of admitting Kansas as a free state. In other words, it sets a pretty high bar.
How have Republican platform preambles looked since that very first one?
The first and most obvious observation: they’ve gotten longer over time.
Several iterations of the platform after 1856 didn’t have a preamble at all (or had a nominal one at best), and rather got right to the key planks. It’s not until 1876 that we have a brief opening paragraph again. In 1880, the platform preamble recounts the successes of Republican leadership (“suppressed a rebellion,” worked to “see that slavery does not exist,” built the railroads, and more); 1884, 1888, 1892, and years after continue this trend.
The era of brief preambles was briefly interrupted by the 1912 platform, but then continued apace in 1916, 1920, 1924, 1928, and 1932 (short at least by comparison to later preambles).
The preambles in 1936 and 1940 were both a little longer and focused on the failures of the Roosevelt Administration.
We got another brief one in 1944 and some years later in 1960 and 1964; the intervening years, however, and all from 1968 on through 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, and beyond have featured formal preambles and introductions of varying length and focus.
But while they’ve grown in length, the preambles haven’t grown in specificity.
What do I mean by “specificity?” This is clearly subjective, but I mean a clear and actionable agenda item. For example, “re-establish fiscal responsibility” is not specific — “balance the budget” is specific. A promise to “dedicate our efforts toward restoration of peace both at home and abroad” is not specific — “defeat X” or “withdraw troops from Y” is specific. While the preambles to modern platforms have lots of words, they give readers fewer specifics.
Among post-WWII platforms, the 1948 preamble pledged to “strengthen and develop public health, to promote scientific research, to provide security for the aged, and to promote a stable economy” — not specific, but some measure of what was being prioritized.
The preamble to the 1952 platform had specifics about what the Truman Administration had done wrong — but nothing about what a Republican Administration would do instead.
We saw a few nominally specific pledges in the 1956 preamble: “to support the United Nations” (but how?), “oppose the seating of Communist China in the United Nations,” and “generously assist the International Atomic Energy Agency” (again, how?). It celebrated having “balanced the budget” and promises to continue fiscal prudence (though it doesn’t explicitly say they’re committed to maintaining a balanced budget). While not as specific as the pledges made in the first party platform preamble, they were the last specifics we’d see at all for a while.
In every party platform for the next 40 years – 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996 – we don’t see anything approaching that kind of action item in the preamble.
In 2000 we finally got a few more specifics, again: “saving and strengthening Social Security” (though that could mean a lot of things), and a pledge to “deploy defenses against ballistic missiles.” While there’s a lot in there I wouldn’t consider specific, the preamble language is – like in 1948 – pretty straightforward. That is, if you only read it and nothing more, you’d have a decent idea of what the party was committed to doing — more or less.
The 2004 preamble is similar — while there’s only one truly specific agenda item (“making tax relief permanent”), reading it would nonetheless provide a sense of party priorities.
The 2008 and 2012 preambles revert back to general language with no real specifics.
The 2016 preamble suffers from the same affliction — it says a lot without actually committing anyone to anything. For example:
- The 2016 preamble points out the national debate had doubled under the Obama administration — but it doesn’t say what Republicans want to do (reduce it? Balance the budget? Increase the debt [as happened]?).
- The 2016 preamble points out the problems with the Affordable Care Act — but doesn’t say what we want instead.
- The 2016 preamble says the Obama administration was intent on regulating our “free market economy” and was attacking private businesses — something the Trump administration later did (via executive action and Twitter), aggressively. It would have been helpful for the preamble to say outright what Republicans would do instead.
I know the platform itself gets into more of the nitty gritty, and we’ll explore that. But in terms of the preamble itself — even if most can’t tout having suppressed a rebellion, this one is wanting.
As noted above, there is some laudable, principled language in some of the platform preambles even where they lack specific or actionable language. Language that while not specific does provide some clear sense of the principles to which the party is committed.
I highlighted some of the 1948, 2000, and 2004 above. Here are a few other noteworthy lines:
- “This is what we want for America: real prosperity that reaches beyond the stock market to every family, small business and worker. An economy expanding as fast as American enterprise and creativity will carry it, free from unnecessary taxes, regulation and litigation” (1996); “Our foremost goal here at home is simple: economic growth and full employment without inflation” (1980); “We must assure every individual an opportunity for satisfying and rewarding employment” (1968); “We must help the poor escape poverty by building an economy which creates more jobs, the greatest poverty fighter of them all” (1984)
- “We seek to restore the family, the neighborhood, the community, and the workplace as vital alternatives in our national life to ever-expanding federal power” (1980); “we must choose between running our own lives and letting others in a distant bureaucracy run them” (1972); “we prefer local and state government to national government, and decentralized national government wherever possible” (1976); “a renewal of community, self-government and citizenship” (1996);
- “Our foreign policy is dedicated to preserving a free America in a free world of free men” (1948); “We must form sturdy partnerships with our allies for the preservation of freedom” (1976); “we can reach our goals only while maintaining a superior national defense” (1976); “Our plans focus on ensuring that America remains safe, terrorists are defeated, and democracy flourishes in the world” (2004);
- “We shall ever build anew, that our children and their children, without distinction because of race, creed or color, may know the blessings of our free land” (1956); “We must attack the root causes of poverty and eradicate racism, hatred and violence” (1968); “Constant and effective insistence on the personal dignity of the individual, and his right to complete justice without regard to race, creed or color, is a fundamental American principle” (1948); “We believe in the Constitution and its guarantee of color-blind equal opportunity” (1992); “To all Americans, particularly immigrants and minorities, we send a clear message: this is the party of freedom and progress, and it is your home” (2000)
- “Administration of government must be economical and effective” (1948); “We must re-establish fiscal responsibility” (1968); “restructure government’s most important domestic programs to avoid their fiscal collapse” (2012); “We believe and will continue to prove that thrift, prudence and a sensible respect for living within income applies as surely to the management of our Government’s budget as it does to the family budget” (1956)
- “We believe that basic to governmental integrity are unimpeachable ethical standards and irreproachable personal conduct by all people in government. We shall continue our insistence on honesty as an indispensable requirement of public service. We shall continue to root out corruption whenever and wherever it appears” (1956); “moral clarity in our culture and ethical leadership in the White House” (1996)
- “Government … should take all needed steps to strengthen and develop public health, to promote scientific research, to provide security for the aged, and to promote a stable economy so that men and women need not fear the loss of their jobs or the threat of economic hardships through no fault of their own” (1948); “We must bring about quality education for all” (1968); “ helping workers adjust to a changing economy by offering flexible training options that meet their individual needs” (2004)
- “We believe in free markets” (1992); “expanding peacetime markets” (1956)
Looking through all of these, I think we can craft a preamble that’s right for the moment — that’s brief, that gives us some specific action items, and that tells what being a Republican means.
What will all of that be? To answer that, we need to first write the actual planks. Let’s dive in.
