Mike Lux
Most Conservative Congress in How Long?
Posted: 04/16/2012 11:18 am
There is a new study out by a pair of political scientists saying that
the current Republican caucuses in Congress are the most conservative
in a hundred years. I think they are underestimating.
The 1911-12 congressional Republicans, after all, at least had some
Teddy Roosevelt Republicans still in the Congress, so while a distinct
minority, the party had some reformers and moderates in their
caucuses. No, I think you would have to go back into the 1800s, into
the Republican Congress swept into power with William McKinley's 1896
election, to find a party as thoroughly reactionary as this one. This
is somehow appropriate, because these Republicans clearly do want to
repeal the 20th century. Starting with the early Progressive movement
reforms Teddy Roosevelt got accomplished, the tea party GOP is trying
to roll back all the progress our country has seen over the last
century plus.
Let's go back to those late 1890s Republicans -- who they were, what
they believed, how they operated. This was the heart of the era
dominated by Social Darwinists and Robber Baron industrialists, and
the McKinley presidency was the peak of those forces' power. The
Robber Barons were hiring the Pinkertons to (literally) murder union
leaders, and were (literally) buying off elected officials to get
whatever they wanted out of the government: money for bribery was
openly allocated in yearly corporate budgets. These huge corporate
trusts were working hand in hand with their worshipful friends in the
Social Darwinist world, the 1800s version of Ayn Rand, who taught that
if you were rich, it was because that was the way nature meant things
to be -- and if you were poor, you deserved to be. Any exploitation,
any greed, any concentration of wealth was justified by a survival of
the strongest ethic. It was an era where Lincoln's and the Radical
Republicans of the 1860s' progressive idea of giving land away free to
poor people who wanted to work hard to be independent farmers through
the Homestead Act was being overturned by big bank and railroad trusts
ruthlessly driving millions of family farmers out of business. The
Sherman Anti-Trust Act was being completely ignored by McKinley. And
of course, none of the advances of the 20th century were yet in place:
child labor laws, consumer safety, the national parks or later
environmental laws, consumer safety, popular election of Senators,
women's suffrage, a progressive tax system, decent labor laws, a
minimum wage, Social Security, Glass-Steagall, the GI Bill, civil
rights laws, Medicare, Medicaid, Legal Services, Head Start. None of
it existed.
Flash forward to today. With the exception of women's suffrage (and
given the gender gap, I have no doubt that secretly Republicans would
be happy to get rid of that), various high-level Republicans from this
session of Congress have argued for the repeal or severe curtailment
of all of those advances. This is not just Conservative with a capital
C, but Reactionary with a capital R.
This is why the worship by so many pundits and establishment figures
of bipartisanship and meeting in the middle as the all-around best
value in American politics is so fundamentally wrong as a political
strategy for Democrats. With the Republicans in Congress actually
wanting to repeal the gains of the 20th century, for Democrats to meet
them halfway becomes a nightmare strategy. Repealing half of the 20th
century is just not a reasonable compromise, even though that would be
meeting the Republicans halfway. What we need to do instead is to
propose our own bold strategy for how to move forward and solve the
really big problems we have. Our country needs to have this debate,
and I am confident once people understand the two alternatives, they
will choose our path forward rather than the Republicans' path
backward.
Ultimately, this is a debate about values. Conservatives believe in
that old Social Darwinist philosophy: whoever has money and power got
that way because nature intended it, and they ought to get to keep
everything they have and to hell with anyone not strong to make it on
their own. Selfishness is a virtue, as Ayn Rand said; greed is good,
as Gordon Gekko proclaimed in the movie Wall Street; in nature, the
lions eat the weak, as Glenn Beck happily proclaimed to a cheering
audience. That is the underlying ethic of the Ryan-Romney Budget. What
progressives argue is the opposite: that we really are our brothers'
and sisters' keepers; that we should treat others as we would want to
be treated, and give a helping hand to those who need it; that
investing in our citizens and promoting a broadly prosperous middle
class that is growing because young people and poor people are given
the tools to climb the ladder into it is the key to making a better
society and growing economy.
The debate is well worth having. The good news is that the Republicans
are hardly shying away from it: by embracing this radically retrograde
Ryan-Romney Budget, they are wearing their hearts on their sleeves and
openly yearning to return to 1896. The Democrats should welcome this
debate with open arms.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment