Sometimes in politics… you got to control what you can control
Sometimes in politics when you don’t control power in a major branch of government or even in a legislative body in one branch of government, when you can’t control the agenda anywhere except in the televised political entertainment media, when you can’t win even a parliamentary vote to take a ten-minute potty break, when you can’t set the timelines for debate even in subcommittees, you got to control what you can control. Pretending to rename the majority party, the party of Thomas Jefferson, that is, could be all that you got.
Could be, because whats good for the goose . . . How about the Republican Do Nothing Party, the Republican Know Nothing Party, the Shrinking Republican Party, the Republican Fascist Party, the Republican Nationalist Party, the Provincial Republican Party, the Republican Southern Party, the Republican Anti-Immigrant Party, the Republican Really Darn Frustrated Party . . . ? No. These won’t do either.
Look, for as long as Republicans have held power in the various branches of government in the recent past, our health care has worsened, our energy dependancy has increased, our national security has been threatened, and our economy has sunk into a once-in-a- generation crises. Call Democrat’s policy’s socialism if you want, and that may be what it is. So what? The majority of the electorate wants government to act. To lead.
So, for me at least, the terms “Democratic” and “Republican” or “Liberal” or “Conservative” embody all the meanings that have accrued to them. Special nah-nah-nah adjectives…well, who could be opposed to that?
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Response from Rory Cooper of the Heritage Foundation
David, this is name-calling disguised as poetic cadence. Now, I know liberals survive in today’s political world purely by poetic cadence, but I expect more here in the Arena. It is acceptable to study policy areas that bear some, but not complete, resemblance to socialist values, i.e. close ties to labor unions, collective ownership, re-distributed wealth and centralized planning. To say someone is socialist in turn may be an academic leap of faith however, I agree. But it is irresponsible for you to in turn throw words like fascism around, since there is no underlying policy debate to tie conservatism to Mussolini or the creation of a single-party anti-capitalist state. In fact, it is intellectually bankrupt.
You mention how national security weakened under Bush. How? How is dismantling the War on Terror in favor of a “contingency operation,” cutting missile defense, and cutting the Pentagon’s overall budget helping our national security? You say the right is anti-immigrant, but fail to mention that we are pro-legal-immigrant. Some people did wait to get here honestly. Or using “Southern” in a negative connotation, as if attacking the hard-working Americans in the South proves some political point? Or that the right is nationalist, as Obama heads to his corner office at GM. Please answer any question with a defense of current policy and not an attack on the last eight years; because there is breaking news, we have a new President.
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My response
Hi, Rory. The high hackles of your response confirm what I’ve long suspected. You have quite the excessivement sensible side. Welcome to the poet’s ilk. When I mention Republican leadership in “the recent past,” I mean a generation’s worth dating back to Ronald Reagan, not merely the last administration which was just one version of that past.
Rory, it’s a myth to repeat that Republicans create smaller government. The size of government grew during President Reagan’s two terms (something like 7%) and experienced explosive, some might say socialist-like growth, under President George W. Bush’s. That’s the beginning and ending points of some 20 out of 28 years of Republican control of the White House. The 14 years of Republican control of one or both houses of Congress yielded similar growth.
But when I speak of Republicans in relation to today’s question, I speak explicitly of today’s Republicans, not conservatives as a movement, and I wrote just that—a distinction made by political rancantour Rush Limbaugh and others, from William F. Buckley to Grover Norquist (who bandies the fascist label you fret about on today’s Arena even). The point is, I didn’t say conservatives were fascists, nor did I say Republicans are. The catalogue I made was to provoke, to point out the insipid gesture of the Republican National Committee’s “Democrat Socialist” prank. That’s why I self-dismiss the enterprise with the poetic trope of antithesis, writing “No. These won’t do either.”
How did national security weaken under President Bush? We attacked a country that posed no imminent threat to us on the basis of incorrect intelligence and re-seeded anti-Americanism across the globe at the very point in history when the world was empathetic and sympathetic to us on account of 9/11—the very day the Bush administration failed to protect America. Since then, every tortured enemy combatant is an inspiration to jihadists to kill Americans. Is national security stronger under President Obama? To use the conservative talking point: President Obama has kept us safe every day he’s been president.
I don’t fail to mention the obvious about “pro-legal immigrant,” because there’s no one who is not pro-legal immigrant in this country. We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country—many keeping what’s left of our farm economies in operation. You want to personally drive the bus to take them all back across the border along with their children? A comprehensive immigration reform package that includes amnesty provisions is essential to start afresh. Senator McCain’s plan is an acceptable beginning.
I’m attacking Southerners? Now that smarts! I am a Southerner and proud of it. Or more to the point, I’m a Texan. There is a difference. I suppose I had that coming for questioning your faith in government workers the other day. Touche. But the point I make is electoral: the Republican party’s national electoral base predominates in the South. Any electoral gains at the presidential level are going to have to be achieved in other regions of the country, beyond the prairies and into the Rust Belt, and the Southwest—where increasing Hispanic populations are currently trending Democratic.
As for socialism and fascism, the right’s use of the term socialism is in every way intended to connote fascism, the Soviet Union, Red China, what have you—and not, for instance, the economies of Israel or Norway. The right’s use of the term does not come with a footnote that says “don’t confuse socialism with fascism or totalitarianism because they have different dictionary meanings in reality.” The term is meant to frighten and reduce. Many free market capitalists have a genuine opposition to socialist economics, and that’s fine. But that’s not how the word is bandied.
We do have a new president and Democratic majority in Congress. It’s activist, progressive, and liberal, absolutely. It’s not Clinton Lite The other breaking news is that based on the health care leaders’ recent decision to pursue significant cuts in health care (like they couldn’t do it before!), the Chamber of Commerce’s support of major health care reform including a public option, and the auto industry’s support just today of uniform and higher national mileage standards, I’d say that more than just the average working union Jane and Jeff are moving in the direction of working with activist government in the areas of health care and energy. These corporate CEOs, by the way, aren’t moles from some phantom socialist cell. Though they may just be realists who don’t want their seat at the table taken away.
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Rory Cooper responds
Thanks David. A couple thoughts before I look up ‘excessivement’ in my French-English dictionary: I’m glad you withdrew your comments on fascism, etc although it is entirely likely you are hiding behind a “poetic trope of antithesis” to say what you really mean.
As for immigration, there will be plenty of time for us to consider your position of rewarding illegal activity in the name of economic progress versus strong and safe borders that eliminate that moral dilemma in the first place. And there will be plenty of time for me to argue that automakers were smiling today because they were doing what their CEO (Obama) told them to do, and that a small group of health care lobbyists last week were trying to help make dinner rather than be the dessert. For now, I’m off to the dictionary.
But I especially appreciate your reversal of attitude on fine Southerners, pegging your words as electoral; although you contradict yourself by taking Texas out of the equation which is a strong red state. However, I’m afraid you continue to miss the point on national security. Conservatives don’t hope for the day that America gets attacked so we can have a ‘metric’ to use against Obama. We want to protect America first and foremost. And the current Administration’s policies just won’t work. Now, the typical liberal argument you counter with, that Bush’s post-9/11 policies and wars bred terrorism, is nonsense based on the Spock-like logic that Bin Laden attacked New York pre-9/11. What was he using to recruit then? What encouraged him to attack embassies in Africa, the USS Cole, and the earlier World Trade Center attack? Trying to smile and handshake our way out of this War with extremists will not keep us safe.
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My response
Rory, little was withdrawn, but I appreciate your change in tone, and I look forward to the debate with you on those terms. We might be able to agree on this point: it makes no difference who is president or who controls the U.S. Congress or how well or poorly we treat enemy combatants to be realists about it because Jihadists don’t need motivation to attack civilians. That’s why the right’s claim of Bush’s policies versus Obama’s is absurdly reductive. Nonetheless, implications that liberals want to weaken the country won’t hunt, and I don’t take them seriously. (We talk like that in Texas and, yes, I can envision a blue Texas, again, in my lifetime.)
This post originally appeared on Politico’s Arena.
Posted by DB 
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