Posted on 10/07/2004 7:01:39 AM PDT by pabianice
That America’s political center is to the right of every other modern democracy is nothing new, but why has it recently lurched so much further right? A belligerent cowboy president who says he’s doing God’s work seems on the verge of being elected to another term of office; both houses of Congress are in the hands of conservative Republicans who, thirty years ago, would have been considered wild extremists; most state governments are dominated by born-again bible-thumpers. To describe the recent takeover of America by the right wing of the Republican Party as a revolution is only a slight exaggeration. Liberal enclaves still exist along the east and west coasts, and in America’s biggest cities. Most Americans are only dimly aware of the ideological coup. And America’s radical conservatives are not nearly as bizarre or xenophobic as Europe’s "far Right." But there should be no doubt that the right has taken over America, with revolutionary consequences for America and the world.
The attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, has been used by Republicans to justify their continuing dominance, but the ideological revolution at issue here preceded the "war against terror." Why did the revolution occur? Two new books offer starkly different answers. In The Right Nation, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, journalists at The Economist, see in America’s new right a response to the excesses of sixties’ liberalism. In What’s the Matter With America? (published in the United States as What’s the Matter with Kansas), Thomas Frank, an American journalist, understands it as a much more recent phenomenon, a new backlash against cultural liberalism.
For Micklethwait and Wooldridge, the pendulum that swung leftward in the sixties would inevitably swing to the right. "All it took was for the Democratic Party to lurch to the left for the sleeping giant of conservatism to be awakened." Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society "turned into a gigantic exercise in overreach." With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, white southerners began their slow but steady march toward the Republican Party. The Republican presidential candidate that year, Senator Barry Goldwater, one of only eight Republican senators to have voted against that measure, lost the presidential election but sowed seeds of the right-wing revolution.
The rest of the story is standard fare, but Micklethwait and Wooldridge tell it well, offering a thoughtful and balanced view. A series of Supreme Court decisions, prohibiting prayer in public schools (1962), legalizing the sale of contraceptives (1965), barring the death penalty (1965), and allowing abortion (1973) offended the moral sensibilities of middle America. Northern working-class whites were also pushed rightward by the radicalization of blacks, urban riots, and court-ordered busing to achieve "racial balance" in schools. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, became a gaggle of anti-war protesters, feminists, environmentalists, and claimants to government benefits. The 1972 Democratic platform featured separate planks on rights of the poor, Native Americans, the physically disabled, the mentally retarded, elderly, women, children, and veterans. Democrats seemed to pay more attention to the constitutional rights of released convicts than to street violence. As crime surged and births to unmarried black women escalated, "the conservative message -- that government was the problem, not the solution, began to resonate. Nixon’s "Silent Majority" began to become a vocal majority.
Hence, according to Micklethwait and Wooldridge, was the conservative movement born. "First came the thinkers who talked about the importance of markets or religion. Then came the legions of tax cutters and Evangelical Christians who gave those ideas political voice," followed by "a counter-establishment of think tanks, pressure groups and media stars that was initially intended to counterbalance the liberal establishment but has now turned into an establishment of its own right -- and one with a harder edge than its rival." Ronald Reagan was a product of the movement; George W., its most recent incarnation.
It’s a tidy story, but it didn’t quite happen that way. In fact, American politics remained quite moderate through the 1970s and 1980s. Until 1994, Congress was mostly controlled by Democrats and still harbored a number of liberal Republicans. Even under Reagan, the nation continued to extend civil rights and social programs. Medicaid for the poor was expanded. Environmental protections grew. Women gained steadily wider access to higher education and the professions. "Supply-side economics," Reagan’s singular contribution to wishful thinking, proved so unpopular with Wall Street that George H. W. Bush had to raise taxes. Foreign policy remained largely under the sway of liberal internationalists. Meanwhile, the targets of conservative ire began to disappear. By the 1990s, crime rates were dropping, illegitimate births (indeed, all births) were declining, and the black middle class was growing.
Thomas Frank offers a contrasting, and to my mind more convincing, view. The rightwing backlash, he writes, is "a story of the nineties, a story of the recent." His template is his native state of Kansas, America’s geographic, economic, and cultural middle -- the proving ground for test marketers, chain restaurants, and suburban shopping centers. Like the rest of America, Kansas remained basically middle-of-road through the 1980s. It passed legislation to permit abortions even before the Supreme Court acted. In 1990, a Democratic majority was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives. It sent moderate Republicans Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum to the Senate...
I think this is an interesting description of "right wing." I consider right wing to be ultra small-government individualists.
I'm looking around, and I don't see much of that. While there might be a "Republican Revolution," I'm not sure about right wing.
The so-called "far right" that he talks about is still to the left of where the Democrats were in the 60's. The march to the left is the "revolution." We are simply not going along with it. America has always had more that is worth protecting that the other "western" democracies. Hence, we resist the march to the left, choosing instead freedom and sovereignty.
bookmark
Not a bit of bias in that report...none at all...
< /sarcasm >
Mr. Reich arguments are a very selective collection of half-truths, logical leaps, and superficial analysis, with a predetermined conclusion based on liberal ideology.
Hey Reich: BOO!
Same old stuff. Old lefties like Reich can't figure out why he isn't liked, so he theoroizes that it must be because a.) those darn meany righties lie and cheat so much and/or b.) "Middle-America" is just too stupid to get it.
Bump
It seems that it's the labels that are moving. I've made the point before that todays Republican party are the Democrats of thirty years ago.
I've never understood this position. Wasn't the CRA passed because of Republicans? If so, why would a bunch of racist white southerners begin to flock to the Republican party?
True. I saw it charachterized somewhere on FR as many 'conservatives' being those who are perfectly satisfied with the drive to the left as long as we do it at the locally posted speed limit - as long as we're behind the wheel.
The Republican party supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was members of the democRAT party such as Al Gore Sr., Ernest Fritz Hollings, (et. al) that voted against it.
I'm laughing. Robert Reichhhhhhhh knows full well the day of Big Government isn't over. No matter what President Clinton declared a couple of years ago. Its bigger than ever and Republicans were the ones who pushed through a new entitlement benefit. The GOP had adapted to the reality Americans don't want a revolution - they want to look to government as long as they don't pay too much for it. If there's a lurch to the right, I don't see it in the policies pursued by the federal government under George Walker Bush.
most state governments are dominated by born-again bible-thumpers.
First, I would doubt this is true. Second, until a couple of decades ago, you would have found devout people in both parties. One party has steadily squeezed them out over recent years, and the other has received them by default.
And America’s radical conservatives are not nearly as bizarre or xenophobic as Europe’s "far Right."
American conservatism has nothing to do with Europe's so-called right. American conservatism is rooted in the same classic liberalism that the country was founded upon, combined with a belief in "american exceptionalism" that is rooted in religious faith, even forming a kind of secular religion for the more secular minded. There is nothing xenophobic about it, and at least the latter would have been shared by both parties until fairly recently.
The Republican presidential candidate that year, Senator Barry Goldwater, one of only eight Republican senators to have voted against that measure, lost the presidential election but sowed seeds of the right-wing revolution.
As he points out, Goldwater was one of the few to vote against the Civil Rights law. All major civil rights laws since the civil war have been passed by Republicans, and this one was no different. The controversy among Republicans was not whether Jim Crow was bad, the question was how to kill it without violating the Constitution, and that was the source of the disagreement.
Jim Crow was a Democrat phenomenon.
In fact, American politics remained quite moderate through the 1970s and 1980s. Until 1994, Congress was mostly controlled by Democrats and still harbored a number of liberal Republicans... Like the rest of America, Kansas remained basically middle-of-road through the 1980s.
No bias here. A Democrat controlled government is "middle of the road". A government controlled, as the writer says, by "a gaggle of anti-war protesters, feminists, environmentalists, and claimants to government benefits" is moderate. A congress with a razor-thin Republican majority, not even a conservative majority, which continues every one of the DNC's pet programs is to him a "right-wing backlash".
Bush has not ended any government program. He has, in fact, extended government entitlements in an effort to position himself at the center; a right-winger he is not. The only thing he has done is to speak respectfully of religious faith, and go after our enemies, two things that until a couple of decades ago might have resonated with people of both parties. It is the DNC that has abandoned the center.
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