The Political Right And Its Connectedness Problem, Again
Eleven months ago, I wrote a post with the same name as this one reflecting on why the Political Right's fortunes were sagging in the wake of Tedisco's win in the NY special election and Specter's defection. With health care reform now passed, I thought it worthwhile to revisit the idea I raised in the post:
[T]he Political Right has a problem in addressing policy issues in which people are fundamentally connected to each other. Leaving aside the recent challenges of the financial crisis, the big issues in domestic public policy are health care, education, and the environment. In each one, the choices that one group of people make affect the opportunities available to other people in a fundamental way -- beyond simply changing relative prices as people interact in free markets. The connections come in different ways for each of the issues, but they are always related to basic notions of fairness.
In health care, the connection comes through the formation of the insurance pool. In our current setup, the pooling occurs largely around employment, which advantages some and not others and can in extreme cases leave out the sickest entirely. For education, the connection comes through the financing -- particularly the way that a community's resources affect the quality of what is provided to the next generation of students. Upward mobility is so closely tied to the American way of life and to educational opportunities that the results are bound to be unsatisfactory unless the quality of the education a child receives is protected against poverty in his community. For the environment, the connection comes through the usual channel of externalities -- one person's emissions pollute another person's air and water.
The Political Left has a default solution for issues of fairness, including those discussed above that arise because people are connected. That solution is uniform treatment and often comes by simply removing the scope for choice that characterizes a free market. Consider how most Left-leaning members of the House and Senate would address each issue: single payer health insurance, public schools with centralized control, and command-and-control regulation of the environment.
I think people understand the relevance of this connectedness, that there are a wide range of views among the people on how connected we should be through our public institutions, and that they are looking for leadership in their elected officials in crafting equitable and efficient solutions to these challenges. The Republicans in Washington have not been able to chart a sensible course on these issues. The Democratic leaders in the White House and on Capitol Hill have managed to navigate away from their party's extreme views and legislate, at least on health care, from close to the political center. President Obama's views on education and environmental regulation, while certainly leaning to the left, are within striking distance of the center as well.
old stereotypes die hard
You point out in this post that the Dems have been governing from the center. Of *course* they're governing from the center; that is what Democrats do. Your statement about what "most Left-leaning members" of Congress want may well have been accurate about the Democratic Party circa 1980. I wouldn't know. But everyone under 35 only knows the Democratic Party from the Clinton era forward. It's a moderate, market-embracing party.
Single payer was never on the table. We didn't even get the popular, deficit-reducing public option! Maybe some liberals somewhere wanted single payer. Maybe some conservative somewhere wants to make all state and federal food safety regulations unconstitutional under the Takings Clause. But who cares? They have no power. The bill that was actually passed by the Democrats was based on ideas that came from the Heritage Foundation, Bob Dole, and Mitt Romney 2.7 (2004 edition).
Similarly, the cap and trade proposal was a conservative proposal, until Democrats embraced it and conservatives decided that it, too, is socialism. Similarly, according to the Economist, on the Dems' recent No Child Left Behind reform proposal: "Chester Finn of the conservative Fordham Institute, praises the plan as 'tight about the ends and loose on the means', helping to set goals but giving states more flexibility to meet them."
Right now in this country, we have one moderate party and another party based on tribal identity and a few shibboleths ("reduce government revenues!" "Let bankers be bankers." "Attack!!!!"). That's the way it's been for at least a decade. There is no left in this country, at least none that can get any legislation seriously considered, that wants to command and control anything.
Fundamental worldviews
Modern conservatives and libertarians simply refuse to accept the pervasiveness of externalities.
In their view, contra John Donne, EVERY man is an island.
A meme that has been gaining traction in right-wing political circle is that the economy would be booming right now (after a short and sharp contraction) if the government had simply let the banks all fail. This notion is just as absurd as being faced with a nuclear reactor that is about to melt down and advocating that the government do nothing in the name of laissez-faire capitalism and market discipline. Come what may, let the heavens fall, but do not interfere with private affairs.
What?
Since there if very little traffic on this board, you can be excused for making outlandish claims.
Fairness. Good lord....
Folks who've come out of our institutions of higher education often confuse 'takeover' with 'fairness', as if human nature has changed simply because someone else has gotten control of power.
Hasn't happened yet, won't happen anytime soon.
So when the electoral bus runs over you in November, you can write another post about how 'unfair' it is that all those folks don't understand how wonderful your ideas about 'fairness' were.
Pathetic.
Connectedness
I agree that the Republican party is not connected on these (and many other issues). Indeed, it seems to have defined itself in terms of non-connectedness, i.e., us vs. them.
However, in a democracy, a fundamental key to success is for the majority to be able to connect to minority groups. America is at an inflection point, where the old majority (Christian, white, patriarchal people) is increasingly feeling emasculated by being in a minority position and the old minority (African American, Hispanic, other ethnic groups, progressive post-grads, etc.) are feeling their oats in their majority status.
The moral, political and ethical imperative is on the majority to reach out and embrace, coopt, listen to and respect the minority. Both groups now have the shoe on the other foot. How will they deal with it?
Interesting post and comments
Andrew, I'm wondering if your post, when it gets exposed to the teabaggers, will generate the kind of knee-jerk negative response that they specialize in. You've laid out a good framework to discuss problems facing America. But the simple fact that you've laid it out in a way that exposes inherent unfairness in today's situation "opens the door" for government ordered change. Even though I've seen you suggest solutions that are more measured and market-driven than I might, you will be labeled a "traitor" for engaging the "enemy".
The great demographic shift has caused people (mostly white lower-middle class or retirees) to form a "minority of the powerful". White men are going to have less and less voting power as the years go on. They have seen other minorities (racial, gender-oriented, issue-oriented) wield out-sized power if they are focused and well organized. In imitating these interest groups, Teabaggers are simply using the same success tactics that any radical minority uses to be noticed beyond the actual acceptance of their "ideas".
Compare them to radical feminists in the 1990s, or the PETA crowd early in this decade -- amazing parallels. Unusual world-view, no admission of factual error, no compromise, and obstructionism taken to a destructive level...with occasional violence thrown in. They must attack the messenger as they have no desire to engage in compromise by dealing with the message.
You, being a well-respected right-of-center (in the old days) writer, are in fact more dangerous to them than any Democrat. They must destroy all who are close to them but do not hew the party line. It'll be interesting to see the reaction in the blogosphere.
Ah, human behavior
I'm wondering if your post, when it gets exposed to the teabaggers, will generate the kind of knee-jerk negative response that they specialize in.
It's interesting to watch people throw sexual slurs at others, whom they then accuse of "knee-jerk negative response".
Demonstrating their own superior tolerance and open-mindedness. ;-)
Is this what the psychologists call "projection"?
Um, Jim? Could you try Googling "Teabagger"?
The expression has moved from rarely used sexual act to the normal everyday description of the loud, threatening anti-government crowd. You may substitute the phrase "Tea Party Members" if it makes you feel less, well, insulted.
You have certainly demonstrated the point of my little missive, however...no facts, an ad-hominem attack, and some kind of sarcastically negative comment about tolerance and open-mindedness, as if these were somehow negative. Nice, you've hit a triple.
Don't forget the inability to compromise
The Right today has a seige mentality where every issue is life or death and compromise is impossible. I'm not a medical professional, but doesn't that look like a mental health issue?
The Left has always been fact based. that's the "egghead intellectual" part of being Liberal. The Right has an anti-iltellectual predisposition that doesn't allow introspection or the evaluation of alternatives. The current political problems are all on the Right where they can't come to terms with the world as it is.
More than slightly idiotic selectiveness...
"Political Right's fortunes were sagging in the wake of Tedisco's win in the NY special election and Specter's defection"
Yep...the new NJ and VA Governors would of course agree with you...as would the new Senator from MA (previously as close to a one party state as existed in the US).
When you start off with idiocies like this, it is almost impossible to take anything afterward seriously.
Connectedness
It is easy enough to argue that the Right appreciates connectedness far more than the Left. However, you would have to pick your Right and Left carefully.
A Right that appreciates connectedness would be a Burkean Right; a Left that denies connectedness would be the rights-based liberals of the 1960's. The rights-based liberals of the 1960's are gone, even on the Left. Today's Burkeans hang around the right and center wings of the Democratic Party.