XV. The Right: Agree with Us or You're Un-American; The Economist: Phooey to the Right!

So, it has come to this, the next desperate, misguided--and I might add, "un-American"--gambit of the ideological Right. In a nutshell--and quite explicitly--many spokesmen of the ideological Right are saying that if you don't agree with their definition of America and limited American government, then you are un-American. And that probably includes most Americans, at least if we really understand the full implications of what these self-interested, lost thinkers truly suggest.

They are trying to bully us all into a definition of government that ill-serves most Americans, one with much smaller government structures, functions and capabilities, and many fewer public services--the less and fewer the better. And the only people that benefit from this are people who can afford to pay for the best of private healthcare, who care little for environmental reform or services to others that may increase their taxes, and are indifferent to financial reform because their net worth is substantial enough to ride it all out. Everyone else--those who truly need the help--get less and suffer more. And the strength and social fabric of our nation and economy suffers with them. But hey, the well-off have theirs. I know. I am fortunate enough to be among them.

To express agreement with Obama's initiatives to provide access to healthcare to those who are out of work or cannot afford it, to reform the financial system so we are unlikely to have another financial disaster like the one we are still trying to lift ourselves out of, to try to protect our environment in the face of global warming, are apparently all things the ideological Right feel are un-American and require an un-American-sized government to provide. This is blinkered, irresponsible thinking, at the very least. And so very anachronistic, so 19th century.

Very recently, I was made aware of how clearly and sharply the new battle lines had been drawn when healthcare blogger (What do you think about that?) and friend, Sandy Parker, sent me a recent piece from the influencial blog, Politico, provocatively titled, "The New Battle : What it means to be American." Then, the most recent edition of The Economist on-line hit my in-box, and addressed the Politico article. And they say it better and with more credibility than I can. From The Economist:

LAST Friday Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith published a piece in Politico entitled "The New Battle: What it means to be American." The gist of the piece is that conservatives and the Republican Party are moving away from culture-war issues and towards a struggle over the appropriate size and role of government. "Much of the right—including the noisy and influential tea party movement—sees greater and more immediate danger from this administration and Congress on issues related to the role of government and the very meaning of America than from the old 'social issues,'" they write.

...Let's take a look at the elision in that sentence: the part where we move from "the role of government" to "the very meaning of America". What is the relationship of "the role of government" to "the very meaning of America"? There are certainly some functions that government assumes in other countries which are clearly un-American. For example, in some countries, the government enforces an official religion. In other countries, the government imprisons people and tortures them without trial. (Ahem. Let's not get into that for now.) But the left is at least as adamantly opposed to government playing these sorts of roles as anyone on the right is. So how does today's right see "the role of government" as a dividing line between the right and left, in a sense that affects "the very meaning of America"? Here's former Bush administration official Peter Wehner:

"What we're having here are debates about first principles," Wehner said. "A lot of people think [Obama is] trying to transform the country in a liberal direction in the way that Ronald Reagan did in a conservative direction. This is not the normal push and pull of politics. It gets down to the purpose and meaning of America."

In the view of National Review editor Rich Lowry, that sense on the right of a fundamental shift has helped turn the role of government into a cultural issue, filling some of the emotional space formerly occupied by the traditional hot-button issues.

Questions about the role of government "have a cultural charge because people feel the definition of the country is changing," Lowry said.

Just as Christian conservatism in the 1970s and '80s grew as part of a backlash against what were seen as the cultural excesses of the '60s, the new right of today amounts to a rebellion against the perceived threat of this era—a slippage toward European-style social democracy.

Oh, okay. The phrase "European-style social democracy" isn't actually entirely clear; the United States is, in every meaningful sense, a European-style social democracy, albeit one with relatively low taxes, relatively parsimonious government entitlements, and relatively spectacular national parks. But you get the drift. The right, in Messrs Martin and Smith's telling, is arguing that the "purpose and meaning of America" are not compatible with the economic elements of Barack Obama's legislative agenda. That agenda, last time I looked, chiefly comprised universal health insurance, regulation of the financial sector, a carbon tax or carbon emissions limits, and an approach to shrinking future budget deficits that will fall more heavily on the rich and involve fewer cuts to existing social services and entitlements. Mr Wehner and Mr Lowry, like many tea-party demonstrators, think that this economic agenda is un-American.

...Let's put it this way: I support the Affordable Care Act, known to the right as ObamaCare. I do not react well to being told that my position on this issue does not comport with "the purpose and meaning of America". I see not a shred of evidence for such a claim. In fact, I believe that my support for universal health insurance, like my support for universal education, is rooted in the greatest traditions of American history and political thought. No doubt Messrs Wehner and Lowry feel the same about their positions on universal health insurance. The difference is that I'm not going to accuse them of betraying "the purpose and meaning of America." I am not trying to turn a dispute over what government should do to improve America's social and economic fairness and well-being into a shouting match over who is or isn't a real American.

But that's what Messrs Martin and Smith say the right is trying to do. If so, then phooey to the right. That's not less acrimonious than the culture wars. It's worse. Here's a culture-war argument: you say America is a Christian nation; I say America is a nation where Muslims and anybody else has the right to worship two blocks from ground zero. Here's another culture-war argument: you say America's freedom is under attack and we can't afford to give terrorists constitutional protections against torture; I say those constitutional protections against torture are exactly the freedom we're trying to defend. Both of these are real arguments about the meaning of America, with roots in the country's founding documents and originating political events. If you want to accuse me of being un-American in an argument like that, I'll argue you're wrong, but I can see why the accusation is germane, and I may call you un-American in your turn. But to call someone un-American because of their position on relative levels of taxation or the government's role in regulating and guaranteeing health insurance is an attempt to enlist nativist fear and vindictive nationalism in the service of one's own economic agenda. It's an outrageous tactic, and it ought to be completely out of bounds.

---"Universal health Insurance is un-American?", The Economist, Democracy in America section (8.23.10)

So, it appears that spokesmen of the ideological Right have decided that the only thing left to them is to again try to bully and intimidate middle America into joining them--or be ready to be taunted as un-American. It worked to some degree during the '60s and the Vietnam War, right? If you were against the war or for social reform you were called out as un-American. It managed to keep silent a lot of the "silent majority." But it didn't work very well for very long, even then, not really. And I don't think it's going to work very well now.

That is especially true now that the Republican Party has succeeded in defining itself as only the true believers of the extreme ideological Right. Lots of folks who used to consider themselves moderate Republicans, free-market advocates who were progressive on social or cultural issues, now have found more identity and safer travel as Independents, progressive to a greater or lesser extent, or as Democrats. Regardless, they now most often vote with the Democrats out of conscience.

But fear not. For the Right will never get away with denying the reality of America's rich political, economic and cultural history. Out of desperation, they can try, but they must fail. They--and all of us--must recognize and honor America's rich veins of political, economic, and social thought that broadly inform and animate her traditions, and constitute her identity. First, of course, is representative democracy, our republic. But then, sharing the role of her strongest expressions and influences are her robust, creative, free-market economy, intelligently regulated, and her responsiveness in meeting the basic needs of her people, especially the basic social needs of the poor, the aged, the ill and unable. And if universal education is a necessity to meet the basic needs of a contributing citizenry, and the increased productivity demands of our economy, so is access to basic healthcare for all. And all should recognize our need to protect the land, air and water that sustain us.

And be assured, nowhere in our constitutional history or tradition, our political history, or our history of government, is there an American "first principle" addressing the size of government. It always has been and always will be big enough to effectively protect the freedom and meet the needs of America's people, and protect the vitality and proper functioning of its free-market economy. The cost must be fairly, progressively shared among those who have much and those who have less, but should never be an unfair burden on those who have little. And while many of the well-off may quietly believe that the size of government, the shape and function of the marketplace, the resulting nature of our taxing regimen and the amount exacted must serve them first, they are wrong.

© Gregory E. Hudson 2010

First written: August 2010