GOP Autopsy: 2.0
by
Nick Paleologos
It's Thanksgiving 2016.
A beaten and bitter Donald Trump - blaming his
humiliating defeat on a "corrupt and disgusting media coupled with a
rigged election system" - has just acquired the faltering Fox News Network
and renamed it TNN (after guess who) so that his devoted followers on the rabid
fringe will continue to have a steady stream of nonsense – complete with a
healthy dose of Trump-branded products (made abroad, of course).
Meanwhile Hillary Clinton – stepping over the
scattered shards of a shattered glass ceiling - is preparing for America’s next
historic presidency, while trying to strike that pitch-perfect balance between
legitimate expectations on the left and groundless fears on the right. As
grandma passes the sausage stuffing (my favorite), I can hear bewildered
cousins – up from South Carolina – asking the question of the year, "What
the heck just happened?"
That’s how it will start – at Thanksgiving
tables across America - as the remnants of the rational right finally face up
to the demands of their country – made first in 2008, then in 2012, and yet
again in 2016 - only this time with a force, fury, and finality the likes of
which hasn’t been seen in decades. Only then will the lessons sink in at long
last.
In her own way, Hillary’s frustratingly
bi-polar campaign – embracing Bernie Sanders style economic populism while
simultaneously winking at Wall Street – is actually a pretty good metaphor for
exactly the kind of mixed economy that Americans yearn for. A time – well
chronicled in Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker’s recent (and excellent) book
“American Amnesia” – when both government and business grew symbiotically. The
government existed to make sure the game was played fairly on a well-maintained
field, while business delivered great products and services – courtesy of
workers who earned good wages and then spent their increasing incomes on those
same products and services.
Everybody wins.
At least that’s how it worked until organized
business decided to viciously turn on their government – which is when
everything (and I mean everything)
went kerflooey. Shared prosperity wasn’t enough for these modern day Robber
Barons who longed for a return to the low tax/no regulation Roaring Twenties -
as if the Great Depression never happened.
Gone were Republicans like President
Eisenhower, who built the interstate highway system with taxpayer dollars and
famously declared: “Should any
political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and
eliminate labor laws, you would not hear of that party again. There is a tiny
splinter group that believes you can do these things - among them are a few
Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman (but) their
number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Banished were Republicans like President
Nixon, who opened up relations between the US and Communist China, increased
funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, and created the Environmental
Protection Agency.
Ostracized were Republicans like President
Bush (The Elder), who gave us the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as
the Clean Air Act.
For heaven’s sake, even the famously
government-hating Republican President Reagan said: “We’re going to close the
unproductive tax loopholes that have…made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying
10% of his salary – that’s crazy.” Today,
Ted Cruz would dismiss him as a RINO (Republican In Name Only).
It took thirty years of living with policies imposed
by these uncompromising, anti-government nihilists to finally realize that Ike
was right, “their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Let’s face it. When government screws up, it means
that – in trying to help as many citizens as possible - a bunch of people get
benefits they don’t deserve. That’s wrong to be sure, and must be condemned and
corrected by business leaders and liberals alike. But when business screws up –
while trying to enrich a greedy few at the expense of everyone else – the
consequences are much, much worse. Millions of people lose their jobs, homes,
pensions, health, and healthcare. The time has now come for decent
conservatives to join do-gooders in calling out this atrocious behavior.
Professors Hacker and Pierson said it best
when they concluded that we’ll never fully enjoy the enormous benefits of the
“mixed economy” again, until the rational right realizes that “What’s good for
America is good for business,” and
not the other way around.
