Is There Any Hope for Republicans?
The party’s allegiance to altruism makes it a Democrat pawn.
The final installment of the serial will appear next Sunday. Until then, enjoy this week’s Republican bashing.
Cheers!
Despite my generally cheerful outlook on life, I have little hope that Democrats will embrace the capitalism-as-a-social-system vision underlying the voting recommendations in last week’s serial installment of the book (though I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong). However, like many post-midterm election commentators, I admit to sometimes nourishing a, probably quixotic, hope that Republicans some day will come to their senses. Perhaps the party’s November subpar performance will serve as a wake-up call? Maybe it will realize that an agenda focusing on election denial and other conspiracies, endless investigations, a radical stance against abortion, Democrat look-alike spending binges, and immigration responsibility avoidance is not what the broader American public is looking for in the post-Covid era?
Addressing high inflation, runaway government spending, the entitlements crisis, housing and labor shortages, public school breakdowns, the border crisis, and foreign and domestic safety concerns requires principled, visionary leadership, not petty squabbling about non-essentials. Unfortunately, last week’s House speaker election circus didn’t inspire confidence that the GOP has learned its lessons.
Why is it so hard for the party of Reagan, Goldwater and Coolidge to get behind a fiscally conservative and socially liberal vision that appeals to a majority of Americans? A vision that, for example, addresses the entitlement crisis, which should be one of the major concerns of our time. Both Social Security and Medicare are underfunded to the tune of $41 and $55 trillion respectively (yes, that’s trillion with a “t”). And Medicaid consumes around 700 billion/year of federal funds, with the states pitching in another $600 billion.
Why don’t we see Republican initiatives to liberate us from the dependency on Social Security, allowing us to plan and save for retirement free of government interference? Why no bold plans to let rights-respecting market based, affordable health insurance and health care solutions replace today’s mandated (for people 65 and over), more or less one-size-fits-all Medicare? And why no ambitions to free low-income Americans from their dependency on Medicaid by deregulating health insurance and healthcare to make it accessible for all? If such initiatives came with reasonable transition plans[1], ensuring the rug wouldn’t be pulled out from under those who are currently dependent on these programs, my bet is Americans would respond very favorably.
The Republican party platform advocates preserving Medicare and Medicaid (p. 23) and saving Social Security (p. 24). How is preserving/saving individual rights violating welfare statist entitlements programs consistent with the platform’s preamble (p. i) which states that “We affirm – as did the Declaration of Independence: that all are created equal, endowed by their Creator, with inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (emphasis mine)? The truth is, of course, that it is not consistent. The Republican party is not the party of freedom in the Founders’ sense. Republicans in power and in “intellectual” circles mainly pay lip service to the Declaration, if not rejecting it outright.
Democrats have pushed welfare statism for the past 100+ years. Republicans have mostly gone along. For example, 81 of 102 House and 16 of 21 Senate Republicans voted for Social Security back in 1935. And 70 of 140 House and 13 of 32 Senate Republicans voted for Medicare in 1965. And Medicare Part D (prescription benefits) was signed into law in 2003 when Republicans had control of the House, the Senate and the Presidency.
What explains 100+ years of Republican “me-too” behavior? We have to look beyond politics, to morality, for the answer: The Right shares the same moral code of altruism as the Left.
For a committed altruist, virtue consist of sacrificing a higher value to a lower value. Americans commonly confuse altruism with kindness, good will, or benevolence but the difference is stark. For example, the altruist only considers you virtuous if you sacrifice something of higher value to you, such as paying for your child’s college education, to something of less value to you, let’s say, supporting your local foodbank. The kind or benevolent person on the other hand, first makes sure that his higher values are realized (junior’s college education), and after that, if his financial situation allows it, supports a lower value (the local foodbank).
Slightly generalized, the Left draws altruistic moral inspiration from the teachings of intellectuals and activists such as Karl Marx (socialism and communism: sacrificing one class of people to another), John Rawls (egalitarianism and social justice: sacrificing the “fortunate” to the “unfortunate”), Rachel Carson and Paul Ehrlich (environmentalism: sacrificing humanity to nature), and the likes. There is no shortage of role models.
The Right, again somewhat generalized, seeks divine altruistic moral guidance primarily in Christian teachings. Jesus sacrificing his life so our sins may be forgiven is its altruistic North Star.
But despite their shared commitment to altruism, there are important differences. The Left is more consistent than the Right. It practices what it preaches. There is little doubt among leftists that government is the political tool for implementing their moral vision, the rightful agent of force for their sacrificial rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul redistributive programs.
The Right is inconsistent because it is conflicted. On the one hand, the alleged virtue of sacrifice is its moral compass. On the other, it believes on some level that government force is not necessarily a good political solution. As a result, many on the Right want to make sacrifice a private matter. Private charity, they say, is a better way of carrying out their altruistic moral vision than heavy handed government involvement. But if sacrifice is truly the moral ideal, the Left counters, why should we not use government to force it on people who let their own interests come first? The Right has no principled answer.
In politics, being more consistent than your opponent in practicing what you preach gives you the advantage even if your ideas are wrong. And make no mistake, the Left’s ideas are dead wrong, outdated, uncool, Old World. Leftist crusaders are moral/political dinosaurs.
But as long as they practice what they preach more consistently than the Right, they will continue to gain the upper hand in politics. They may face occasional setbacks, they may be voted out of office for a period, but over time their consistency pays dividends. The past 100 years of American politics is proof of their success—from Woodrow Wilson’s massive WWI government expansion to FDR’s New Deal, LBJ’s “Great Society,” ObamaCare, and the ever expanding regulatory state.
And as previously mentioned, the Right has tagged along in its desire to be as altruistic as the Left. On the rare occasions it hasn’t, opposition has mostly amounted to criticism of implementation details, not of the programs themselves. Criticizing implementation details is morally safe territory for the Right—few voters object to exposing an inefficiently or wastefully run program. However, attacking the program itself is risky, as it may lay bare the dreaded conflict between the altruist morality and the political desire for a more limited government.
As a result, the Right shies away from offering a radical, positive, non-sacrificial, individual-rights-respecting, limited government vision for the future, where, instead of being slaves to entitlement programs, Americans are in control of their retirement and healthcare without being at the mercy of government.
Until the Right is willing to resolve its moral/political conflict and give up its allegiance to altruism, it will continue to play second fiddle in American politics, and the Left will continue us down the sacrificial path to healthcare and retirement hell.
This is an inconvenient truth for most Republicans. However, awareness of ones flaws is the first step to redemption. Perhaps some have the courage to put forth an alternative “Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right” vision that reverses the leftist onslaught, and checks the “vote for” guidelines. Communicated positively and with moral confidence, I think millions of politically disenchanted Americans would welcome it.
[1] See chapter 7 (Health Insurance & Healthcare), 8 (Retirement/Social Security), and 9 (Education) of “Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide” for suggestions.
Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food stamps, Housing assistance and on and on and on. I do not think so highly of politicians as to ascribe to them the virtue of altruism. There is no virtue in "vote buying".
Anders:
The fiat “currency” used by proponents of the claimed virtue of altruism is sacrifice. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the claimed virtue/value of this “currency.” However, it is “worse” than that.
The logic of altruism’s alleged virtue demands that the sacrifice is to also be measured against the degree to which the “beneficiary” is deserving. The “undeserving” – in direct proportion, adding to the virtue/value of the sacrifice! Politically, such virtue results in the values we are now seeing unfold in the $500/night hotel rooms in New York, as well as endless others.
The moral checking account in which this sacrificial currency is on endless deposit is titled “the greater good.” A moral tenet that is simply ends justifying means. Our founders did not reject the moral tenet of altruism. However, they created a political vision in which the means justified the ends! Specifically, a government that, politically, affirmed and upheld “individual rights.” Dedicated to such a perspective, whatever “ends” might arrive, the ONLY political purpose of government had been properly served.
Republicans, ever since our founding, when the “anti-federalists such as Madison and Jefferson roamed the intellectual and political firmament – calling themselves “Democratic Republicans” at the time, have suffered from a deadly affliction. It is, as your sub-title cites, “the party’s allegiance to altruism makes it a Democrat pawn.”
The title of your excellent article asks what has, sadly, become a pertinent question. Pertinent because of what has seemingly become of Republican “ideals.” Ideals continually demonstrated by those claiming to be Republicans, though forever perverted during the 20th century.
My answer to your question - in but the briefest of words, is “no.” Not so briefly is, “why?” I’ll begin with a portion of a speech given by the “champion” of Republican political sensibilities - until his humiliating defeat in 1964, by Barry Goldwater.
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." – Barry Goldwater
In response to your reading this, I pose a question: How did the Republican Party, possessing these political sentiments as late as 1964, come to represent what is has since? My answer follows:
I imagine myself present at the conclusion of America’s Constitutional Convention in 1787. I am addressing the collection of delegates who perhaps represent the greatest gathering of enlightened political thinkers of the time. I would argue, at ANY time, in history. I have been inspired by their intelligence, moved by their intellect, and impressed - as they resolve issue upon issue impeding their progress toward their goal, by their resolute determination.
As I am recognized and rise to speak, my manner is somber and reserved – unusual for such an arrogance as mine.
“Gentlemen (There were no women present. Additionally, it would be quite a while before the ideals expressed in Jefferson’s profound Declaration would include women, black Africans, and Native Americans): The political institutions you envision, and have remarkably fashioned, do not have the moral foundation to secure the ideals stated in Mr. Jefferson’s unprecedented Declaration. Specifically, one cannot argue on behalf of a human being’s political right to their own life, creating political institutions designed, debated, and adopted to then secure same, while at the same time accepting of a morality that a human being has a universal higher moral obligation to live their life in service to some other purpose - either to other human beings, or an imagined greater entity or abstraction. Those for whom you wish to politically-secure such a right, and from whom its respect and recognition must be universally observed and defended, will disagree with it, while they maintain that each among us has a “higher” moral duty to fulfill, one that makes the “right to one’s own life,” subordinate.
This tirelessly repeated moral prescription has destroyed whatever individual rights may have been temporarily recognized in past societies, without exception. In the absence of a proper moral defense of them, this body’s unprecedented attempt at their political consecration shall become doomed as well.” – David Walden, August 12, 2009.
As you likely understand, Anders, the Bill of Rights, further specifying the political ideals stated in Jefferson’s Declaration, would become a part of the Constitution before it was ratified. However. it, again, described political ideals, NOT moral ones!
In my judgement, the preceding represents why our country has – slowly at first, traveled the political journey that it has. I look forward to discussing this and critical developments during the last half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, at our next luncheon.
Dave