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Effecting a Realignment, Part Three
Why do we need a realignment? What’s in it for us? To these questions, the answer is simple. We live in a constitutional republic in which governance is always party governance. The alternative is chaos, and the chaos has a certain character.
Ours is polity based on federalism and the separation of powers. Because we distinguish the legislative from the executive and judicial powers, because the lower house of our bicameral legislature is elected in local constituencies and the upper house in the states, in our politics the centrifugal forces are more powerful than the centripetal forces. What I mean is: our Congressmen and, to a lesser degree, our Senators must spend some, if not most, of their time serving their constituents. To do so to effect, however, they must band together, make deals, and attempt to control the executive. Our parties tend, therefore, to be parties of patronage.
But patronage is insufficient for the support of durable parties, and durability is desired by the dispensers of patronage. Moreover, opinion is the element of politics. Man does not live by bread alone. When Aristotle argued that man is a political animal and connected this claim with his assertion that man’s possession of rational speech (logos) is his distinctive quality, he made public deliberation the central feature of politics. Its focus was, he said, advantage and therefore the just and the good. We may enter into an alliance for the sake of our own security and well-being, but once we have provided for these ends we are apt to concern ourselves with justice and the good. We simply cannot help ourselves.
Every one of our parties can trace its origins to a crisis in which the nature of justice and the character of our way of life was at issue. That was true for the Jeffersonians in 1800, for the Jacksonians in 1828, for the Republicans in 1860 and even 1894, and for the Democrats in and after 1932 – and it is no less true today. This is why I suggested in my most recent post that it is essential that, when John Boehner and his merry men lay out a new Contract with America later this month, they include a preamble in which they indict the Democratic Party as “a small group” intent on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives,” and in which they appeal to first principles and call for a restoration of constitutional government within these United States.
What can we expect from such a realignment? For a time, we can expect a government guided by the principles articulated in the preamble to that contract. What might this mean in current circumstances? An abandonment on the part of the federal government of those spheres of governance appropriate to the states (e.g., education), a repeal of Obamacare, an elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, entitlement reform aimed at a gradual elimination of entitlements, a reworking of the Byzantine scheme of financial regulation devised by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, a balancing of the budget, an extension of the tax cuts initiated by George W. Bush, and a gradual elimination of the administrative state.
We can be certain of one thing. The items on this list that the Republicans do not sign onto later this month they will not do.
Published in General
Getting rid of DOE would be well worth doing. With every passing year, it gets more intrusive, using unfunded mandates as an instrument for dictating to schools, colleges, and universities. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are bankrupt. If left intact, they will bring us down. To be sure, we cannot simply eliminate them. Millions have paid in and expect to take out. But we can alter their character over time — so that younger people end up with something more like 401k’s and Health Savings Accounts. As for what it would mean to get rid of the administrative state, I will address that in my next post.
Professor Rahe, Peggy Noonan penned a column recently, which was followed up by a Ricochet post from Claire Berlinski, warning of the dangers we risk if we get too distracted by, “shiny things,” e.g., the Ground Zero Mosque, the legalistic brutalization of Arizona, etc. Noonan quoted Grover Norquist as saying, “The big issue, and people know this, is the explosion of federal spending that is damaging our economy and threatening our future.” And while that is a huge issue, I remember thinking that if we were to take the Constitution seriously, many of these problems would necessarily recede.
One of the most familiar refrains in the Tea Party movement, from speeches to placards, is just as you state: “…a restoration of constitutional government within these United States.” This simply stated proposal encompasses our fiscal maladies, a judiciary run amok with sophistical absurdities and ruinous precedents, an executive that refuses to enforce our nation’s laws, and a legislature that just makes it up as they go. Thank you for a great blueprint.
I agree with every word in Dave Carter’s comment. The explosion of federal spending is a symptom; it is not the disease. We need to focus on the latter. Since the realignment of 1932, an explosion of federal spending has been a durable feature of our regime. We can control spending only if we return to the Constitution.
Here’s what we’re up against:
In an interview shortly after he lost his primary bid, Senator Bob Bennett expressed disdain for “…those Tea Partiers…”.
He related how they would come to townhalls and demand the dismantlement of the Department of Education and how they would wave their “…little pocket-sized Constitutions…” and insist that every bit of legislation has to be reviewed for fidelity to the Constitution.
Shrugging his shoulders, he said, “I’m just not prepared to go that far in my conservatism.”
Root and branch, folks…
I wish this was gong to be true. I just don’t see it. The GOP likes the power of the status quo too much.
I really think Prof. Rahe is on to something. He may be too optimistic about the outcome, but I don’t think he’s wrong about there being a real struggle for the country’s political soul. I think the MSM is wrong to assume it’s only about the economy. ·Sep 8 at 9:20pm
Agreed. I’ve heard the word “Constitution” more in the past year than in all my lifetime.
There is much to despair about the reality of making any lasting change except for this; this frustration is real and unlikely to be assuaged or diminished with inaction. The battle between large and small government is poised to become epic over the next several years with neither side seeming prepared to back down. Obama is the perfect foil as, unlike Clinton, he seems genuinely baffled by hostility to big government and figures he just needs to explain it better and ridicule his opponents more.
In next week’s Forbes Dinesh D’souza has an excellent, sharp cover story on how Obama thinks and he lays it all out in crystal clear prose, dispassionate and well-supported by example. The cozy status quo where politicians of both parties hang out and avoid difficult issues seems to be fast falling away and every American is going to be asked to choose a philisophical side.
In many respects it seems as though the Reagan “revolution” was just a precursor to this moment.
Trace, I have the same feeling.
You guys are such sunny little optimists! Why, yes you are!
Let us not forget that Reagan garnered 525 electoral votes in 1984.
And here we are, cavorting like kiddies over the prospect of picking up a few dozen House seats.
Morning in America?
Seems more like emergency defibrillation.
Clear!
In November 2008, the left misinterpreted Obama’s big win. Professor Rahe’s list may play well with many conservatives but it is in fact the right’s equivalent misinterpretation of this November’s election. I’ll just rattle through some of his list. In the immortal words of Alan Simpson, getting rid of the DOE is “not worth a sparrow’s belch.” Why waste our energy. Entitlements: Getting rid of Social Security will never fly; I wouldn’t vote for someone proposing that. Yep, Medicare and Medicaid have big time problems, but there is not a chance in hell that elimination is a sellable solution. And by the way, should we eliminate unemployment insurance? Elimination of the administrative state? I don’t know what he means by that, probably includes getting rid of the EPA. Anyone remember the brown cloud that hung over Denver until the late 70’s? There’s no way the car companies would have done anything without the Feds kicking ’em in the butt. How about the liars in the tobacco companies?
So, it looks like a majority of Americans want to boot these Democrats but let’s not overinterpret.
The draft contract suggested above is exactly right; focused on the big issue, the root cause of our troubles. Now… are there leaders in the Republican Party capable of appreciating and of communicating that “big vision” to the voters?
Those guys are themselves prone to become obsessed with the “shiny things”, and have a hard time with the big vision stuff.
I didn’t mean to imply that the country was not incredibly divided, or that this was some sunny moment of epiphany. I only meant to suggest that the cozy go-along-to-get-along middle was getting increasingly uncomfortable.
Do you think the tea partiers are going to give up after the mid-term elections? Maybe if the economy improves they will. But I actually think the divisions are going to become more pronounced as the fiscal crises becomes unavoidable at the federal level. It strikes me that there is no way to keep pretending that our current set-up is sustainable and that we are going to start fighting about real stuff — and yes that will ultimately have to include Social Security and Medicare.
I really think Prof. Rahe is on to something. He may be too optimistic about the outcome, but I don’t think he’s wrong about there being a real struggle for the country’s political soul. I think the MSM is wrong to assume it’s only about the economy.