How Putsch killed conservatism

Not dead right; right dead

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

02/04/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/VRWC/deadright.htm

Even before Putsch came along, the conservative movement in America was all but dead. It had been replaced over the prior 25 years by wildly radical right wingers, the screaming neo-fascists that infest our government today and are busily destroying free America.

There were a few tattered remnants of old-style conservatism left in the GOP in the late 90s. They still claimed to stand for state’s rights, small unobtrusive government, and a balanced budget, and often fought for constitutional amendments and laws that would uphold such notions.

The trouble was that even then, their positions were hopelessly undermined by the neo-fascist right. States rights had become a code for racial segregation. It was hard to take claims they wanted an unobtrusive government seriously when they were conducting the war on some drugs and demanding that government take an active role in the sexual behavior of its citizens and their religious beliefs. They even used to be environmentalists, interested in husbanding – conserving – the land. And of course, Reaganomics made a hash of their claims that they were the party of fiscal responsibility.

Despite all this, the Republicans continued to refer to themselves as "conservatives." Part of it was force of habit, but part of it was that conservative implied moderate, considered, thoughtful, traditionalist, and of course, old-timey American. All the sorts of things the right isn’t. But the folks leading the revolution knew that voters wouldn’t go for anything that sounded radical, or threatened the cherished constitution and freedom. Huey Long, the radical populist governor/senator from Louisiana, the closest thing to a king the states have seen, was asked back in 1936 if fascism, then a popular and rapidly-growing political movement in all of Europe and among upper crust Americans, would ever "arrive" in the United States. Long, a terrifyingly intelligent cynic with his finger squarely on the pulse of American consciousness, smirked at his questioner and said "Sure! Only here, they’ll call it anti-fascism."

So you had a collection of reactionaries and radicals pretending to maintain the status quo. The incongruity in this is obvious, and so the reactionaries have set about redefining the status quo that they supposedly adhere to. This is why you hear such weird malarkey as the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, or that it was never meant to be a democracy. They even started a claim that Hitler was a socialist so certain stylistic and philosophical similarities would be obscured.

Between a willingness to lie barefacedly, an endless stream of propaganda from the well-funded "shadow media" of the right, and the lack of close scrutiny from voters, the far right managed to maintain the pretense that they were conservatives.

Now, that pretense is unraveling, as, one step after another, Putsch destroys one conservative shibboleth after another.

You can start with his ascension to power. Conservatives, both the real ones who adhered to Jeffersonian ideals and the bigots who adhered to Jeffersonian personal frailties, staunchly upheld the doctrine of states’ rights, and maintained that federal powers were tightly contained and proscribed. Now the ones on the net are circumspect about mentioning that, since they know that someone is going to say, "Yeah? What about Bush vs. Gore?"

That wasn’t exactly a resounding victory for states rights. A federal court – the Supreme Court – had interceded in a process that the constitution unequivocally assigned to the states – the time and manner of elections – and had peremptorily declared that the decision was not to be considered a part of the body of law or the legally all-important process of precedence. Right wingers tend to scowl and change the subject when that comes up. It also puts a dent in their supposed disdain for "activist judges" who "make law from the bench." It’s pretty hard to square that with Scalia’s crazed statement that permitting a full count of the votes in Florida would "cause irreparable harm" to the Bush candidacy.

Yeah. He would have lost. Scaly thought that was pretty harmful.

Now that he’s in, it gets worse. These pseudo conservatives, who try to explain that this phony presidency is ok because America was never meant to be a democracy anyway, have pressed forward with a program that not only doesn’t maintain the status quo, but undoes nearly everything America ever stood for.

Individual liberties? The Patriot act put paid to that. Unobtrusive government? Not when it comes to defending the homeland! When you have the "media" cheering calls by high placed government officials for citizens to actively spy on their fellow citizens and report back, this isn’t something that Alexander Hamilton had in mind.

Getting government off of our backs apparently doesn’t apply to our sex lives or our medical care. Seems the right wing notion of "getting government off our backs" amounts to privatization of tyranny. The drug war continues unabated, and the poor and infirm, tossed off welfare, are at the tender mercies of Rockwell to work their asses off for subsidence wages or die. Rights are a la carte, and the more money you have, the more rights you can buy. That’s the right wing notion of getting government off our backs.

Remember the old conservative notion that we should avoid foreign entanglements? After the USSR fell, conservatives resurrected it under a new buzzphrase: "We don’t need to be the world’s policeman." If you’ve looked at a newspaper lately, you may have noticed that we are on the verge of war, and nuclear and other crises are popping up all over the place, caused, as often as not, but this administration’s bull-in-a-china-shop foreign policy.

Conservatives used to be environmentalists. Teddy Roosevelt, despite his "deplorable" attitudes toward the Trusts, was held in high regard by conservatives for his environmental record. And while he thoroughly disgraced himself in most other ways, conservatives could at least take pride in Nixon’s generally superb environmental efforts.

Conservatives don’t make knee-jerk reactions that anything "environmental" is somehow anti-American. Most conservatives understand that even with bureaucratic red tape, clean air and water laws made industry much more efficient, and life better for all.

No self-respecting conservative would support the hideously misnamed "Clear Skies Act" or the (gawd help us) "Healthy Forest Initiative." Even a lot of timber people are appalled by that last one, which essentially legalizes rape in the name of virginity.

And now comes what has to be the final coup de grace to any pretense that this regime is conservative in any way that the phrase is understood. The right wing "fiscal policies" (feed the rich, forget everyone else) had conservative routes, insofar as the conservatives tended to be wealthy, and as a matter of self-interest, preferred the status quo that contributed to their wealth.

Remember how hard Republicans fought for a Balanced Budget Amendment? It was a stupid idea, but then, most of the Republicans’ more spectacularly stupid ideas stem from the delusion that you can make government more effective and less intrusive by removing all discretionary powers. But it was derived from the conservative notion that government had a moral obligation to be fiscally responsible.

It’s fun watching the very same people in congress who fought for that amendment gamely swallow and profess their support for Putsch’s latest budgetary fiasco. It’s not enough that the surpluses we enjoyed under Clinton are gone. Putsch is inflicting record deficits on us. His own office is forecasting deficits – both all time records – of $304b and $307b for 2004 and 2005 respectively. And that doesn’t count the money that will be spent on invading Iraq, or any other military misadventures, and it is based on the hilarious notion that the economy will bounce back from this little correction we’ve been having any old day now. Outside of the administration, there are damned few optimistic economists around right now.

I watched one Usenetter, a self-described conservative who fought for the BBA, swallow hard and retort lamely, "A bit of a deficit is actually good for the economy". Of course, that’s true under certain circumstances. But I doubt Keynes would have considered $300 billion plus deficits on top of $6.5 trillion existing debt, coupled with looming gigantic tax cuts and a period of deflation and likely depression to be a sound policy. In fact, he would consider Putsch’s economic program utter lunacy and fiscal insanity – as would any honest conservative.

But we aren’t hearing from any honest conservatives. I’m not sure if there are any left.