The More Things Change ...

Back from a busy, relatively non-political week, the sprit took me to do a little bookcase cleaning; purge scarce shelf space of some titles less worthy of occupying it. And such activities always stimulate a few thoughts, especially when I get to the "trendy political" section of the library.

This time, I found a wonderful volume, a book by Mark Green, entitled "Winning Back America", copyright 1982. At once, a true time capsule and a reflection on politics today. Cover blurbs from Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Ed Asner, Tip O’Neill, and the like. "A powerful indictment of the Reagan program ..." A demonstration of "... how to make enduring progressive values relevant to the 1980s ..." A guide to moving America out of the "... seventeenth century politics now governing Washington."

Sound familiar? Fast forward to 2005 and we find the same sorry cast of characters STILL writing the same books. "What’s Wrong with Kansas?", a tract dedicated to the proposition that folks in the heartland, if they understood their own self interests, would vote for Democrats. "Don’t Think of an Elephant", a similar tome dedicated to the proposition that if liberals would only make themselves clear, they would prevail.

After each election in which they get spanked, the Dems bemoan the fact that their candidate simply didn’t articulate their self-evidently marvelous views strongly enough. Or, alternatively – and, seemingly, paradoxically – the candidate spoke the right words, but the American people are simply too stupid to comprehend there own self interests. Consider this letter to the New York Times today:

"The Democrats' presidential candidate in 2004, John Kerry, adhered to Jim Wallis's policy prescription closely. Senator Kerry opposed tax policies that favor the rich over the poor, championed strong environmental protection and offered more credible international leadership than his opponent. Voters ignored this.
"Although writers and political pundits never tire of deriding the Democratic Party for its failure in 2004, it is for some reason verboten to place the blame where it properly belongs: the American people."

Blame? How ‘bout THE CREDIT?!?

In 1972, George McGovern completed the transformation of the Democratic Party into a European-style social-democratic party, one which rejects virtually all of the notions underlying our founding. To its apparently perpetual puzzlement, the Party routinely gets creamed. How many times does one hear a Dem complain that the US "... is the only western country in the world ..." with (or without) – fill in the blank with the appropriate socialist program or diminution in freedom. It never seems to occur to these benighted folks that it is precisely the absence of some program, or the presence of some freedom, which makes America uniquely desirable.

A fair number of people – at least for the time being, a majority – believe in freedom and reject the Dems’ compulsory social and economic policies. These folks disapprove of the Dems’ beggar-thy-neighbor tax policy – even if they might hypothetically benefit in the short term. (Consider the overwhelming opposition to the death tax) Such policies, they conclude, constitute neither good economic policy, nor a "fair" system of taxation. Give the voters credit: they might actually have looked at Europe, in which all of these lovely policies have been tried, and recoiled in horror at the results.

There may yet come a time when the people conclude that freedom simply can’t work, that they’d be better off with an even more gargantuan government, hugely higher taxes, massively increased spending, a bloated, overpaid bureaucracy, and ever more stringent, repressive regulations.

If the people really liked that sort of policy, they need not move to Sweden, they need only relocate to New Jersey. But given that New Jersey’s growth – and that of other reliably red states – pales in comparison to their more freedom loving counterparts – the Journal reported that 1,000 people a day leave red states for blue states – it appears that the people are voting for freedom with their feet as well as at the ballot box.

I decided to retain Mr. Green’s volume. If trends continue, it will be every bit as timely in 2020 as it was in 1980 and is today. The Dems will still be carping that the people don’t get it, never entertaining the possibility that it might be the other way around.