Politics on a Human Scale: The American Tradition of Decentralism by Taylor Jeff

Author:Taylor, Jeff [Taylor, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2013-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Me-Too Republicans and Averted Revolutions

The Republican Party has been known as the party of small government and individual liberty since the 1940s. Reputation is one thing; reality is another. The pose is not the practice. Decentralization of power—at home and abroad—is not a priority for most Republican administrators and legislators because they like power . . . as long as it is wielded by themselves and their allies. Partly this is a matter of personal desire and partly a matter of deeply-ingrained, albeit cloaked, ideology. With the Democratic Party having embraced centralized rule many decades ago, Republicans at the national level have ceased to serve as an opposition party on basic matters such as limited government, constitutional fidelity, individual liberty, and the dangerous nature of power.

Conventional wisdom asserts that conservatism, as manifested by the Reagan Right, has won the day in America since the 1980s. Despite occasional lapses into Democratic governance, Republicans have dominated all branches of the federal government and conservative ideas have flourished with even Democrats possessing a defensive and apologetic attitude toward liberalism. By extension, the entire world has moved to the Right with the fall of Communism, the rise of U.S.-sponsored globalization, and the waging of war against terrorism.

There is an alternate history concerning what has happened to Republican ideology since 1970 or 1980. Counterintuitive though it may be, the past three decades have actually brought about the triumph of liberalism in the United States. Liberalism of the modern, big-government, policing-the-world, secular-values variety. The vision of Nelson Rockefeller, not Ronald Reagan, has attained supremacy within the Republican Party and, by extension, in the nation. Rockefeller, as a man and a leader, was the embodiment of centralized power in all areas of life. His family exemplified concentration of power in every way—economically, politically, socially, and ecclesiastically—and he was the standard-bearer of this worldview in the realm of government.1 Rhetorical crumbs aside, traditional conservatives of the moralistic and libertarian type lack a seat at the table. Their support is desired—and needed—by party leaders but they are excluded from power. Conservatism has never been more popular or wielded more influence than it does today. It also has never been more inauthentic. It acts as a usurper that has displaced traditional conservatism. The latter has never been more powerless. It is one of the great ironies of modern politics.

Because the misperceived narrative is prevalent across the board, among scholars and activists alike, and because the actual story is complex, it would be helpful to use one specific book as a case study to bring the misperception into focus. Geoffrey Kabaservice’s Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party (2012) is a fascinating book yet the book “gets it wrong” in a fundamental way.2 Rule and Ruin is the story of political giants such as Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, George Romney, and Ronald Reagan, and their smaller associates, during the 1960s, mostly in D.C. and on the presidential campaign trail. It is an exciting

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