Change? Where, When, and By Whom?

                          Change?  Where, When, and By Whom?

                                   

                                                                  Published in Marietta Daily Journal March 6, 2016

            Anyone who thinks Donald Trump is arrogant needs to watch Fox News and read the Wall Street Journal, both of which, for what it’s worth, are owned by Rupert Murdoch.  If Murdoch’s minions really can’t understand Trump’s growing army, they might consider the following recent history.

            In August of 1992 at the Republican convention in Houston, President George H.W. Bush, seeking re-election, repeated the issues his party would continue to address.  Among them were school choice, term limits, and tax cuts plus a host of others with which Republicans have always been associated.

            In his nomination acceptance speech, Mr. Bush uttered 8 words that received little attention, probably because the 8 words embodied standard Republican orthodoxy with which Republicans were so familiar.  Republicans had heard these words before.  But a national convention is a pep rally, so the nominee’s main purpose was to gin up excitement by repeating the standard, though neglected, orthodoxy.

            Those 8 words were “Government is too big and costs too much.”

            Fast forward to January of 1995 and President Clinton’s state of the union address.  In the midterm election of ’94, his party had received a shellacking with Republicans taking control of Congress.  In response to that shellacking, Clinton at the beginning of his address said slowly and deliberately, “The era of big government is over.”

            Fast forward again to a Republican administration, that of George W. Bush.  With his Medicare Plan D, government costs (which the President’s father had criticized) were increased.  With his No Child Left Behind law, the federal government now had its foot in the door of every classroom in the country.   No Child Left Behind certainly didn’t reduce government’s size and scope.  It did reduce localism and ignored the 10^th amendment.

            Once more fast forward, this time to another Democrat President, Mr. Obama.  Recall the so-called Affordable Care Act and its consequent increase of government reach and costs.  Recall Mr. Obama’s re-definition of marriage.

  Why can’t the WSJ and certain Fox “contributors” see the pattern of steady growth of government under both parties as well as its connection to last Tuesday night’s primary results?  Despite differences in professed principles, is there a dime’s worth of difference between our two major parties?  Today, a quarter of a century after Bush I’s Houston address, is government any less expensive?  Any less intrusive?  If Bush I was serious, why did domestic spending and regulations explode during his first term? 

            As for Mr. Clinton’s assertion that big government had gone bye-bye, we see in retrospect that it was his first of many effective uses of triangulation.  Still a believer in big government, he was actually thinking and applying “ ‘Come into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly.”  Mr. Clinton’s carefully chosen statement was a ruse.

            There actually is more than a dime’s worth of difference between what the two parties profess.   But as far as what they produce or achieve, how different have their presidents been between 1992 and 2016?  Has the size of government decreased?  Has the collar of regulation been loosened?  Have “family values,” which the Houston convention wallowed in, been fostered and fought for?  Is the middle class being any less gut-punched than ever?

            The answer to all of these questions is no.  Neither party has reined in government’s scope or attended to our debt or borders.

From this past week’s primaries, it seems that voters are saying, “Why not give Mr. Trump a chance?  The political class has had theirs.”  And to those voters, the Republican establishment (Speaker Ryan, Leader McConnell, the WSJ, and others) are saying, “You are absolutely ignorant.” 

Political parties are political conveniences.  George Washington opposed them.  Even so, the nation started out with Federalists and anti-Federalists.  Of course, neither exists today.

Enter the Whig Party which prevailed for two decades, only to be capsized by Lincoln and his new Republican Party.  Even though they gave us such lights as Daniel Webster, where are the Whigs today?   No, parties are not forever.  If the GOP is about to implode, it is simply following the natural course of political party history.  When parties don’t respond to their voters, they morph or fade.  The conservative intellectuals at WSJ and National Review don’t understand this?

Our present situation raises the question: can the culprit be the cure? If the culprit is our two parties that continue to deliver the same goods, then it’s time for one of Jefferson’s “little revolutions.” 

Whether that revolution comes from a distinctly different type candidate within our existing parties or a new party altogether, we must face the fact that since Houston in 1992 little to nothing has changed, including the continuing tone deafness of party leadership.

Roger Hines

3/2/16