Conservative Dialectics…A Brief History
By William Herman
Karl Marx was wrong about a lot of things. He was a heavy drinker who rarely worked a day in his life. Instead he opted to hang out at the library and pontificate on issues out of context with his personal reality.
But ‘ol Karl hit one nail on the head….Dialectics. ..The concept of the pendulum swing of social thought and behavior. The notion that social behavior and action tends to move from one extreme to another.
Moving forward to the year of our Lord 2000 A.D., George W. Bush was elected president of the United States by the slimmest of margins. Under the banner of “Compassionate Conservatism”, George W. became our 43rd president.
Early on in his presidency, Bush was faced w/dealing with the worst catastrophe to hit American soil. To his credit, he responded righteously. With megaphone in hand, the former Yale cheerleader rallied America to come together as a nation. He crafted a solid plan to hold those accountable for their horrific acts on 9/11. It was his finest hour.
But beyond 9/11, the Bush presidency was flat and ineffectual. Though necessary, the war in Afghanistan and the amassing of the ginormous Office of Homeland Security, came w/heavy financial burdens. And despite being a nation at war, he pushed forward tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which further exacerbated fiscal concerns.
Bush continued to spend money like a drunken sailor. What has now been proven to be a war entered under false premises, the second combat offensive in Iraq began. While some argued the removal of ‘the Butcher of Bagdad’ justified the means, others countered the lose of life and added fiscal burdens did not.
On the home front, lax banking regulations and even laxer enforcement, opened the doors for Wall St speculators to essentially rape and pillage, amassing unheard of and undeserved fortunes. Wall St. CEO pay continued its meteoric rise, while the standard of living of most everyone else declined.
At the other end of the financial spectrum was Hurricane Katrina. The dismal failure of the FEMA response and the visual images thereof, left little doubt in the minds of most Americans, that “Compassionate Conservatism’ was a sham. It became clear America was broken.
Finally, at the end of Bush’s 2nd term, the 300 lb. gorilla entered the room. Soaring budget deficits, the housing and banking debacles, and rising unemployment created a perfect storm. Bush’s response….give everybody a check for $1000, and a two page plan to rescue banks. Not only was this response woefully inadequate, it exposed the naivety and lack of vision of the Bush administration…..The pendulum of social change had furiously swung, and opened the door for sweeping change.
To date, the verdict is out on who will heed the lessons of historical dialectics. While the Obama administration continues to bring its vision of sweeping change, it is doing so on the thin ice of mounting fiscal deficits. Both, how much Obama’s plans will cost, and how much debt the American taxpayer can stomach is still open for debate.
What is not open for debate, is the need for the Republican party to redefine it’s line of conservatism. Conservatism needs to recognize the falling economic expectations of the middle and lower classes. It needs to be more inclusive to changing American demographics. And while it clearly must grab the mantra of fiscal responsibility, in need do so in a manner consistent to both these new ethnic and economic demographics.
Republicans must move beyond their current path as ‘the party of No’. They must redefine themselves as the party with new conservative ideas. Otherwise, conservatism as we know it, is doomed to extinction. And with its demise, so too will Liberalism come crashing down; because ‘the Left’ simply cannot exist without ‘a Right.’…..Such are the lessons of dialectics.