Guest Author: The Real Republicans, Part 7

Below is the seventh blog post in a series by Martin Rybicki on the history of progressive/moderates/centrists in the GOP. You can read parts 1-6 by going to the Progressive Republican where Martin blogs.

“The new president shared the prevalent conviction among Republicans…that they represented the constructive nationalism that had preserved the Union during the 1860’s… ‘It remained the Nationalist as against the particularist or States’-rights party,’ Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography. Republicans believed that the power of the government should be employed with vigor and purpose in order to spread the benefits of an expanding economy to all classes of society.”-The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt by Lewis L. Gould

An anti-government, States ’ Rights Party the GOP was not for most of its history, at least until the fringe took it over. Secessionism, extreme states’ rights, and those who at times seem to rather have had the Articles of Confederation instead of the Constitution, have nothing in common with true Republicanism. Near anarchic economic libertarian conservatives fit this bill. The same with it being a theocratic party, although it was well on its way of becoming one in the last couple of decades, fortunately the implosion of the “moral crusader” movement both in and out of the party has done much to stop that dangerous path that it was on. The theocratic movement being so connected to the anti-government libertarian conservative, or easier said “conservatarians” and their failed economic policy of out of control big business and hands-off Laissez-faire which merely turned them into corporate lapdogs, has brought both down to an all time low and their far-right ideological lunacy among the people and within the party apparatus is beginning to be seen and the cracks are beginning to form.

Republicanism is capable of offering so much more than what the hardliners of the far-right have been pushing for the last few decades. The most common question asked of moderate and the very few liberal republicans is why they haven’t made the move to the Democratic Party since it is supposedly, due to its pro-government stance, closer to the original republicanism of old. I first of all remind them that one party rule without competition is a loss of democracy itself, and not something that should be seen as welcome. This is certainly not the most important reason, but nevertheless a point that has to be made. There maybe be many other reasons, but in my opinion the most important one lies in the false idea that progressivism’s only natural home is with the democrats, ironic when one looks at their party’s overall not so progressive past and more importantly their somewhat dubious present actions.

Progressivism as done by the democrats has become merely a throw more money and raise more taxes solution to issues and problems. Many times this is done without proper inquiry and oversight into how it is being spent or even if what it is being spent on is even necessary or beneficial to the taxpayers and the ones it is meant to help. Unfortunately, the American people currently have no alternative. They have no choice when it comes to who can run government because the only alternative to the democrats is a conservative republicanism with libertarian roots that only seeks to hobble government and use it to advance narrow-minded theocratic ideas. Using a loose and simple analogy just for illustrative purposes, so no literal take on this please, but if in my small town the fire department failed to be effective in being able to put out home fires and the people put up for election on what to do about it, they would have the choice of two local parties; one that believes in having a fire department to put out the fires, but whose ideas have obviously not succeeded or have come up short, and the other that believes in getting rid of the department and having the “lazy people” rely on their own garden hoses.

That is not real choice and this is what we have in today’s political world. While there may be some extremists and kooks who believe that the fire department should be disbanded or hobbled, most people by and large will reject this view and want an alternative way of running their services such as the fire department or in the case of what this illustrates and represents the government. They want a competing view that appreciates the idea of having an established and active government, but don’t like what the guys who currently run it are offering. They want a pro-active government other than what is offered today but have no other choice other than the subpar Democratic Party since the other team is an extreme conservative filled party. They want an alternative choice that has new ideas on how to solve issues with government involvement, either directly or indirectly. While money and therefore taxes is important in finding the solution, progressive republicans must remember that it is only one variable in fixing the problem and that we must avoid what happened to the “throw more money” democratic party. Whether the ideas are market oriented or government oriented, they all require a party that has a positive attitude toward government and are active either in running the program themselves, or in providing appropriate government oversight to how markets run them. They want another option because, well, relying only on the democrats to carry out pro-active government policies seem to not really bring about much progress.

The Democratic Party has strayed far off course from the original progressive ideas to fund pet projects that smack in the face of fiscal responsibility. Of course the conservative faction of republicans would merely do more of the same failed policies as their ideas or do, as is their hands-off conservative nature, nothing. Progressivism is inherently a centrist ideology encompassing the center-right and center-left, with maybe a bit of a leftward tilt. And regardless of what kind of health reform or how the stimulus ends up working, we the people need another brand of progressivism that can deliver or at least compete with the old decayed progressivism of the democrats by putting forth a viable progressive alternative with new ideas for the 21st century and renewed fiscal responsibility.

The Republican Party’s belief in the free-market is rooted in the belief that it is the best way to achieve prosperity to all Americans and can bring social progress. Business and industry are part of that principle, but when the markets and industries become increasingly not in favor of the well being of Americans, then changes must be made to ensure that the markets and businesses once again work for as many people as possible. If this means regulations and oversight to keep the free-markets running properly then so be it, as long as they are not overdone so as to strangle industry and trade unnecessarily. Much as laws and rules keep society effectively functioning and our freedom stays intact, but a balance must be sought so as to not go overboard.

It goes without a doubt though that unsupervised, deregulated capitalism eventually leads to bubble/burst economies of unsustainable highs and crashing lows. While the corporate elite may be able to weather a major failure by selling off one of their mansions, the newly unemployed workers are the ones that are hurt the most by such an economic roller coaster. Banking and financial firms practices of high risk that would in effect create a “too big to fail scenario” must be regulated to ensure that we aren’t put into the same corner and forced to put the heavy burden of bailouts onto taxpayers and our children. This is not to say that the bailouts are something that we as progressive republicans would have rejected. We would support the bailouts in order to do an about face in keeping the car from driving the car into the tree, as Mr. Ratigan put it.

Once there at the point of economic collapse we would have no choice, unless as some of the far-right fringe would like, we just let the economy collapse into a deep depression. But getting into that corner is not where we would want to be, and had we had done it, strong terms would have been extracted from these institutions for saving them. From neither the conservative republicans nor the supposedly “progressive” Democratic Party came strong terms for bank bailouts. Of course, proper regulation of high risk practices would have kept us from getting into that corner in the first place, and the moderate, liberal, and pragmatic conservative republicans that make up the progressive republican bloc will ensure that hands off policies that allow for corporate and bank abuse of the people to not continue.

To go back and defend the basic principle of belief in the markets is in effect to refute today’s version of conservatism/libertarianism. We should not push business for business sake but push for business for the people’s sake. This is what our party’s belief in industry and markets was originally about, the belief that future prosperity relied on a healthy and strong American business sector and industry. If a business is benefiting the average people and helping to advance society through increasing prosperity and wellbeing then that is good. If not, then we have our responsibilities to act as true Republicans and take steps to regulate or even reform the business or industry in question. A shift would be required from the Republican Party to make sure that we are not the automatic loudspeakers of the corporations anymore.

This should not be seen as something difficult if we adhere to our original party principles, as the Republicans under Lincoln ended the slave-labor business and Teddy Roosevelt halted corporate excess. All the ideas must be looked at and tough choices must be made at times between what would be convenient and good short term over what is necessary long term for the nation’s health or security. We need to be prepared to stand for what is good against those who would rail against the wellbeing of our future and defend the short term goals and desires of industries that are sometimes not exactly keen on well being of the average American. If a business or industry will not stand for or care about the personal safety, national safety/security, or the general long term good of the people then it must be stood up to and not defended. But it should be made clear that true and original progressivism was also suspicious of unions and the power they can accumulate and wield, sometimes to a detrimental effect to all including those who join. While the union must be checked against, worker’s rights’ outside of the all powerful union must be pushed for with vigor. In fact, the template would be TR’s Square Deal between the workers and industry leaders-a push for fairness on both sides which means not being the lapdog of either side, but a respected partner and intermediary to solve issues to both sides.

Now the far-right has stood up to Unions very well but unfortunately they have not sought to mediate between labor and business fairly which would mean standing against the industry if need be and have abandoned the Square Deal approach of fair justice and scrutiny to both sides. The far-right conservatives have become the lapdogs of the corporations and industry. Conservative/libertarian republicans do not stand up to corporate, even if they are in the wrong. On issues such as climate change and pollution, they constantly side with the businesses pitting them against the basic principle of what Republicanism and its support for industry and business was about- advancing society whether it is in health, safety and overall prosperity for the nation. And by bailing out the banks without any strings attached, without terms to their using our taxpayer money, the conservative republicans have allowed some of the banks to abuse the bailout. Their basic ideology of hands off government would have led to a depression as well, if such an irrational course as laissez-faire was to be fully followed as the libertarians would have it. The extreme conditions this would bring upon many innocent Americans would lead to a subsequent need for a very heavy government assistance and involvement. So without even bringing up the neo-cons foreign policy, and the Religious Right’s moral hypocrisy, hard-line economic and government conservative/libertarian Republicans have led, because of their role in applying a failed hand’s off policy towards market regulations and oversight, the nation far closer to actual socialism than anything president Obama has done before. Progressive Republicanism in rejecting the far-right ideas would keep this scenario from becoming reality. In effect, Progressive Republicans are better at keeping the markets intact and viable and in staving off total socialism in comparison to the extreme conservative wing of the Republican Party.

We may have yet to see how effective is the stimulus on bringing back the economy, laden as much as it is with insignificant and wasteful individual pet projects. Whether it succeeds or fails or lands somewhere in the middle in terms of results, the basic idea of the massive spending to jumpstart the economy and bring about a stable economy was not wrong. Due to its heavy spending nature it is liberal, but it is something that is accepted as necessary by a wide range of economists, be they liberal moderate or even conservative.

The idea of the stimulus was not wrong, but horribly mismanaged and as stated before, merely used to get any local project funded. Progressive republicans cannot accept this waste and mismanagement of resources, but cannot take the path of failed across the board tax cuts for the wealthy that the corporate/hard-line conservative republicans would do. Again, the word “alternative” comes up as there needs to be a real choice to the supposedly progressive and pro-active government democrats whose tenure in office shows that there is without a doubt a place for an alternative progressive vision. We need an alternative to them, but that is not to be found with the hard-line conservative faction of the Republican Party of today, thus a reformed centrist or maybe better stated “progressive” based Republican Party is a better option.