Date:   4/28/2003 4:27:16 PM ( 22 y ago)
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Rolling Back the 20th Century

by WILLIAM GREIDER

[from the May 12, 2003 issue]

I. Back to the Future

George W. Bush, properly understood, represents the third and most powerful wave in the right's long-running assault on the
governing order created by twentieth-century liberalism. The first wave was Ronald Reagan, whose election in 1980 allowed
movement conservatives finally to attain governing power (their flame was first lit by Barry Goldwater back in 1964). Reagan
unfurled many bold ideological banners for right-wing reform and established the political viability of enacting regressive tax cuts,
but he accomplished very little reordering of government, much less shrinking of it. The second wave was Newt Gingrich, whose
capture of the House majority in 1994 gave Republicans control of Congress for the first time in two generations. Despite some
landmark victories like welfare reform, Gingrich flamed out quickly, a zealous revolutionary ineffective as legislative leader.

George Bush II may be as shallow as he appears, but his presidency represents a far more formidable challenge than either
Reagan or Gingrich. His potential does not emanate from an amiable personality (Al Gore, remember, outpolled him in 2000) or
even the sky-high ratings generated by 9/11 and war. Bush's governing strength is anchored in the long, hard-driving movement of
the right that now owns all three branches of the federal government. Its unified ranks allow him to govern aggressively, despite
slender GOP majorities in the House and Senate and the public's general indifference to the right's domestic program.

The movement's grand ambition--one can no longer say grandiose--is to roll back the twentieth century, quite literally. That is,
defenestrate the federal government and reduce its scale and powers to a level well below what it was before the New Deal's
centralization. With that accomplished, movement conservatives envision a restored society in which the prevailing values and
power relationships resemble the America that existed around 1900, when William McKinley was President. Governing authority
and resources are dispersed from Washington, returned to local levels and also to individuals and private institutions, most notably
corporations and religious organizations. The primacy of private property rights is re-established over the shared public priorities
expressed in government regulation. Above all, private wealth--both enterprises and individuals with higher incomes--are
permanently insulated from the progressive claims of the graduated income tax.

These broad objectives may sound reactionary and destructive (in historical terms they are), but hard-right conservatives see
themselves as liberating reformers, not destroyers, who are rescuing old American virtues of self-reliance and individual autonomy
from the clutches of collective action and "statist" left-wingers. They do not expect any of these far-reaching goals to be fulfilled
during Bush's tenure, but they do assume that history is on their side and that the next wave will come along soon (not an
unreasonable expectation, given their great gains during the past thirty years). Right-wingers--who once seemed frothy and
fratricidal--now understand that three steps forward, two steps back still adds up to forward progress. It's a long march, they say.
Stick together, because we are winning.

Many opponents and critics (myself included) have found the right's historic vision so improbable that we tend to guffaw and
misjudge the political potency of what it has put together. We might ask ourselves: If these ideas are so self-evidently cockeyed
and reactionary, why do they keep advancing? The right's unifying idea--get the government out of our lives--has broad popular
appeal, at least on a sentimental level, because it represents an authentic core value in the American experience ("Don't tread on
me" was a slogan in the Revolution). But the true source of its strength is the movement's fluid architecture and durability over
time, not the passing personalities of Reagan-Gingrich-Bush or even the big money from business. The movement has a substantial
base that believes in its ideological vision--people alarmed by cultural change or injured in some way by government intrusions,
coupled with economic interests that have very strong reasons to get government off their backs--and the right has created the
political mechanics that allow these disparate elements to pull together. Cosmopolitan corporate executives hold their noses and go
along with Christian activists trying to stamp out "decadent" liberal culture. Fed-up working-class conservatives support business's
assaults on their common enemy, liberal government, even though they may be personally injured when business objectives
triumph.

The right's power also feeds off the general decay in the political system--the widely shared and often justifiable resentments felt
toward big government, which no longer seems to address the common concerns of ordinary citizens.

I am not predicting that the right will win the governing majority that could enact the whole program, in a kind of right-wing New
Deal--and I will get to some reasons why I expect their cause to fail eventually. The farther they advance, however, the less
inevitable is their failure.

http://thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030512&s=greider
Preceding is Part I of V
 

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