8/15/20
This weekend’s Wall Street Journal featured
a sometimes dry but nevertheless compelling argument by William A. Galston
of the Brookings Institution that the radical left has not taken over the
Democratic Party. Mr. Galston argues, inter
alia, that the goals of “most Democrats” and the party’s platform, which
excludes most of the fervent, and hare-brained, whoop-whoop of the ardent left
(my words, not Mr. Galton’s’), show that Republican attempts to portray the
2020 Democrats as dangerous revolutionaries dry up when exposed to the light of
reason and facts. Mr. Galston makes an
interesting, though not compelling, argument, and I urge you to read his piece
while yours truly focuses on one of his arguments.
Mr. Galston argues that
“…most Democrats are reformers, not
revolutionaries. They want to improve
capitalism, not establish socialism. They
worry that social mobility has slowed and not all American have enjoyed the
fruits of economic growth. They believe
that corporate concentration has inhibited innovation and that financialization
has distorted the economy. They think
all Americans deserve shelter and medical care.
They want society more inclusive.
They are convinced that climate change is dangerous and human activity
contributes to it. They believe that
alliances and international institutions help advance American interests but
pushing for regime change usually doesn’t.”
While I might quibble with a few of those points, I, as a
nearly life-long conservative, largely agree with all of them. So why, assuming, of course, that Mr. Galston
is correct in his assertions regarding the views of “most Democrats,” am I not
a Democrat?
The problems and shortcomings implied by what yours truly
would refer to as Mr. Galston’s Democratic manifesto were all caused by growing
and insidious government involvement in primarily the economy but also in all
aspects of our public and private lives.
The Democrats want to solve these problems by further increasing such government
intrusion. Logically (not a word one hears
very often, but I digress; at least I do so parenthetically), this makes no
sense. If I were one to use trite
expressions, I would say that the Democratic attempts to solve the above
implied problems with more government programs and intervention is much akin to
fighting a fire with gasoline.
The problem, of course, is that the Republican Party
is, generally, only a step or two behind the Democrats in its ardent practical,
if not vocal, enthusiasm for applying generous amounts of government intervention
to every problem, real, imagined, or concocted. While President Trump is currently the
most salient GOP advocate of whirling dervish-like government action, he is
only the latest GOP president, or other bigwig, to favor generous application of
government when it suits the purposes of the people who finance the Party. This has been going on in the GOP for at
least the last 36 years and differs from the approach of the Democrats only in
degree and direction.
This leaves us with a choice between the slow boat or the
swift boat to societal hell. For now,
at least, I suppose I’ll choose the slow boat.
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