"Political Realignment and the 2020 Election"

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

 

Thought of the Day

“Political Realignment and the 2020 Election”

September 18, 2020

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

“I think it would be a great tragedy…if we had our two major political parties divide on what we would call a conservative-liberal line. I think one of the attributes of our political system has been that we have avoided, generally, violent swings in Administrations from one extreme to another. And the reason we have avoided that is that in both parties there has been a broad spectrum of opinion. 

Richard Nixon Speech, California Commonwealth Club June 11, 1959

 

There are roughly 250 million Americans of voting age, of which about 62%, or 155 million, actually vote.

Gallop, as of May 2020, showed 31% of Americans identify as Democrats, 25% as Republicans and 40% as Independents. Despite the growth in unaffiliated voters. the numbers lend credence to Nixon’s observation, quoted above, that both parties are “big tent” parties. It explains why neither Party has been extremist in governing…yet.

 

But will that happy situation continue? There is reason for concern. There has been an inexorable trend toward big government. Ninety years ago, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal expanded the role of government and he attempted to pack the Supreme Court. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society further inflated government’s role, increasing dependency on “benevolent” government. George W. Bush introduced the concept of “compassionate” conservativism, a euphemism for a more dominant part to be played by government. Barack Obama, with his call for universal health care and his vision expressed in “The life of Julia” of cradle-to-grave government, wanted government yet more powerful. In 1930, government expenditures accounted for 11.1% of GDP. By 1960, that number was 15.1% and today spending by government approaches 40% of GDP – levels last seen during World War II. 

 

Today’s Democrats, a Party once comprised of urbanites, private sector union members and leaders, immigrants, the poor and Dixiecrat segregationists, now encompasses suburban and coastal elites, Wall Street titans, tech company CEOs, globalists, academicians, government bureaucrats, public sector union leaders, the media and those in the entertainment businesses. Republicans, once the Party of fiscal conservatives, country club types, suburbanites, big business, religious conservatives and Wall Street, have become the Party of small business owners, the military, social and religious conservatives, “deplorables” (a catch-all phrase for working men and women throughout the nation, including those who believe in God, honor, duty, family and country), and a small number, like me, who put common sense above ideology.

 

The battle for the Presidency has become nasty. Each Party seeks to hold onto existing members as they search for new ones. An east coast conservative is now persona non grata at her or his country club. A west coast unionized policeman, no matter his or her race, is seen as the enemy by urban rioters. Using Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, the Left has waged war against the Right since the 1960s, bringing, as President Obama said he would, a gun to a knife fight. They weaponized the IRS to go after opponents in 2012; they blamed the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens on an innocent Coptic Christian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who was jailed. They weaponized the intelligence services in 2016, first in an attempt to destroy Mr. Trump’s candidacy and, when that failed, to impede his Presidency. Republicans tried statesmanship, in nominating John McCain in 2008; they tried propriety when Mitt Romney headed the ticket in 2012. Both lost. In 2016 they went with a man without dignity, statesmanship or propriety, but a man who would fight back. They nominated Donald Trump, and they won. 

 

If the DNC Platform is to be believed, a Biden-Harris (Harris-Biden?) administration would mark the end of free market capitalism, free speech and choice, all of which have led to the most successful republic the world has ever known.  The cynical, naïve and ill-educated who now control the Democrat Party are directing it toward Marxism and socialism. Leaders have sold followers a false promise of fairness, equal outcomes, free healthcare and education, a society where identity supersedes ideas. There are those who claim the goal is democratic socialism, as practiced in Scandinavia countries like Sweden. They misunderstand. While Sweden does have a robust welfare system, it is not socialist. The means of production are held privately; the government embraces free trade; there is no state-mandated minimum wage, and families are able to use public funds, in the form of vouchers, to finance their children’s education at private schools. As expressed by far-left Democrats, Socialism is authoritarian; it is McCarthyism; it suppresses individualism and free expression.

 

Socialism is a means to power for politicians and plutocrats who support them, like Michael Bloomberg who announced he will spend $100 million to help Joe Biden defeat Donald Trump in Florida. For the electorate, however, it is a trip into a dark and dystopian land. In her book Great Society, Amity Schlaes wrote about the siren call of socialism in the 1960s, a comment relevant today: “Socialism was so broad, vague and romantic that it was harder to discredit…So long as socialism was never complete, as long as socialists were still protesting and building, no one could dismiss socialism. That was the beauty of it.” Those who advocate socialism never identify it with the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis), Cuba, Venezuela, or Communists in China and the old Soviet Union. Besides backing genocide (Nazis, Soviets and the Chinese), Socialism opens a back door that lets in restrictions on liberty, innovation, aspiration and hope. It will result in higher taxes for everyone. Ultimately, it leads to totalitarianism.

 

Democrats have become the Party of elites, forgetful of past supporters and disdainful of plebian opponents. Fearful of a Trump victory, they and a few “never-Trumpers” recently formed the Transition Integrity Project, a deceptively grandiose name for an authoritarian plan that would ensure no peaceful transition of power takes place, should Mr. Trump win re-election. Many blacks and Hispanics, once taken for granted by Democrats who purchased their allegiance through government payments, now realize they have been duped. “What do have to lose?” is the way President Trump put it at the Republican Convention when asking for their support. Republicans offer opportunity to minorities, while Democrats offer bounty. Blacks and Hispanics recognize dependency on government does not lead to success and happiness, that jobs bring dignity and that the traditional family matters. Thus, they have been leaving the Democrat Party. Mr. Trump’s percentage of their votes in November is likely to be the highest for any Republican in more than half a century. As well, immigrants who have come legally to these shores from Eastern Europe and Latin America understand that Socialism is not the panacea claimed. Freedom remains a powerful lure.

 

The last major political realignment was in the 1960s, when President Johnson’s promise of “guns and butter” caused blacks to migrate to the Democrat Party, and Nixon’s Southern Strategy brought conservative Southern whites into the Republican fold. We are now witness to another change. Nixon’s words, in the rubric above, were spoken at the end of the Eisenhower era, a time long past. Extremists have taken control of the Democrat Party. With “cancel culture,” a “broad spectrum of opinion” no longer exists. Will it cost them the election? We better hope it does.