Indulge a small fantasy: It is 1993, and
Bill Clinton, about to become the first Democratic president in 12
years, meets with the men who control his party’s majorities
in Congress.
“Mr. President,” say Senate Majority Leader
George Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley, “you are our leader.
You make the final decisions. We have a united, disciplined party.
So when you say, ‘Jump,’ our only question will be
‘How high?’ ”
A most unlikely fantasy. The
Democrats were not a united, disciplined party. But had they been
focused on policy instead of their fiefdoms, we would now have some
kind of national health insurance system, modest but substantial
increases in social programs, a higher minimum wage, stronger
anti-pollution laws, and, in the West, more preservation of, and
less resource extraction from, the public land.
That’s what people who seek power do when they get power.
They use it. The Republicans are a united and disciplined party.
They have power, and so they are doing whatever they can, which is
almost (though not quite) whatever they please. Whoever is thereby
shocked demonstrates nothing but naiveté.
That
naiveté is on display wherever Democrats and liberals gather
or express themselves, and it diverts attention from the historic
singularity of the present situation: Never before have
conservative Republicans effectively controlled the federal
government.
Conservative Republicanism as we know it is
only some 60 years old. It was a reaction against the New Deal, and
remains in large part an effort to reverse it. From the birth of
conservative Republicanism until 2001, only during Dwight
Eisenhower’s first two years did a Republican president have
a Republican Congress. But Ike was a moderate who took more guff
from his party’s conservatives than from the Democrats.
Richard Nixon was a moderate, too, and Democrats ruled
Congress while he was president. Ronald Reagan and a Republican
Senate were elected in 1980, but the House remained under
Democratic control. There were enough conservative Democrats for
Reagan to get much of his program through. But without control of
the House, Republicans could not thoroughly rewrite legislation in
House-Senate Conference Committees, as they do in this Congress.
In 1986, Republicans lost their Senate majority, and did
not recover it until the anti-Clinton landslide of 1994, when the
GOP took control of both houses. But until 2001, a Democratic
president contained them.
Now, on all levels, Bush and
the Republicans are working to extend their power. Bush is
appointing very conservative federal judges with lifetime tenure.
The congressional leadership regularly alters — or ignores
— its rules to pass administration proposals. Republican
officials in Washington pressure state legislators to redraw
congressional district lines to enhance the GOP’s House
majority. With neither restraint nor shame, the White House and its
congressional followers press every advantage to the extreme in an
effort to control all three branches of government far into the
future.
No party has exercised comparable control since
1965-66, when Lyndon Johnson and huge Democratic majorities (295 to
140 in the House) produced Medicare, Medicaid, and the War on
Poverty.
At the time, Republicans argued that the
president and his allies were riding roughshod over the minority
party’s rights. Those Republicans had a point. But
that’s how people with power behave. Then and now, the people
out of power complain that the rules are being broken. They are,
but what else is new?
Western environmentalists angry
about the Bush administration weakening wilderness protection by
administrative order applauded when the Clinton administration
attempted the de facto creation of new wilderness areas — via
the Roadless Rule — through executive order. Only losers
bellyache about process.
Besides, it isn’t as
though Bush isn’t doing what he said he would. It isn’t
his fault that many observers thought “compassionate conservatism”
meant “moderate conservatism.” Bush said he would cut taxes, open
up more public land to drilling and logging, scrap the
anti-ballistic missile treaty, and appoint judges like Antonin
Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Yes, he also said he’d consider
carbon monoxide a pollutant and eschew nation-building. But Clinton
said he’d push for a middle-class tax cut.
Nor is
it Bush’s fault that the Democrats turned into a confused,
frightened blob of mush until Howard Dean broke the spell. People
who don’t like Bush’s policies can hope that the recent
revival of Democratic spunk survives at least until Election Day.
They can go to court if they think that the administration exceeds
its authority so egregiously that it is breaking the law. But there
is no point in complaining that this administration flexes its
political muscle. That’s what it is supposed to do.
Jon Margolis is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). He covers the Washington
power trip from Vermont.
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