A Very Disappointing Week for Conservatives

Last week was bad.

How incompetent can Washington Republican Conservatives be?  Since Obamacare came into being in 2010, the mantra on the right has been “repeal”.  Later, “replace” was added to the pledge.  Yet, January 2017 rolls around and there is apparently a mad scramble to craft a bill that will pass the GOP Congress.

Perhaps little was done substantively to produce a Republican alternative to the mis-named Affordable Care Act because the belief that the party would reclaim the White House in 2012 or 2016 was more hope that expectation.  Still, wouldn’t one have expected that a plan would have been fleshed out just in case?

Apparently there were proposals being considered.  One was by now Health and Services Secretary Tom Price; another was by House Speaker Paul Ryan.  But plainly, little behind the scenes work had been undertaken to establish a consensus of support for such plans.

Ironically, the frenetic efforts to boost support for what became Speaker Ryan’s plan by making last minute changes led to great uncertainty as to what was in it and brought unwelcome thoughts of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s notorious plea that the ACA would need to be passed before one could learn what was in it.

In the end, perhaps the withdrawal of the Ryan bill will be a positive, albeit short term political embarrassment.  At least for now, the country won’t be subject to another health bill crammed down our throats.  Time will allow for a slower pace to develop a replacement for Obamacare that is subject to thoughtful consideration and consensus support among, at least, Congressional Republicans who, after all, still control Capitol Hill.

Several notes:

***President Trump’s pledge to ignore health policy until Obamacare “blows up” sounds spiteful.  He must not, as President, abandon his responsibility to help clean up the mess to America’s health care system caused by the Democrats.  Being the chief executive is not the same as being a real estate magnate who can simply walk away when he doesn’t get what he wants. 

***Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan speech writer and longtime Wall Street Journal columnist, attributes the defection, in part, of House GOP members to a poll showing broad public disaffection with Ryan’s plan. 

It’s hard to credit the results of a poll showing public disapproval of proposed legislation when not even members of Congress could be confident of what it contained. 

It’s also odd that Ms. Noonan, who usually displays a solidly conservative perspective, would suggest that a plebiscite of the public – notoriously uninformed about policy details – should determine a Congressman’s action.  She needs to refresh her knowledge of conservative British philosopher and legislator Edmund Burke who famously proclaimed that “I owe constituents my judgment, not my vote”.

The Unsettling Effect of An Un-Subtle President

Say what you will about the negative personal aspects of Donald Trump, conservatives are generally pleased with the Administration’s policy pronouncements, from a budget tilted strongly towards national defense to stern warnings to North Korea.

As is the president’s manner, there was nothing conciliatory or placating in his budgetary assault on liberal favorites.  As examples, money for the National Endowment for the Arts was eliminated entirely as was funding for a preschool breakfast program which had not been shown to result – as backers had claimed – in improved school performance.

The howls of protest from the left were seemingly heard from coast to coast … “no compassion”, “enemy of culture” and so forth.

My, My, My!  How the role of the federal government has changed in nearly two hundred and thirty years since it was supposedly constrained by the U.S. Constitution.

Where is it written that the Federal Government should provide money for theater productions?  If private funding isn’t available, why should tax payers foot the bill?  And if a program does not produce desired results, why shouldn’t be money for it be cut off?

Of course, arts can be supported by those who patronize them and hungry children should get breakfast.  But why are these tasks federal responsibilities?  What about state, localities and private sources?  It’s as if the general Washington consensus – often accommodated by Republicans  afraid of liberal disapproval - is being upended.  Is it no longer true that when there is a perceived need or problem, only Washington can solve it?

And think about national security:  the President, the Commander in Chief, has no greater role than to provide for the common defense.  Simply put, if the nation does not survive nothing else does either (like food aid programs).  Yet, under the Obama Administration, Congressional Democrats and Republicans agreed to a budget sequestration program putting domestic and military expenditures on an equal footing.  In effect, defense needs were treated as just another interest group vying with, say, the EPA for a limited pool of federal money.

The absence of sensible priorities is just the sort of foolishness that led to Trump’s popularity.

Words to Remember in Tumultuous Times

There is no doubt that these are wild days in Washington.  The media hostility to President Trump is palpable and he, in turn, seems to delight in stirring it up.  Extreme language has become standard.  The Left and their press acolytes toss around terms such as “worst ever”, “dangerous” and “incredible”. 

The White House talks about the president being “best ever” of whatever he does and the media full of enemies.  Hyperbole has become the new standard, not the exceptional expression. 

Both sides portray the current conflicts as somehow a new order in America, a crisis of historic proportions.  Perspective has been lost. 

Refresh your knowledge of the third presidential election conducted in 1800.  The race pitted candidates, as termed by the other side, monarchist John Adams who would be king versus Francophile Thomas Jefferson who was determined to bring the violent French revolution to our shores.  There was widespread worry that the twelve years of the Constitutional Republic would be the last.  But the country survived.  And it will survive Donald Trump.  Whether for better or worse, one will see.

[Jefferson and Hamilton, by John Ferling, provides a detailed exposition of the venom which existed between the Federalists and Jefferson’s Republicans.] 

Remind yourself of America’s unique – exceptional nature – read Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. 

And as you review American history, don’t neglect these two crises.  The Civil War was believed by President Lincoln to be lost in August of 1864.   The U.S. would fall apart.  Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in the following month dispelled the pessimism.  (Many accounts exist but James McPherson’s Trial by War is particularly good.)

In December 1941 and through much of 1942, whether America would prevail in World War II was very much an open question (try John Keegan’s The Second World War). 

Yes, these are tumultuous times but there is no cause for hysteria by either side.  America does not face a crisis of survival.

Campus Intolerance on Display

One of the more troubling developments in recent decades has been the transformation of liberal (as in “free”) institutions of higher learning into the antithesis of academic freedom. 

I’m not talking about the leftward tilt of faculty members.  That is hardly a new discovery.  Over sixty years ago, for instance, William F. Buckley, Jr. documented the prevalence in God and Man at Yale of liberal academicians.  They have long held sway at American college campuses, and students could reasonably expect to receive a leftward slant in the political and philosophical presentations of the professors.

What is relatively new is the intolerance of significant numbers of student bodies to points of view that are not leftist.  In recent years, student protests have resulted in the cancellation of commencement day speeches by former Republican Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice and other noted personalities on the right.  And, of course, we’ve all heard of the drive for school “safe spaces” where students can gather to avoid hearing anything upsetting to their liberal mindset.  For some leftists, that’s not broad enough – the entire campus must be off limits to non-liberal ideas.

The campaign to shut down different views is couched in terms of “protest”.  After all, what is wrong with protesting against ideas with which one disagrees?  Nothing.  But under the guise of protesting, many seek to silence those with whom they differ. 

Thus, last week at Middleburg College in Vermont, conservative scholar Charles Murray (author most recently of Coming Apart, an examination of the social deterioration of America’s working class) was barred by a crowd from speaking at the scheduled site.  (Later he was able to give his talk at a different campus location).

[Is it coincidental that this is the same school that ordered the removal of the U.S. flag from its pole because some students took offense to its presence?]

How can this intolerance be fought?  Alas, most college administrators are inclined to minimize the offense.  After all, they share a leftist’s perspective with the protesting students.  The Middleburg president did criticize the participating students but added only that she would be ‘responding”.  Whatever does that mean?

How about expulsion or lengthy suspensions?   Attending college is not a right.  Being a member of the academic community should implicitly require acceptance of free speech.  If a person is unwilling to accept that condition, the individual doesn’t belong on the campus.