The difference between Republicans and Democrats

I just want to comment on what the difference between Democrats and Republicans used to be, back in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was directly involved with government and politics on a day-to-day basis.

On the most important issue of domestic policy, it was this:

Republicans thought that there should be "general revenue sharing" and "block grants" from the national (or federal) government to the states and local governments.  In deference to state primacy, they thought that these sub-national governments should receive the money by right, without even filling out an application, and without having to do any reporting on how they were spent after the fact.  Amounts were to be determined by a statistical formula related to population size and other factors.

Democrats, on the other hand, were less trustful of the states, local governments, and citizen groups.  They thought that there should be many many separate grant-in-aid programs (more than 500) each for specific purposes, and for those purposes only.  Recipient jurisdictions should apply for a grant; demonstrate their need and their wise intentions, and then report after the fact on exactly what they had done, which would be monitored and evaluated for successful outcomes.

That was it.  That was the difference between Republicans and Democrats, between liberals and conservatives.  Everyone agreed that the national government (with its income tax resources) should help support governments at the "lower" levels.  The big dispute was overly exactly how that should be done, and if it was being done efficiently or effectively--or not.

There were other important areas where the two parties actually agreed, like the desirability of deregulation (of things like airline rates) and the need to simplify and improve the federal income tax system.  Both parties really agreed that Medicaid ought to be administered on a uniform basis, by the national government, among all states--although that never did actually happen because they disagreed on other matters, like welfare reform.  Still, Democrats and Republicans, back then, really weren't "very" far apart.

I am reporting this because it is important to understand how far we have drifted from such concerns over the past 25 years or so.  The Democrats are still about where they were, wanting to solve problems with the intelligent use of federal fiscal and regulatory resources.  But the Republicans have drifted into an ideological never-never land or fantasy world that has nothing to do with "solving problems" or "using resources intelligently."  They talk about Socialism, and Armageddon, and federal takeovers, and the need to protect liberties, in the most unrealistic and belligerent ways.  And, indeed, if their supposed hero, Ronald Reagan, came back, he would be considered too much of a lefty, not pure enough.  The tea-baggers would be running Sarah Palin (or other) against him.

I don't feel that I can give a simple explanation for why this has happened.  But it is clear that the Republican party has been taken over by what previously would have been considered a minor, very radical political fringe.  Somehow, someone else has bought control.  The media certainly have a lot to do with it, but that doesn't seem to me a full answer either.

Probably another factor is that the "debt society" instituted by Ronald Reagan simply ran out of gas during the Bush years.  There had been an illusion of prosperity related to the idea that housing values would rise forever, but more broadly that there was some kind of fundamental fairness in American society, that we could all aspire to what were seen as "middle class lives."  That has ceased to be true, and the new reality is very painful, and certainly helps foster extremists, essentially paranoid, attitudes and behavior.

It is a dangerous mix, and things are going to get worse before they get better.

Comments

[Jenn F.]

[this is good] I think it is a combination of the media, the "media" (by which I mean the Glenn Becks and Sean "My Charity Just Got Downgraded" Hannity et al), the podium that the web gives people without having to deal directly with the consequences (i.e. allowing people to make nasty, mean, or threatening comments on websites from blogs to the NYTimes without having to deal with the shame of being a social outcast that one would have had to endure if in the pre-interweb days they had walked into their workplace and started calling people names), and the impact of your following post. We're on the downward slope and people know it, even if they aren't admitting it to themselves. So instead of trying to figure out how to deal with that (like becoming very very good friends with China, our new overlord, or trying to slow the slide), people are getting scared and paranoid and starting to behave like a bunch of cornered animals. They gnash their teeth and pull their hair and act like wild things, swiping and biting at everyone without discrimination, starting up militias, making plans to attack the government, stockpiling guns and ammo. They want to believe that America is exceptional, that they are exceptional, that god has shined upon them... but I think that somewhere in the back of their heads they realize that America is England or France during the decades before WWII-- once an empire so vast that the sun never set on it, but entering its crepsusculer moment.

How long can the delusion of American primacy continue in the face of things like The Jersey Shore and Real Housewives of Some Place-- if this isn't decadence, I'm not sure what is. As you say-- we don't make anything anymore. Hell, we don't even read anything anymore. Instead, people listen to angry, greedy talking heads repeating lines they've stolen from Ayn Rand and then turn around and claim that lines lifted straight from John Galt's broadcast are in the Constitution.    

[William Kahn]

[this is good] Yes it is all a fantasy