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A new season is upon America, and it births a time of decision. Is the nation changing and are citizens raising the expectation of government? Are we watching an historical shift in political tectonics?
the end of the Reagan revolution?
Is Reaganism and its anti government doctrine in demise? Will America return to the belief that Federal government is not the problem, but the solution? These questions are working toward resolution at a time when the party of Reagan, and Bush I and II has become the property of Trump and insurrectionists.
Since Reagan first exhorted "the federal government is the problem," Republican fiscal policy, and cultural mantra has been to diminish the role of the government in a wide array of American life. Republicans embraced an economic theory that wealth would "trickle down." The conservative gospel was that government should barely exist while the economic fruits of capitalism would abound for all.
Before Reagan the foundational relationship of citizen to government was the legacy of Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
The American belief in the federal government was denigrated by the Reagan gospel of a smaller federal government, cuts in programs and services, lavish defense spending, budget breaking tax cuts for corporations and the most wealthy and actions like closing mental hospitals, busting unions and running up the deficits.
is Biden's popularity seismic?
Will Americans embrace the history that government is transformative, that citizens should be served by a government that fixes problems and provides ways for a better life?
Analysts and historians suggest Joe Biden is returning the premise that guided FDR and Lyndon Johnson during their defining years of leadership as American excellence prevailed.
American Presidential history has a pattern.
Republicans trigger recession, engage military actions, and run massive deficits while social services are starved. Democrats get stuck with the clean up and the amping up of government service.
The wealth gap, the shrinking of the middle class, the loss of American jobs, cultural divide and isolation was rampant by the time the Republican guardianship crashed us into near depression in 2008.
Barrack Obama rescued the economy, and authored the affordable care act, but Republican control of the Senate doomed any sweeping return to classic Democratic policy.
The Biden approach offers a return to the governing principles put into place when Franklin Roosevelt was elected in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in US history after another disastrous Republican rule. Government came to the aid of US citizens in myriad ways.
Biden came to office in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the depression, combined with the pandemic mismanaged by a divisive, corrosive and incompetent authoritarian Trump Republican rule.
Citizen needs, infrastructure decline, and economic injustice welled up in the 40 years since American attitudes about government were assaulted by Republicans and their propaganda media, which they do effectively.
After 40 years of the Republican Party calling the government broken, Americans are hearing another vision.
a new twist
Biden's proposals for the American Family, and his Infrastructure plan are popular with most American voters of every persuasion. His personal approval rating is high, but his edge in congress is razor thin and the poison of the big lie and the insurrection infect those who feed on the mind numbing propaganda pablum of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News or the looney fringe right wing media.
The potential of an American Spring with sweeping reenergizing of government is there, but these times are precarious.
On a personal note I applaud Biden's desire to adjust the American expectation of education to 16 years, up from the 12 established historically. My coverage of and friendship with 30 year Congressman Andy Jacobs Jr led me to appreciate how important the pre kindergarten years are to children, especially those from economic or socially challenged homes. Jacobs, a member of House Ways and Means, and the Judiciary committees, was an early advocate for the idea Biden now advocates.
Jacobs sighted experts and research making the case for the personal and social benefits of getting children into a stable, secure and educationally stimulating environment during the critical first 4 years of life. This is the sort of program Democrats believe in and Republicans oppose because it requires funding.
The benefits of better educated generations seem obvious. Also obvious, it won't happen unless the government enables it. That is the sort of detail the Biden Presidency is trying to return to the work of government.
How will we have it? What will be our expectation?
It's interesting that our season of decision comes as the most senior of all US Presidents, a working class Irishman with a long history in and love for the Senate, is being compared to iconic Democrats who shepherded government through history making eras. It might happen again.
Stay strong.
See you down the trail.
WE CAN HOPE. WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?
ReplyDeleteWe will hope.
DeleteNice to have a man in office who went to president school.
ReplyDeleteAnd learned well.
DeleteNice to see the republicans struggling to tell their "BASE" to get vaccinated without pissing off their "BASE".
ReplyDeleteA lot of work to do there, educating that base.
DeleteI like the education idea, but we’ve placed ourselves into this predicament by needing to acquire acquire acquire. Mom has to go to work, Dad working multiple jobs. So, let’s have govt take care of our kids.
ReplyDeleteI just don’t see that we were formed as a nation to take care of people the way we’re going.
We have had he capacity to rise to the challenge, always, previously. This is a new time and new challenge.
Deleteanother excellent analysis of the political landscape. Biden has decided that it is better to roll the dice on all the major issues than to wait for the right wing to recognize reality
ReplyDeleteJoe's been around enough to have learned to pay attention.
DeleteReagan talked a good game about gov't being the problem and encouraging smaller gov't but it didn't happen under his presidency. What we got was terrific, but it was not smaller. (Rather the dividing line was an axis that you ignore TC -- namely WHO should get deference in decision making, the individual or the collective.) So it is important when classifying Repub eras to differentiate rhetoric and behavior. Jimmy Carter did more to deregulate than RR. And Bill Clinton's compromise with pre-egomaniacal Gingrich on Welfare Reform did more to undo Johnson's disastrous (for the poor) "Great Society" than anything RR did. Same kudo's to Clinton for signing the Lugar-led Ag reforms that undid the last vestige of FDR's New Deal. I get why you find it convenient to politicize, and it's made so much easier by what currently passes as "Repub". But that won't last. The hyper ridiculous assault on American culture of the Progressive Left will give Repubs a new unifying perspective. The agenda of the left is more completely collectivist than any prev Democrat era, fueled as it is by identity politics -- a label I know you hate, but it is real. And now that Pres Biden has thrown in completely with them, the way is paved for a more expansive Repub tent (look no further than his Dept of Educ last week, attempting to inject Critical Race Theory into America's schools). Thank God -- who a bare majority of Dems certainly believe in -- that the Democrat left is even more insane that the Republican right ... which is saying a lot.
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is NOT a return to big gov't or even little government. What we need is a return to what Tocqueville observed when he toured the early United States -- a free citizenry VOLUNTARILY coming together to solve problems in THEIR communities. These voluntary associations have been on the decline for 50 years, in large measure because gov't and quasi-government non-profits have crowded them out.
Words matter. Reagan was "the great communicator," and what he said, people believed. It was a turning point in how John and Jane Citizen came to think about the Federal Government. It was one of the pivots and one with a legacy. I was never fond of Clinton and thought he not only squandered a Presidency he took the Democratic party far to the right.
ReplyDeleteI think you see more strength in the Progressive Left than I do. They've always been the carrot and as we face historic change in demography and attitude, they may eventually be on a shorter stick. Biden is an old school Democrat, mixing new and old. The Democrat left may have some ideas that frighten you, but the Republican right is frightening because they are anti American, authoritarians and have shown a willingness to murder. Mark, I love your progressive "get radical or die" intellect, but the nation today is not what it was 50 years, no, 25 years ago. Tocqueville observed wisely for his time. I too wish those principles could have the power in 2021 they did when he saw us. There is a great common mind in this nation, but's being torn apart by politics that were weaponized and Gingrich is one of the cardinal offenders, and by a media that is either partisan or exploitive, or simply stupid. There is some good journalism left, but it, like common sense, compromise, civil debate is endangered. I wish you and your kindred with your commitment to idea and principle would mount a street fight in the GOP. Admit Biden won Fairly. Throw out those who refuse to acknowledge the truth, be they the Senate Minority leader, if he won't actively fight for the truth, or the far fringe loonies who are getting the votes of the deceived who live a lie. This is an historic battle line. If Biden is as you say he is, then there is need for a responsible Republican party to contest and legislate WITH. I dont think this can wait until all of the perpetrators of the lie are dead. Like Reagan's words, Trump's et al, are being believed.