America can accomplish a great deal when the most reactionary states pick up their marbles and leave Washington. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Pacific Railroad Act, which authorized government bonds and land grants to build the transcontinental railroad. The legislation had languished until the Southern states seceded. Then it sailed through the Republican-controlled Congress and was signed by President Lincoln on July 1, 1862. Other major pieces of the new party's agenda that never would have passed the filibuster of Southern Democratic senators also became law: Land-grant colleges and the Homestead Act. All three would prove decisive in the nation's development.
It's also worth noting that in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which broke the back of de jure segregation, 80 percent of Republicans voted for the legislation, a higher percentage than among Democrats. The Democratic majority included a solid segregationist Southern bloc, including most powerful committee chairmen and the wily Sen. Richard Russell. As Robert Caro majestically narrates in The Passage of Power, Lyndon Johnson knew how to "get" people — and as the new president, he got essential GOP support by relentlessly reminding foot-dragging Republican lawmakers that they were "the Party of Lincoln."
In the same year, Barry Goldwater won his party's presidential nomination. His opposition to federal civil-rights legislation ensured support in the South (before his assassination, President Kennedy's polling was showing him losing the South in a Kennedy-Goldwater matchup). But, still, there were Nelson Rockefeller, Kenneth Keating, Jacob Javits, Hugh Scott and George Romney, liberal Republicans all. Richard Nixon funded the Great Society, established the Environmental Protection Agency and proposed far-reaching improvement to health-care coverage. Ronald Reagan, demigod of today's Republicans, was more often pragmatic than ideological in his governing. And we don't even have to get into Poppy Bush.
Both they and the Democrats were mass political parties, with liberal, conservative and centrist members. For example, some Republicans supported the New Deal; some Democrats opposed it. Theodore Roosevelt (R) and Woodrow Wilson (D and a Southerner) were both progressives, although Wilson embodied the racist/segregationist thread that ran through the progressive movement a century ago. Democrats and Republicans both had their know-nothings, isolationists and reactionaries. Abraham Lincoln (R) freed the slaves, but it was Lyndon Johnson (D and a Southerner), who, as Caro writes, "led them into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life.”
Could the landmark civil rights laws of 1964 and 1965 even pass if they were introduced today? "Of course," you say, but think again. It all comes back to what one of our two major political parties has become. Not just the inheritors of the Dixiecrats (thanks, Barry) and the (old) White Man's Party. Not just narrowed down to one dogma that might be described more as ultra-reactionary theocracy than conservatism. Not just that their leaders and members exist in an alternative universe, hermetically sealed with answers for everything, but that unfortunately has no connection with reality. Or that they are highly disciplined and many of their stars very telegenic in an era when "looks privilege" buys more than ever before. Or that all this is backed by money and infrastructure that the Democrats can't match. It is all these things. This is what the Republican Party is today.
Some will protest that the GOP has been the home of reactionaries for decades and once they are in full power they won't actually do the radical things in their manifestos. You might say that Congress has often been dysfunctional (Jack Kennedy's legislation was bottled up, for example). Yet consider that congressional Republicans, acting in their usual lockstep discipline, were willing to risk the full faith and credit of the United States last year to defeat President Obama. Where is the precedent to that (much less among conservatives)?
[UPDATE] Romney's choice of Rep. Paul Ryan confirms the radical and revolutionary aims of today's GOP. Essential reading here is Jonathan Chait's profile of Ryan in New York magazine.
Something fundamental has changed and its consequences for our politics and national future have yet to be fully realized. Much less countered.
Considering the reports of low crop yields around the world, the reckoning may be coming sooner than we think. What will happen when the 1% drive up the price with their usual speculative "free" enterprise. The US media is quietly ignoring mass demonstrations in Canada over just college tuition hikes. What will they do when it's over food (think Tunisia, Egypt, Mexico, Oman, India)?
Posted by: eclecticdog | August 10, 2012 at 08:58 AM
I've added two comments in the previous thread: (1) warming trends specific to Phoenix (very ugly); (2) A reply to "morecleanair" specifying a simple, effective "path to lead us out of our malaise" of global warming.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 10, 2012 at 03:20 PM
Beware of the Morrison Institute's pet sprawl pipe dream called "THE SUN CORRIDOR" that waxes delusional over putting approx. 8 MILLION people between Prescott and Tucson. They are clueless about the environmental disaster this would create.
Posted by: morecleanair | August 10, 2012 at 06:32 PM
People point to the brief period in the mid-20th century as the gold standard in US politics because so much historic legislation (Civil Rights, SS, Medicare, etc.) got passed and seem to be under the impression that's the norm and the current climate is an aberration. Throughout most of US history, though, our politics has been as polarized as our electorate (always) is. What happened in that brief anomalous period is that the reactionaries were more evenly distributed between the parties because of the Dixiecrats who opposed desegregation (and most other forms of modernity). The Southern Strategy realignment on racial issues and the emergence of the Religious Right led to the GOP becoming the comfortable home for the white reactionaries.
So yeah, Jon is right that Republicans having full power is a nightmare.
Posted by: Donna | August 10, 2012 at 06:43 PM
Willard Mittens Romney (not "Milton", Jon) isn't looking too good right now, is he? His plastic qualities are hard to mask. Looking more like Barbie Doll's running mate, Ken!
Posted by: morecleanair | August 10, 2012 at 09:12 PM
Romney Girl (to the tune of "Barbie Girl".)
Posted by: Petro | August 11, 2012 at 09:12 AM
The tea baggers get their man Ryan
The dilemma? How to get Romney out of the road?
Posted by: cal Lash | August 11, 2012 at 01:50 PM
Side note: a new reply to phxSUNSfan in the previous thread ("Corrupt or stupid?") dealing with changes in Phoenix temperatures over the last ten years (not since 1948 or over the last 30 years). There is a remarkable correlation with a tripling of Chinese CO2 emissions from 2002 through 2011. This ten year change isn't just Phoenix, either, it's national.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 11, 2012 at 02:55 PM
P.S. A third new comment added to previous thread, documenting the fact that as of 2011 China's CO2 emissions have ALREADY surpassed those of the United States and the European Union combined.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 11, 2012 at 03:07 PM
Not to hijack the current thread (it's a fine commentary), but I don't think Mr. Talton will mind my noting the following facts from ASU's Greater Phoenix Housing Report for June 2012.
For single-family homes sold in "normal resales" (i.e., traditional sale/purchases between ordinary homeowner-residents), home prices in June 2012 are down by all measures relative to June 2011:
Average (mean) sales price: -6.0 %
Median sales price: -1.2 %
Average price per square foot: -3.4 %
http://wpcarey.asu.edu/finance/real-estate/upload/FullReport201207.pdf
Because you won't read this in the Arizona Republic, which already put its boosterish spin on the issue by reporting overall housing market (i.e., investor driven) price changes.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 11, 2012 at 03:25 PM
Speaking of investors, the June report linked to above indicates that investors accounted for 31.9 percent of home purchases in Maricopa County in June 2012, up from 25 percent a year earlier.
This is about the same percentage of buyers that investors made up at the height of the housing boom in 2005, according to Information Market.
The ASU report notes: "Since distressed supply is well down, it is clear that investors are active buyers of normal and new homes as well as homes flipped by other investors."
So much for a resurgence of normal homeseller activity.
Given that rising home values were a BIG part of the Metro Phoenix appeal in the pre-recession 2000s, one wonders how long it will take for a return to the old growth model.
Even the Arizona Republic noted (April 25, 2010) that:
"People from other parts of the country, particularly California where the average house cost twice as much, saw they could afford a new home in Phoenix and watch the value rise 15 percent to 30 percent in only five years.
"Arizona's population swelled on speculation, jumping from 4.2 million to 6 million in 12 years. In 2005, metro Phoenix home sales hit an all-time high of 165,000."
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 11, 2012 at 03:57 PM
P.S. In a single year (2006) metro Phoenix home prices increased 50 percent.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 11, 2012 at 04:21 PM
Mr. Talton wrote:
"Not just that their leaders and members exist in an alternative universe, hermetically sealed with answers for everything, but that unfortunately has no connection with reality. Or that they are highly disciplined and many of their stars very telegenic in an era when privilege buys more than ever before. Or that all this is backed by money and infrastructure that the Democrats can't match. It is all these things. This is what the Republican Party is today."
I loved this. Says it all. Great historical background on "the party of Lincoln", too.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 11, 2012 at 04:29 PM
I am trying not to be too optimistic about Romney's decision to pick Ryan as a running mate. But this could be a good thing for the Obama camp if they pounce and clampdown for the kill.
Old people tend to have short-term memories and do frighten easily; reminding them that Ryan will kill their beloved Medicare could turn some blue-haired, dependable Republican voters into RINO's just in time to vote for Obama.
Posted by: phxSUNSfan | August 12, 2012 at 09:29 AM
Side note: I've added a new comment to the previous thread ("Corrupt or stupid?") replying to phxSUNSfan's latest, addressing some reasoning errors he (and to be fair, his news source) made in attributing climate changes of the last ten years primarily to the urban heat-island effect.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 12, 2012 at 03:09 PM
Please refer to the Front Page article on "Welcome to the new normal climate".
Would you "climate change chicken littles" please explain the 3 mega-droughts which occurred 1500 years BEFORE the industrial revolution?
Posted by: AzRebel | August 12, 2012 at 03:17 PM
Side note: another follow-up or two in the previous thread (brief, but good, explaining two common ways in which climate change is (accidentally or deliberately) minimized and showing the reasoning errors behind them.
AzRebel, in order to explain any climate changes, you have to examine the specific climate dynamic in the period in which the change occurred. Right now, the big alteration in the dynamic is the mammoth addition of greenhouse gases, not geological events. (Out of online time.)
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | August 12, 2012 at 03:34 PM
The party's over, but the skewering may have just begun . . . as Paul Ryan's "survival of the fittest" plan goes up on the carving table. PSF is to be commended for his caution, but Mittens has just doubled down on his position as a cold-blooded financial hawk. The target this presents looks absolutely delicious, calling attention to the obscene but poorly-publicized disparities in net worth.
Posted by: morecleanair | August 12, 2012 at 05:17 PM
its a 104 in the shade in Austin
Posted by: cal Lash | August 13, 2012 at 11:49 AM
hey REB, lick your finger, stick it out the window and tell me how long it takes it to dry?
Posted by: cal Lash | August 13, 2012 at 11:56 AM
Oh my cal. I had licked my finger and I was bent over when at the last second I caught the word window. Whew, that was close.
To answer your question, .0001 second.
Posted by: AzRebel | August 13, 2012 at 02:44 PM
Global Warming!
Posted by: cal Lash | August 13, 2012 at 03:24 PM
The party may be over but the WAR is on.
cal
from the river bank in Austin
Posted by: cal Lash | August 13, 2012 at 05:38 PM