More On Ryan's Plans

The plea (demands, really) Ryan and his cronies are making to reshuffle the American deck goes all the way back beyond the New Deal-- ostensibly what the Republicans and the wealthy interests they represent are whining about. The New Deal, which saved America from a real peoples' revolution, was meant to reign in the excesses of the wealthiest and most anti-social elements, the entitled parasites of society who persuade themselves that John Jay's dictim-- "Those who own the country ought to govern it"-- was handed down by God himself. But the beef they're embroiled in does go back to Jay's day, and although Ryan certainly would endorse that particular dictim of the first Supreme Court Justice, there are few other points he and Jay would agree on. Jay as a Patriot, a revolutionary, albeit the most reluctant and moderate of the lot. Ryan would have certainly been a Loyalist-- those who remained loyal to the King of Britain, fought against the revolution and, in thousands of cases, abandoned America after victory and fled to English or to another British colony.

In his classic 1948 history, Conservatism in Early American History, Leonard Woods Larabee came up with a number of characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative. Ironically, the first one he wrote could have been a description of today's teabagger or Glenn Beck enthusiast: "Psychologically they were older, better established, and resisted innovation." As Mike Lux pointed out in his own more recent book, The Progressive Revolution conservatives have inevitably been on the wrong side of history, starting with their opposition to the Declaration of Independence, to the American Revolution itself and, of course, to the Constitution which granted suffrage to non-landowners and to "common" people. There can be no question where Ryan-- not to mention today's self-styled teabaggers-- who have nothing in common with the Patriots other than former's affectation of a penchant for tri-cornered hats.

Don't forget, at the time of the American Revolution, almost half a million conservatives remained loyal to the British crown and many fought on the side of the Brits against the founding of a new independent republic. That was about 20% of the population at the time. After the war, over 60,000 white conservatives-- including many of the wealthiest landowners like the DeLancy, DePester Walton and Cruger families of the Hudson Valley and the Penn, Allen, Chew, and Shippen families of Pennsylvania-- left America for Britain or other British territories, like Canada and the Bahamas. Many of the richest southern conservatives took their slaves and fled to the West Indies. And in his own book Threshold, Thom Hartmann emphasizes that "[d]uring the Revolutionary War, virtually every person of great wealth left the United States... As the Constitution was being framed, one of the biggest issues was the debate over the best ways to keep in check the power of wealth." Unfortunately, corporate shills like Alexander Hamilton (think of him as the representative of Wall Street, a kind of combination of Paul Ryan, JimDeMint and Third Way), Tench Coxe, Samuel Seabury and reactionary southerners-- yep; back then too-- worked hard, and effectively, to thwart that strain of revolutionary thought. Which is why, for example, we wound up with a Senate (modeled on the House of Lords), with slavery, with no voting rights for women and no guarantees of the individual liberties that were later addressed-- also to the hysterical opposition of conservatives-- by the Bill of Rights. Keep in mind this is an Inside-the-Beltway Establishment Democratic Party position, even though it's completely at odds with Democratic voters and activists:

• 2012 will be about 2 issues-- the economy and debt. While likely to be stronger, the economy may still be in a gray zone-- a bipartisan agreement on the structural deficit would take the Republicans’ biggest issue off the table.

• Voters are extremely deficit sensitive and are likely to remain so. The party seen as most serious on the issue will win the day.

• We don’t believe Republicans “going too far” will be their Waterloo. They tried to privatize Social Security in 2005 and still fared better with seniors than every other age group in every election cycle since.

• Voters’ views on Medicare, Social Security, etc., are more nuanced than Washington often gives them credit for.

• With entitlements and interest on the debt set to consume 70% of the federal budget in 2030, it’s crucial that progressives fight to leave room in the budget for critical public investments on infrastructure, innovation, education and many other issues.

The transpartisan, anti-working family strain of conservatism embraced by this mindset completely dominates one political party, the Republicans, and has immense power inside the Democratic party (though the corporately-financed DLC, Blue Dog Caucus and Third Way). That's why all the discussion is about how Ryan and the radical right set the table for Democratic "compromise" instead of, for example, the polling this week that shows 78% of voters believe the solution to the budgetary problems cosnervatives are braying about would be best solved by taxing the rich. Did I miss a report on that on yesterday's Talking Heads discussions? And other than Bernie Sanders, do any Democrats make that argument and throw it back in Paul Ryan's face?

We should nip this right in the bud-- because if you think the Democratic Establishment has the slightest intention of doing it for us, I've failed at communicating the point entirely.