The Bush Second Term Agenda: Privatization of the Public Interest
The fastest way to raise the blood pressure of a Movement Conservative is to utter the words “common good” or “public interest.” Where most people see mainstream ideals of good government, MCs see the slippery slope to socialism, a command economy and a totalitarian mommy state. This cultural and ideological gulf between MCs and conventional American political discourse is the one of the hardest for liberal-thinking people to cross. After all, it is a fundamental assumption of our politics that, whatever our disagreements, people of all parties and ideologies want, in the words of 19th century political philosopher John Stuart Mill, “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Our differences arise from honest disputes over how to get there, and for this reason, our political opponents deserve a respectful hearing and a chance to govern should their platform carry the day at the polls.
This assumption of shared values underlies our ability to compromise – a basic feature of legislative government – and gives legitimacy to the peaceful transition of power in elections. It is what prevents those with a sincere interest in good government from reaching for the Constitutional high explosives – impeachment, recall, court-packing, egregious gerrymandering, recess appointments and all the other disruptive tactics that our Founders packed into our democracy emergency-rescue kit – every time the opposing party gets into power through legitimate means. It’s what gives thoughtful people pause over dirty campaign tactics, even when they are called for and justified. At base, civic-minded people across the ideological spectrum understand that the wonder of our Republic is a precious and fragile gift, held together by a presumption of common good will. Each time a party acts in bad faith and short-sighted self-interest, they weaken the fabric of civil society and undermine the foundations of democratic government. So, at difficult moments, we come forward and reason together, looking for the ways to maximize the common good.
The important fact we must face is that Bush and his people see it differently. For them, there is no greater good, no higher goal, than the perpetuation of their own power and the emasculation of all organized opposition. The norms of democratic government are to be respected only insofar as they do not interfere with the achievement of these aims and the policies that support them. They don’t seek power to exercise in service of the “common good,” but as a means of consolidating their own privileged status and removing what they see as illegitimate constraints on the exercise of prerogatives by those who deserve them.
As is clear from their ideological pronouncements, they see government as a negative force, a set of barriers erected by the weak-and-numerous to hinder the achievement of lofty goals by the few-and-strong. All of the cumbersome apparatus of government that assists in this effort – revenue collection, regulation, judicial oversight, and the various agencies that redistribute confiscated wealth in the form of social, educational or health programs – are obstacles to be liquidated. Their putative economic and social benefits in fact only serve to empower the undeserving and create an electoral constituency for the continued taxation of wealth and constraint of power.
The problem is that, because some of these government institutions were craftily constructed, they enjoy an inconveniently-high degree of political support. It has not been possible to roll them back at a stroke. Rather, it has been necessary to undermine them over the years through deliberate mismanagement of funds and policies, combined with a sustained rhetorical assault on the entire notion of “government.” The goal is to isolate the policymakers, bureaucrats and their constituents as elites and undesirables, creating the surreal sense that the institutions of a democratic state are somehow acting against the interests of the people as a whole.
Movement Conservatives understand that the institutional credibility of experts and policymakers acting on behalf of the public represent an effective counterweight against their model of governance, which demands that leadership have the maximum freedom to act according to its beliefs, instincts and interests. During the first Bush Administration, we’ve seen a strategic effort to discredit all professional expertise from the non-political policy branches when expert opinion (still concerned with that quaint notion of the national interest as distinct from the goals of the President) conflicts with the preconceived agenda of the political leadership. In a second Bush Administration, we are likely to see this effort accelerate through a systematic privatization of public functions of government. This will take a few tactical forms, some of which already in motion:
- Increases in the exercise of naked political power on regulatory and oversight boards (FCC, SEC, EPA, etc.) for the benefit of Bush supporters, with no pretense to established deliberative or policy practices.
- Introduction of means-testing for Medicare, putatively as a cost measure, but actually as a way to divide the interests of the affluent elderly from those at the bottom as a prologue to the liquidation of the program.
- Proposals for the privatization of Social Security, starting with younger workers – again, an effort to splinter the political constituency for the program.
- Curbs on courts’ and juries’ abilities to impose financial penalties in civil cases (“tort reform”), removing another set of constraints on the behavior of powerful actors.
- Further tax cuts to starve the federal government of revenue, creating short-term wealth for a few elite recipients and long-term barriers to the creation of any new government programs.
- Congressional appropriations used as blatant political payoffs to supporters, with funds denied outright to groups and constituencies who provide institutional support to the opposition.
Remember, as horrifying as these policies appear to mainstream Americans, to Movement Conservatives, they are not just good ideas but the True and Right Way for America. It may be that some of these policies will “work” (e.g., have some economic benefit); however, creating prosperity, while not a bad thing for MCs, is not their priority or mark of success. These are not policies we hold up to some standard of “common good” or judge on the basis of costs and benefits as we would in a rational system. They are the spoils of victory, their enactment a validation of the triumph of Movement Conservatism. Whatever consequences they have in terms of quality of life or income distribution are, to their proponents, inconsequential compared to their higher Truth, and their authors fully expect they will never have to answer for them in any case.
This vision of governance is profoundly different from the one that has prevailed in America since 1933. It is one that places private gain, unrestrained ambition and the exercise of power for its own sake at the center of the mission of government and banishes the ideas of common good, disinterested professionalism, and a broader conception of prosperity to the outside. Democratic political process (compromise, a role for the opposition) has no inherent legitimacy in this vision. The institutions of Constitutional government exist only to be exploited in service of the leadership’s goals, or else ignored.
This assessment isn’t a value judgment: it’s a conclusion reached from careful observation of the behavior of Movement Conservatives over the past 12 years as they moved from the periphery to the center of political power in the United States. We ignore their manifest ambition and disregard for the norms of democratic government at our peril.
Tomorrow: Social Regimentation.
7:44:24 AM 
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