A Lapse from an American Political Tradition

   Much as been said and written about the current cadre of Tea Party Republicans in the House. While they are usually referred to as conservatives, that is surely wrong. What do they have in common with Edmund Burke or his American descendants such as Russell Kirk or even William Buckley? What historical practices, traditions do they want to conserve by defending them against the liberal onslaughts of progressives? Call them right-wing radicals instead, though mostly not in the European fascist or proto-fascist sense. At any rate, they are not in the tradition of American politics, a fact that may not have been remarked on and that I now want to take note of.

   What is a common ingredient, since the earliest days of the  American republic, among those who have made the effort to become members of the Senate or the House? I would call it a kernel of pragmatism at the center of their political beliefs. Another way of raising this question is to ask why do people make the considerable effort to run for office in either house? Success brings a notable status to the office holder.  Whatever they had been before a successful run, they now are members of a small and exclusive club and for some at least there are income and benefit motives.

   I fear that for some—I hope not for many—those may be the sole reasons for becoming a member of Congress. The majority, however, get into this act to accomplish something. In the first place, for their own constituents, though the motives there are surely mixed, since acting in behalf of those who have elected you is a necessary condition for being reelected.  But historically, the vast majority of office holders aims to make a dent on broader issues: increase the scope of the federal overnment or shrink it, reduce the taxes of the wealthy or provide greater benefits for the poor. These are just samples of an indefinite number of goals that office holders will work to achieve, of course by no means always successfully.

   But there is no kernel of pragmatism when you vote for the umpteenth time to repeal Obamacare or to defund Planned Parenthood, knowing with absolute certainty that what is voted for will not happen. These are the most prominent recent examples of “actions” by members of the Tea Party. “Actions” in quotation marks, because what is “done” changes nothing in the external world. Instead, these moves are statements that constitute glimpses of an underlying ideology: a naive faith in the virtues of self-reliance for some, a thinly-veiled racism for others. I have suggested that this mode of political behavior—actions that are not even intended to make a dent on the world—is not in the American tradition, but resembles, rather, the practice of some of the European parties of yore, for whom declaring what the principles were for which they stood was the immediate goal, while actually changing the world was to happen in the future, more likely than not beyond the lives of the present speakers.   

   I’m not a fan of what one might regard as giving primacy to rhetoric over the attempt to effect actual changes. I should however be grateful that those who have adopted that European mode of politics are not on my side, so that I can applaud their failure to enact the goals implied by their ideologies.