The "Cult" of Republicanism: Simplicity as Idol

OK, Barry, I'll take your advice and simply blame it all on you. For as you, Mr. Goldwater, advised during your ill-fated 1964 presidential campaign: "The big trouble with the so-called liberal today is that he doesn't understand simplicity."

Problems? No problems, you said, as long as "we have the courage to face them.... Those who don't have that courage want complicated answers" -- a spirit of wholesale anti-intellectualism that prompted NYT columnist Tom Wicker to note that you're like a "child..., with a child's directness and lack of complexity."

From that '64 campaign, you, Barry, inadvertently created the New Republican Guard -- the New Right -- which morphed over the years into the blind, anti-intellectual monsters in control today; those who, in their pursuit of electoral dominance, trashed the electorally inept Old Guard's cherished principles of small government, balanced budgets and fiscal sanity.

And trash them they did -- soundly, solidly, completely -- endowing us with a bloated, supply-sided, debt-ridden, ineffective government; ineffective, that is, except for those who don't need it. The anti-intellectuals would merrily rake in the plutocratic cash to grease their political machine and further indulge the plutocracy, leaving the middle class and poor to fend for themselves. Socialism, as they say, for the rich; capitalism for the rest of us.

As columnist Jonathan Chait observes in a recent New Republic article, "Feast of the Wingnuts": "American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. The scope of their triumph is breathtaking. Over the course of the last three decades, they have moved from the right-wing fringe to the commanding heights of the national agenda. Notions that would have been laughed at a generation ago ... are now so pervasive, they barely attract any notice.

"The result has been a slow- motion disaster," writes Chait, availing massive deficits, unsustainable income inequality and big government by business lobbyists.

Meanwhile the anti-intellectual politicos on the right hysterically charge that, for instance, rising income inequality -- buttressed by slashes in marginal tax rates and resulting in jumbo deficits which the middle class and poor will inherit -- is merely a demagogic fright-mantra of liberalism in its habitual campaigns of class warfare.

But the demagoguery was, and is, all theirs, of course. And now, as the economic chickens come home to roost, some of their then-gleeful co-conspirators are bellowing blame and fingering the real culprits. But only from a safe and sagacious distance.

The latest self-sparing, safety-first co-conspirer to rat out his pals is Alan Greenspan. Monday is the official launch of his delicious memoirs, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," in which -- from that familiar distance -- he not only fingers the culprits, he screws them but good.

According to a NYT advance peek, "Greenspan paints a picture of Mr. Bush as a man driven more by ideology" -- that would be the ideology of simplicity advanced by Barry Goldwater -- "and the desire to fulfill campaign promises made in 2000, incurious about the effects of his economic policy...."

Incurious. The perfect word. For when one possesses an all-encompassing, roundly simplistic ideology that makes intellectual strain a needless exercise, curiosity becomes merely a time-consuming interference with presidential bike rides.

Jonathan Chait's article delves deeply and insightfully into the origins of what he calls today's Republican "cult" of ideological economic madness. Some may care to read it. But me? I'll just take Goldwater's anti-intellectual advice and simplistically blame it all on him -- much as he did himself, after it was too late, and he saw what madness he had wrought.

Comments

[VL]

Hah. But you never saw such an anti-intellectual crowd for touting meaningless symbols of prowess: "How can you look at the medals on his chest and say . . . why, the man's a SCHOLAR, he has three degrees, he's brilliant, surrounded by Rhodes scholars . . . "

[Audrey]

I suggest that anyone who reads this commentary should also read Bob Woodward's column in today's washingtonpost.com on Greenspan's new book. Very interesting.

[MysteryBoy]

"After it was too late"? Jesus, no kidding.

[MysteryBoy]

"After it was too late"? Jesus, no kidding.

[JoeCaribe]

The operative word in this article, in my opinion, is "simple". Brilliant minds are known for being able to synthesize complex concepts into easily-to-be-understood ideas but, before they do so, they must have a clear understanding of what it is they're trying to explain. The point: don't confuse brilliant minds with that of a simpleton, if you do, you get George Bush for president.

[Bevin Gilmore]

Just one criticism of this piece: They are not economic extremists or ideological zealots; they are indeed merely greedy. The extremism and zealotry is merely a deceptive "cover philosophy" to enable the greed.

Watch Thompson. He is a walking talking sandwich board for neocon lies. He wrote a piece months back saying that trickle-down had improved the economy. Yet early on an impressive number of Nobel prize-winning economists sent bush a letter opposing his economic plans. In the 80s, industry hired two economic researchers to find evidence of trickledown (a/k/a Mellanomics), the idea that light taxing of the rich would benefit all by increased investment. Their names were Lipsy & Kravis (Greider wrote about their work), and they ended up going back to their corporate sponsors rather red-faced, telling them they could find NO EVIDENCE of the claim. In fact, it was the other way around. The only reliable indicator for expansion of jobs and economic growth was Keynsian (Ickes, Roosevelt). So, the question arises: Are there any investigations of this calibre that DID find evidence that trickledown economics IS a bonafide, proveable theory? Here's the virtual proof that there isn't.

If there were such a study, don't you think its name would be a household name? Don't you think the Neocons would be shouting it from the rooftops? They haven't. It doesn't exist. They haven't even bothered throwing together a bogus, non-qualified study.

They are liars, pure and simple.

Bevin Gilmore

http://www.geocities.com/ecocorner/intelarea/jmk6.html
J.M. Keynes' letter to President Roosevelt, 1933

Basically Keynes says this: The volume of economic growth (output) depends on the amt of purchasing power expected to enter the market. This increase cannot occur except by 1 of 3 factors:
-- people must be urged to spend more of their current incomes;
-- the business world must be urged, by increased confidence or a lower interest rate, to INCREASE CURRENT INCOMES OF THEIR EMPLOYEES (which normally occurs when the fixed or working capital is growing); or
-- public authority increases incomes through more spending (borrowed or printed).

"In bad times the first factor cannot be expected to work on a sufficient scale. The 2nd factor will come in as the 2nd wave of attack on the slump after the tide has been turned by the expenditures of public authority. Therefore, it is ONLY from the 3rd factor that we can expect the INITIAL MAJOR IMPULSE.