The Rise and Fall

Townhall has an article today by Michael Barone on the rise and fall of Liberalism. As he puts it, Liberalism has faltered because of our own success.

To a considerable extent, 20th century liberals achieved many of their goals. Racial segregation was abolished. An economic safety net was constructed. Government issued regulations were set up to protect the environment. Few Americans want to undo these changes. But they may want others.

Barone makes the comforting point that Liberalism is now, apparently, a conservative philosophy. We aren't about changing the world, but about preserving the programs that already exist.

What Mr. Barone leaves out of his discussion is that those programs, even the ones he notes in that short list, are genuinely under attack. I'll allow as Conservatives generally don't want to reverse civil rights gains, but they certainly wouldn't mind eliminating the economic safety net and they certainly wouldn't mind weakening or eliminating government environmental oversight (and to a certain extent they have).

The problem is marketing; the Democratic party has allowed itself to be labeled as the old guys, while the Conservatives are the young Turks who want to make some serious and important changes to our system. This is a bit ludicrous as the changes they want to make, the step forward into the future, are in fact to eliminate or minimize these programs. Or in other words to take us to a governmental set up similar to the one we had at the turn of the last century. But, presumably, with more neon and holograms.

You see Republicans don't like most Government Programs (law enforcement and the military being notable exceptions (although liking the military and thinking they should have armor all over their humvees are two separate issues)). They don't like Social Security. They don't like the EPA. They don't like Worker's Comp. They don't like the Superfund. They aren't big fans of the FDA. So they aren't about creating more effective, better environmental protections (for example); they would rather eliminate those protections (or, if you will, allow the market to determine how much protection the environment needs (which amounts to exactly the same thing)).