Till Ronald Reagan ushered in his conservative revolution in 1980, there seemed to be a broad consensus in the US in favour of liberalism in the tradition of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. Reagan, with his strong emphasis on religion and traditional values, provided a sharp reminder about the central role of religion in mainstream American life.
These two books by Blumenthal cover the last 28 years of US politics dominated by two figures from the right, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush. The first book examines the rise of what Blumenthal refers to as the “counter-establishment”, ie, the ideological rightwing. As he has pointed out, the intrusion of ideology that the Reagan ascendancy brought in was a novelty in US politics, whose central characteristic till then had been pragmatism, ie, politics based on a search for consensus.
The ideological right in US polity set itself up as the adversary of the liberal establishment that till then had enjoyed unchallenged sway in the US polity. It was made up of a number of different interest groups, brought together by certain core beliefs: religious fundamentalism; concerns relating to the expansion of civil rights and equal rights for women; and hard positions against big government, described as an “evil centralized mechanism”, in favour of states’ rights. In the economic area, the rightwing exalted the free market and supply-side economics.
George W Bush saw Reagan as his ideological father and pursued the programme of radical conservatism, going well beyond Reagan in regard to faith-based politics. Bush personally believed in and was robustly backed by evangelical Protestantism which, in 2004, provided 40 per cent of his electoral support. However, Bush did not have some of the advantages Reagan had enjoyed: then, the country had been at peace and, for a time, his supply-side economics (tax cuts for the rich) seemed to work. Bush also lacked the seductive charisma of his mentor, who had the sunny disposition that, in Blumenthal’s words, “had removed the scowl of Richard Nixon and the stain of Watergate from the party” and had made conservatism into a “mass cultural experience”.
Bush’s programme, according to Blumenthal, “pushed conservatism to extreme claims on executive power, preemptive war, the rule of law, a one-party state, hostility to science, and suppression of career staff professionals in the departments and agencies, and the hollowing out of the federal government.” In time, Blumenthal believes, Bush’s radical extremism steadily eroded his support base (abetted by increasing disenchantment with the Iraq War) so that, finally, it had on board only white, male, semirural, fundamentalist Protestants. The Bush presidency made the Obama revolution possible.
In The Rise of the Counter-Establishment, Blumenthal had anticipated certain weaknesses of the ideological rightwing, pointing out that it brought together too many factions into its coalition and thus ran the risk of differences between them becoming serious enough to alienate various groups and split the movement. In The Strange Death of Republican America, completed on the eve of the 2008 election, he celebrates the collapse of the American right, while recognizing that the deep damage done to the US polity by the Bush presidency will require “an extraordinary magnitude of political leadership of the highest level of the next presidency.”
Blumenthal belongs to the liberal progressive side of the US political spectrum, exchanging journalism during the Clinton era for an official position in the White House. His pen is at the service of the US’s liberal tradition going back to Jefferson, and he is a severe critic of the US right. Thus, he is a political partisan in a country that encourages sharp polemical arguments, believing that, from these black and white posturings some clarity will emerge.
Do these narratives of US politics have any lessons for India? The first is for liberals not to under-estimate the powerful allure of conservative rightwing ideology. Given the cohesive and focused approach of its votaries, their effectiveness in bringing together likeminded people in a strong adversarial stance, their ability to make God their ally and stoke religious passions (in the name of patriotism or “way of life”), and above all, their ability to set up “factories of ideology” through thinktanks, institutes, journals and advocacy journalists, they are able to robustly confront the liberal establishment.
The second lesson is that the response of the liberal to the challenge of the conservative right is not and should not be pragmatism. Pragmatics are a self-satisfied bunch who see themselves, in Blumenthal’s words, as modern, realistic and sensible. But, in the absence of core beliefs and principles and the capacity for sustained struggle in support of them, pragmatism becomes reactive, its approach defensive and status quoist, and its informing spirit feckless. Liberals, in short, need the same sense of high commitment, internal cohesiveness and the stamina for competition that informs and motivates their conservative adversaries.
The author is an Indian diplomat. The views expressed here are his own
THE RISE OF THE COUNTER-ESTABLISHMENT
Sidney Blumenthal
Union Square Press
THE STRANGE DEATH OF REPUBLICAN AMERICA
Sidney Blumenthal
Union Square Press
