BREAKING A BAD HABIT

By Edwin Cooney

Although it’s a bit disconcerting, Americans, at long last, appear to be breaking a bad habit: political trust!

Trust is a vital factor in both personal and business relationships.  However, for too long Americans have applied personal and business relationships to politics -- local, state and national.  There’s been an historical reason for this.  Since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, Americans have come to depend upon political ideologies as pathways to a brighter, peaceful and prosperous future.  Teddy Roosevelt offered to use the power of government to destroy business monopolies and establish powerful government institutions to ensure the safety of heretofore powerless workers and consumers.  He called his movement “a Square Deal” or “the New Nationalism.”    Woodrow Wilson’s “New Freedom” proposed to use the federal government to break up business monopolies into manageable and competitive entities that people could control more.  Both of these men, although they came to thoroughly distrust and dislike each other, were labeled progressives.  After twelve years of laissez-faire and economic depression under Republican rule, FDR brought about the “New Deal.”  The era of liberalism, which lasted from 1933 to 1969, utilized government to stabilize the economy and ensure social equity and thus increase the fortunes of the vast middle class.  Beginning in 1981, following a twelve-year period of transition, a new brand of conservatism led by Ronald Reagan promised to encourage and enforce America’s traditional values of personal morality and individualism.

It is increasingly apparent that in 2016 Americans have stopped trusting either traditional liberalism or conservatism.  Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are obvious threats to the well-heeled establishments of both parties.  GOP establishment conservatives are obviously very worried about Donald Trump’s economic and social pedigree.  At the same time, Democratic Party liberals seem ready to offer a larger dollop of liberalism than ever before by perhaps nominating an open socialist.

The New Hampshire primaries appeared to indicate to the leadership of both parties that the voters are ready to tip over the traditional card table of political gamesmanship.  To this observer that means that Americans, in greater numbers than ever before, have given up on political trust.  

When you think about that possibility, it may well be a godsend.  I’ve opposed ideas such as line item vetoes (executives don’t veto objectively), term limits (staff leaders who hold the same political positions as their predecessors usually take over when the boss’s term expires), and citizen legislatures. (I’ve never read that Jefferson, Madison, Henry Clay or Daniel Webster voted counter to the wishes of well-healed investors. Note that it is a known fact that Daniel Webster received an annual retainer from the Bank of the United States as he was defending it from Andrew Jackson during the 1830s.).

As I see it, candidates for public office should not only assert their ideologies, but should be compelled to demonstrate to the public how they will apply their principles given the present state of political and social conditions.  For example, most people would assert that a union’s most powerful tool, the right to strike, could be damaging and even unpatriotic when misused.  A union is most useful when it negotiates successfully on behalf of its members.  Conservatives have too often patted themselves on the back when they succeeded in shutting down the government.  However, shutting down the government isn’t governing and that is what they were elected to do: govern.

As for trust, I’m compelled to assert that Americans have depended on that generous option for too long and in the wrong way.  Trust your parents, your siblings, your friends and neighbors.  They deserve the benefit of most of our doubts.  Public officials, whether elected or appointed, need and deserve our guidance and even, on critical occasions, our cooperation.

As for trusting them, let’s hold off on that until once again, as a group, they have earned our love!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY