A THREE WEEK PERSPECTIVE!

By Edwin Cooney

This column might have been sent to you on Monday, March 27th, just three days following the debacle of President Trump’s healthcare reform of the Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare. Had I composed and delivered to you such a column I would have solemnly (yes, with a dash of delight!) waxed eloquent on the president’s demonstrated lack of control of his party.  Additionally, I’d have predicted that his tax cut hopes and his plan to build his “mighty Mexican wall” were in serious jeopardy.  A little perspective has altered the angle of my outlook on the whole matter.

It isn’t that I see the president’s promises and plans in less jeopardy than I saw them on Monday, March 27th.  The root of the problem isn’t the president as much as it is you and me.  I don’t care whether your name is Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity, the late great newsman Paul Harvey, or even Edwin Cooney. If you solely follow the path illuminated by an idealogical star, you deserve what happens to you.  It’s just possible that President Trump with all his bombastic, reckless, naiveté is beginning to realize this.  Whether or not he can come to grips with it is another thing.  Of course, the president tried to bully Congress. When he told them to take the proposed reform of Obama’s Affordable Care Act or leave it, the Freedom Caucus simply left it — leaving the chief executive hanging out to dry.  After all, an ultimatum isn’t a deal, it’s a threat, and President Trump had nothing to offer the Freedom Caucus as part of any deal.  

Principles, as vital as they are in political thought, have limits in their application.  Opposition to abortion for instance costs the government more money to support the offspring of the poor.  After all, a poor baby is invariably a hungry baby and it’s a matter of morality that babies be fed.  The taxpayer will wind up paying for the feeding!  The reality is that good legislating, over a period of time, requires compromise, and compromise in this era of heavily financed liberalism and conservatism, is too often a political death knell to disobedient congressmen and women!

Presidents and Congress have been making deals for 227 years now.  While ideology has been a factor since Theodore Roosevelt’s and Woodrow Wilson’s differing brands of  progressivism, ideological politics didn’t really dominate the process of legislating until the election of President Reagan in 1980.

Sure Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson were generally regarded as liberals, but opposition Republicans found it practical to be more moderate than conservative in their politics as well as when it came to creating legislation.  FDR famously asserted that his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing.  Thus, he could and did support the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 which was pro business almost as much as legislation which was passed during President William McKinley’s day.  Modern conservatism didn’t get its start until William Buckley launched his National Review magazine in the mid 1950s.  

During the 1964 presidential campaign, when 27,000,000 of my fellow conservative citizens and I proudly supported Barry Goldwater, very few Americans identified themselves as conservative.  So, what changed?

During the 1960s and 1970s, four major issues came to the public’s attention that were generally regarded as moral questions. The first was the civil rights question.  Was it moral to discriminate against black citizens?  Was it moral or immoral for states to defy federal legislation forcing people to accommodate federal regulations which guaranteed the rights of black citizens?  Were human rights or states’ rights more legitimate?

At about the same time, the Supreme Court restricted prayer in the public schools in Engle v. Vitale in 1962 and Abington Township v. Schempp Murray and Curlett in 1963.  For the first time, Protestant Americans, who traditionally had so often historically discriminated against Roman Catholic Christians, felt vulnerable.

Then there was the morality of the Vietnam War.  Was the Vietnam conflict really a matter of national security?  If the war was to be regarded as legal, shouldn’t Congress have declared war as required by the Constitution?

Finally, the issue of abortion reared its ugly head on Monday, January 22, 1973.(Ironically, that was the same day on which Lyndon Johnson was stricken with his fatal heart attack!) Does a woman have a right to control her own body?  When does a human life begin within the womb?

All of these matters which dramatically affected life and death forced Americans into a new type of alliance.  Some insist that Americans have become family or tribal rather than socio/political in their emotional orientation — thus values have come to outweigh practical politics.

Last fall, for the first time ever, Americans elected a man to the presidency who lacked experience in the give and take of national and international politics.  Hence, many ideologues, especially conservative ideologues, are increasingly nervous as to how true President Trump will be to the conservative Americans who elected him.  Will a dealmaking businessman faithfully conform to the expectations of the moral majority?  Might President Trump find a way to forcibly institute a new era of practical politics?

If he does so, how long will it be before it takes effect?  What is the future of conservatism?  As of now, we have fiscal conservatives, moral conservatives and these new populist conservatives as exemplified by The Freedom Caucus.

As for the state of 2017 liberalism, as I see it, for the most part it is lying in the weeds without a clear agenda. This may be its best state of affairs as it seeks new leadership for 2020 and beyond.

I love concepts and ideas, and I admire principled people.  However, I’m convinced that the path back to national sanity is good old-fashioned political practicality.  By all means, Americans should have both priorities and principles.  Principles ought to be personal starting with the “Golden Rule,” and the most effective principles are those that are personally rather than politically practiced.

Someone has to start the good old political horse-trading in Congress because, after all, at the root of political horse-trading are two vital expectations we must depend upon: trust and tolerance!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY