By Edwin Cooney
No, you really shouldn’t be too disappointed that the President was exonerated of collusion with the Russians during the 2016 campaign. After all, none of us should want the President to be guilty of any crime! (More about that later.) Furthermore, within the system, we elected Donald Trump back in 2016 whether we like it or not. It’s to the advantage of the opposition that President Trump will finish his term. There’s a much, much bigger fight to be made rather than quarreling over the President’s guilt or innocence.
It’s time to settle once and for all this question of capitalism verses socialism. So first of all, let’s stake out our territory. Here’s the first question:
What do either capitalism or socialism have to do with liberty? Neither ideology is written into our constitution. After all, industrialism was not fully developed in the United States at the time the constitution was adopted. Our forefathers were agrarian farmers, not industrial capitalists. Back in George Washington’s time, most Americans made their own clothes, built their own houses, arranged their own transport, chose their own doctors, and, above all, grew their own food. Back then, our leaders were in no position to regulate either commerce or trade. What they did do was put capitalists under government protection (that’s welfare, of course) showing little regard for the working man or woman. In Europe, it was called “protectionism.” As industrialism advanced, most European leaders even with solid conservative credentials began opposing protectionist tariffs. Why? Because they amounted to corporate welfare in that they were equivalent to a tax on both the worker and the consumer.
Next question: When and how was it that the products of capitalism began to affect the welfare of the people? It started after the Civil War. Manufactured goods, the mining of coal and oil, and the employment of an increasing number of people all began to affect the ways and conditions under which more and more people lived.
Finally, how did manufacturers respond to the new world they created for the employee and the consumer? In most cases, they wantonly ignored the legitimate needs of the people as a whole. Therefore, they ignored issues regarding safe working conditions and cheated farmers and small rural businessmen who sought to ship their goods for sale to metropolitan areas. They opposed state and local government efforts to protect the public from dangerous train crossings and other unhealthful deprivations. Their bottom line was about profit. To them, profit and ownership were America’s only legitimate liberties with the possible exception of religious liberty. (Don’t tell that to the Mormons who, for a short time, could be legally murdered in Illinois and Missouri before the Civil War.) As for the right of workers to organize, that didn’t happen until 1902 when Teddy Roosevelt began making Labor a political and social issue beginning in the wake of the anthracite coal strike. To me, TR earned his highest place in history when, in 1911, during a speech in Pottawatomie County, Kansas, he publicly declared that human rights were superior to property rights.
Hence, for the last hundred years, the Democratic party, even with its various misdeeds (such as institutional racism and even perhaps a splash of ethnic prejudices), has led the way in the socialism of America. Beginning in 1914, Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Trade Commission to prevent big business from monopolizing the rights of small businessmen. Slowly but surely, Wilson’s New Freedom, FDR’s New Deal, Truman’s Fair Deal, JFK’s New Frontier and LBJ’s Great Society enabled several generations to more readily control their social standing within society.
My quarrel with President Trump is that he and his administration are more anti-social than anti-socialistic. Every industrialized country in the world does what circumstances require to house, educate, and sustain the physical well-being of its citizens. As I see it, to think in social terms is the Number One priority of any workable society.
As we wend our way toward 2020, let’s keep the following in mind:
1) When any party becomes too quarrelsome about its leadership or ideological bent, that party, with an occasional exception, loses. Examples include Goldwater in 1964, Hubert Humphrey in 1978, George McGovern in 1972, and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
2) The Democratic Party usually wins when its message concerns the people’s anxieties and needs rather than its leaders’ ambitions.
3) The Democratic Party must not run away from its traditional agenda. Democrats must define what it means to be sociably responsible. Its agenda does not include the takeover of the means of production or the nationalization of private enterprise.
4) If Democrats wrest power from Trump and the GOP in 2020, it will be in part because they understand the historic narrowness of the Republican party. If Democrats can be charged with advocating too much welfare for the poor, they should make sure the public understands that the GOP is always ready to replace social welfare with corporate welfare.
5) Democrats must be proud enough of their achievements in order to deserve the voters’ permission to guide our future.
There are countless stories throughout American history regarding what political bosses like Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, and Senate leaders like Lyndon B. Johnson did to dominate their political fiefdoms. It’s my conclusion that President Trump’s attempt to control FBI director James Comey was on a par with their behavior.
The worst of President Trump has nothing to do with his party or even with its most deplorable attitudes and policies. Even today, there are still many honorable Republicans. He is almost but not quite as bad as Britain’s worst monarchs, so when he charges Democrats with “socialist intentions,” let’s remind the public that President Trump is personally downright anti-social!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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