Is the final woeful legacy of Ronald Reagan over?
No, not the Reagan deficits, the other Reagan legacy: the abandonment of the secular components of the Republican party in favor of a moral and cultural war. Is the party on the brink of teetering back from the abyss of Reagan, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and toward the William Kristol, Richard Nixon base of practical economic libertarianism coupled with market-expansion oriented foreign policy?
Forget a third-way, are we seeing the return of the second? If the wrong departs the right, then the Democrats' worst nightmare may be coming true. Democrats may have to start earning votes from many constituencies.
In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the left that was looking out for black helicopters and grumbling about complicated plots by "the man" to put liberty down in favor of economics, dude. In the '80s and '90s, the paranoia shifted to the right--fears of a one-world government, a conspiracy among godless scientists, the United Nations and the "immoral agenda" of Bill Clinton.
I don't know how the party of the powerful can also be the party of conspiracy theorists--but that is the triumph of the moral minority. But it seems that the two-decade, odd-couple marriage is about to end. And with the demise of this unholy marriage, we may also see a quick departure of the vast left-wing conspiracy rhetoric that accompanies.
Try the intellectually felonious argument of David Horowitz, "Conservative speech and academia is silenced by liberals who don't want to hear opposing viewpoints!" Dave, you should try thinking about the problem before you come up with your answer.
No doubt, universities have always been liberal--a lot of those hippie '60s conspiracy theorists are now teaching English and sociology. But let's think about the nature of the profession. It's hard to seek new knowledge and new approaches to today's problems when you hold reactionary ideals. The liberal ideal of expansive, inclusive knowledge and multi-layered education is conducive to the academic environment. Be it nurture or nature, academia inherently attracts liberals.
And, conservatives may want to note this: When you issue unbending attacks on a profession because of a quality that is inherent, it becomes more difficult to then obtain those votes.
And it grows even harder to get support from intellectuals in both the liberal arts and sciences when you summarily classify people as godless partisans. The moral minority has driven many intellectuals right out of the party and along with them has also driven out most people who are university-educated.
If you tell an environmental scientist that his life's research on greenhouse gas emissions is atheistic bunk designed to create a one-world government, he'll be voting straight Democratic in no time.
Or, see what happens to the more general intellectual vote when the Senate GOP leader appears on NBC and directs people not to disagree with the president publicly because it undermines the war effort. The silencing of free debate--clearly, to Horowitz, it's a left-wing tactic.
Another left-wing conspiracy is the liberal press. This has been getting a lot of play in the air lately thanks to a former CBS executive who claims a superior at his old network once told something like, "Of course the media is biased, but if you tell anyone I said that, I'll deny it." A statement like that--incontrovertible and containing a clause that discredits all deniability--serving as proof of bias is intellectually dishonest. Besides, media bias, like university bias, is more a process of natural selection than conspiracy.
What is the job of a journalist? As the saying goes, "The job of the press is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." The moral majority--who if they practiced what they preached--would be nodding in agreement with that journalists' mantra has not aimed to comfort anyone but themselves and has afflicted all of those who dare disagree.
But what is really happening is the affliction of the GOP. You cannot deny that the short-term vote trade-off of the educated for the Bible-thumping paid dividends to the GOP--they gave us 12 years of GOP rules and later a Republican congress. How did the latter Bush string together his victory? By hushing the right during the campaign. It is also quite clear from the direction of the agenda--not the rhetoric--that this White House is doing the same thing to the moral minority that Democrats have learned to do to blacks and gays--taken their votes and then tried to push their sub-platforms only in private discussion.
The moral minority is like a cheap prostitute for the GOP--they're so easy to score votes from, how can you say no? By preaching to Christians the myth that only one party represents their views, religious leaders have seen a collapse in their agenda-shaping power. This legacy of Reagan is reaching its death knell and as I mentioned above, the end of it may kill Democratic control over other voting constituencies--pro-choice women, gays and intellectuals for starters. For the GOP, the end of the moral minority is the beginning.
Trinity senior Martin Barna is projects editor of The Chronicle and film editor of Recess.
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