Posted by
Conservative USA on Monday, October 13, 2008 11:38:47 AM
By Alejandro Honeker - Conservative USA
Monday, October 13, 2008
Some commentators said after the first bailout vote in the House that those Republicans that voted against it were playing the populist card, trying to appeal to the anti-Wall Street sentiment among many Americans. In fact, the majority of those who stood up against the bailout bill did so because of a disdain for populism. They were rejecting the idea that government should rescue those who behaved in an irresponsible way. After all, what is more populist than the phrases we’ve been listening from Democrats and pro-bailout Republicans (including John McCain and Sarah Palin) in the last days? The constant reference to the “greed” of Wall Street and the necessity of more government regulation to “help” homeowners is at the heart of populism. Those who stood up, protecting taxpayers’ money from being used to pay the debts of irresponsible individuals and financial institutions, are far from being populist. The fact that their vote was “popular” among many Americans angry with the bailout bill does not mean that they were populists. In this flawed interpretation lies the misunderstanding that many people have on the real meaning of the word populism. A politician can be popular and at the same anti-populist. The best examples that come to my mind are Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. No one can deny their popularity among Americans and Britons, but, at the same time, they were profoundly anti-populist. Both pro-free enterprise, pro-free market and pro-business, Reagan and Thatcher were staunch opponents of the populist view of government as the solution to people’s problems. They were not demagogues; in fact, when they took office amidst an economic recession, they told Americans and Britons that the best way to get out of the crisis was through individual entrepreneurship and sacrifice, not through government handouts and regulations. Reagan’s and Thatcher’s rhetorical styles were decidedly anti-populist in the sense that they were not against “the business elite”; indeed, businesses, whether big or small, were the foundation of economic prosperity.
Unfortunately, this strong anti-populism has been abandoned by many Republicans (anti-populism has never been in the Democratic Party’s DNA). From President Bush to Senator McCain, big government Republicanism has taken over the GOP during the last years. Moreover, the disdain for intellectual curiosity and individual freedom, which lies at the heart of populism, helps explain the decay of the party in once GOP strongholds like the suburban middle-class and high income voters.
In the months and years to come, especially if Republicans lose the White House and more seats in Congress (as it seems right now), the Republican Party will have to examine the reasons for its decay and decide if it wants to continue toward the disastrous path of populism (which, by the way, used to be the Democrats’ way and they are still masters at it), or if it wants to go back to its roots of free enterprise, free markets, individual freedom, strong defense, tolerance, strong families and strong communities.
I think the latter is the way to go. We’ll see what happens in the coming years.