Things really haven't changed much, have they?
- From: Middle Class Warrior <eelder1@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:47:16 -0400
This was written by SI Haykawa, a brilliant writer and professor.
Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 95th Congress, First Session, Vol. 123, No. 129, Washington, Thursday, July 28, 1977: Senate
Mr. HAYAKAWA. I thank the distinguished Senator from Missouri, and I am also grateful to the distinguished Senator from Louisiana for his wise remarks.
Mr. President, rightly or wrongly, many of us who have been involved in the discussion of Senate bill 926 have seen this proposed legislation as a threat to the two-party system. The far-reaching discussions on this floor have revived in my mind some reflections on the two-party system and indeed on the American political system, as a whole, that I shall share with my distinguished colleagues.
Vive La Difference
Have you ever tried to explain to a foreigner the difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties? It is an almost impossible job because, first few of us have been able to define that difference for ourselves and, second Europeans especially try to understand the difference between one party and another in ideological terms; whereas, ideology does not matter all that much to Americans.
Both parties include, although in different proportions, the rich and the poor; urban people and rural people; blacks and whites; industrial interests as well as agricultural interests; and both parties are highly pragmatic, in the American tradition. Each party borrows ideas freely from the other, so that the great Republican idea of one decade becomes, two decades later, a great Democratic idea, and vice versa.
Hence the two parties differ from each other, not in the interests they espouse or the ideologies they represent, but in psychology. And, if I may be psychological and diagnostic for a minute, it seems to me that the two parties do differ from each other in psychology.
Republicans tend to feel a sense of proprietorship toward the economy. That is, to put it bluntly, they act as if they owned the joint. They have the psychology of insiders. Democrats, on the whole, feel marginal, like outsiders.
These feelings are psychological. They are often quite independent of the facts. Some Republicans are on welfare. Some Democrats are insiders, and rich and powerful.
Nevertheless, this psychological difference does serve, in a rough way, to distinguish the modality of the two parties.
Generally, Republicans tend to include insiders in the business system, those who actually own or manage a sufficient portion of the system to give them a sense of proprietorship. That is they act as if they do own the point.
Second, there are those who believe they are about to own the joint, or they would like to be mistaken for those who do; and third, the second and third generation descendants of immigrant families, those described as having upward mobility, who are attempting to expunge from themselves the remaining status of being outsiders, and so they become Republicans.
In the case of the radical right, it seems to me that they are those who believe that the joint is rightfully theirs and is being taken away from them, especially by those who are outsiders, often thought to be Communists. And, of course, the Republican Party includes thousands and thousands who are Republicans by force of habit, as well as assorted opportunists, chiselers, and punks.
Similarly, Democrats seem to include, first, those who do own the joint or a comfortable percentage thereof, but remain startled at their good fortune, and therefore tend to remain identified with those who still look forward to getting their share. Second, the Democrats include immigrants and their descendants, at least until the feeling of being outsiders wears off. Third, it seems to me southerners, Catholics, Jews, and blacks tend to be Democrats, because they believe that Gentiles, Protestants, northerners, and whites own the joint.
Intellectuals are usually Democrats; their feelings of being left out are intensified by their conviction that by rights they ought to be running the joint.
And, of course, the Democratic Party includes thousands and thousands who are Democrats by force of habit; also assorted opportunists, chiselers, and punks.
In the light of these psychological differences, certain rhetorical differences between the two parties assume a clearer significance. For example, for Democrats it is the task of Government to do battle with the powerful business interests that are depriving the common people of their economic opportunities and subverting their political rights.
― 431 ―
For Republicans it is the task of Government to help a prosperous nation become more prosperous, so that everyone can share in the good life that results therefrom.
The characteristic Democratic rhetoric is represented by President Franklin Roosevelt, who effectively used such phrases as "princes of privilege," "economic royalists," and "malefactors of great wealth" to rally the people to his side. However inspiring these phrases were to Democrats, they fell harshly on Republican ears. At best they sounded to Republicans like demagoguery. At worst they seemed to be a call to class warfare.
On the other side, Republican oratory sounds strangely heartless to Democratic ears. Republicans inveigh against "creeping socialism" and "Federal handouts." At the same time as they favor more generous tax write-offs and depletion allowances for industry, they grow furious at what they believe to be an increasing number of "welfare chiselers." Their enthusiasm for "free enterprise" and "individual initiative" reminds Democrats of the elephant who cried, as he danced among the chickens, "Every man for himself!"
The miracle of America is that the poor have been made less poor, under legislation often originated by Democrats but endorsed by Republicans, at the same time as industry and agriculture have continued to prosper, under legislation often originated by Republicans and endorsed by Democrats.
The two parties are, despite the rhetoric, not opposites but complementaries, and I trust they will both be around for a long time to come.
Additionally, it seems to me that the two parties steal ideas from each other with great regularity, and then claim them as their own. Nevertheless, there is a difference in emphasis between the two parties in the way in which they approach the problems of power. Generally speaking Republicans prefer to look upon Government as a referee, adjudicating and adjusting the conflicting interests different interest group, different regions, different economic blocs. "That Government governs best that governs least," say the Republicans, quoting a famous Democrat.
President Truman's characterization of Congress in 1948 as a "do-nothing Congress" did not trouble the Republicans, who generally feel that that is what Congress ought to do.
Democrats, on the other hand, tend to think of Government as mover and shaker—the initiator of constructive and necessary social actions. The Social Security Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Rural Electrification Administration —these and many ambitious measures like them are Democratic achievements, strenuously opposed by Republicans at the time they were proposed, but ultimately endorsed by the Republicans.
So we come back again to the question of rhetoric.
Democrats are roused to enthusiasm by activist slogans such as Wilson's "New Freedom," Roosevelt's "New Deal," Truman's "Fair Deal," Kennedy's "New Frontier" and Lyndon Johnson's "The Great Society." There is always a touch of euphoria or, in Republican eyes, megalomania, in Democratic aspirations.
Republican aspirations are phrased in more modest terms: "Back to Normalcy," "Keep Cool with Coolidge," "A Chicken in Every Pot," "A Full Dinner Pail." The limits of euphoria in Republican oratory were reached in the modest enthusiasm of "I like Ike."
Traditionally, Republicans have aspired to be good housekeepers. "Clean out the mess in Washington." They have tended to consolidate gains already made and beyond that to leave well enough alone.
The late Adlai Stevenson aptly summarized the difference between the two parties when he said, "The most important thing the Republicans—in the Eisenhower administration—have done is not to repeal the New Deal."
Of course, the foregoing are simplifications, and the tendencies I have mentioned are not exclusive to either party. Nevertheless, the two conceptions of Government as referee, Republican, and Government as activist, Democratic, serve as convenient points of reference.
Americans tend to want, after a long period of rapid social change and turmoil, the relative tranquility of a Republican regime. After the turmoil of the Second World War and the Korean war, America turned to the reassuring and placid father figure of Dwight Eisenhower.
And after the turbulence of the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and the student revolt of the 1960's, Americans sought a slowing down of the pace of social change by voting for Richard Nixon, as opposed to Senator GEORGE MCGOVERN, who seemed to be promising even more rapid change on behalf of the young, the poor, and the black.
It must be recalled that much happened during the Nixon administration toward the restoration of a measure of national tranquillity. Gains in civil rights were consolidated and a strong black middle class began to emerge. American troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. Detente with Communist powers lessened our anxieties about international conflict.
Nevertheless, the Nixon administration was a huge disappointment to those seeking a period of peace and quiet. The unprecedented forced resignation of Vice President Agnew, the two years of uproar over Watergate, followed by the unprecedented forced resignation of the President—these kept the Nation in a state of mental turmoil quite as serious as that caused by Vietnam and the student demonstrations of 1960s.
― 432 ―
So the period of order, tranquillity, and the consolidation of gains the voters were seeking in 1968 did not arrive, despite the 6 years since then of a Republican Presidency.
Now the Democrats are getting power and one wonders what they will do with that power. Will they continue to be shakers and movers, introducing one great program after another? There are signs in that direction. Or will they sense the national mood and dedicate themselves to the functions traditionally performed by Republicans?
Even as we look ahead, many of the questions facing us are retrospective. How far have we come? What have we done wrong? What have we neglected? Have any of our programs produced unintended side effects?
The great need today is to put our national house in order, to regain our confidence in our political system. It is fervently to be hoped that Democrats understand this fact, and will, for a couple of years at least, behave like Republicans. It seems to me, however, that S. 926, which we are discussing now, is a step in the wrong direction in the sense that it is another example of shaking, moving, stirring things up, and usurping initial power on the part of the Federal Government instead of going back to a reliance on that which has served so well in the past.
I would like to continue with a few historical reflections on the subject of Thomas E. Dewey. I am reminded of Thomas E. Dewey because not long ago a story with a Washington dateline said, "Senator JESSE HELMS urged conservatives to begin now to build a third party that can go to the voters next year"—he is talking about 1976, I believe—"if the Republicans and Democrats fail to produce a program of freedom."
In 1975, there was a lot of talk about the formation of a third party. Third party advocates are often zealots. If they are conservatives, they want to make no concessions with liberalism. If they are liberals, they want no compromise with conservatism.
This way of thinking, Thomas E. Dewey told us, is politically unwise. He was former Governor of the State of New York, twice Republican candidate for the Presidency, and chief strategist for the nomination of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 at the Republican National Convention. He certainly knew what he was talking about.
Dewey wrote in 1950:
Under our two-party system, we have none of the instabilities of the multiparty system, but we do achieve our own kind of coalitions. We make our coalitions within the parties and instead of making them after the election, as most European parliaments do, we make them before the election. Every 4 years the national conventions the two parties present deep and bitter controversies. There are those who "take a walk" from the convention, either publicly or quietly. But finally the coalition is achieved and the party goes on to fight the election.
Why do the parties have these bitter internal fights?
This is still Thomas Dewey talking.
Because each party really represents a composite spectrum of roughly similar interests. Each contains farmers; each contains industrial workers; each includes businessmen; each attracts men and women from every walk and station of life. . . . Each party is to a considerable extent a reflection of the other.
The result is that . . . the parties have not been too far apart on most fundamentals of our system. This means that the choice of one or the other party during this period (since the Civil War) has not represented anything like a revolution. . . . As a people we have learned to distrust and avoid extremes of principles and interests in our public life.
Dewey, therefore, had little patience with those who are unwilling or unable to form coalitions with those with whom they disagree. As he said:
These impractical theorists with a passion for neatness demand that our parties be sharply divided, one against the other, in interest, membership and doctrine. They want to drive all moderates and liberals out of the Republican Party and then have the remainder join forces with the conservative groups of the South. Then they would have everything neatly arranged, indeed. The Democratic Party would be the liberal-to-radical party. The Republican Party would be the conservative-to-reactionary party. The results would be neatly arranged, too. The Republicans would lose every election and the Democrats would win every election. It may be a perfect theory but it would result in a one-party system and finally totalitarian government.
"As you may suspect, I am against it," said Thomas Dewey.
The lessons of history, especially of recent history, are clear. Ideological liberals, dissatisfied with the moderate liberalism of Harry S. Truman, ran Henry A. Wallace as their candidate on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, and the Progressive Party hardly made a dent in the final result.
Ideological conservatives of 1964 were delighted with Senator BARRY GOLDWATER. Instead of forming a working coalition with moderate Republicans, they vanquished them, in effect driving them out of the party. As a result, Lyndon Johnson, seen by most voters of the time as the man of the middle, won by a large margin.
Again, ideological liberals rejected the moderate liberalism of HUBERT HUMPHREY, rode roughshod over the traditional machinery of the Democratic Party, and nominated Senator GEORGE MCGOVERN for the Presidency in 1972. A huge majority, believing that the Democrats had been taken over by fanatics of the left, voted for Richard Nixon.
The moral, then, is clear. The genius of American politics lies in the art of making improbable coalitions: the black Detroit auto worker joins the University of California professor of sociology and
― 433 ―
the bourbon sipping southern aristocrats. All these three gentlemen are in the same Democratic Party, although probably they could not stand each other socially. The Nebraska farmer joins the fried chicken franchise operator on U.S. Highway 66 and a director of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Those three are the Republican Party. What Governor Dewey so well knew as the reconciliation of irreconcilables constitute the parties of the United States.
All these lead to some reflections I have had on the political process as a semanticist.
I should like to present a few reflections on language, politics, and intellectuals in an attempt to throw light on the problem before us.
There was a very great language scholar named Benjamin Lee Whorf of Hartford, Conn., who once said:
Whenever agreement or assent is reached in human affairs, this agreement is reached by linguistic processes, or else it is not reached.
By linguistic processes he meant, of course, discussion, argument, persuasion: definitions and judgments; promises and contracts—all those exchanges of words by means of which human beings interact with each other.
Without language—without words—there is no such thing as the future. Have you ever thought about the fact that a simple expression like "hamburger next Tuesday" is meaningless to a dog—even a very intelligent dog? Language creates society. "Mary and John are married" is a statement about the present and also about the future. The term "married," points to the obligations that Mary and John have towards each other in the days and years ahead. The future is real to us because it is formulated into words.
Society is a network of agreements about future conduct. Here, let us say, are two tribes, the Blues and the Reds. Both tribes want exclusive access to the fish in Clearwater Bay. If the two tribes are equally strong, they will fight and fight and kill each other—until someone has the good sense to say, "Since we can't lick them and they can't lick us, let's call a conference and see what we can work out."
So what Benjamin Lee Whorf calls "linguistic processes" are initiated. Delegates from the two tribes argue and shout and scream, but ultimately they come to an agreement. The Reds will fish the bay Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; the Blues on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; no fishing on Sundays.
People who work out agreements of this kind to reconcile what seem to be irreconcilables are known as politicians. Politicians are people who resolve, through linguistic processes, conflicts that would otherwise have to be solved by force.
But, unfortunately, politicians are rarely thanked for their efforts. Many of the Blues are disappointed. "Look at what the politicians gave to the Reds," they say. "What a sellout! They must have been bribed."
The Reds are equally critical of their delegates. "Everyone knows," they say, "that God intended the bay for the exclusive use of us Reds, but now the Blues act as if they had equal rights to it. What we need are delegates who are men of principle, not compromisers."
The results of a political process are never satisfactory to all concerned. Give the Arabs what they want, and the Israeli are furious. Give the employers what they want, and the unions are apoplectic. Introduce a measure of gun control, and the National Rifle Association is enraged.
So, if the political process is successful, all get only part of what they want, and none get all they want. And everyone blames the politicians for their disappointments.
This is not an easy point to understand. It has often seemed to me that the political process is far too subtle, far too complex, for men of words—intellectuals and journalists—to understand. Intellectuals, with their passion for logic and order, often disdain the democratic process. They are fascinated by Plato's perfect republic governed by philosopher-kings.
Some men are gold, said Plato, some are silver, some are iron and lead. Of course, women did not count in that world. Imagining themselves to be the "gold" of Plato's definition, intellectuals are easily seduced by Marxism, which insists that government be in the hands of those who understand such matters as historic necessity and dialectical materialism—that is, intellectuals. This is, no doubt, the reason that there are more Marxists than Democrats and Republicans combined in so many university departments of philosophy.
Mike Royko of the Chicago Daily News is a characteristic journalistic critic of politics. He wrote a book, "Boss," attacking and ridiculing Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago as corrupt, ruthless, venal, and given to making shady alliances and ridiculous mistakes in English grammar. I am sure Royko thought he had effectively destroyed Daley's political career. But what happened?
Not long after the book was published, Daley was returned to office—at the age of 73 and allegedly no longer in the best of health—with the biggest majority of his long political career. Apparently, there is something important about the political process that Royko failed to understand.
Ultimately, disgusted with politicians, some people, from time to time, yearn for government without politics. Sometimes, to their dismay, they get it, as in Soviet Russia, Poland, and North Korea, where
― 434 ―
the political process has been abolished, or, as in Northern Ireland, where the political process has failed.
As Americans, we need more than ever today to understand and cherish the political process. It is admittedly untidy. It is often illogical and confusing. But we must not forget, as our responsibility, that it is the very essence of civilization.
(Mr. METZENBAUM assumed the chair.)
Mr. HAYAKAWA. Mr. President, if I may go back to the point at issue, S. 926, in our discussion of this issue of public financing, it seems to me that we have fairly effectively struck down most arguments in favor of this bill. Let me briefly enumerate the major ones once again.
My first objection is to the argument that this bill would insure the pristine innocence of campaign contributions. The idea of public financing is based on the assumption that we are all corruptible. I respectfully submit that most Congressmen and Senator are not open to the corrupting influence of private contributions of special interest groups. If that assumption is incorrect and we are dealing with morally spineless legislators who are open to whatever corrupting bribe is offered, then I object that this legislation does literally nothing to stop this. In fact, it increases the possibilities of corruption. If the proponents of this legislation are so worried about the possibilities of our own depravity, why did they not support the attempt to strengthen the disclosure provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act? Indirect corporate and union expenditures constitute substantial special interest influence on political campaigns. But this bill does not even limit contributions by special interests, much less eliminate them. It merely supplements these contributions with money from the U.S. Treasury.
The bill, in fact, seems to strengthen special interests. These groups can spend unlimited amounts advocating the defeat or election of a candidate. A particular special interest must observe a ceiling on how much it can give to a candidate, but no limit applies as to how much it can spend independent of that candidate to urge his election or defeat. So, an organization might spend large sums of money to oppose a particular candidate whose ability to reply is constrained by the expenditure ceiling he must observe as a condition of accepting public funds. If this is the case, how can we accept this bill as an effort to reduce public uneasiness about congressional ethics?
As this proposal is so ineffective in dealing with the supposed corruption of the electoral process, why, then, is it being pushed for passage on the Senate floor? It seems to me quite obvious that there is another issue at stake. This legislation serves the special interest of the incumbent, which we shall all be the next time we are up for election. More specifically, it serves the interest of the majority party.
Why is this legislation even being considered? Have we come so far in our evolution as responsive representatives of the American people to become opportunistic politicians that we are unashamed to pass such self-serving legislation? If the public truly understood what this legislation would do, it would further erode their already shaky faith in their elected Representatives. As Senators, we must not take unfair advantage of our current positions to ease the way for ourselves when we run for reelection.
Neither should the major parties take advantage of their numbers to effect the passage of this highly prejudiced legislation. S. 926 requires minor party candidates and independents to reach a contribution threshold before they are eligible for public funds. The purpose of the threshold is to demonstrate public support. But even after it has been reached, the bill discriminates against such candidates by giving them funding only on a matching basis, while both block grants and matching funds are available to major parties. The major parties, already having great advantages over minor parties and independents, are given yet a further edge by the funding discrimination in this bill. Those who are truly concerned about effecting an equitable election plan could not possibly vote for this bill. On the other hand, those of us who are here to further our own interests, to protect our own situation, would be quite justified in doing so.
A politician is one who is concerned about the next election. A statesman is concerned about the next generation. This seems to be an unprecedented opportunity to show our true colors.
I thank the Chair.
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