By the time Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981, the New Deal coalition was gasping for air. Exhausted by two decades of the Viet Nam War, the Watergate scandal, the Arab oil embargo, the Iran hostage crisis and a long recession, there was a sense of the Left having nothing new to bring to the conversation. The inspiration and energy that organized labor had demonstrated in the struggle for workers rights had been dissipated by the transformation of Unions into a shady world of bIg bosses (think Jimmy Hoffa) and the stench of Mafia control of the trucking industry. The push for the human rights of women, minorities and gays continued, but the sense of a cohesive "people power" Movement was gone. In truth, it was an ideal opportunity for the forces of greed, racism, and the blurring of the line between church and state. William F. Buckley, the most arch of arch-conservatives, had been televising his Firing Line "how to turn a democracy into an authoritarian state" seminars for decades, and the "culture wars" had made wealthy right wingers feel oh so squeamish for far too long. Not that any of them had ever been up close enough to smell a hippie, or a black person, or a gay one, but they were certain that it would be a disgusting experience.
Along came Hollywood snake-charmer Ronald Reagan, whose folksy, dim witticisms ensnared young, old, and everyone in-between. His capacity to float a delusional, counterintuitive approach to economic growth, and actually sell it to the world -- you've got to hand it to him. The media called him "The Great Communicator", but lets be clear, it was a con job of the highest order. At first there was resistance to his "trickle down" revelation. His own Vice President, George H.W. Bush, called it "voodoo economics," and it was. As a delusion, it was the equivalent of denying climate change, a willing suspension of disbelief. For a purpose. The purpose was to turn the country into an oligarchy, where government regulations would no longer impede the very wealthy in their fervent desire to own the whole damn place. And don't forget the racist dog whistles. Like Nixon's "southern strategy", Reagan's "states rights" cry was transparent code for re-enslaving blacks. Period. Add in the longing for theocracy, where Billy Graham would have a cabinet post for religious purity, and the toxic stew was almost ready to boil.
His biggest lie, however, was this: "Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem!" This poor, sick man, whose tragic diagnosis and eventual death from Alzheimer's disease stunned the world and put his contributions into deep shadow, had changed the world. The pernicious lie stuck, and we are stuck with the increasingly ugly ramifications of his dark deception -- erosion of rights, the disappearance of the middle class and the rise of a cadre of politicians whose life's work is to "shrink government to the size you could drown in the bathtub."
Let's put this revolution by the wealthy Right into historical perspective.
When our nation was born, the founders were in open revolt against the "Tory" establishment of the vast British Empire. They were left-wing insurgents against the crown, the stultifying control of the aristocracy and the Church of England. What they proposed as an organizing principle for governing their new country reflected the painful memory of centuries of religious wars and economic exploitation in Europe. Expanding the scope of their inherited birthright -- the Magna Carta, which had, in 1215, encoded the rights of the individual in balance with the powers of the monarchy, they Declared their Independence from kings, state religion and the slow rot of aristocratic control.
So then, the Reagan Revolution was, in fact, a counter revolution, intended to overturn the vision of the founding generation. Constitutional "strict constructionists" and "literalists" (like Robert Bork) sought to parse every line of every piece of settled law to find a loophole through which to drive the truck of doubt and confusion -- to make the "spirit of the law" so contentious that the letter of the law could be reinterpreted in a new way that favored the rich, racist and conservatively religious over everybody else. This is the same principle that today fuels the bizarre dispute over "religious liberty". Really -- one person's religious rights over-rule somebody else's human rights. Makes perfect sense, if you're a hypocritical, racist oligarch. Think "Hobby Lobby."
In all of this, the most chilling fact is the disappearance of the consensus that respect for government is a prerequisite for progress, that working together for the common good does EVERYBODY good. The last time that consensus failed, we rolled straight into the Civil War, with all its carnage and despair. The aftershocks of that earthquake still shake the continent, leaving the Statue of Liberty wobbling on her pedestal. Clearly, without agreement on the simple concept of government authority and the common good, the nation has struggled with self-identity ever since.
What is the nature of authority? How can we understand it and begin to bridge this deep gulf?
Perhaps we should look to the most basic and primitive relationship of all -- parent and child. When a child is loved and his/her needs are fulfilled, there is no need to rebel against parental authority. Life is good and love flows. As the child grows, the wise parent permits more and more independence, to encourage the development of good judgement and self-knowledge. Respect for authority within the community develops naturally, and the child grows to be a well-adjusted adult, ready to participate in society in a confident and creative way.
Under patriarchy, where the relationship is punitive, coercive, demeaning, neglectful or irrational, resentments grow, and violence and threats are seen as necessary to keep the now-rebellious youth in line. In short, when the parent, male or female, has absolute power to rule his/her own "castle" with violence and intimidation, children turn into adults with deep, internal conflicts -- anti-authoritarian struggles of the worst defiant, emotionalist, self-defeating kind. For instance, why are Cliven Bundy's sons in prison or in conflict with the law? Hmmm -- maybe he didn't love and respect them enough. Just a thought. Please discuss among yourselves…
This 1963 film by Peter Brook is a haunting, disturbing look at how quickly things fall apart when natural authority is absent. Marooned on a tropical island without adult supervision, this bunch of angelic choirboy British school kids devolves quickly to savagery and murder. The title refers to the head of a pig they put on a stick as their totem, their god. This particular copy of the complete film has Hebrew subtitles, but, no matter. The story is hypnotic and compelling. Innocence gets lost in a microcosmic culture ruled by impulsiveness, bullying and tribal cliques. Released the year of John Kennedy's assassination, it captures the zeitgeist of that troubled time, and ours.
Today, the unprecedented success of one loud-mouth bully appears as a looming catastrophe on the political horizon. This born-rich and self-absorbed street punk, whose nastiness and unchecked narcissism are seen as some kind of strongman virtue in a culture where all authority has vanished, seems to threaten the core values upon which our great democracy was founded. Obviously, he's a buffoon with such limited brain power that he's constantly forced to remind us how brilliant and essential he is to our future, because, otherwise, we'd forget. He makes respect for women, the disabled and minorities all seems so quaint, just as Bush/Cheney's chief torture apologist, John Yoo, said of the Geneva Conventions. Anything goes, and nobody can stop the authoritarian train once it gets rolling. Can you say POLICE STATE? That's right over the horizon. How else could you round up 11 million immigrants? This Hugo Chavez of the oligarchy will save us from ourselves through his cult of personality. He'll make America so great again and we'll be begging him to cool it with all the success he'll bring -- that's how great it's gonna be, only if we suspend disbelief even further, and believe in him.
Of course, as it often does, Nature has provided a nearby antidote to this noxious invasive that threatens our way of life. Another revolution stirs to wakefulness, a revolution to restore the true nature of our democracy. It becomes clear that our destiny is in our own hands. Course correction for the Ship of State will require sustained effort by the entire community of rational, feeling individuals. Rather than believing in the empty boasts of one sadistic bigot, we must simply believe in our own power, in the power of truly representative democracy, the power of community, equal rights, justice and the common good.