Gov. Scott Walker, Republican of Wisconsin, is fast making a name for himself. He hopes it will be the name of a fiscal conservative committed to ending collective bargaining rights in his state, but it seems much more likely he is building a reputation as someone who refuses to prioritize the rights of working people and whose policy approach is unimaginative enough to resemble a Dickensian miser.
The attitude of the miser is not unique to or rooted in the hardship of the moment; it is inherent to the perspective the miser adopts in order to rationalize specific preferences and methods. But beyond the flawed reasoning of an illiberal tycoon, the governor’s legislative reasoning is part of a wider attitude that rule by fiat is bad only when it is done by those one disagrees with.
Gov. Walker seeks to rule by fiat. That is miserly, it is the opposite of what democracy demands, and it just so happens it makes for bad policy. The belief one is entitled to rule by fiat is an enabling logic that seeks to cover up the evidence that opposition to bad policy comes from the deep flaws inherent in the policy.
Devotion to the rule by executive fiat is also a confession of the weakness of one’s own reasoning. Hardline regimes are not necessary if the people agree with the ideals of the regime. Rule by executive fiat is part of the methodology of tyrants, and it has to be, because they do not derive their power from the consent of the governed, and so their actions are not legitimate.
In the case of Scott Walker, it is astonishing that he would so soon cast off the glow of legitimacy, earned in the winning of a democratic election, in order to usurp the power of the people and seek to impose his will, taking so many specific and deliberate steps to derail the process of debate, undermine the possibility of opposition being heard, and give orders to the people he is sworn to serve, dividing basic rights among those he favors and those he does not.
There are moments in history when political leaders see themselves faced with a daunting prospect: the need to choose between their ideology and the needs and interests of their people. Hosni Mubarak could not understand the meaning of the moment in which he found himself, until all was lost. Maybe he never came to see it, and was forced to step down.
But others have seen the virtues of working to undo the problematic ideology that was harming their people. Mihail Gorbechev saw that the time had come to save the people of his nation from a flawed ideology. Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk were able to work together to chart a peaceful end to the brutal apartheid regime.
As the call for justice and the universal desegregation of American society spread, to become the leading voice of the silent majority, some people could not understand the meaning of the moment or the “fierce urgency of now”, of why defending the rights of real people, even at the need to change one’s own priorities or mature beyond a flawed way of thinking, in order to better serve the people.
The National Guard had to be sent in, not to crush dissent, but to be the voice of the moral majority, to be the voice of reason and to prevent thugs and tyrants from ruling the day and stopping the advance of democratic justice, freedom and equality.
Gov. Walker is at a crossroads, deciding whether to put himself on the right side or the wrong side of history. So far, he has used the word “taxpayers” as rhetoric meant to fill in the void left by his lack of support for the actual human beings his policies affect. He has set himself up as the governor opposed to basic rights, flippantly disregarding the many ways in which his proposals will do direct and lasting harm to hundreds of thousands of people in his state.
He has suggested that non-violent demonstrators from every walk of life, including men, women, children and senior citizens, were bands of thugs or vigilantes. We have seen that to be untrue. He has referred to a Democratic lawmaker's principled demand for negotiation as meaningless, and said in response to "a prank phone call" that most protesters were from "out of state" and that their voice was not relevant.
The New York Times is reporting:
Their suspicions were increased after the publicizing of comments Mr. Walker made during what turned out to be a prank phone call from a blogger posing as a well-known conservative donor. In the call, the governor discussed tactics to trick Democrats back to the Capitol, and compared his efforts to President Ronald Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981. “This is our moment, this is our time to change history,” Mr. Walker said.
The caller was Ian Murphy, the editor of the New York-based Web site Buffalo Beast, posing as David Koch, who with his brother Charles leads Koch Industries, which finances libertarian causes like the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity and which helped mobilize a Tea Party demonstration in support of the governor on Saturday.
He has rejected requests to meet with protest leaders, unions or opponents of his legislation. And he has ordered state police to force boycotting lawmakers to support a process they say is unfair, not inclusive and not what it pretends to be.
He has rejected the offer from every affected union to accept ALL of his proposed financial concessions, and has vowed to strip public servants of rights every American has under the Constitution. His impatience with democracy is shameful, and his leadership is in grave question. There are suggestions that wealthy donors from Washington lobbyists to corporate interests are the prime movers behind this legislation, and Gov. Walker has refused to answer questions about any of that.
To be clear, Gov. Walker’s attempt to rule by fiat is not democracy. It is an embarrassment to the people of his state and to our great democracy, and the intransigence, the aggression in his tone, his constant use of threats, warrant much closer scrutiny: whatever motivated Gov. Walker to not only believe this was a responsible way to legislate, and beyond that, his persistence in that belief, warrant a public inquiry.
The people of Wisconsin deserve an opportunity to examine closely the nature of his actions in the face of public dissent, his intentions, his contacts with interested parties, and the manner in which he may be using his office to promote private profit and/or partisan interest. In democracy, the powerful to not rule; they lead by example, and they honor the need to win the consent of the governed.