krebscycle

Jon Chait wrote: “conservatism is geared toward localism and views national-level government as inherently more oppressive.” Is it true that conservatism is based on this view? The conservative Bush administration doubled the size of the Federal Government, authorized torture, pushed through the vast expansion of Federal police powers in the Patriot Act and bloating of Medicare, organized a far reaching and opaque security apparatus at the TSA complete with secret “no fly” lists, came up with a Mussolini-ish doctrine called the “unitary executive”, put the Federal government in the position of regulating abortion rights, imposed educational standards on the states and localities (NCLB), swept aside state laws decriminalizing marijuana, and even started Federal government marriage counseling! Aside from mild whining from Cato, even the libertarian conservatives went along with little dissent.  Here’s a clue: Conservatives have a tradition of disguising their support for racist oppression and protection of the power of the wealthy in the language of “liberties” and Federalism. 

Slave states that demanded Federal troops enforce the Fugitive Slave act in Free States yelled piteously about “federal tyranny” and demanded “nullification” all the same.  Dixiecrat Congressmen who put a Federal military base or arms plant in every Southern county, railed endlessly about Federal over-reach when the mildest civil rights laws were proposed. Staunch supporters of towering Ag-Subsidies and detailed Federal regulation of the sex lives of Americans, no matter whether states or localities agreed, continued to attack Federal civil rights laws (and environmental protection) as if they were despotism.  When Ronald Reagan began his campaign for President in the heart of resistance to the civil rights movement, by the graves of civil rights workers, he said he supported limited government, but he meant, and his audience understood that he meant, to support racist government. When Paul Ryan told Bill Bennet’s audience that budget problems were caused by “inner city men” who didn’t want jobs as Charles Murray had “explained”, the audience and anyone who didn’t have their hands plastered to their eyes understood exactly what he meant. The process of disguising of racist appeals in terms of limited government or deficit cutting was famously exposed by the inventor of the Republican Southern strategy. Chait, who thinks that too much attention to race is “identity politics”,  doesn’t want to believe that expose, so he has to pretend the the euphemisms that wrap appeals to racism are serious principles.  Once committed to 2+2=5, he has to work furiously to find plausible explanations of how things tie together.