I’ve been thinking a lot over the last three years about some of the less commonly debated effects of the South moving from a Democratic stronghold to a Republican one. Mostly, I’ve been trying to understand how Southern politicians have remained the same even as they’ve taken on an entirely different uniform. If the Southern politicians opposed labor mainly because they saw labor as a force that would empower blacks, it’s easy to see why they had little trouble adopting the anti-labor attitudes of northern industrialists. But public investment is a different kettle of fish. The South has always needed it, and that hasn’t changed. During the hey-day of the New Deal, southern Democrats dominated the committee process in Congress because their lack of competition assured them seniority. They then were able to steer federal dollars, military bases, infrastructure projects and other programs to their states and districts. For a region that was completely preoccupied with limiting federal power, their lawmakers at least agreed that Congress was good for something. The price of southern support for the New Deal was a real limit on how far we could go in social democracy. But their cooperation forged the way for the uniquely American middle class that boomed into existence in the post-war era.
In any case, I found this interesting:
When did the South fully integrate itself into the United States? Has it ever? At the same time, during a “war on terror” that feels as endless as the Cold War seemed in the 1950s, at least some of our elites are worried about the president’s accountability to democratic protocols. Entwined in every aspect of our political culture is the fear of one major political party that its cultural, racial, and economic homogeneity might disqualify it indefinitely from presidential power.
Which is exactly why we are seeing the emergence of a libertarian streak in the Republican Party. Fate can take uncertain twists, but with Obama in office for another three years and the prospect of another eight years after that under Hillary Clinton, there is a certain degree of hopelessness creeping into the Republicans’ attitude about their prospects for winning back the White House. Of course, it’s not just the Clinton Goliath that is worrying them. It’s also simple demographics.
For the South, the federal government has never been trustworthy unless one of their own was running it, and not that guy from Arkansas. And federal spending has always been a problem if they were not the ones making the spending decisions. During the New Deal, they controlled the flow of money. That is not nearly as true today. But, even worse, they have tied their own hands by banning earmarks. They’ve surrendered most of their power to push money where they want it to the executive branch and its agencies.
This is all coming together into a perfect storm where the Republican Party simply can’t see any useful purpose for the federal government outside of the narrow area of defense. And even on defense, the party has been infected by this libertarian strain that doesn’t see the need for all these bases all around the country and the world.
So, the party is breaking up into disparate factions that can agree on little more than a collective antipathy for government. At root, the South doesn’t have enough clout or buy-in, despite their decent numbers. It’s almost as if they are being de-integrated out of the culture of the country, but with enough power to grind things to a standstill.
What this could make possible in the not-too-distant future is a bit of overlap between fiscal libertarians on the far right with the civil libertarians on the far left. Their common interest would be mainly in rolling back the security state.
