US engaged in a false fight over Jeffersonian democracy
The nation’s current social and political polarization is the consequence of its continuing irrational, uncompromising ideological confrontation disputing the nature of American democracy.
Since the late 19th century, a regressive southern-styled conservatism has been pitted against a progressive Jeffersonian social democracy promoting human rights and economic opportunity for the masses and trust in the triumph of reason over dogma and justice over hierarchy.
During this period, inciting fear within the electorate has been an effective conservative offensive weapon. In addition to white fear of non-white domination of governance and the economy, racial integration, mixed-race and samesex marriage, and immigrants, the fear of an impending socialist overthrow of the nation’s capitalist democracy has been exploited in opposing social democracy outcomes. The objective is to obfuscate and erroneously equate the socialism of China and Russia with that of American social democracy policies. Progressivism has been erroneously equated to an inevitable pathway to socialism.
Heather Cox Richardson contends the 1872 presidential election “prompted Liberal Republicans to divide the world into hard workers and lazy louts who sought handouts.” Subsequently, the Republican Party abandoned its earlier minimal support for workers’ interests in favor of protecting the wealthy class.
In 1912, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson pursued the progressive agenda of Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. However, a Republican pro-business faction characterized his efforts as socialism linked to the Russian Bolshevik Revolution. The Wall Street Journal forewarned: “Lenin and Trotsky are on their way.”
Richardson notes: Fifty years later, Richard Nixon “divided Americans between hardworking, tax-paying individuals and ‘detractors of America’ — lazy people eager for a government handout.” Many people still view public aid for housing, food, unemployment as socialist policies benefiting “moochers” and “the takers.” Meanwhile, many more affluent Americans are dipping into the federal tax revenue trough for subsidies.
Consider low-income housing subsidies for struggling low-income families. In fiscal 2008, the federal government provided $40 billion in stipend support for 7 million low-income renters. Whereas, in the same year, federal housing subsidies for 155 million more affluent homeowners and housing investors totaled $171 billion. This group received tax deductions for mortgage interest, property taxes and other expenses, thereby diminishing federal tax revenues by $171 billion, which, by formal definition, is a federal expenditure.
When a 2008 Cornell Survey Institute poll asked people if they had “ever used a government social program,” 57% responded “no.” But when presented with a list of 21 federal policies and programs — including Social Security, unemployment insurance, tax deduction for home mortgage interest, student loans, Medicare and the exemption from taxes on employer-provided health and retirement benefits — 94% admitted using at least one. The average was four. “A respondent who self-identified as ‘extremely liberal’ was 20 percent points more likely to acknowledge using a government program than someone who used the same number of programs but was extremely conservative.” Those who thought too much money was being spent on public assistance were less likely to admit using them.
Sean Wilentz identifies America’s centuries-long irresolvable governing roadblock thwarting full implementation of Jeffersonian social democracy principles benefiting the masses. “For Americans of the early republic, politics, government and constitutional order, not economics, were primary to interpreting the world and who ran it.”
The primary mission of corporate and political power brokers has been to attain governing control via winning elections at the cost of unethically neglecting human rights, social justice and the common good.