Republicans Want Change

"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."

-Hannah Arendt

People ask me why Republican. I believe in continuing revolution. Life gets better, or it gets worse. It's change or die.

To me, it’s clear. Republicans are the party of change. Democrats stand for the status quo. Of course, it wasn’t so in 1932. Ooooh, that was so long ago. Democrats came into power in 1932 with a radical agenda to remake America--the New Deal. In spite of Hannah Arendt’s truth, Democrats faced wave upon wave of crises, and responded to each threat with new innovations. Truman’s Fair Deal helped house a nation and took the first steps toward civil rights reform, while internationally, Truman organized the world to fight Communism. But Truman was a spent force by 1952.

Kennedy and his accidental successor Lyndon Johnson pretty much finished the work of the New Deal/Fair Deal/New Frontier/Great Society by 1965. 1960 was the first election where big money first began to rally behind a Democrat. The Eastern Establishment was very comfortable with wealthy, Harvard graduate Kennedy, who appointed several Republicans to his cabinet, and rewarded the wealthy in 1963 by ending nominally confiscatory income tax rates.

I didn’t see it at the time, but after 1965, it was Republicans who started coming up with the new ideas, ideas that made sense. Here’s how I divide the parties today on foreign policy:

Democrats are the party of civilization, defined by Old Europe’s old cities. Civilized people don’t fight wars, they negotiate. As Kennedy said, “Never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate.” Negotiate with Iran. Negotiate with North Korea. Big mistake: we didn’t negotiate with Saddam. Buttressing European faith in negotiations is the belief we can afford concessions, because in the end, civilization will prevail anyway. With time, terrorists will have children who will want to plant gardens around houses they own. Meanwhile, the West has resources better used at home to improve health, education, and the environment.

Republicans, in the 21st century, carry forward the tradition of American exceptionalism that Democratic presidents from Wilson and Roosevelt through Truman, Kennedy and Johnson encouraged with bipartisan support. America’s history is that of a continental power founded on democratic principles, with a strong belief that a world “made safe for democracy” is a world safer for all. Our finest moments are those when we stood up to tyranny, fighting for good on behalf of those unable to defend themselves against despots.

Do we fight for change, or do we wait for the savages to adopt our obviously superior ways? Republicans currently support “taking the offensive” against Muslim extremists unhappy enough with the current world order they will die to do us in. Democrats are more relaxed—part of the Old Europe culture that enjoys what it has, doesn’t fear terrorists, and certainly won’t risk death to force-march history along the path it will follow anyway.

To Republicans the future is hopeful, but a dangerous present will get worse unless we take firm action now.