Romney’s Moderate Republican Roots

Presidential hopeful and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney lately has been backing away from earlier, moderate-sounding views on abortion and gay rights, but he can’t deny his impeccable moderate Republican pedigree.

Writing in the Decline and Fall of Liberal Republicans, published in 1989, Nicol E. Rae, a scholar of Republicanism, described Romney’s late father George as a serious 1968 presidential contender and a popular “pragmatic reformer in the progressive tradition.”

Elected 1962 as the first Republican governor of Michigan in more than 14 years, George Romney advocated a “citizens party” vision for the GOP — one that sounded too much like Eisenhower Republicanism to suit many conservative party stalwarts.

At the highly contentious 1964 GOP Convention, Romney also further alienated himself from the Goldwater wing by joining other liberal Republicans — Jacob Javitts, William Scranton and Nelson Rockefeller — in calling for platform amendments on civil rights, nuclear weaponry and party extremism, Rae states in his book.

Romney’s star eventually waned as his public statements sounded less and less like those of a serious presidential contender. The death knell was sounded after his notorious brainwashing statements following a Vietnam tour.

A Progressive/Conservative Alliance Revisited

Debate still rages over Brink Lindsey’s premise that an alliance between libertarians and liberalism is feasible following last November’s GOP rout. (For a very detailed summary of this debate from a centrist perspective, see the Daily Kos.)

Maybe the mind of this aging Southern Appalachian hillbilly is just not up to the task of grasping something this complex, but, frankly, folks, I  don’t see this.

Rawls and Hayek aside, I perceive a deep ideological chasm, if not animus, between libertarians and liberals that is simply insurmountable. Much of this is based on personal experience, having spent a big chuck of my early adulthood cavorting with libertarians and fellow travelers. But, of course, much of what we know as the libertarian legacy emerged and thrived in the 20th century as deeply visceral response to the excesses of statism, all forms of statism, including American liberalism.

Two of the founding texts of modern libertarianism were von Mises’s Socialism and von Hayek’s The Road Two Serfdom, both deeply visceral texts aimed squarely at statism. Nineteenth century classical liberalism may have been something of an armchair intellectual enterprise but its 20th century derivative, contrived as the last, desperate act against seemingly triumphant statism, most assuredly was not.

Statism, regardless of the stripe, is libertarianism’s whore of Babylon, much as Rome was Luther’s.

Yes, the conservative animus for statism arguably runs deep but not nearly so deep as that of libertarians. And let’s not forget that conservatism is far less monolithic than its libertarian cousin.

Not a few conservatives within the last century some have expressed a grudging sympathy for liberalism, at least in comparison to liberatarianism, which many conservatives view as godless and rigidly ideological.  Among them was anticommunist crusader Whittaker Chambers, one of the principal inspirations of modern conservativism and an unsparing critic of Ludwig von Mises,

Peter Viereck, a prominent conservative maverick of the 1950s, expressed open sympathy for FDR’s New Deal, crediting it for finally introducing the principle of noblesse oblige into the America political lexicon.  And let’s not forget Pat Buchanan, Mr. “Conservatism of the Heart,” an unapologetic protectionist and devotee of Wilhelm Ropke, an early Third Way advocate and principal architect of the social market economy associated with Germany’s post-war renaissance.   During his 2000 candidacy Buchanan called openly for alliances with progressive elements, albeit with limited success.

Recent developments raise intriguing possibilities.

Longstanding evangelical support for conservatism is fraying. Then again, there was a strong historical irony associated with this cozy political relationship to start with.

By historic definition, evangelical Christianity is decidedly not conservative. And let’s not forget evangelicalism’s historic allegiance to church/state separation doctrine outlined in the First Amendment.  Living all my life in the Deep South, I’ve always felt that even the most committed evangelicals regarded their alliance with political conservatism with profound unease — a matter of necessity and nothing more.

Statements by Rick Warren and other prominent evangelical pastors in recent weeks reflect this unease. Yes, pragmatism figures in to this: The smarter evangelical leaders understand the risk of tying their fortunes too closely to a boat that seems to be listing. But other factors are playing a role, including changing demographics. Younger evangelical Christians, aside from being put off by labels, are far more sympathetic to the sort of practical, applied, red-letter Christianity associated with Bono than to the hellfire-and-brimstone variety of their grandparents.

And let’s not forget the 800-pound gorilla of conservativism, the neoconservatives, whom many on the right never considered conservative in the first place. They started out as Trotskyists, lingered for a while within the Humphrey/Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic party, finally, though sometimes grudgingly, casting their fortunes with the right in growing numbers when strident anticommunism was no longer welcome in the  increasingly McGovernized Democratic ranks. While neocons have tended to downplay their statist roots in recent years, their historic affinity for New Deal and Great Society programs is a matter of historic record, earning them the longstanding enmity of more traditional conservatives.

I suspect neoconservatism will be the last ones out of the fusionist door given the mess they’ve made in Iraq, their thinly veiled calls for U.S. imperialism, and the fact that their longstanding feud with many on the left has resulted in the burning of the few bridges that remained.  Simply put, they have no place to go.

Even so, their history and that of other camps within the conservative tent illustrate that in many respects, conservative and progressive aspirations are by no means mutually exclusive. And we must never lose sight of the fact that politics often makes for very strange bedfellows.

The Death of Multiculturalism?

One thing is certain: It is a Labour Party volte face of potentially far-reaching proportions.

In a speech yesterday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that immigrants had “a duty” to assimilate into mainstream culture.  He also presented a series of requirements for ethnic minorities who wished to call themselves British.

These include “equality of respect” — especially better treatment of Muslim women by men — allegiance to the rule of law and a command of English.

The Daily Telegraph characterized Labour’s reversal as the end of multiculturalism.

If newcomers weren’t willing to subscribe to longstanding British traditions of tolerance, they should stay away, Blair said.

“Conform to it; or don’t come here. We don’t want the hate-mongers, whatever their race, religion or creed.

One self-described Canadian red tory blogger expressed mixed emotions about changes.

To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of it. Part of me has an appreciative sympathy with the core sentiment, but I can also see its more problematic aspects that contradict our long-standing tradition of respecting diversity and free expression. There’s something a bit troubling about the notion of integrating “with the mainstream of society” by force of law.

Frankly, I don’t see this. Tolerance, after all, is a value closely bound with the rule of law, one of the greatest achievements of Western civilization and one of the factors that have contributed to our becoming the most democratic, prosperous and technologically advanced civilization in the world.

Shouldn’t immigrants who come to the West to share in these achievements be expected to subscribe to the values that made them possible in the first place? Is this really asking too much?