The Grassroots Are Growing Right

GOP lawmakers in state capitals around the nation are in the process of instituting radical right-wing economic programs after a series of electoral victories over the past few years. Kansas has privatized Medicaid services, instituted wide-ranging cuts to social programs for the poor and is set to dramatically cut income taxes with the goal of abolishing them altogether. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has proposed replacing his states corporate and income taxes with a sales tax while cutting health services for the poor. And many governments in the nation’s 24 states where Republicans control both the legislative and executive branches are putting forth similar proposals. This is on top of the recent passage of right-to-work (for less pay) laws in Indiana and Michigan, and collective bargaining restrictions in Wisconsin.

The boldness and successful implementation of these hard-right policies highlights the relative strength of conservative ideology and the tea-party led conservative grassroots movement. Conservative political thinkers have been banging the same anti-tax, pro-privatization, anti-public services drum for forty years now, and their message is clear. Does it make sense that giving rich people more money to squirrel away in their Scrooge McDuck gold vaults and depriving bright poor youngsters of health and education funds will encourage economic growth? No! Does it make sense that cutting hundreds of thousands of public jobs in the middle of the worst recession in 70 years will create more jobs? No! Does it make any sense that allowing workers to free-ride off union contracts w/o paying dues, thereby undermining worker power and eventually the very viability of the collective bargaining unit itself, will somehow improve workers’ lives? Fuck no! But that doesn’t stop conservative ideologues from saying that all of this (and much more!) makes perfect sense, and they’ve said it consistently and stridently enough for decades now that they’ve built up credibility. Progressive thought, with the exception of a handful of social issues like abortion rights, is completely devoid of a similar common base of beliefs, held over a long period of time, that people can rally behind.

Additionally, the right has a tea-party movement that actually believes in all the crazy shit these conservative ideologues say and has worked hard to propagate and fight for these beliefs. Mainstream media pundits love to deride the tea-party candidates and caucus, but all you have to do is recognize how dominant talk of the debt/fiscal crisis has been in Washington to realize that they’ve been largely successful. The right-wing House has not folded time and again like the progressive caucus, and they’ve pushed the center of debate further and further to the right (with Dems now talking about Social Security and Medicare cuts). At the state level, Republican-dominated legislatures are actually implementing deeply conservative policies after being put into office by voters.

In times of crisis, people look for answers. Until progressives are willing to put forward large, visionary proposals, and actually stick by them, right-wing forces will continue to steamroll workers and the middle-class across large swaths of America.