Ever since I had my political awakening back in 2003—a confluence of fear from the growing fascism of the Bush administration and inspiration from the speeches of Howard Dean—I’ve tried to understand exactly what it means to be a Democrat or a Republican. It’s a very very complex question, and one for which I still feel like I’m fumbling around in the dark.
The only succinct answers seem to be ones defined by today’s hot political issues, and even those are getting blurry. A few years ago you could divide Democrat from Republican depending on your opinions on abortion, environmentalism, fiscal policy (taxation and deficit spending), gun control, or religion. But even today these are blurry. There are a number of strong Democrats who are opposed to abortion (or some Republicans who are pro-choice) and have good relations with the NRA. Also, Democrats have become so tired of being labeled “tax and spend” that these days they proudly campaign on the tax cuts they’ve voted for.
Other flip-flop topical ironies exist for the Republican party. Republicans used to be the original Environmentalists, with Richard Nixon forming the same Environmental Protection Agency that Dubya has been trying to dismantle and sell off to private industry. Heck, Nixon also tried to create a universal Health Care system decades before Hillary tried it. And the party of Abraham Lincoln was the original party of race equality. Before Kennedy the Democrats tended to be the segregationists.
Another confusing topic is foreign policy and attitudes regarding defense. The first president I remembered as a child was Carter. (I was born during the Nixon years, but I don’t remember anything before the Ford/Carter election.) From my childhood I had developed an attitude that Republicans were pro-war and loved huge defense spending. (Note Reagan and the gobs of money wasted on the ridiculous Star Wars defense platform.) Both Presidents Bush had overseen wars whereas Clinton worked hard on diplomatic relationships. But you don’t have to travel too far back to see Democratic Presidents being aggressive with the military, from Kennedy and Johnson with the Vietnam War to Truman with the Korean War and F.D.R. with World War II. So Democrats have not historically been big liberal peace-freaks.
Can you see my problem? I’ve been trying to find some core, fundamental ideological foundations behind being a Democrat or a Republican and everything gets turned upside down!
The last ideological foundation that I’ve tried to lock down is Federalism. That itself is confusing, because the early Federalists were all about instilling the Federal Government with certain powers over the States, but Nixon redefined Federalists as being people who believed in states’ sovereignty. Ack! Black is White! Night is Day! In fact, recall that the original Republican, President Lincoln was famous for preserving the Union and weighing-in on the side of the Federal Government regarding slaves’ rights. The Southern Democrats were the ones that resented the Feds flexing their arms.
Do the Republicans favor States’ rights today? They certainly hate Row v Wade, but on the other hand they’ve generally been in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment. (That’s the proposed Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage.) Republicans have campaigned on the “smaller government” moniker, which would suggest reducing the reach of the Federal Government, but then again Dubya has increased the Federal government dramatically.
Boy have I been rambling! My intention has been to write about Federalism and my thoughts on it. Okay, here I go…
I’m going to define Federalism just for right now as the belief in a strong national government. That means “yea” to historical things like…
- The original formation of the U.S. Constitution which gave the Federal Government some real powers over the original Articles of Confederation.
- The foundation of a Central Bank, today the Federal Reserve. (Just for more historical context.)
- President Lincoln’s civil war defending the U.S. from State secession.
- Inalienable (civil) human rights defined (and amended) in the Constitution.
- The 14th, 16th, 19th, 24th and 24th Amendments defining various rights that States have no power to abridge.
- A number of historical Civil Rights decisions from the Supreme Court. (Which Republicans like to call “acts of activist judges”.) These are too numerous to list.
I used to believe (as recently as last year) that there was some significant importance behind leaving as much as possible to the purview of the States. There is an argument that Roe v Wade aborted (pun intended) an important national discussion too early, that once it was in place the dangers of young women dying from back-ally abortions vanished, the “wire hanger” no longer become an important and jarring symbol of the importance of a woman’s control over her own body, and that this has left an unresolved social bitterness that fuels much of the partisan Republican vs Democrat fire.
I also think that the entire issue of Gay Marriage needs to be fought in the States. The idea of imposing a Constitutional Amendment banning it would be as embarrassing as Prohibition. And in fact, I don’t even think a Constitutional Amendment supporting Gay Marriage would be any better. This needs to be fought out, state by state, until the social argument has matured more. (And after the inevitable evolution, once the old bigots have all grown old and died, I think either a congressional bill or a Supreme Court ruling instilling national rights—like joint tax filing for gay couples—would be better than an amendment.)
Are you ready for another reversal? I’m going to now argue that I think the entire State system is becoming outdated and much of it should be abolished. Specifically, I’m talking about things like drivers licenses, insurance, and interstate commerce.
I’ve spent my life bouncing between the states of Colorado, California and New York. For me it’s no big deal; I just move out (or sell) one home, get on a plane, move to the other place, and start life back up in a new location. But wait! It isn’t that easy!
- My business is incorporated in Colorado. I work for clients in all sorts of states or even countries. If I live in Colorado, I do business for a company in England, but I’m personally residing (telecommuting) in Los Angeles, can California tax my Colorado company for “doing business in California”? It thinks it can.
- Just in my local area (New York City) there are millions of people who live in New Jersey or Connecticut and work in NYC, or the other way around. Laws regarding taxation and insurance are anything but straightforward. It is not at all unusual for people to work in states other than the one they live in.
- If a California cop stops me and sees a Colorado drivers license, he’ll tell me that I have 10 days to get it changed to a CA license. But what if I live part-time in both states? Am I supposed to re-register every few months? I asked this question and the cop just said “I don’t know what to tell you. But if you don’t reregister here, your car will get impounded if I catch ya!”
- Health insurance is dramatically different in every state. I had a nice Heath Savings Account in CA paired with a high-deductible policy for only a little over $100 per month. In New York I can’t get anything less than $800 per month. And as everyone knows, if you ever have any medical condition, you are locked into your existing carrier forever. Especially in CA, if you have a pre-existing condition and you don’t have a company policy, you may never find a carrier again. But that means you are financially unable to move to another state, because health insurance policies never cross state boundaries!
- Similarly, when I moved from CO to CA my auto insurance increased by a factor of five! And my auto insurance carrier (USAA) for some reason was unable to underwrite an auto policy in California due to some obscure state law.
- So many people want incoming Presidents to have some ideas for fixing our broken Education system, but the DOE really has little purview. Almost everything is managed by the State, so no sweeping changes can be made and increased Federal funding would be inefficient and wasteful. (Ironically, No Child Left Behind is almost the only thing the Federal government can do.)
- Don’t get me started about the bizarre differences in how Real Estate is bought and sold!!!
For me, moving between states is no big deal. I’ve done it plenty of times, and I ultimately would like to own a home or apartment in at least two states. In my mind it’s straightforward, but legally it’s a whole different matter. Personally, I think it’s stupid and outmoded. Yes, 200-300 years ago the colonies/states were like little individual countries. Today it’s just silly.
So I think that makes me a Federalist. The ironic twist is that I think social issues have to be hashed-out on a state-by-state basis, but only as a bit of an experimental crucible. As part of the inevitable trend toward globalization, I think Commerce (including insurance and banking) and Education need to be federalized. And in the most idealistic, theoretical context, I think that would historically make me a Republican.
But as we both know, such labels are completely meaningless anymore.