116 Years of the Same

By Jason Colella, Sr. Political Editor & Co-founder

Picture provided by Wikipedia

“There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests up on them.” This may sound like something that any mainstream Democrat may have said during this election cycle, but that would be wrong. It was, indeed, said by a Democrat at a National Convention, but not recently. William Jennings Bryan said this during his 1896 Presidential Acceptance Speech, which would later come to be known as the Cross of Gold Speech.

Bryan was right about Supply Side Economics before it was even invented. Maybe the world would have been better off if Reagan, Hayek, and Freidman idolized Bryan instead of an Adam Smith that he himself would not have recognized and would have vehemently opposed. The Wealth of Nations does agree with Bryan’s statement, but Republicans seem to forget that anyone with the ability to read and curiosity could find that out. The fundamental flaw in the Republican economic mindset is simple – they think rich people have no self-control. It assumes that if you give a millionaire a million dollars, he will spend it all. Has the idea of saving ever occur to them? The other issue is, just as obvious, rich people buy and do rich people things like play polo and buy designer clothes - which has little to no economic impact on the average working class American. The very people this ludicrous idea was intended to help.
Now to the non-economic point his statement brings up. It showcases a trait of American political thought that is often incorrectly assumed to be nonexistent – consistency. The Republicans have consistently run on the same bad and ill-informed economic policy for the last 116 years. Congratulations. We think politics today is so partisan, so gridlocked, so ideological, and so ineffective. But, I hate to be the bearer of bad news; it has always been that way and, quite frankly, will always be that way.

Congress is partisan, and it always has been. Preston Brooks, a congressman, nearly beat to death Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the US Senate over a political difference in 1857. Eric Cantor and Boehner have yet to beat up a Democrat. Today the violence is verbal attacks in the press, and even those as vitriolic, as they may be, that are not libelous or crude. We are more civilized in our discourse, which goes to show you how messed we have been and how messy democracy truly is. Congress is partisan because of the people it attracts. People run for office, not because Congress is such a high paying job with great perks like many disenfranchised Americans will tell you. They run because they have strong views that they want others to not only to hear and believe, but be forced to follow. Honestly, most of them could, and did, make much more money in their past life than as a congressman.

Gridlock and inefficacy does run rampant in the government, but it can be dealt with. Elected officials need to be open minded and willing to negotiate, which many of them are incapable of doing today because of their strong ideology footing. It is not, however, their fault that their views are as unyielding as a raging bull – stubborn and crazy – it is the electorate for electing them to office. Quit electing nut jobs. I mean, I have a poor view of the fine Americans who live in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional district because they have elected Michelle Bachman repeatedly. Gridlock and inefficacy can keep people from doing horrible idiotic things. Sometimes doing nothing can be better than doing things, especially when action results in stupid decisions.

Bryan has two key pieces of advice to offer. First, Republicans have always had a poor taste in economic policy, and secondly the concept of political consistency. Government seems bad, but it always has been bad. It is not so much the fault of the politicians because most are well meaning when they get there; it is rather the fault of voters who take the tremendous privilege of participating in the greatest experiment in social theory ever undertaken not seriously enough, and a flawed system that promotes gridlock. As Winston Churchill said, ’’No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’’