5-03-07, 9:17 am

We here at Political Affairs have been pointing out the danger of right-wing ideology since our founding. In the neoconservative resurgence that began with Reagan and culminated with George W. Bush, Political Affairs has long warned against the militaristic and imperialistic urges deeply rooted in right-wing ideology.

A former editor of this magazine wrote in the February 1982 issue that Reaganism as a set of policies and ideas 'are not only reactionary, anti-labor, anti-people, pro-Big Business, imperialist and militarist, but also blatantly racist.' Citing Reagan's opposition to affirmative action and unions, his drive for privatization and vicious cuts to social programs in the name of cutting 'government,' and systematic use of US military power to intervene in other countries, that writer could have just as easily been describing the ideas and policies of the Bush administration that led to war in Iraq, the disaster after Katrina, school and Medicare privatization, opposition to civil rights and women's rights, and so on.

What connects Reagan and Bush is their shared ideology.

Political Affairs has over and over again warned against the elitist aims embedded in such policies as shifting the tax burden to working families while providing huge tax 'relief' to the very richest households and most powerful corporations.

We have consistently shown that right-wing market fundamentalism – the irrational faith in the 'free' market as the savior of all ills – would literally get people killed. We have always rejected the belief that social problems require individual rather than social solutions. We have challenged the right's notion of 'states' rights' – now sometimes called federalism to avoid historical associations – as a fig leaf for racist, sexist, and homophobic opposition to civil rights and full equality.

Rather than mere coincidence, we have long known that the right's attachment to and dependence on far-right religious fundamentalist organizations is part and parcel related to that movement's hateful and fear-mongering use of 'family values' against same-gender loving people and transgender people would be used to divide working families from their innate sense of fairness and their interest in a common struggle for social and economic justice.

When George W. Bush told an elite group of capitalists at a fundraising dinner in New York that they were his 'base,' a moment vividly captured in Michael Moore's Academy Award-winning documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, we saw that scene not as a startling revelation but as a basic reality about the the composition and core values of the right wing in this country.

We never considered the struggle to defeat the right to be a simple matter of reasonable people agreeing to disagree with only the best interests of the country at heart. We knew 'conservative' ideology and policies are deadly.

After six years of Bush, these truths are becoming more apparent across the political spectrum.

This week, for example, the Campaign for America's Future is hosting a conference entitled 'The Failure of Conservatism.' Speakers include activists, elected officials, scholars, and journalists who will scrutinize right-wing ideas about the role of the government, the economy, and corporations. It will feature a debate between Robert Kuttner, editor of the liberal American Prospect magazine and right-wing ideologue William Kristol.

In a press teleconference promoting the event Kuttner described the growing sense among American voters that Bush policies have done great harm, but argued for drawing a stronger connection between failed polices and the ideology that produced those failures. People have seen 'the wall to wall collapse of the conservative ideology that has been field tested since Bush was elected.'

Kuttner predicted that Republican presidential candidates would work hard in this campaign to distance themselves from Bush and try to align themselves with the 'Reagan legacy' as the true 'conservatism.' But the plain fact is that no matter how far Republicans try to run from Bush an dinto the arms of the far right/, he is the culmination of the Reagan legacy.

Voters will also see moderate and socially liberal Republican candidates like McCain, Giuliani, and Romney 'running against their own records,' Kuttner added.

To win the support of the far-right base that put Reagan and Bush into power, McCain will discard his criticisms of Bush's war on Iraq, Giuliani will flip-flop on his fondness for gay and reproductive rights, and Romney will deny ever having supported government sponsored universal health care.

Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America's Future, said, 'Bush's failures come not from the way he pursued his policies, but from the policies themselves.' Bush implemented Reagan's ideas without departing from them, he said.

Rick Perlstein, a staff member at CAF, provided the example of how the right-wing ideological fervor for shrinking and weakening federal regulations and agencies has endangered the food supply. The Food and Drug Administration, under six straight years of budget cuts and political hamstringing, has become little more than a 'public relations firm,' Perlstein noted.

It no longer has the power or the resources to enforce its own regulations. The contaminants that caused the recent pet food scare have also been tied to millions of chickens slated for consumption, the FDA should be protecting the public by aggressively requiring corporations whose chicken products may be harmful to remove those products from the food supply. But under the current administration the FDA has done little more than make recommendations and try to downplay the danger, Perlstein said.

In the past six years as 'conservative' ideology has had free reign, health, safety, and the quality of life have been sacrificed to the free market. This isn't a deviation from the 'Reagan legacy,' it is the essence of Reagan's ideology.

Social progress depends in no small part on how well the public comes to recognize the ideological basis for Bush's presidency, its cronyism and corruption, and its failures. Progressive and democratic-minded organizations, activists, scholars, and media are going to have to work hard and together to help the public make the connection.

The public's understanding that Bush hurts has been well-documented in poll after poll. But it also needs to see that electing another right-winger, or a 'conservative,' or someone who is 'wearing the mantle of Reagan,' will not get us on a new course away from the disasters, crimes, and corruption of this administration.

--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs. Reach him at

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