The Mask Slips, Falls to Ground, Explodes
13th April 2011
Speaking last week at Tufts University, Pelosi said, among other things, “To my Republican friends, take back your party so that it doesn’t matter so much who wins the election because we have shared values.” In other words, it’s fine if Republicans win elections so long as they agree with us. But she couldn’t stop there. She added this: “The fact is, elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do.”
Freeze frame right there. Tom Bethell used to argue in the American Spectator that the permanent government in Washington viewed elections as a nuisance, something to be endured like summer thunderstorms that blow over in a few minutes, allowing them to get back to the job of administering the country in the name of “the common good.” Pelosi perfectly expresses in her comment the old Progressive view that “politics” and political argument should be less and less relevant to the main business of government. (This is one aspect of contemporary Progressive thought that has not changed from the old Progressives of a century ago, in contrast to the series I posted here last month.) The object of Progressivism was best expressed in Saint-Simone’s famous phrase that “the government of men should be replaced by the administration of things.” Of course, if you determine that a function of government, like traffic enforcement or tax collecting, should be beyond the reach of partisan political argument, then you have essentially ruled the other party out of order when it objects. Pelosi and confreres believe that once any welfare state measure is in place, it cannot be questioned. The tacit premise of Pelosi’s remark is that today’s Republican Party is an illegitimate party, akin to Nazis or Communists or other subversives who reject the principles of the Constitution. At best, elections to the Progressive mind would increasingly become ceremonial exercises, like Fourth of July picnics. At worst, it is an argument for tyranny.