generally, Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy with a theocracy that would govern by imposing their version of “Biblical Law.” As incredible as it seems, democratic institutions such as labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools would be on the short list for elimination. Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Men deemed insufficiently Christian would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that capital punishment would be extended beyond such crimes as kidnapping, rape, and murder to include, among other things, blasphemy, heresy, adultery and homosexuality.14
In short, the vision calls for creating a theocratic state with legal codes similar to those of the early Calvinist colonies in New England. A program akin to that of Islamic fundamentalists who seek to create Islamic states, it lacks broad popular appeal. To build a loyal voter base, plutocrats and theocrats alike had to become skilled in waging stealth campaigns that played to the resentments of those who were being squeezed out of the middle class while cloaking the real agenda in populist rhetoric and values.
Mobilizing Resentment
The New Right alliance became especially effective in targeting the resentment of small-business owners, farmers, and wage laborers whose middle-class status was threatened by the very system they were being mobilized to promote. It was a diabolically effective strategy. Since the actual intention was to advance a neoliberal economic agenda hostile to the middle class, the greater the New Right’s success, the greater the anxiety and resentment it engendered. Through skillful scapegoating, the resentment of the middle class was deflected away from the economic policies that were the real source of its affliction and was turned instead against gays, people of color, feminists, welfare recipients, immigrants, drug addicts, government workers, Jews, and the liberals who support them.15 All the while corporate advertisers were cultivating an individualistic culture of greed and materialism and using sex and violence to keep people glued to television sets, thus fueling social alienation and a sense 225of decline in moral values. As liberal reformers focused their attention on expanding the rights and freedoms of women, people of color, children, and gays and lesbians, the New Right accused the reformers of being responsible for the breakdown of the moral order of traditional American cultural norms— “the work ethic, sexual restraint, self-reliance, patriarchy, Christian worship, and patriotism.”16 The New Right found it particularly easy to generate resentment among struggling working-class taxpayers against welfare recipients.
The New Right found that three story themes worked particularly well to mobilize their constituencies: social ills are the result of permissive liberalism; free market capitalism is more effective than government in delivering prosperity; and the external threat of Communism (later terrorism) requires a strong defense.17 These themes in turn supported cuts in social welfare programs, the deregulation of markets, and lucrative military contracts for corporate sponsors. As observed by researcher Jean Hardisty,
In confusing and frightening times, Christian Right groups provide clear rules of conduct and theologically ordained answers to life’s problems.… The New Right captured and mobilized widespread social stress caused by rapid social and economic change. It did not create backlash sentiments out of whole cloth. They had already existed, at least latently. New Right leaders listened to them, took them seriously, and then mobilized and manipulated them.18
The theocrats respond to attacks on their positions with the charge that opponents are motivated by a hatred of Christians, America, and the moral order. This tactic disguises the fact that promoting hatred and intolerance—particularly against society’s most vulnerable people — places them sharply at odds with the foundational values of the Declaration of Independence, the teachings of Jesus, and the beliefs of the substantial majority of Christians. Indeed, most Christians, including many who identify themselves as fundamentalist or evangelical, are compassionate, committed to progressive democratic values, and deeply offended by the un-Christian aims of leaders of the theocratic right and their distortions of Christian teaching. Hardisty and Clarkson each underscore the essential distinction between the followers of the New Right, who are struggling with legitimate concerns, and the leaders of the New Right, who manipulate those concerns for political advantage.19 226
Exploiting Family Breakdown
The New Right has been brilliantly successful in restoring the imperial status quo in relations between the owning and the working classes. Since 1983, nearly all the gains from economic growth have gone to the very richest Americans as union membership has declined and the real wages of working people have fallen.
As the wages of a typical male worker fell below the level required to support a family, women who earlier had begun to experience a new sense of freedom found that workplace participation was no longer a choice but a necessity. Many were forced into jobs paying less than a living wage. They no longer had the time or energy to prepare home-cooked meals and care for their own children.
With no one to care for the home, demand grew for corporate-produced processed foods and corporate-operated fast-food chains. Declining nutrition generated more business for the health care industry. Children left in the care of television sets were programmed for their consumer roles. Each of these developments opened new marketing opportunities for corporations and advanced economic growth while simultaneously advancing the family and community breakdown, alienation, and stress that provided fertile ground for political demagogues.
Men who played by the rules felt betrayed by the loss of the provider role that was once the foundation of their identity.20 Women, feminist and antifeminist alike, felt betrayed as the jobs that once promised greater freedom became imperatives that limited their freedom. The family life essential to the well-being of men, women, and children had been replaced by the depersonalized marketplace.
The greater the moral decay and family breakdown, the greater the fear and resentment that gave the New Right its power. Blame feminists. Blame liberals. Blame people of color. Blame welfare moms. Just don’t blame the people who are dismantling the institutions of family, community, and democracy.
Those at the bottom of the economic ladder were most commonly people of color—especially African Americans—who were frequently targets of the scapegoating. With few options available, some turned to the drug trade as their best hope for economic success. This led to sharp increases in drug convictions and a swelling prison population, which in turn had a devastating impact on many African American families and drew funds from education and other public needs. It worked out 227well, however, for the corporate elites who profited from the public contracts to build and operate prisons and the ability to employ prison labor for a pittance.21
Struggling to make ends meet and maintain some semblance of the consumer lifestyle, middle- and lower-income households went deeper into debt—thus obligating themselves to turn over an ever growing share of their hard-earned income as interest payments to bankers. Those who had previously enjoyed a comparatively relaxed middle-class life were forced to work harder to support a declining standard of living, even as those at the top enjoyed gourmet restaurants, exotic vacations, private jets, and ever larger and more numerous homes.
PLUTOCRACY AS A BIPARTISAN CAUSE
The New Right’s first major political triumph was the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. The Reagan administration (1981–89) took the lead in implementing the neoliberal economic agenda in the United States, as the administration of Margaret Thatcher advanced the cause in the United Kingdom. In addition to the measures noted above, military expenditures were increased, and the abandonment of antitrust enforcement allowed for ever larger corporate mergers. Europe, Canada, and Japan were pressured to similarly “modernize” their economies.
The third-world debt crisis of 1982 created the necessary pretext for the IMF and World Bank—operating under the direction of the U.S. Treasury Department—to impose the neoliberal agenda on ind
ebted low-income countries. Through their structural-adjustment programs, the IMF and World Bank stripped governments, some democratically elected, of their ability to set and enforce social, environmental, and workplace standards or even to give preference to firms that hired locally or employed union workers.
After the Republican Ronald Reagan, the presidency passed to the Republican George H. W. Bush (1989–93) and then to the Democrat Bill Clinton (1993–2001). Each administration differed in style and priorities, but America’s plutocracy remained fully in charge and its pro-corporate agenda moved seamlessly forward, irrespective of which party was in power.
Clinton, although a member of the presumably more liberal Democratic Party, made major contributions to the New Right agenda by 228rolling back social welfare programs, pushing through the North American Free Trade Agreement, and replacing the GATT with the more powerful WTO. His administration also expanded the number of crimes qualifying for the death penalty and rejected efforts to slow executions. It eliminated 10 million of 14 million people from the welfare roles, supported lowering the capital gains tax, presided over an increase in the number of people without health insurance, refused to sign the international Land Mine Treaty, accelerated drilling for gas and oil on federal lands, and became the first administration since Richard Nixon not to raise the standard for automobile fuel efficiency.22
By the time George W. Bush assumed the powers of the U.S. presidency in January 2001, the New Right had already made significant progress in rolling back the gains of the earlier challenge to Empire. It is telling that the Republican president Richard Nixon (1969–74), considered in his time an archconservative, was by today’s standards a champion of labor and the environment somewhat to the left of the current mainstream of the Democratic Party. In 1970, he created the Environmental Protection Agency and signed into law the Clean Air Act, setting deadlines for reducing automobile emissions. He signed the Endangered Species Acts of 1969 and 1973. In 1971, he signed the law that established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which enforces standards for workplace safety.23 He also opened the way to a peaceful political relationship between the United States and Communist China.
WAKE-UP CALL
For all its populist pretensions, the New Right takeover of the U.S. government was far from a spontaneous expression of the popular will. Rather it was the product of a carefully crafted campaign to manipulate the popular culture to serve the private interests of an imperial elite. It involved a well-organized and well-funded alliance of corporate plutocrats and religious theocrats who brought money and votes to the table in an intentional bid to turn back the clock on democracy, civil liberties, the economic advances of the middle class, and cultural and religious pluralism. The seriousness of the threat to democracy, peace, and U.S. world power and prestige did not hit home for most Americans, however, until the most extremist administration in memory took 229power after the turn of the century. By the overreach of its extremist agenda, this administration exposed the reality of the New Right’s intentions. It also drew attention to the elite bias of the U.S. political system and its vulnerability to a takeover by political extremists with a deep aversion to democracy.
In his 2000 presidential campaign, Bush presented himself as a compassionate conservative who would work for ordinary people, leave no child behind, protect the environment, be fiscally responsible, and pursue a peaceful, cooperative, and nonbelligerent foreign policy respectful of the rights and interests of others.
In his inaugural address on January 20, 2001, Bush reiterated his promises, pledging that his administration would embody “a new commitment to live out our nation’s promise through civility, courage, compassion, and character” and challenged Americans to become engaged in the nation’s civic life.24 He further pledged that in foreign affairs the United States would “show purpose without arrogance.… Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.”25
These were uplifting words true to America’s founding ideals. Most of those who voted for Bush took him at his word. As it turned out, Bush and the small circle of former corporate officers and lobbyists, neoconservative military hawks, religious fundamentalists, and Washington insiders he installed in the top ranks of his administration took power with a well-developed agenda sharply at odds with those professed commitments.
Given that Mr. Bush had never previously distinguished himself for his managerial skills, the speed with which the regime he brought to power took control of the entire administrative branch of the U. S. government was truly stunning. Behind him was a well-disciplined political cabal that had been developing its relationships and agenda for years before the Supreme Court handed Mr. Bush the keys to the White House.
The new regime wasted no time in demonstrating that its intentions were less than compassionate and more than conservative. Within days of taking office, the regime had halted action on several thousand pages of progressive executive orders Bill Clinton had issued in his final days.26 It had denied aid to overseas groups that mention abortion to women as a medical option, developed a $1.6 trillion tax-cut proposal for the super-rich, and introduced an education program centered on vouchers and standardized testing27 designed to undermine public education. 230By March 2001, the regime had announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming28 and had issued a seemingly endless flow of orders loosening restrictions on oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, and coal-fired power generation. It was soon clear to many that the administration’s larger goal was to nullify previous efforts made on behalf of democracy, the middle class, and the environment in favor of global imperial rule by a dynastic U.S. ruling class headed by the House of Bush.29
Within a few months of taking office, Bush, who had promised a cooperative, nonbelligerent foreign policy, had expelled fifty Russian diplomats from the United States on unsubstantiated charges of spying, pulled back from engagement in peace and reconciliation processes in Ireland, the Middle East, and the Korean Peninsula, and withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to implement a missile defense shield. An increasingly unilateral and belligerent U.S. foreign policy created growing alarm among long-standing U.S. allies in Europe.30
VISION OF PAX AMERICANA
The thrust of the new regime’s foreign policy, including plans to invade Iraq, had been worked out years before it took office. In 1992, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense in the Bush I administration, commissioned a group headed by Paul Wolfowitz to prepare a document on a post–cold war defense strategy for the United States. The report, completed in January 1993 just before the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton, presented a clear message: the United States must maintain sufficient military force to dominate any potential rival and be prepared to use that force unilaterally to maintain its dominant position in the world. Iran and Iraq were named as competitors for power in the Middle East and therefore potential threats to U.S. control of the region’s oil resources. Leading Republican neoconservatives Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan followed up with an article in Foreign Affairs that called for the United States to establish a “benevolent global hegemony.”
In 1997, Kristol and Kagan joined a virtual who’s who of top-level defense officials and advisers from the Reagan and Bush I administrations to form the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). 231Founding members included Cheney, Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Perle, who formed the Bush II defense-policy team; and Jeb Bush, Bush II’s brother. In September 2000, PNAC issued a report titled Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. The report spelled out a plan for global U.S. military domination. It envisioned imposing a Pax Americana on the world in the manner of the Pax Romana of the ancient Roman Empire.31 The report became the blueprint for the military plans and policies of the Bush II regime.
The PNAC report observed t
hat mobilizing public support for its agenda of global military dominance would be difficult “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”32 Osama bin Laden’s September 11, 2001, attack provided the regime just what it needed. Well prepared, it moved quickly to embrace what key members, including Bush, Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice described in National Security Council meetings as a “great opportunity.”33 Playing to the fear and insecurity that followed the attacks, the regime quickly seized the moment to advance an unabashed imperial agenda at home and abroad.
Bin Laden’s Gift to Bush
Public support for the Bush II administration, which had been falling steadily in the midst of a moribund economy, suddenly soared following the attack. The nation rallied in support of its commander in chief as the regime invaded Afghanistan in search of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the terrorist attack. Global civil society, which had significantly slowed efforts to advance global neoliberal economic policies, was stunned into temporary quiescence. Bush declared perpetual war against terrorism and announced a military doctrine allowing for unilateral preemptive first strikes, including the possible use of nuclear weapons.
Domestically, Bush demanded that the Congress act immediately to pass new tax cuts for the rich, increase corporate subsidies, expand domestic police powers, roll back civil liberties, create a Department of Homeland Security, weaken social and environmental protections, increase military budgets, and weaponize space. The administration pushed this agenda in the name of national unity, security, and patriotism, branding those who opposed it as traitors who sided with the terrorists. Congressional Republicans celebrated, and congressional 232Democrats fell into line behind them to give Bush most of what he had asked for. The world was on notice that the historic forces of Empire had regrouped.
The Great Turning Page 28