Rush is Wrong: You Don't Have to be a Loudmouth to be Brave

By this point it is becoming evident that Rush Limbaugh is not only the de facto leader of the Republican Party, he is also the most significant obstacle to its ever regaining majority power.  No deep-cover McGovernite mole planted in the bosom of the GOP could do a more effective job of cutting off the party from its own heritage and from political reality itself.

Take Limbaugh’s recent statement that moderates cannot be brave or great.  When I came across that statement, it so happened that I had on my desk several books about moderate Republican Senator and statesman Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and moderate Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Lodge resigned from the Senate in 1944 to become an active combat-duty soldier with the U.S. Army in World War II.  Somehow I can’t see many of today’s conservative Senators following his example of bravery by resigning to take up arms in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And it takes considerable gall for Limbaugh, who found reasons not to volunteer for the Vietnam War, to deny the greatness of General Eisenhower.  As far as Ike’s courage is concerned, it’s always worth revisiting the statement he had prepared before the D-Day invasion in 1944 in the event it proved unsuccessful: “Our landings… have failed and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available.  The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery could do.  If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”  Again, it’s hard to picture those words emanating from most current politicians, whose closest approach to admitting fault is the cowardly passive-voice construction, “Mistakes were made.”

But let’s suppose Limbaugh didn’t mean to impugn the military courage and greatness of General Eisenhower and the long, long list of moderate members of Congress from both parties who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.  Let’s assume that Limbaugh meant that moderates simply have no opinions and stand for nothing, hence are incapable of accomplishing anything great.  And to simplify matters further, let’s grant that he was talking about “greatness” within the restricted field of U.S. politics, rather than dismissing the achievers from across the entire field of human endeavor, from Maimonides to Leonardo da Vinci to Bill Gates, who might have moderate views (keeping in mind for the moment Limbaugh’s dictum that moderates cannot have “opinions”).

Moderates, it is true, do compromise and have been known to change their positions.  But does this make them less brave or great?  Consider, for a start, George Washington.  The Father of His Country was a model of enlightened and dedicated moderation.  He preached national unity, prudence, and conciliation as well as principle and firmness in achieving “a government of accommodation as well as a government of Laws.”  In the absence of compromise and “a middle course,” he warned Thomas Jefferson, “the wheels of Government will clog; our enemies will triumph, and by throwing their weight into the disaffected Scale, may accomplish the ruin of the goodly fabric we have been erecting.”  Gil Troy’s 2008 book, Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents, makes an excellent case that our greatest national leaders, from Washington to Lincoln to Ronald Reagan, have succeeded by hewing close to the American political center.

The greatest achievements of government in recent times – from the rebuilding of Europe after World War II, to the promotion of civil rights for all citizens, to victory in the Cold War – have come about as a result of moderate, bipartisan compromise as well as firmness and principle.  Often these accomplishments required politicians to make a wrenching break with past convictions and reputations: Arthur Vandenberg abandoning isolationism to help create the post-WWII order of communist containment, Everett Dirksen curtailing his coalition with Southern segregationists to support civil rights, Richard Nixon overcoming his Red-baiting past and conservative hostility to bring China into the world community, Ronald Reagan helping Mikhail Gorbachev write a peaceful end to the Cold War.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, arguably the most significant legislative accomplishment of the twentieth century, owes much of its existence to determined moderate Republicans like Ohio’s Rep. William McCulloch, who had to overcome the opposition both of conservatives who thought he was going too far and liberals who thought he wasn’t going far enough.  The conservative champion Barry Goldwater, who was one of only five Republicans to vote against the Act, did arguably display bravery and principle in upholding the continuation of Southern racial segregation on narrow constitutional grounds, thereby defying his party leadership and annihilating his chance of becoming president.  But “greatness” involves being on the right side of history.  No political stance, whether conservative or moderate or liberal, has demonstrated that it has a monopoly on historic truth, which means that fixity of dogma is not necessarily courageous or praiseworthy.

If a willingness to defy party leadership is a mark of bravery, then it takes much more courage to be a moderate in the Republican Party these days than it does to be a conservative.

Courageous moderates like Jim Leach or Mike Castle who deviate from an increasingly rigid conservative line are punished in myriad ways: undesirable committee assignments, loss of position within committees (with resultant loss of publicity opportunities), lack of campaign support, and official party indifference when the likes of the Club for Growth campaigns against any Republican showing intolerable levels of moderation or independence.

It’s easy to go along to get along with today’s conservative Republican leadership, but it’s hard to argue, as the late strategist Lee Atwater did, for a big-tent approach that would make the GOP more electable.  It’s easy to sign Grover Norquist’s no-new-taxes pledge, but it takes courage to engage in tough negotiations with Democrats over painful cuts in spending, as economic conservatives like Bill Frenzel and Barber Conable used to do.  It requires no effort to nay-say every Democratic initiative, but quite a lot of effort to come up with positive, detailed and realistic initiatives that haven’t been seen in Republican circles since Newt Gingrich’s heyday.  It’s easy to play more-conservative-than-thou if you’re running in a safe Republican district, but it’s a much greater challenge to gain election as a Republican in a swing district, like Connecticut’s Christopher Shays, where a conservative hardliner has absolutely no chance of victory.  And it takes more courage for a Republican to follow the example of Jack Kemp, whose wholehearted concern for African-Americans was central to his political strategy, than to write off entire segments of one’s fellow Americans on the grounds that “Those people don’t vote for us anyway.”

Limbaugh’s statement that moderates “don’t have opinions” stems ultimately from a narrowness of vision that divides the world into dittoheads and socialists, with no room in between.  In this he resembles no one so much as Lenin, who knew that the way to overthrow a democratic society is to eliminate the moderate middle ground between Bolsheviks and reactionaries.  But in fact, survey after survey has shown that the vast majority of Americans share moderate views, distinct from extreme positions on either side, on nearly all important political and social and cultural issues.  To denigrate most Americans by telling them that they have no opinions, and add insult to injury by calling them wimps lacking greatness, is not a smart strategy for a political party that wants to be in the majority someday.  Then again, Limbaugh’s ratings are best when the Republican Party does the worst.

At some point the GOP will have to make a decision.  Would it rather write out moderates – including some of its bravest leaders and proudest achievements – from its history, and continue to read them out of the party?  Or would it rather wait for Limbaugh’s future opus on ‘Great Extremists of the Twenty-First Century’?  Show me that book.