Conservative Zombie Ideas Haunting Us Still

How do you kill a zombie idea? I mean, like the tenets of right-wing political philosophy that have been proven dead wrong—yet, they continue to rise up and gnaw at the flesh of America’s body politic. I wonder, because every time members of Congress walk into the Capitol, zombie ideas shamble in with them. As many as 200 members of Congress—most of them House Republicans—remain in the grip of creepy, brain-eating political beliefs, like these:

Zombie idea: Government is the problem, and the less government, the better. Twenty-eight years ago, Ronald Reagan famously said, “Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Since then, a mob of right-wing ideologues have mindlessly repeated or embellished Reagan’s remark. Grover Norquist made the goal sound rather monstrous—shrinking government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Grover, you drown things in bathtubs?

The high water-mark of “government is the problem” conservatism surely was the 2005 attempt to privatize the granddaddy of all big government programs, Social Security. That effort was beaten back by a storm of protest, and just months later the tide turned in this philosophical battle when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005.

As the nation watched in horror while victims of the hurricane drowned and others survived in squalor, Americans came to understand that we need government. Barack Obama campaigned and Americans elected him President on a platform of more government—not necessarily “big” government, but enough government. And as the Bush recession turned into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Americans overwhelmingly agreed that the federal government had to step in, spend hundreds of billions of dollars, and create jobs.

Today, despite the fact that right wingers in Congress continue to chant the Reagan slogan, polls make it clear that Americans fully support Obama’s activist approach and clearly reject the undead idea that government can’t or shouldn’t help solve our nation’s problems.

Zombie idea: Trickle-down tax cuts stimulate the economy and benefit average Americans. Another relic of the Reagan era is the idea that tax cuts for the rich will lead to more investment and an increase in good jobs for middle and lower-income workers. John Kenneth Galbraith called it the horse-and-sparrow theory: “If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

Right wingers also asserted that, by stimulating growth, trickle-down tax cuts would offset the government’s lost revenue—they would pay for themselves. That was quickly proven false as the national debt tripled over the course of Reagan’s eight years in office. Similarly, George W. Bush’s trickle-down tax cuts helped double the national debt between 2001 and 2009.

In fact, the notion that tax cuts for the rich can significantly improve America’s economy is dead and buried. Jarad Bernstein lays out the evidence in an article, “Trickle Down…R.I.P.,” conclusively proving that middle- and lower-class families do well when the tax system is more progressive and lose ground when taxes shift to benefit the wealthy.

Trickle-down economics continues to rise up from the graveyard into congressional bills and amendments proposed by Republican leaders in the U.S. House and Senate. But polls show that these are lifeless ideas. Americans instead endorse a very different initiative—Barack Obama’s tax cut for the middle-class.

Zombie idea: The market is self-correcting. Economic theory from the “Chicago School” of economics came to dominate political decision making during the Reagan era. At its core, conservative economics assumed that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” automatically guided markets—so, a totally unregulated market is always best and the government can only make things worse.

But the truth is, there’s no such thing as letting the market decide. The “free market” is a myth, a fraud, a rhetorical device. The government is always involved, always biasing market results, always nudging and twisting and bumping around the so-called invisible hand.

Well before the age of Obama, American markets were never free of government influence. Companies and industries sought subsidies and non-competitive contracts from the government. They lobbied furiously to change the rules of commerce to their advantage—seeking tax breaks, regulatory changes, and foreign policies that generated profit.

Business profited when the government leased mineral rights, grazing rights, or timber rights; when government allowed companies to pollute without cost; and when government research was handed over for private use. Companies profited by keeping down the minimum wage, changing tort law to shift legal risk, using trade law to discourage certain imports, and turning the U.S. Labor Department into an agency that helped prevent workers from unionizing.

Just recently, some of the loudest proponents of this right-wing economics—like Alan Greenspan—have conceded error. But the word hasn’t reached conservatives in Congress, and those who dominate the right-wing media. Want to hear the dead speak? Just turn on your radio.

Zombie idea: A cowboy foreign policy works. The neo-conservative foreign policy of George W. Bush was nothing new. It was the natural continuation of the Reagan philosophy: a worldwide “crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation.”

Bush’s unilateralist foreign policy brought us the war in Iraq—the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country. This preemptive war, based on phony pretenses, is now the second longest in our nation’s history (after Vietnam). Some 35,000 Americans are dead or wounded, as well as an enormous number of innocent Iraqis. And even today, 6 years later, can anyone explain why Bush marched us into this quagmire?

But this was just the worst example of cowboy foreign policy. Conservatives have left us a trail of broken treaties (e.g. the Geneva Convention), ignored allies (e.g. NATO), and utter failure to deal successfully with rogue states (e.g. North Korea). They also left a shameful record of arrest and jailing of innocents, unrelenting torture, and extraordinary rendition.

No wonder the world rejoiced when Barack Obama won the presidency. No wonder his overseas trips are greeted with celebration. And today, Americans don’t just know he’s right, they’re proud that he has made the United States an international leader once again.

The Bush Doctrine is dead. So why are conservatives still calling for more angry militarism and greater defense spending? Why do they still rail against “Islamofascism”? Why are they still defending torture?

Zombie idea: The right-wing “culture war” can be won. Conservative “movement” politics is all about defining enemies, like Hollywood liberals bringing down public morality, abortionists who oppose “life,” and those who practice the gay “lifestyle.”

The truth is, George W. Bush only gave lip service to social conservatives. He took very little action on their behalf. Why? It would have been bad politics. Americans aren’t interested in a culture war. Even fundamentalist leader James Dobson admitted: “We are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict…. Humanly speaking, we can say that we have lost all those battles.”

Just look at the issue of LGBT rights over the course of the Bush presidency. Same-sex marriage has become legal, not just in places like New England (and for a while California), but in Iowa! In fact, there were really no major protests anywhere in America when same-sex marriage was legalized almost simultaneously in Iowa and Vermont.

In addition, over the past eight years laws have been enacted in dozens of states and cities preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and many of those laws also protect transgender persons. Hate crimes laws have passed in every corner of the nation. And that was under Bush. President Obama is appointing openly gay people to important positions throughout the federal government.

Polls show that support for LGBT rights is growing rapidly and that young people are enthusiastic supporters. Even some leaders on the right can read the handwriting on the wall. McCain-Palin campaign strategist Steve Schmidt recently urged the GOP to endorse same-sex marriage. Put a fork in it—the culture war is done.

That’s not to say that progressives have an easy time ahead. Conservatives will hold more Tea Parties; cartoon-character right wingers like Eric Cantor will fight to the end; Rush Limbaugh will never stop his stream of lies. But understand, those types no longer deal in living, breathing ideas. It’s just the Night of the Living Dead, recycled over and over again.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future