Charles C. Milliken: Passion and politics

From time to time I receive correspondence from those who read my weekly thoughts, sometimes less than totally complimentary. One Canadian correspondent, let’s call her Sue, is intensely interested in American politics. She is a member of the passionate left, and goes on at considerable length condemning Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans, Christians and conservatives in general. Given that I am a Clic (Christian libertarian capitalist), you may imagine Sue isn’t terribly happy with my points of view.

One particular horse she rides to exhaustion is how the aforementioned folks exhibit an authoritarian streak, devoutly hoping that DJT can re-obtain the presidency to continue the incipient dictatorship he started in 2017. To buttress her arguments she sends me writings proving how authoritarian right-leaning folks are, and what a threat they pose to democracy.

Sound familiar?

The 2020 election was pitched up by the left as a plebiscite on democracy, precisely as seen by my Canadian friend. Republicans want a dictatorship, and Democrats were all for democracy. Republicans, you see, are all authoritarians who want a leader to take them to the promised land.

Trump in his four years was a strange type of dictator. Cutting taxes and reducing regulations thus empowering more people to work at higher wages seems a very odd type of dictator. Usually dictators do precisely the opposite. In addition, Trump allowed more oil and gas infrastructure, previously blocked by Democrat administrations, allowing energy independence and relative low prices at the pump. Again, highly unusual dictatorial behavior.

President Joe Biden, in his years so far, has done everything in his power (and tried some things not in his power) to reverse nearly everything Trump accomplished, with less-than-happy results for most of us. It would seem to me that reducing peoples’ abilities to do what they want is more in accordance with how dictators usually behave. But, my Canadian friend points out, everything Biden has done is as pure as the driven snow, doing everything he can to stop the MAGA authoritarians from seizing power. Also he is undoing the damage caused by the previous four years, such as encouraging the use of hydrocarbons through low prices, inevitably leading to the death of our planet.

I think she need not worry. At all levels of the federal government, the “Swamp” is populated overwhelmingly by highly partisan Democrats, or, if you prefer, populated overwhelmingly by scientists and experts who want nothing but the best for the American people, and God help you if you cross them. How, exactly, are the MAGA Republicans, in the unlikely event they are successful at the ballot box, going to reverse what has been increasingly embedded since the Wilson administration? A century or more of momentum isn’t easily stopped. (Some Republicans, foolishly, opt for term limits. There are no term limits for bureaucrats, and they are only too happy to encourage a revolving door for, say, congressmen charged with overseeing them. Those folks won’t even know where the bathroom is for a couple of years. Once they start to catch on, they’re gone.)

Does a “dictator” have to be a single individual? Millions of bureaucrats tell every one of us every day what we may do and not do in nearly every nook and cranny of our lives. Try and think of one significant thing you do each day which is not infected by the hand of bureaucracy. It is obvious to me that most Americans must be authoritarians, because we have been content for generations to obey an all-powerful central, and ever more centralized, authority. No wonder the “Swamp” attacked, and continues to attack, Trump with a vehemence of a mother bear protecting her cubs. What’s the indictment this week? No one else has posed a threat to the rule of the real dictators in our midst.

In the unlikely event President Trump once again becomes President Trump, Sue need not worry. He could do very little to drain the “Swamp” last time, and I see little prospect he could do much more this time.

Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Charles Milliken: Passion and politics