Want to understand Donald Trump's rise in the GOP? Look to the financial crisis — of 1873

[elleng]

'nald Trump will probably mark a turning point in the ideological history of the Republican Party. A party that since 1964 has been all about free trade and tearing up the welfare state has nominated as its presidential candidate a trade skeptic who promises to protect Social Security and Medicare.

He is also a deranged racist, of course. But as Arlie Hochschild shows in a long profile of various Trump supporters, this willingness to embrace government handouts (delimited by race, of course) is a genuine shift in many Republicans' ideology — and one which is confusing and annoying to more traditional conservatives.

But this isn't the first time the Republican Party has been cracked apart by this issue. The party confronted a similar ideological crisis after the Panic of 1873, the largely forgotten financial crisis that precipitated a grueling depression at the end of the 19th century. The way Republicans responded provides a lesson for both parties — namely, that a ruling political party must use government policy to provide widely-shared material security.

After the Civil War, the Republican Party enjoyed total political dominance in America. They based their postwar policy on the "free labor ideology," which they counterposed against the slave system of the antebellum South. They argued that the free labor system — portrayed as a society of small farmers, artisan craftsman, and small businesses, where men have the opportunity to earn economic advancement — was modern, fair, and free compared to the tyrannical and antiquated slave system.

So after some bitter political scuffles immediately following the war, the party settled on two major principles for postwar Reconstruction: universal male suffrage, and classical liberal economic policy. No unions, strict defense of property rights, fiscal austerity, and the gold standard were thought to provide a level economic playing field, where blacks and whites alike could get a fair chance at prosperity. It was rather different in detail from today's conservative ideology — especially in the South, where Republicans were building state governments basically from scratch — but the general thrust was quite similar.'>>>

http://theweek.com/articles/646448/want-understand-donald-trumps-rise-gop-look-financial-crisis--1873

[saidsimplesimon]

1. K&R