New Nationalism
It was about a hundred years ago that Teddy Roosevelt took sides within his Republican Party over the central tension within it, between progressive reformers and corporate conservatives. He was categorical in his belief that it was government’s duty to act, on behalf of the people, to rein in the excesses of corporate America:
We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.
He goes on like that for pages—about conservation, about welfare, about labor laws, and especially about corporate power. The speech today reads like a liberal manifesto, though Roosevelt considered himself a conservative. After 1910, he broke with Taft’s corporatist Republicans and in 1912 he lead a strong third-party bid for the Presidency that relegated Taft to third place; the winner, Woodrow Wilson (also a progressive), adopted much of the “New Nationalism” that Roosevelt advocated.
Today, no liberal politician would be caught dead reading out a speech like this one—at least not where they might be heard by anyone. But it’s not just the content that’s radical, it’s the tone. He builds his case slowly, and works from fundamental principles. His argument is carefully balanced: while he is roundly critical of the corporatist systems he sees as a cancer upon the nation, he is respectful of the opposing view. Property is important and a positive good, he says, — but people are still more important. He accords opposing views respect, but without conceding their argument any ground.
But the biggest difference between Roosevelt’s tone and that of modern liberals is the way he appeals to patriotism.
Modern liberals often talk (with much consternation and hand-wringing) about how people on the right are “voting against their interests,” and in the way many liberals think about it, it’s true: Republicans generally support policies that don’t favor the poor or middle class that constitutes most of the party’s supporters. Paradoxically, liberals, whose policies are aimed at improving general standards of living at the expense of some individuals, do not seem to understand why people do vote with something other than pure economic self-interest at heart.
Roosevelt’s approach is much different. He speaks constantly of the “commonwealth” or the “public welfare,” of “national efficiency” and “common interest.” Above all, he says:
I do not ask for the over centralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism where we work for what concerns our people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here in Kansas exactly as I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are those which affect us all alike. The National Government belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the National Government. The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly through the National Government.
His ultimate appeal is to nationalism and to patriotism: if it is to mean anything to be an American, it must mean we have some fellow feeling, some concern for one another as people, and the government, as the province of the people, is the way to manifest it. And he’s clear, this will mean sacrifices, but those sacrifices are worth it, because without them, “we cannot go forward as a nation.” This is liberalism as a patriotic, moral imperative.
Changing the tone isn’t sufficient to win the debate today—the skepticism Roosevelt faced was that government was untested; today, it’s that government is incompetent—but it certainly could not hurt. Tired technocrats arguing about economic self-interest just makes our side sound like used car salesmen. We’re not. We’re trying to improve people’s lives. Let’s sound like it.
