Headline, September21, 2013

''' !!! RE-LITIGAT​ING THE SOCIAL

 COMPACT !!! '''

The wonder of wonders is to call attention to a major development that has received scant attention even though it's lying in plain sight: how the two political parties have, in essence, completely switched roles in the course of the last half-century. 

The radical element is now so firmly in control that the Republican Party of 2012 not only was deeply reluctant to nominate Mitt Romney, a more conservative nominee by some measures than George W. Bush, but would not have even nominated Reagan, Nixon, Eisenhower.

Or, in all probability, Abraham Lincoln himself  -who, after all, avoided reference to the party's very name in the midst of Civil War, preferring to emphasize the goal of ''Union.''

Democrats, for their part, have traveled in virtually the opposite direction. From the New Deal through World War II to the Great Society, the Democrats were the party of steady forward movement, of Big Ideas and Big Shoulders, the party that licked the Depression, won World War II.

Took the lead in creating the postwar international security establishment that would fight the Cold War, and aspired to fix the most daunting economic and social problems at home. 

Liberal Democrats -in the North and South- were at the forefront of the civil-rights struggle (in crucial partnership with the Republicans who remembered their party's founding) which reached a legislative high-water mark in the mid 1960s with passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

That very achievement split Franklin D. Roosevelt's ruling coalition and, very quickly delivered the Solid South to the Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction. Associated as they were with the programs of the New Deal and the great Society.

And with an expansion of rights for various through legislative and judicial action, the democrats came across more and more as the crouched consolidators and defenders of past gains. 

When you realize that the ground you fought so hard to win is at risk, and that your first job is to hold it, you stop being an aggressor (and you start arguing with your allies, because not everything can be saved).

Republicans seem determined to re-litigate the social compact, forcing Democrats to fight simply to stay in the same place. 

May be, just may be, it's an original way to frame the contentious national contest that's now taking shape.

The Post continues:

With respectful dedication to the Students. Professors, and Teachers of Mexico. See Ya all on the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless : '' !! The Euphoria !! ''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless