The drift to the right in politics the world over: is there another way?

One side of my family is in mourning this week. For the second time in a row, an Italian center-left government has fallen under its own dead weight after less than two years in office. All indications suggest that Italy will now elect, for a third time, a center-right government dominated by Silvio Berlusconi, the politician even conservatives love to hate. Perhaps Berlusconi will not do as much damage to Italy as his detractors predict. But one thing is sure: Berlusconi is the perfect candidate for an electorate that is desirous first of all of being granted permission to party on the Titanic for as long as possible, the common good, whatever that is, be damned.

The Italian side of my family is Protestant, and Italian Protestants, like Italian Jews, are historically left-leaning. When I began dating Paola, who is now my wife, my future father-in-law handed me a pamphlet about Karl Marx put out in Italian by the Soviet embassy. My American eyes grew wide upon this introduction to the political culture of the family that would go on to treat me better than a son.

I dutifully read the pamphlet – it wasn’t exactly inspiring – and thanked my bookish stars that I knew more about Marx than the pamphlet did. “What’s this?” I said to Valdo. “No mention of the fact that Marx was Jewish? Might that not be important for Soviets to know, whose history of anti-Semitism is well-known?” I got him there, but that hardly changed the fact that being Protestant and being of the “Left,” however that is defined in a particular moment, are pretty much coterminous among educated Italians. Now you know why my friends and family in Italy are in mourning this week.

Don’t get me wrong. The reasons the Left is discredited the world over are weighty and numerous. But that doesn’t mean the Right is any better. In this post, I wish to introduce the political prayer that will be on my lips this season. It consists of Habakkuk 1:12-13:

הֲלוֹא אַתָּה      מִקֶּדֶם יְהוָה

אֱלֹהַי קְדֹשִׁי     לֹא תָמוּת*

יְהוָה לְמִשְׁפָּט שַׂמְתּוֹ         וְצוּר לְהוֹכִיחַ יְסַדְתּוֹ

 

טְהוֹר עֵינַיִם      מֵרְאוֹת רָע

וְהַבִּיט אֶל־עָמָל      לֹא תוּכָל

לָמָּה תַבִּיט בּוֹגְדִים    תַּחֲרִישׁ בְּבַלַּע רָשָׁע    צַדִּיק מִמֶּנּוּ

*MT hasלֹא נָמוּת   we shall not die (tikkun sopherim)

Are you not

     from everlasting, O יהוה?

My God, my Holy One,

     you do not die.

יהוה ! You made him† an instrument of judgment,

     Rock! You prepared him to punish.

 

You whose eyes are too pure

     to look upon evil,

you are not able

      to countenance oppression:

why do you countenance treacherous men?

      Are mute while a criminal swallows

               one more innocent than he?

† The Chaldean invader (Hab 1:6) who wreaked havoc and shed blood wherever he went, and now would do the same to Jerusalem

 Prayer, one will notice, is the foundation of political action among the Hebrew prophets. In a national crisis, the prophet’s first interlocutor is God, not the state. For a believer, it cannot be otherwise.

But then, who takes the prophets seriously these days? I’ve noticed they make a nice wax nose for those who like to add a bit of religious incense to their political hackery of choice. Anyone who thinks the Hebrew prophets were liberal Democrats or social conservatives ante litteram hasn’t got a clue.

Most people are not aware of the rightward drift of politics the world over. Everyone’s eyes are on the presidential race in the US, so it’s easy to forget that even if the next POTUS is a Democrat and takes, as would be the normal swing of things, the nation leftward after an 8 year tilt in the opposite direction, she or he will do so in a rightward moving context.

Why is it that Germany, Mexico, Canada, France, South Korea, and now Italy have shifted or are shifting rightward? Why is it that the United States, Australia, Russia, and Japan have been governed from the right for a long time? The only G-8 country that has a left-leaning government at the moment is Great Britain. How long will that last?

Is the rightward drift destined to continue? Does it bode well for the future? Yes, to the first question, so far as I can see; no, to the second.

To be sure, the high-flying rhetoric Barack Obama excels in is soothing to the ear, but the party of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is incapable of delivering the goods on anything beyond earmarks. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the electorates of many countries tired of the promises of the Left long ago because of huge distances between rhetoric and reality.

The first order of business of any politics should be that of organizing the state in such a way that justice and reconciliation actually occur. That means funding and staffing a state that applies as much force as necessary to protect the innocent and to avenge the innocent when they are hurt or killed. As it is, the violent carry it away. The situation is not acceptable to most people. They gladly empower law and order governments to put matters right.

People can only watch so many episodes of “CSI” and “The Unit” and see “Lord of the Rings” and “The Matrix” on DVD so many times. People also want to see their own governments take on the bad guys, including those within the government and among elected representatives, and win. If the Left ever caught onto this, it would have a fighting chance. I’m not holding my breath.

On the Left, pacifism lite is the beer on tap. It provides a pleasant buzz, unless you yourself are a victim, and are looking for redress.

Comments

[Doug Chaplin]

I observe the same general trend in the West as you, but am less sure of the reasons you give. It seems to me that the right's rhetoric is not exactly matched to reality either.
And Australia recently elected a Labor Government.

[Stephen (aka Q)]

Funny. I thought "conservative" government was small government. To hear you describe it, conservative governments are the ones who chase all 'round the world, setting the world's wrongs to right.

The Bush administration wasn't able to put a constructive effort together after Hurricane Katrina. But I admit, they're good at bombs and torture. If that's what it takes to effect justice, then Republicans are your ticket.

As for earmarks … oh yes, the Republican record is so much better than the Democrats on this front! Didn't the Clintons deliver balanced budgets, whereas the Bush administration has added $32 trillion to the national debt since Sept. 30, 2000? I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[JohnFH]

Doug, thanks for the correction, and I agree with you, the right's rhetoric and reality do not match up either.

Stephen, I disagree with you about Katrina. Yes, FEMA was not up to the task, nor is it now, nor is it likely to be in the near future.

But it should also be pointed out that the Coast Guard did unsung crackerjack work on that occasion, saving thousands of lives.

Finally, the Democrats in charge in New Orleans and the state of Louisiana, who had a better chance of doing good in a disaster like Katrina than FEMA in the first place, proved to be completely inept in the circumstance. That you fail to mention this suggests that you know little about Louisiana and New Orleans, and have simply bought into the self-serving narrative of events concocted by East Coast liberal media. Don't get me going on New Orleans. I was down there once on mission post-Katrina, and some of my flock went down a second time. Republicans are the least of New Orleans' problems. Anyone who misses this is operating under an illusion.

You are right that Republicans are by and large just as bad if not worse on the earmarks issue. You are not right to suggest Republicans are better than Democrats at bombs and torture. It's only possible to say that if you define your window in a partisan way, so as to exclude the Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, and leave US foreign policy in Latin America, for example, out of consideration.

It is a healthy thing, if one looks at politics systemically, for one political party to succeed another at a nation's helm. It's too early to say for sure, but I can assure you that the state I live in, Wisconsin, will vote for Obama rather than McCain if those are the choices in the fall.

However, it is worth pointing out that should another 9/11 overtake the US, it would be McCain and not Obama who would be in a better position to exercise restraint in terms of a reprisal. Surely this is obvious.