SANTA MONICA, Ca. — “Paradox” is a thoroughly inadequate
description of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appearance last
month before the GOP convention. The event’s internal
contradictions bounce off each other like reflections in a funhouse
gallery, creating disorientation if not suspicion across the entire
spectrum of GOP ideologues. What most fail to see is that, obscured
by the pomp, the irony, and the mischievous “action hero” overtones
of Schwarzenegger’s ascendancy is a big fat opportunity for
conservatives.
Imagine: A Republican governor voted into power in a
special election by a luridly Democratic state. Now, he movingly
and passionately supports the nominee, highlighting his policy
differences in personal domestic policy only by his abject
silence.
It gets better: Before Arnold speaks, the pundits worry
how this outsider, this actor, this pro-choicer would be received
by the more conservative convention assembly. The answer, of
course, is with affectionate, raucous acceptance of his message of
strength abroad and opportunity at home. Few in either party
remember that his father-in-law, Sargent Shriver, was, in 1972, the
last pro-life candidate on a national Democratic
ticket.
And for those keeping score at home: Twelve years
earlier, Margaret Sanger, arguable founder of the pro-choice
movement, declared that she would “leave the country” if Mrs.
Schwarzenegger’s uncle, John F. Kennedy, (a dangerous Roman
Catholic) were elected. (She didn’t.)
In the battle for the soul of the Republican Party, Arnold
represents neither side — and both. For fifty years, Republicans
have been periodically riven by a seemingly irresolvable collision
of philosophies. Most partisans consider this a zero-sum battle,
where each side’s gain is the other’s loss.
Broadly speaking, the fault line is between those classic
conservatives who “just say no” to liberal social programs and the
“Rockefeller Republicans” who eschew ideology to realistically
(cravenly?) meet the Democrats half way on every expansion of
government. Schwarzenegger smashes that dynamic, as he moves toward
realizing a vision of government that is both libertarian and
authoritarian, both laissez faire and confiscatory, both brutal and
affectionate.
Both sides are confused: Is the governor some kind of
hypocrite, schizophrenic, or poseur? Only if we rely on an
obsolete, last-century worldview. Arnold introduces a new way to
play the game: with a conservatism that is unique, and not made in
America. In an age where “European” has become synonymous with
“socialist,” “progressive,” or maybe just “depraved,”
Schwarzenegger is a living, breathing import of the retro
liberal/authoritarianism introduced into central Europe by the
notable social architect Otto von Bismarck.
THE GREAT PRUSSIAN AGGREGATOR of the late 19th century German
empire, Bismarck achieved initial success the real
old-fashioned way, with “blood and iron,” better strategies, and
faster implementation of new armaments. Then, determined to head
off the socialism that had roiled neighboring countries, Bismarck
initiated path-breaking social welfare programs for the disabled
and the elderly. Funded by payments both from the worker and the
government, it became the template for all liberal programs of the
next century. To the consternation of the “real” conservatives of
the ruling class, Bismarck saw no incongruence between the cold
blooded pursuit of national power on the one hand and a nurturing
governmental safety net on the other. Like his unification of the
local Germanic fiefdoms, social welfare was just one more component
of his vision of the modern state, an inexorable evolution from an
inferior feudal world. (A Nexis search of “Von Bismarck” in
proximity to “Rockefeller Republican” yields no matches.)
Technically speaking, Governor Schwarzenegger is an unlikely
emissary of Bismarckian social welfare into the New World. Arnold
is from Austria, a territory with which Bismarck allied but
specifically excluded from his confederation. Moreover, Arnold is a
Catholic, the group against which Bismarck launched the original
Kulturkampf, seeing the Church as an alternate ruling
structure and thus a threat to empire’s power base. Nonetheless, by
both words and behavior, Schwarzenegger displays a deep
internalization of the mindset that the Iron Chancellor imposed on
the region 125 years ago. In fact, the personal parallels are
strong:
• Both are outsiders, taking leadership of a population
and a society far larger than their own birth country.
• Both are by their nature authoritarians, with a visceral
contempt for anything that smacks of socialism — yet both appeal
to the power of the “common folk” as allies in their battle against
entrenched special interests.
• Bismarck was the father of “realpolitik.” Even when not
playing the Terminator, Arnold is also no slouch when it comes to
emotionally-detached strategy and the power of self discipline.
• Both consciously employ strategic misdirection to
confound their opponents often “winning” the battle before it
begins.
Like Bismarck, Arnold’s fusion of conservatism and social
welfare is not a milquetoast compromise, but rather the
simultaneous pursuit of twin core passions. In the convention
speech, speaking of his first experiences in this country in 1968,
Arnold recounts how, in America, he found a conservatism that
resonated with his own innate value system:
But then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free
enterprise, getting government off your back, lowering taxes and
strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more
like a breath of fresh air.
I said to my friend, “What party is he?” My friend said, “He’s a
Republican.” I said, “Then I am a Republican!”
Gamely, Arnold frames Republicanism as an issue of “freedom”
both for society and for the individual:
My fellow immigrants, my fellow Americans, how do you
know if you are a Republican? Well I’ll tell you how.
If you believe that government should be accountable to the
people, not the people to the government… then you are a
Republican! If you believe that a person should be treated as an
individual, not a member of an interest group… then you are a
Republican! If you believe that your family knows how to spend your
money better than the government does… then you are a Republican!
If you believe our educational system should be held accountable
for the progress of our children… then you are a Republican! If
you believe that this country, not the United Nations, is the best
hope of democracy in the world… then you are a Republican! And,
ladies and gentlemen… if you believe we must be fierce and
relentless and terminate terrorism… then you are a
Republican!
There is another way you can tell you’re a Republican. You have
faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the
American people… and faith in the U.S. economy. And to those
critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: “Don’t be
economic girlie men!”
In his passion for domestic matters, Arnold might appear to be
moving in the other direction. Certainly, his litmus test for
masculinity does not include the official Republican talking
points. Just this week, he announced support of a state initiative
on government sponsored stem cell research, apparently unconcerned
about any embarrassment to President Bush. This paragon of stoic
self-reliance has also signed a bouquet of bills noxious to
hardline conservatives, including a ban on .50 caliber rifles, a
strengthened hate crime legislation to include trans-gendered
people, a bill sponsored by Planned Parenthood that protects the
privacy of reproductive health workers and one requiring insurance
companies to give the same benefits to domestic partners as they do
to married couples.
Despite all this and more, conservatives need not lose faith;
properly nurtured, the Schwarzenegger ascendancy can become the
American welfare state’s worst nightmare. Though they may
appear at first blush to be a strategic separate peace with his
Hollywood friends and Kennedy family, Arnold’s social programs have
the inherent potential to eviscerate the liberal orthodoxy’s
posture of moral superiority and its claim to exclusivity in
managing social problems.
LIKE MANY OF ARNOLD’S cinematic opponents, the American Welfare
State is both cocky and long in the tooth. Soaked in a sense of
entitlement and a quasi-religious commitment to ignore the
consequences of personal moral behavior, the wheezing
Government/Union/Teachers complex has reached its institutional
reductio ad absurdum. Gone is the communitarianism that
was the cornerstone of past generations of American social welfare
— the currency empowering today juggernaut is a consensus that
this country is structurally unfair on its good days and exploitive
on all the rest.
Whether he is discussing national defense or social welfare,
Arnold describes a fundamentally different vision of America.
Rather than anger or entitlement, he begins with a sense of
obligation between man and state. This was Bismarck’s
innovation; to acknowledge that, as a predicate for demanding a
citizen’s obligation to the state, so the state had an obligation
to the citizen. As he wrote in the early 1880s:
That state must take the matter into its own hands,
[…] not as alms-giving, but as the right that men have to be
taken care of when, with the best will imaginable, they become
unfit for work. Why should the regular soldier, disabled by war, or
the official, have a right to be pensioned in his old age, and not
the soldier of labour?
Arnold’s policies largely target exactly the kind of people
Bismarck highlights: those who, for reasons not their own, need
help. It is no accident that his first foray into politics two
years ago was an initiative for at-risk children. Essentially, his
programs are designed to disintermediate the recipient from the
povertician power structure. A classic example would be workman’s
comp reforms, delivering aid to the victims while at the same time
de-funding the attorney/physician cartel that has made so much
money off of the program.
In polar opposition to his predecessor, Arnold does not yoke
government aid to government growth. Rather, much like a Silicon
Valley venture capitalist, he sees government as a leveraging
wedge. Arnold’s ambitious plan for an eco-friendly “Hydrogen
Highway” will cost California at least $100 million, but he is
convinced that the government must be the catalyst. To both
supporters and skeptics, he says: “Your government will lead by
example.”
Conservatives might grumble that Schwarzenegger’s third way of
republicanism is only “half a loaf.” But, that dissatisfaction
would be premature. This “half loaf” of social welfare yoked to
personal responsibility is really a loaf of unbaked dough. And
just as dough can expand to fill an entire bread pan, so can a
populace that recognizes a sense of personal obligation grow into a
more centered, conservative society.
As the left increasingly understands the mortal threat to its
power base, it will take a man truly of political blood and iron to
press the charge. If Arnold can lead the way in renegotiating the
great American contract, moving from a sense of entitlement to a
sense of obligation, then even dozens of his possibly harebrained
new programs will turn out to essentially cost chump change. They
will be a small price to pay for a morally, socially, and
economically healthier country.
