Toward the end of his study -- American Sphinx: the Character of Thomas Jefferson -- Joseph Ellis reiterated the historians reticence to see too much of the past in the present. He quotes a familiar line -- that the past is a foreign country, with its own distinctive mores and language -- then goes on to say "all efforts to wrench Jefferson out of his own time and place, therefore, are futile and misguided ventures that invariably compromise the integrity of the historical context that made him what he was" (350). Jefferson's and my own world are very different things, and Ellis sees four successive waves of change that wiped out the Jeffersonian legacy, the first of which was the Civil War, which "destroyed slavery, the political primacy of the south and the doctrine that the states were sovereign agents in the federal compact" (352). The second, "really a series of waves," struck in the three decades between 1890 and 1920. Demography is destiny of a sort, and the 1890 census "revealed that the frontier phase of American history was over," while the 1920 census reported for the first time that "the majority of American citizens lived in urban as opposed to rural areas," along with a "huge influx of European and Asian immigrants that permanently altered the previously Anglo-Saxon character of the American population" (352). All of which, taken together, transformed "Jefferson's agrarian vision into a nostalgic memory, his belief in the resuscitative powers of the West into a democratic myth, and his presumption of Anglo-Saxon hegemony into a racial relic." The third wave came after the crash of 1929 with Roosevelt's New Deal, which was "the death knell for Jefferson's idea of a minimalist government," while the fourth wave, the onset of the Cold War, provided nails for the clean up crew's coffins. A minimalist government requires, if you will, a minimalist military, but with the Cold War "the United States committed itself to a massive military establishment," a military-industrial complex that "embodied precisely the kind of standing army (and navy and air force) that Jefferson abhorred." Other nails for the coffins sealing the Jeffersonian legacy came in the 60s, with Johnson's Great Society, with its "entrenched military establishment, its dedication to the welfare state, its extension of full citizenship to blacks and women," all of which "represented the epitome of political corruption in the Jeffersonian scheme, as well as the repudiation of racial and gender differences that Jefferson regarded as rooted in fixed principles of nature" (353).
I do think Ellis is correct, and when you lay it out this succinctly, we do live in a very different, post-Jeffersonian world. Having said that, I would suggest that ideas never really die, and Ellis notes the "still living" quality of Jefferson when he suggests that "ironically, one of the most discernible strands of Jeffersonian thought that remains very much alive is the steadfast reluctance, in some instances, downright refusal, to accept the political implications of these changes" (354). One could go through, one by one, and detail just how the zombie remnants of Jeffersonian thought continue to walk among us, infecting others, and wreaking havoc. Consider, for example, the Civil War legacy. It may well have "destroyed slavery" as an institution, and the civil rights legislation may have extended full citizenship to blacks under the law, but few would suggest that the stain of slavery has been thoroughly oxycleaned out of the American fabric. The Civil War left in its wake a permanent resentment, one visible symbol of which is the confederate flag. As recently reported, "a second Confederate battle flag is flying high over Interstate 95 in Stafford, despite the massive backlash over last year's flag, flown in Chester. The Virginia Flaggers group raised this additional flag on Saturday, re-igniting a debate over this controversial symbol's meaning." The flaggers "say they wanted to commemorate nearly 246,000 Confederate ancestors who fought in battles around the Fredericksburg area, such as in Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, and the Wilderness." One doesn't commemorate unjust causes, and while those flying the flag suggest it's not about slavery, they nevertheless cite Jefferson to justify their actions. "If you read your American history, it was the most American thing to do... to rebel against the tyranny of a government that was oppressive...had nothing to do with slaves." They have appropriated the language of Lee's resolution and Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and while the indictment and list of grievances may be contemporary, the thought is not. They are asserting that the southern states, were and still are,"free and independent States," and all one need do to make the argument is to make a simple substitution for British Crown, and "they are absolved from all allegiance to the [US Federal Government] and that all political connection between them ... is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." As Ellis put it, "such public invocations and appropriations of the mythical Jefferson" may have "only the faintest connection with the historical Jefferson," but it is also clear that he is not "resting conformably in archival enclaves tended by vigilant scholars." He walks among us still, and his oppositional ideas strike me today much as they must have struck the British in '76.
The flaggers may assert that it's about "heritage," not slavery, or the deeply engrained resentment at a distant federal government -- one out of touch with local mores -- one that seems to have moved beyond simply freeing blacks and ending slavery, beyond granting equal rights and status to blacks, to actually "favoring" blacks institutionally with programs like "welfare" and "affirmative action." There is a counter argument, and Virginia House Delegate Jennifer McClellan makes it. As reported, she has her own version of "if you read your American history," suggesting that "if you read the actual documents of secession, that the states passed when they left the Union, it was all about slavery," and "McClellan believes the only way for the South to move forward is to truly recognize the past for what it was." She says, "if they are going to memorialize their ancestors, then they need to embrace the truth about their ancestors. And we will not be able to heal as a society until we do that, and we have an honest conversation and move forward." While there are those who refuse to accept "the political implications" of the Civil War, and we might expect their resentment to fade over time, but how much time? Another 150 years? The way in which we justify ourselves matters, and he notes that "the chief voice for this potent version of Jeffersonian nostalgia in the late twentieth century is the conservative wing of the Republican party." It has, he suggests, "campaigned against the encroaching character of the federal government, much as Jefferson campaigned against the consolidating tendencies of the English parliament in the 1770s, the Hamiltonian financial program of the 1790s, and federal efforts to block the expansion of slavery in the 1820s." He warns that it's not just "the Republican desire to shift power from the federal government to the state governments." Although "state's rights" has a long and disconcerting history when it comes to racial relations and civil rights, there remains some legitimacy to a desire to deal with local problems locally. Having said that, however, "more significantly," Ellis writes, the deeper Jeffersonian legacy "is his hostility to government power, per se," and one hears it in Steve Bannon's hostility to the "administrative state," and consequently in his presidential acolyte's actions. "The underlying logic of conservative thought," Ellis writes, "clearly regards the entire federal edifice that has developed in post-Jeffersonian America -- that is, over the past century -- as both dangerous and dispensable."
There are a number of conundrums inherent in the small government argument, the first of which is its oppositional quality. Implicit, for example, Trump's campaign promise to make American great again -- particularly that "again" -- is a Jeffersonian nostalgia, the promise that American greatness can be restored through "a dismantling operation designed to remove the accumulated political debris that has built up since the golden age." There is some appeal to this, if one thinks of it as removing the clutter of unnecessary regulation, and it is almost always sold to the populace as such, but the conundrum is two-fold. First of all, what is unnecessary? As Ellis points out, the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights legislation of the Johnson era "institutionalized the ideal of a biracial American society," but the question is open as to whether it has actually succeeded in making the Jeffersonian belief "in the physical and legal separation of blacks and whites an anachronism?" The flagger controversy noted above, if nothing else, should remind us that the civil rights legislation came into being for a reason -- that the ideal of a biracial society may be institutionalized, but it has not yet been fully internalized among the American populace -- and that we should pause before we sweep up and toss out the civil rights legislation as "accumulated political debris."
Second of all, just when were we in possession of the golden age? Here again, we are faced with an elusive choice. For Jefferson, "the clock needed to be turned back to 1776," that halcyon moment when the band of brothers rose up and threw off the oppression of imperial Britain -- when America was pure, unrealized potential before the accretions of the constitutional convention and especially before the serpent Hamilton whispered in Washington's ear corrupting him with federalism. There is that, of course, but as Ellis points out, "for modern conservatives the target date is more elusive." If the impulse is to make America great again, when exactly was America at its greatest? Was is pre-Obama? Or was it 1963, pre Great Society, making Johnson the serpent tricked us out of Eden with "welfare" in the misguided effort to eliminate the disciplining effects of poverty? Or perhaps it was 1932, pre New Deal, making Roosevelt the serpent that beguiled us with social security and the promise of a secure old age? Or perhaps it was 1920, when the suffragette sirens beguiled us into the passage of the 19th amendment and the extension of voting rights to women? It is, of course, a tunnel of mirrors, always vanishing into some elusive Edenic past that, if examined, will turn out to be "utterly groundless as history," but potent as myth. As Ellis warns, "the rhetorical prowess of Jefferson's antigovernment ethos should not be underestimated as an influence on the special character of political discourse."
Why? I want to trace it back what I have called the religious As I have admitted before, and will admit again, I am playing rather fast and loose with the word "religious," but it serves a purpose on two fronts. To my way of thinking, the "religious" stands as an antonym of the "secular." If I could borrow a footnote from Rorty, he defines "'secularism' in the sense of 'anticlericalism' rather than 'atheism.'" There are any number of reasons for resisting atheism, particularly the aggressive atheism of the sort that Christopher Hitchens professed. It is, in essence, simply the mirror image of an aggressive evangelicalism, one that produces a church aligned with once and for all comprehensive doctrines, and even worse that produces a church with a political agenda, and even worse yet that produces a politicized church intolerant of other religious belief. Secularism is not opposed to religious belief, but it insists on the first amendment. Jefferson, of course, was a champion of the first amendment which institutionalizes religious tolerance, and which, in turn, privatizes religious belief. The church and one's membership in any particular church is a matter of individual, not political or legal concern. Secularism is, however, opposed to institutionalized religion, whether overtly in a state sanctioned church or covertly in a state whose political and legal apparatus is aligned with a particular once and for all comprehensive doctrine. An aggressive evangelicalism, having given up on the former, seeks the latter -- placing true believers in positions of power and influence to reshape the political and legal institutions in its own image.
Then too, to my way of thinking, the "religious" stands as a synonym for the eschatological. The common definition of eschatology is that "part of theology concerned with the final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity. This concept is commonly referred to as the 'end of the world' or 'end time'" or for that matter the end of history. To my mind, despite its aggressive atheism, Marxism is ultimately a religious doctrine, one that looks forward to the end of history in the communist state. Eschatology can be nuanced in its oppositions, but mostly what it opposes and what it expresses is one's alienation within the present reality, and not unlike Marxism, the Jeffersonian anti-government impulse is ultimately a religious doctrine, one that persistently attempts to "get back to where we once belonged." As Ellis put it, "in Jefferson's mind," and much of modern conservatism, "great historical leaps forward were almost always the product of a purging, which freed societies from the accumulated debris of the past and thereby allowed the previously obstructed forces to flow forward into the future." The contemporary militia men who are fond of quoting Jefferson -- "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure" -- are expressing their own alienation within the present reality and the desire, through violence, to remove the obstructions that prevent them from realizing their dreams and the fullness of their potential.
The eschatological finds its natural ally in a Jeffersonian anti-government ethos: an aggressive evangelicalism sees itself and its comprehensive doctrine, as the one true, divinely ordained, ultimate destiny of mankind. The only thing standing in the way of paradise is the thorough-going secularism of what Bannon calls the administrative state. Neither the evangelicals or Bannon and his presidential acolyte favor a smaller, more efficient, more "business-like" government. To believe this is to believe that they intend to be better administrators of the administrative state, and it is to disregard much of what they have been saying all along. They are aiming, just as they said they were aiming, to implement a purge, and what they most want to purge is, as Rorty put it, quoting Dewey, "the only form of moral and social faith which does not 'rest upon the idea that experience must be subjected at some point or or other to some form of external control -- to some 'authority' alleged to exist outside the processes of experience.'" They want to purge and dispense with democracy. For the evangelical, of course, democracy must be purged to allow the previously obstructed forces of god's will to flow forward into the future, to get back to where we once belonged and reinstate the external control and the authority that exists in biblical morality and god's law. For Bannon and his presidential acolyte, democracy itself must be purged for a different set of narcissistic and ultimately megalomaniac imperatives. It must be purged to allow the previously obstructed forces of their will to flow forward into the future, to get back to a moment of pure, unrealized potential and instate submission to their external control and the authority that exists within them. There is, of course, nothing religious about them, not in any conventional sense of the word. The evangelical may realize that, at some level, they have struck a deal with the devil, but within the apocalyptic eschatology of the bible, the anti-christ brings on armegeddon and the rapture, an unfortunate, but necessary purge of the populace as step toward the reign of christ on earth.
Though it is difficult to pin down precisely, I do have some sense that the aggressive evangelicals are using Trump's narcissism as a means to an end -- THE end of history in the reign of christ on earth. Trump himself may believe in his own messianic mission, and those who have the "toady" impulse my fall sway to his unrelenting swagger, but there is an edge of winking cynicism in his support from the evangelical community. Though it too is difficult to pin down precisely, I also have the sense that Bannon and his presidential acolyte are using the evangelicals as a means to an end -- if not THE end, then THEIR end, which really is the transformation of America into an authoritarian and hereditary kleptocracy. The irony runs deep. Jefferson saw the periodic dismantling of the administrative state as a way to release the obstructed forces of the people to flow forward into the future. As Ellis points out, he "began with the assumption of individual sovereignty, then attempted to develop prescriptions for government that at best protected individual rights and at worst minimized the impact of government or the powers of the state on individual lives." He didn't "worry about public order," believing that liberated individuals "would interact freely to create a natural harmony of interests that was guided, like Adam Smith's marketplace, by invisible or veiled forms of discipline." I think Ellis is correct too when he suggests that the Jeffersonian idea of "individual freedom" is the "bedrock conviction" of American politics, that "individual sovereignty remains the seminal conviction and the ideological home-base for all mainstream political thinking," but particularly so on the right. Of course, it's an illusion, and nothing in the history of human-kind suggests that, beyond the immediate interests of a particular gang, there is anything like "a natural harmony of interests." On the moral front, the aggressive evangelical concedes the necessity of individual sovereignty -- in part as a matter of theology (people should be free to choose god and accept christ as their savior) -- in part as a matter of oppositional expediency (people should worship freely, free from the accretions and impositions of the secular state). Rorty gets it slightly wrong when he suggests that "the right thinks that our country already has a moral identity, and hopes to keep that identity intact." It's more that the right thinks our country has lost its moral identity, and hopes to reinstate that moral identity as a christian nation -- that is to say, they hope to emerge victorious once and for all in the war of all on all implied by absolute individual sovereignty, at which point there will be a "natural harmony of interests" because the losers, the chaff, will have been purged, and they will have moral hegemony. On the economic front, the rich and powerful concede the necessity of individual sovereignty -- here again, in part as a matter of economic theology (business people should be free to offer goods and services within the marketplace) -- in part as a matter of operational expediency (business people should operate freely, free from the accretions and impositions of the regulatory state). Here again, Rorty gets it slightly wrong when he suggests that the right "fears economic and political change, and therefore easily become the pawn of the rich and powerful -- the people whose selfish interests are served by forestalling such change." The rich and powerful do want change. Not unlike the evangelicals, they believe that our country has lost its "free-market" identity, and hopes to reinstate that identity as a "free-market" nation -- that is to say, they hope to emerge (and for the most part already have emerged) victorious once and for all in the war of all against all, at which point there will be a "natural harmony of interests" because the losers, the chaff, will have been purged, and they will have economic hegemony. The irony of course is that Jefferson saw an insistence on individual sovereignty as the foundation of democracy, the right uses the rhetoric of individual sovereignty to subvert democracy.
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