The Republican Freedom Caucus. Is It A New Political Idea? Here's Where It Started
Every pundit says it. We are a fractured nation. Polarized. Unable to cross the partisan divide and understand another point of view on how the American Republic should survive and thrive.
I have made it one of my strongest efforts to try whenever possible, to cross any partisan divide so that I can hear what a person who I am interviewing feels and thinks in my attempt to understand their point of view. I have found that it requires my putting aside my own perspective in an attempt to understand the worldview of another person. Without doing this, without finding a way to put aside my own worldview, what another person is saying becomes very hard to understand. A person with another worldview can look stupid, wrong, immoral, etc.
This video presents a program that ran in the 1980s on television made by the famous journalist, consultant to presidents on the right and on the left, David Gergen. He was attempting to explain to the American public where the new Republican conservative movement was coming from. How Richard Nixon played a role. How Barry Goldwater played a role. How Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford played a role.
When attempting to understand the current Republican House of Representatives Freedom Caucus and how they separate from traditional Republican conservatives, I found it enlightening to hear what David Gergen was presenting just about 40 years ago.
A bit of background.
Why did a new Republican conservatism rise between 1960 and 1989?
Many claim that the new conservatism rose to prominence in the U.S. between 1960 and 1989 because of the instability of the economy. However, three more important causes were the left activist influence on politics, the break-up of the traditional family life, and the effects of the counter-culture within society.
Author and magazine editor William F. Buckley Jr. was one of the founding members of the movement. His 1951 book God and Man at Yale argued against Keynesian economics, progressive taxation and the welfare state and gave him a national audience.
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan rejuvenated the conservative Republican ideology, with tax cuts, greatly increased defense spending, deregulation, a policy of rolling back communism, a greatly strengthened military and appeals to family values and conservative Judeo-Christian morality.
Barack Obama put it this way: Reagan “put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people just tapped into -- he tapped into what people were already feeling, which was, we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
The Freedom Caucus is a conservative political organization within the Republican Party in the United States Congress. The group's stated goal is to advance policies based on their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, conservative principles, and Republican Party platform. The Caucus typically advocates for smaller government, lower taxes, and reducing the national debt. The group also supports a strong national defense, and has been vocal in its opposition to abortion rights.
The Freedom Caucus is guided by the belief that government should remain small and should adhere to the U.S. Constitution. The group also opposes abortion rights while protecting free speech and attempting to work across the partisan divide. They have generally supported efforts to protect it in the context of social media and other digital platforms. Members of the Caucus have also opposed censorship and authoritarian tactics by the government to restrict speech, particularly on college campuses.
The Freedom Caucus does not have an explicit stance on bipartisanship. However, members of the Caucus have often found themselves at odds with more moderate Republicans and Democrats on a variety of issues, particularly on fiscal matters.
Members of the caucus have occasionally expressed interest in working with members of the opposing parties on certain issues. Examples include discussing potential solutions to the opioid crisis, supporting certain aspects of criminal justice reform, and advocating for better mental health care.
I hope that you have found this program of interest. If so, I ask you to support my efforts to continue presenting programs like this by clicking the super thanks button below the video screen. With your support, I can focus my energies on sharing content from my archive.
Thank you
David Hoffman filmmaker