Conservatives Without Conscience

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While Robertson has many traits of social dominators and right-wing authoritarians, I am focusing only on those directly relating to the defining elements of social dominance, and indirectly to his right-wing authoritarianism. These elements are domination, opposition to equality, desire for personal power, and amorality.

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At the time he made the statement, however, Zsuza Polgar, at twenty-one years of age, had already become the first woman ever to earn the designation Grandmaster, the World Chess Federation’s title for top- ranked players. She was followed the next year by Pia Cramling, and then by Zsuza’s little sister, who became the youngest Grandmaster at age fifteen.

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Military authorities had arrested a number of suspected secessionists, including John Merryman. Chief Justice Robert Taney, who had written the Dred Scott opinion, ordered the Army commander holding Merryman to produce him, but the Army commander, under orders from Lincoln, ignored the Court’s order. In holding the commander in contempt, Taney wrote in Ex parte Merryman that he had done all he could do by issuing his order, and that he believed Lincoln now had no constitutional power to suspend the writ. Lincoln disagreed, and on July 4, 1861, gave a full explanation to Congress of why he had suspended the writ: to preserve the Union.

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Gingrich brought his charges against Wright to the House Ethics Committee, which later issued a report suggesting Wright had arranged for bulk sales of his vanity book, Reflections of a Public Man, and had earned speaking fees in excess of the allowed maximum. In addition, Wright’s wife, Betty, was given a job and perks that made it possible for him to skirt the limit on gifts. Rather than fight the charges, Wright resigned. Understandably, when Gingrich later accepted a $4.5 million advance for a book deal with Rupert Murdoch’s publishing house, he was accused of hypocrisy and unethical behavior. Gingrich responded by returning the advance.

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Gingrich’s tactics were developed through consultations with communications experts, and soon became standard operating procedure for Republicans. George W. Bush has taken “perception politics” to the extreme, packaging everything he does. This strategy appears to work for conservatives, in part because their right-wing authoritarian followers, as noted earlier, do not often question authority figures.

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Not long after Gingrich’s authoritarian approach became evident, a reporter for the Independent (London) observed that Gingrich was an avid reader of Frans de Waal, a Dutch ethnologist whose book Chimpanzee Politics was on the Speaker’s list of twenty- five recommended books. In dead earnest the reporter noted striking parallels between Gingrich’s rise to power and “apes striving to acquire the coveted status of ‘alpha male,’” as de Waal’s study described. John Carlinin, “How Newt Aped His Way to the Top,” Independent (May 31, 1995), 13.

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The Committee on Rules was created by the first Congress. Unlike in the Senate, where unlimited debate is permitted, legislation in the much larger House (currently at 435 members) proceeds to the floor pursuant to a rule issued by the Rules Committee. This committee lays out the procedures for legislation on the floor, governing the length of debate and the nature of any proposed amendments. Rules are voted on by the House, and it is well known that DeLay considered votes on rules to be tests of party loyalty. Any House Republican who defied DeLay stood to suffer (e.g., lose his or her committee assignments and campaign funds, or face a DeLay-sponsored primary opponent in the next election).

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Tom DeLay, Jim Ellis, and John Colyandro were indicted by Travis County, Texas, district attorney Ronnie Earle for money laundering. More specifically, they were accused of sending some $190,000 of the $1.5 million they had collected from corporations nationally to the Republican National Committee in Washington, which then issued new checks, worth a total of $190,000, to candidates running for the Texas legislature.

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This use of his position would later result in a mild reprimand from the mostly moribund House Ethics Committee.

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Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 but immediately commenced pushing the nation to the right as if he had a mandate; Electoral College votes are not really a popular mandate, since a simple majority in any given state will result—in most states—in the winner’s getting all the electoral votes.

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Recently, the American Conservative addressed the shameful growth of lobbying in Republican-controlled Washington, revealing its staggering growth: “The Cato Institute’s David Boaz reports that the number of registered lobbying firms jumped from 1701 to 2060 in the last six years; over the same period, lobbyist spending went up 50 percent, and the number of companies with lobbyists rose 58 percent. The number of lobbyists in the nation’s capital approaches 35,000, doubling the number in 2000.” Doug Bandow, “Republic for Sale,” American Conservative (February 13, 2006), 7.

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Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform was formed in 1985 with a mission to “oppose any effort to increase the taxes on individuals and business.” To accomplish this goal, it circulates petitions to elected officials at the local, state, and national levels, asking them to promise that they will oppose all taxes. Norquist’s Web site boasts that “President George W. Bush, 222 House members, and 46 Senators have taken the pledge. On the state level, 6 governors and 1,247 state legislators have taken the pledge.” See http://www.atr.org/index. html. Norquist once famously stated, “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Norquist also operates a Web site that reports on openings at lobbying firms and on new hires. It notes that while the Democrats once employed “graft,” the K Street Project represents good government, where like-thinking people can implement their common values. See http://www.kstreetproject.com/index.php.