Scott Horton: Of Republicans and Banana-Republicans
[Scott Horton is a contributor to Harper's Magazine and writes No Comment for the Harper's website. A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. ]
I have spent a good bit of time in the archives over the last two weeks, reading materials from the first two decades of the Republican Party – the formative conventions, the campaign of John Charles Frémont and then the rise of Abraham Lincoln, the vigorous debate over the country’s stake in slavery and the resolve to stem it that led to civil war. It was a heady period. Much of this is played out in the pages of Harper’s magazine – for while the magazine took no formal posture and published works of Democrats and Republicans alike (including an amazing essay by Stephen A. Douglas), there is little doubt as to the partisan orientation of the publication as a whole. The spirit of the age stood with the Republicans, and so did Harper’s. And while much of the language of the period seems musty and florid, there is a vigor and strength of vision in those years which is truly inspiring. Indeed, the fact and rise of the Republican Party itself is inspiring – one of the decisive turns in the history of the American Republic, and in the end one of the great political parties to emerge in the totality of human history.
But reading all of this and then turning to the morning newspapers every day, I can’t suppress the question: how did it come to this? It’s hard to see even a trace of the party of Frémont and Lincoln in the party of Bush and Rove. Indeed, the values that Bush and Rove espouse and the constituencies to which they pander seem very much just what’s in the crosshairs for the Republicans of 1856 and 1860; a check of the electoral map in 2004 and 2006 shows the Republican constituencies of yore are, with very few exceptions, safely in the Democratic column, while Bush builds off a base starting with the old Confederacy.
Kevin Phillips, Vic Gold and Andrew Sullivan are among the writers who have attempted to explain this process, each from a different posture and each offering some important insights. But in the end this is a case of a breathtaking political hijacking. It started with Richard Nixon's “Southern Strategy” and wound up with a party dominated by figures driven by nostalgia for the antebellum South.
I believe it’s unfair to a great political party – unfair to Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight David Eisenhower – to call the current tenants at 1600 Pennsylvania “Republicans.” A new label is far more appropriate, because it describes the end state likely to emerge from their transfiguration of American political institutions, namely “Banana-Republicans.”
Without attempting a comprehensive review, here are a few of the basic points of distinction between Republicans and Banana-Republicans ....
Read entire article at Harper's Magazine
I have spent a good bit of time in the archives over the last two weeks, reading materials from the first two decades of the Republican Party – the formative conventions, the campaign of John Charles Frémont and then the rise of Abraham Lincoln, the vigorous debate over the country’s stake in slavery and the resolve to stem it that led to civil war. It was a heady period. Much of this is played out in the pages of Harper’s magazine – for while the magazine took no formal posture and published works of Democrats and Republicans alike (including an amazing essay by Stephen A. Douglas), there is little doubt as to the partisan orientation of the publication as a whole. The spirit of the age stood with the Republicans, and so did Harper’s. And while much of the language of the period seems musty and florid, there is a vigor and strength of vision in those years which is truly inspiring. Indeed, the fact and rise of the Republican Party itself is inspiring – one of the decisive turns in the history of the American Republic, and in the end one of the great political parties to emerge in the totality of human history.
But reading all of this and then turning to the morning newspapers every day, I can’t suppress the question: how did it come to this? It’s hard to see even a trace of the party of Frémont and Lincoln in the party of Bush and Rove. Indeed, the values that Bush and Rove espouse and the constituencies to which they pander seem very much just what’s in the crosshairs for the Republicans of 1856 and 1860; a check of the electoral map in 2004 and 2006 shows the Republican constituencies of yore are, with very few exceptions, safely in the Democratic column, while Bush builds off a base starting with the old Confederacy.
Kevin Phillips, Vic Gold and Andrew Sullivan are among the writers who have attempted to explain this process, each from a different posture and each offering some important insights. But in the end this is a case of a breathtaking political hijacking. It started with Richard Nixon's “Southern Strategy” and wound up with a party dominated by figures driven by nostalgia for the antebellum South.
I believe it’s unfair to a great political party – unfair to Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight David Eisenhower – to call the current tenants at 1600 Pennsylvania “Republicans.” A new label is far more appropriate, because it describes the end state likely to emerge from their transfiguration of American political institutions, namely “Banana-Republicans.”
Without attempting a comprehensive review, here are a few of the basic points of distinction between Republicans and Banana-Republicans ....