Allen West's sadly ironic take on progressivism

Newly minted Teabag Florida Congressman Allen West delivered a well-received harangue this weekend at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which featured more red meat than a slaughterhouse. His oratory contained the usual talking points required for any successful speech to a conservative audience: limited government, American Exceptionalism, and the evils of liberalism. As a bonus, West tossed in a completely ancillary quote from the Book of Isaiah. West’s speech was emblematic of the entire weekend hoedown there in Washington, where conservatives lied to themselves about wanting smaller government and more freedom. And anyone who thinks my cynicism on this front is unwarranted may examine other CPAC moments, such as the enthusiastic reception that Constitution-stepper-onner Dick Cheney received, as well as the hearty approbation heaped upon Ann Coulter when she insisted that more journalists should be in prison. Remember, the majority of self-described conservatives in this country are statists of the military/national security variety, and they don’t give a roaring rip about the Bill of Rights.

West, an African-American, had by far the most ironic remark of the weekend. As speaker number 4,318 to denounce the left at the conference, it wasn’t so much what he said, but the overall context in which his comments occurred:

The liberal progressive agenda offers no viable solutions for our republic…

Liberal progressivism evolved after our Constitution. It has been tried. It has repeatedly failed all over the world. So why would we think it can be successful here in our United States of America.

Here’s a black man, talking to a predominantly white audience, some of which no doubt have some sort of homage-to-the-confederacy bumper sticker on their Ford F-150s, and whose psychological constitution produces a conservative mindset—one that necessarily wishes to keep the status quo in principle, or return the society to an earlier and more idyllic epoch in American history. In either case, the conservatives throughout American history have been content to stand pat on a myriad of issues, while the liberal progressives against whom West is railing have sought to move the country forward politically, socially and economically. This is not to stay that conservatism has no merits, or that liberalism always fosters positive advancements, but for West to say that progressivism has failed “everywhere,” is to ignore that it was the progressives who had to drag his ideological predecessors, kicking and screaming, into ending slavery, desegregating public schools, and passing major pieces of civil rights legislation in the big bad federal government. “Liberal progressivism” has also done much more, such as enfranchising women, overhauling workplace standards for safety and wages, and providing social safety nets that most Americans will benefit from at some point in their lives, but I thought the achievements of progressivism vis-à-vis black rights might be particularly salient to West.

Or perhaps not. If we could send West back in time to a gathering of prominent conservatives in 1960, perhaps he would be glad to lecture that audience on the pernicious liberal progressivism of Martin Luther King Jr. and the burgeoning liberal judicial activism that has been ruling that states may not engage in racial discrimination. Perhaps West would also decry the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as an undue liberal progressive-inspired federal encroachment on states’ rights.

Or maybe we could send West further back in time to a gathering of conservatives in 1860. There he could slam the abolitionists and the liberal progressivism of Frederick Douglass and the threat represented by a candidate for president named Abraham Lincoln, whose sympathies clearly do not lie with the country’s well-established slaveholding gentry. West could cite the Tenth Amendment and the preachments of John Calhoun in justifying state nullification of federal law, despite that annoying little Supremacy Clause in Article VI in the Constitution.

Conservatives are free to cite Lincoln (as West did in his speech) and other patron saints of American politics, but this does not change the fact that many right-wingers—given their mindset that leads them to conservatism—surely would have hated Lincoln, MLK, and others who possessed untried ideas such as emancipation and equal rights for all. Indeed, both men were killed for this reason by people who preferred the status quo. Allen West insists that liberal progressivism has failed everywhere and that’s wrong. In a way, he represents how far we have come as a nation in the realm of race relations. I have no doubt that West has achieved what he has based on his own merits, but for him to assert that the same progressivism that knocked down the unjust racial barriers that stood in the way of him and his forbears, is a detriment and a failure, is sad and absurd.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com