Taking the Farm Back
By Tara Ross

In the book Animal Farm, Napoleon the pig leads a revolution against the humans of Manor Farm. After years of abuse, the animals are successful in shaking off the tyranny of their human masters. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm. For a time, the animals live together in peace and harmony under the principles of Animalism.

 

As the months progress, however, power begins to go to Napoleon’s head. He and the other pigs begin to forsake the principles of Animalism.  At first, the violations are small, but over time, the violations become more and more egregious. Napoleon and the pigs tyrannize the other animals.  They begin to act more and more like humans. They even begin to walk on their hind legs.

 

One day, the other animals look into the window of the farmhouse and see Napoleon and the pigs playing cards with humans from neighboring farms. With sadness, the oppressed animals realize that they can no longer tell the difference between the pigs and the humans.

 

What a sobering resemblance to today’s Republican Party.

 

Once upon a time, elected Republicans could clearly see the differences between themselves and their Democratic counterparts. With a Democratic President and a minority in Congress, Republicans could see the stifling effects of high taxes, high spending rates, big government bureaucracies, massive federal entitlements, and a runaway judiciary.

 

They argued against these evils. They signed a Contract with America. They won a revolution.

 

Republicans gained majority status in both houses of Congress, and then the Presidency. Their success spilled over into the states, many of which also saw a strengthened Republican Party within their borders. Republicans finally had the tools they would need to implement their ideas of fair and free government. For a time, they worked to abide by conservative Republican ideals.

 

But it didn’t take long before Republicans acclimated to their majority status. The government programs they had once worked so hard to shrink or dismantle became their responsibility. They began to take pride in their status as guardians of the government. Violations of the Republican Party platform began to crop up, one by one.

 

In the wake of 9/11, massive new bureaucracies were created, as if by reflex. Steel tariffs were imposed. Soon President Bush signed a campaign finance law, despite his earlier expressed doubts as to its Constitutionality. Massive new corporate regulations were enacted, even in the face of a struggling economy.

 

These early violations of Republican ideals served primarily to make subsequent violations easier and more frequent.

 

Medicare entitlements. Failure to make tax cuts permanent or to pursue elimination of the death tax. Abandonment of Social Security reform. More government expansion. And porkbarrel spending. Always, always more spending.

 

Only one principle of Republicanism remained relatively intact. But on October 3, 2005, even that principle gave way. Early that morning, many conservatives looked into the window of the farmhouse. They saw that Republicans, as well as Democrats, can make judicial appointments based upon personal and political considerations rather than legal and judicial qualifications. They discovered that they could no longer tell the difference between the Republican card players and the Democratic card players.

 

The transformation was complete.

 

The White House seems flabbergasted, caught off guard by conservative opposition to the nomination of Harriet Miers. Conservatives who resist, they charge, are dividing what could be a strong Republican Party.  We should trust the pigs in the farmhouse, they are essentially saying, even though they keep oppressing us and they look like humans.

 

The administration, with all due respect, has missed the point. Those conservatives who oppose the Miers nomination are not acting against the party. They are acting for it. They believe that the Republican Party has strayed so far from its roots that it is no longer Republican.  If Reagan were here, they might say, his observation would be: “I didn’t leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me.”

 

Elected Republican officials have been straying from Republican ideals for many years. Perhaps the pigs shouldn’t be so surprised when the other oppressed animals decide to rise up and take the farm back.

 

 

Tara Ross is a regular columnist for The American Enterprise Online and the author of Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College.