Perhaps foreshadowing his untimely death, Founding Father Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1802 that “Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.” Certain political impulses are on display by the Democrat Party during the current government shutdown, whatever their claims of reasonableness.
The federal government’s shutdown centers on a dispute over expiring enhanced tax subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. These higher subsidies were enacted during the pandemic and envisioned as temporary, but as is the case with government, they manifested a snowballing perpetuity all their own. Senator Lindsey Graham sensibly said on October 12th that “I’m not going to vote to extend these subsidies without great reform.” Graham also prudently asked “The subsidies that we’re talking about here, if the [ACA] is so affordable, why every time I turn around are we spending $350 billion to keep it afloat?”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has little to say in specific rebuttal to the subsidies’ runaway costs. But ever a good liberal keeping dim the light of truth, Jeffries told Bloomberg on October 9th that “any reasonable Member of Congress will understand that you cannot kick tens of millions of Americans off of healthcare that’s become affordable for them as a result of the tax credits.” According to Democrats, it is thus unreasonable to ask for sober discussion of serious inefficiencies within the ACA subsidies.
Democrats’ tendency to use this “reasonable” argument is less a sturdy backstop than a back door to allow many radical proposals to become policy. It is high time for the Republican Party to take back the ‘reasonableness’ high ground. Take just a few examples of how leftists use soothing words to shape debate. Too radical to openly deny biology and claim gender is always a fluid concept? Then just argue that it is reasonable to allow a person to express an identity in line with “foundational values.” Too fringe to say all migrants entering the country should be handed an unconditional benefits basket, burdening taxpayers who never received the same? Just claim it is imminently reasonable to love one’s neighbors. Too extreme to say that the more productive a person is the more likely the state wants to punish you? Then say it is reasonable for those fortunate with wealth to give more in the way of taxes. One senses a pattern.
It is on the field of compassion that the Left prefers rhetorical battle instead of inside a policy’s details, because Democrats inevitably use high-minded intentions as their justification in passing programs. One must ponder logically to sort through this unreasonable fog of distortion. If a policy is not reasonable and practicable when seen through the lens of the republic’s lived experiences and traditions, then explanations of it as being so are dubious.
It is the Republican Party, from its anti-slavery beginnings in 1854 onward, that provides a more reasonable trajectory overall of government policy toward individuals. Generally speaking, it is the political party that has a keen understanding of the human condition. Conservative philosophy has a deeper grasp of realistic behavior, thus having good sense to explain some of the virtues optimal for society to prosper. The Right better understands the prudent (and mandatory) limitations on a government comprised of competing human interests.
For example, Republican policy positions on specific matters such as economic growth, transgender issues, and protecting the unborn are reasonable not just because of benevolent words but because of reality. It is plainly reasonable to want people to have more of their own money to decide their wellbeing. It is reasonable, and reasoned by history, to believe that there are two sexes and that this has been an accepted biological bedrock. It is provable by reason that life begins at conception because other chronological benchmarks make no practical sense in defining (or valuing) life.
The Right’s views are based on a reservoir of reasonableness because observed human nature explains it, despite whatever progressive social experiments claim. It is also why such a phrase as “Make America Great Again” is reasonable because it simply seeks an America capable of the success it once obtained more routinely. To want again what is meritorious and virtuous is not extreme. When conservatives are caricatured as unreasonable, remember that liberalism’s purported reasonableness is a nice sounding ask that typically becomes an impulsive mandate, as noted by Hamilton.
Alan Loncar is an attorney in Macomb County, Michigan.
Image: Public Domain