The Unprompted Counterrevolution

There have been many “counterrevolutions” in history, but the term implies a response to something that at least resembles a revolution. Not here and not now. The current counterrevolution in the U.S. is a reaction to essentially nothing. At least nothing real.

This rightward lunge of the GOP, from the culture wars of the 1990s through the inexplicable affinity for Sarah Palin in 2008, has become even more pronounced since Barack Obama’s inauguration. It gained strength with the Tea Party and is swallowing up supposed moderates within its own party. We can only hope it’s reaching its zenith (or nadir) with the ascension of Rick Santorum to contender status in the race for the presidential nomination.

What’s most remarkable about this counterrevolution is that there was no revolution in the first place. Under Obama we’ve killed terrorists, escalated a war, helped depose another dictator, implemented a watered-down health care “overhaul” almost 80 years after FDR nearly got it, seen an extension of the Bush tax cuts, watched as the president was granted the right to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely for being terrorism suspects, and on and on.

So what are the reactionaries reacting to? The stimulus package that many liberals decried as insufficient? The fact that we finally became like the millionth country to allow gays to serve openly in the military? The “war” on religious freedom (what a holy farce that is)?

The reality is, Obama is not interested in any sort of revolution; he's even less liberal than the moderate Bill Clinton. But conservatives have created an image of a tax-hiking, big-government, un-American lunatic who must be stopped. Newt Gingrich, who never met a hyperbole worth keeping to himself, even titled a book: “To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine.” The problem is, “secular” makes no sense as an attack line (this isn’t a theocracy), and calling Obama a socialist only works is you disavow the actual definition of the word "socialist." So there’s nothing to “save America” from.

The result of this counterrevolution against nothing has been a party that seems to be looking way back into our past for some of its policies. Santorum wants states to be able to ban contraception, he favors overturning Roe v. Wade, he’d support teaching creationism in public schools if he didn’t actually say that the idea of state-funded public schools is “anachronistic.” We already know where he stands on homosexuality. Oh, and the president is a snob for encouraging Americans to continue their education beyond high school. He wants an America run by the Bible, where gays and lesbians suppress their true selves and live in closeted agony, birth control and abortions are illegal and education is for the wealthy. He'd have fit in nicely in the Jacksonian era. Yet Santorum's current opponents seem determined to keep up with him. They’re not trying to stall a plodding advance; they’re trying to send it back where it came from and beyond, in light speed.

Obama’s very slight turn to the left after eight years of unpaid-for wars ending in a steep recession — among myriad other problems — was merely an attempt to restore some stability, a very small-scale version of what FDR faced in 1933. We’re not worse off than we were in 2008, and our lives aren’t appreciably different. There's no reason for a counterrevolution. A half step forward need not be followed by 10 steps back.