New York Times Op-Ed 6/24/99
Compassion, the Political Liability
By MICKEY KAUS
LOS ANGELES -- Has compassion
become a Republican virtue? Seems
like it.
George W. Bush, in his Presidential
campaign kickoff speech, positively
wallowed in the stuff, not only
calling for "compassionate
conservatism" but also declaring his
intention "to rally [the] armies of
compassion," to show "mercy," to "take
the side of charities and churches."
Governor Bush's compassion play
annoyed his competitors, softened his
image, distanced him from the
Republican Congress and was generally
applauded in the press.
This is great news for Democrats.
Compassion is a miserable basis for
American politics. It was a bad idea
when liberals were selling it, and
it's no less bad now that
conservatives are embracing it. It has
at least three defects.
First, it's inegalitarian, carrying
the condescending implication of
charity, of inferiority and
helplessness on the part of those on
its receiving end. Governor Bush makes
this explicit by citing as examples of
compassion charities that run
drug-treatment programs and "prison
ministries." There is every indication
that Governor Bush, like his father,
really is animated by this philosophy
of noblesse oblige.
People should, of course, feel
compassion for those who have fallen
on hard times and can't help
themselves. But the relation of
charitable giver and recipient is not
the relation of free and equal
citizens. The demeaning aspect of
charitable compassion is one reason
pre-New Deal union officials talked of
"rescuing" their members "from
demoralization at the hands of
sentimental almsgivers."
On the left, an emphasis on compassion
has been a sure sign of what the
historian Sean Wilentz calls
"shmiberalism" -- an ideology whose
adherents "assume that the poor and
powerless are the abject, pitiable
victims of other people."
Shmiberalism, he says, "appeals to
people's compassion rather than to
their interests."
Second, the sentiment of compassion
tends to override traditional, and
sensible, moral distinctions that
should govern policy. Mr. Bush's
charities have compassion for a young
father who works 50 hours a week yet
gets paid only $14,000. But they also
have compassion for an indolent drug
addict or a prisoner.
Compassion politics makes no
distinction between these cases, which
is why -- in the hands of Democrats,
and not a few Republicans -- it has
tended to promote generalized aid
programs that shower cash (in the form
of food stamps, welfare or the old
holy grail of a guaranteed annual
income) indiscriminately on the "less
fortunate" and "disadvantaged."
Obviously, though, the working father
and the indolent drug addict are
fundamentally different and should be
treated differently. The worker is an
upstanding citizen who doesn't deserve
to be lumped in with crackheads.
That's one reason we've just gone
through a revolution in welfare policy
that's explicitly designed to separate
the deserving, working poor from those
nonworkers on welfare (and to move as
many people as possible from the
latter category to the former).
Third, because it appeals to
essentially charitable impulses,
compassion politics is fragile. If
citizens believe the Government is
engaged in a big United Way drive,
they'll give generously when times are
good. But they will stop giving when
they feel pinched themselves.
You didn't catch Franklin Roosevelt
mooning on about compassion. Liberals
fervently embraced compassion only in
their senescent, comic-book phase, in
the 1970's and 80's -- a period in
which they were repudiated by the
voters as impractical mush-heads.
It was during this era that George
McGovern proposed a "demogrant," which
would have guaranteed $1,000 a year
for workers and shirkers alike. Ted
Kennedy said, "The work of compassion
must continue." Mario Cuomo defined
Democrats as those who "look beyond
our own welfare" and "reach down to
those at the bottom of the ladder and
help them up, if only a rung or two."
None of these men made it anywhere
near the White House.
Democrats came back into the nation's
good graces only when they found a
standard-bearer who implicitly
abandoned compassion politics by
promising to "end welfare as we know
it" -- and who then, unaccountably,
kept that promise.
So it should be heartening for
Democrats to hear Governor Bush flaunt
his compassion as a "noble calling --
the calling of a nation where the
strong are just and the weak are
valued."
Could he have handed Democrats a
clearer definition of social
inequality? According to Governor
Bush, there are some people (let's
call them "the rich") who, like him,
are "strong." Then there are other
people (let's call them "the nonrich")
who have the privilege of being
"valued" by people like Mr. Bush. Take
it away, James Carville!
Certainly, attacking the snobbery
within Governor Bush's compassion is a
smarter Democratic tactic than trying
to link him with harder-edged
Congressional conservatives like
Representative Tom DeLay of Texas. The
voters will know that Mr. Bush isn't
Tom DeLay.
Which is why it was equally cheering
to see Vice President Al Gore, in his
campaign kickoff speech, react against
Mr. Bush's preening virtue by scorning
"the crumbs of compassion." Good line!
Was it just rhetoric? Maybe. But Mr.
Gore now has an incentive to find a
new, noncompassionate vocabulary for
his Government activism. For example,
he can frame the reform of Government
programs -- most obviously Social
Security and Medicare -- as a
strengthening of institutions created
by proud, free working citizens for
themselves, not gifted to the grateful
masses by Bushian Brahmins. Something
along the lines of: "Medicare is not
charity, Mr. Bush. Neither is the
minimum wage."
So the Republicans now have
compassion? They can keep it.
Mickey Kaus, author of ``The End of
Equality,'' is the editor of
Kausfiles.com.