The Machiavellian Right

Progressives have watched in horror over the last year as the right has employed Machiavellian tactics to stop President Obama from carrying out his agenda. "Machiavellian" is a strong word. It conjures images of back-stabbing and cutthroat political maneuvering.

It is also the accurate word.

Anyone who has never read The Prince may have trouble understanding the motivations of the right. While many progressives try to engage in discourse, they find the task generally impossible. The right does not want to discuss things. It sticks to talking points. It shouts when confronted with reasoned arguments. There is a reason for that. The right wants only one thing: to win.

The right does not want to share power. The right has no interest in populism, tea baggers' shouts notwithstanding. The right has read Niccolo Machiavelli, and they understand him perfectly. There is only winning. Sharing is for losers.

Starting 40 years ago, the right took many political words and redefined them so subtly that most people did not realize it. Discussing politics became a minefield. Now the meanings of some words have changed in such a way that to utter them, even to dispute their new meanings, reinforces the right's point. You won't find any of those words in this column.

Machiavelli made astute observations of how to conquer a people, and the right has made careful notes. He advises a conqueror to "exterminate the family of the prince." Americans may not have families of princes, but they have leaders, and over the last 40 years, the right has done its best to extinguish progressive leaders whenever they rose to power. Or threatened to rise to power.

The current president is simply the latest of a long line of casualties. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter both faced character assassination, unreasoned opposition, and uncooperativeness while they were in office. Every Democratic candidate for president since Richard Nixon has faced a relentless search for skeletons in his or her closet. Democrats have been loath to turn the tables, perhaps trying to rise above such behavior. It has not been an effective policy.

The right all but extinguished our progressive leaders, and is now turning on those members of its own camp it considers too close to the left. These are the centrists, and even they are finding themselves in trouble.

Machiavelli also counsels conquerors to destroy those societies accustomed to self-rule. This the right has heeded as well. They have hired administrators hostile to the agencies they controlled. They have made laws designed to destroy institutions like public education, civil liberties, and environmental protection. They have given these laws names that belie their purpose.

Schools have struggled against cuts in funding. The laws that claimed to aim at improving schools have only made it harder for them to educate students, by making standardized tests more important than academic achievement. The same laws made it possible for people to open charter schools without certified teachers. These schools drain public funds away from public schools. Public schools are forced to cut programs, further impoverishing a public school education.

At one time it was illegal to teach a slave to read, because education made a slave the equal of his or her master. The same principle is at work in public education in the United States. Those who can afford to pay for a quality education for their children will soon abandon public schools completely. Public school students will be suited only for the lowest-paying menial jobs. Enrollment at universities and colleges may be high, but those who graduate often find themselves burdened with a boatload of debt, yet another form of subjugation.

Machiavelli knew how to win. He had no regard for the people involved. For him, winning was not the most important thing; it was the only thing. And so it has become with the right. They have found more sanitary ways of disposing of those who get in their way, but those ways are no less effective. Progressives need to harness their collective intelligence and love for this country to stop the right in their tracks. Otherwise, our children will inherit a country the founders would not even recognize.