Those darn ‘special interests’
If there is one thing the nine Democratic dwarves have discovered in the course of their interminable debates, it’s that nothing rouses the Democratic faithful like the denunciation of “special interests.” On one side, they tell their audiences, are the “regular people” like you. On the other are — and here their lips curl and their voices develop a sneering edge — the “special interests.”
Just who these special interests are is left unspecified. If questioned, they will name some easy corporate target like Enron, but that defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. For the aim of the orators is to let their listeners identify whomever they hate most (from their father-in-law to the current president of Halliburton) as the villainous special interests who allegedly dominate the Bush administration, and whom the accusers solemnly pledge to drive out of Washington.
“Special interests,” in other words, is the all-purpose smear. If the government does something liberals like, that’s because the Democratic defenders of the “little people,” or “the workers,” have triumphed. (Ted Kennedy, for example, whom one admirer recently declared would have helped Mary Jo Kopechne in her old age, if only she had lived.) If the government does something liberals disapprove, that’s because the special interests have had their way with it.
We are not supposed to notice, and most people don’t notice, that this is an insult to their intelligence. In a large and vibrant democracy like ours, people would be out of their minds if they didn’t monitor the government’s activities and do everything they can to persuade it to do things that favor their interests and avoid things that don’t. A corporation — or union — that neglected this obligation would soon be out of business altogether.
Yet the Democrats would have you believe that only big, shadowy business corporations are “special interests.” A woman can belong to a large union, a major church, the National Rifle Association, the National Organization of Women, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and AARP, without it ever crossing her mind that she is a walking billboard for half a dozen major special interests.
Like every Big Lie, the concept of the “special interest” contains a tiny germ of truth. It is true that large organizations representing major groups in the society do (for the reasons noted) lobby government officials on their own behalf, and thereby exercise an influence far greater than that of the average Joe Citizen — disregarding, for the moment, all of the big organizations he himself may belong to, as illustrated above. It is easy for the average individual to feel small and persecuted and pushed around, and thus to become fair game for the politicians who want him to feel angry at their rivals.
There is a streak of paranoia in all of us. We like to feel that we are virtuous but impotent, at the mercy of dark forces — barely visible but indisputably there — that are wielding illegitimate power and reaping undeserved financial rewards at our expense. Every political opportunist understands this, and learns to play on such popular suspicions like a piano. To listen to Howard Dean roar that he will “take back America” from the “special interests” has a heart-pounding rhythm as old and lovable as the Battle Hymn of the Republic. To hear it prostituted to the private purposes of a cheap and cynical demagogue is one of the oldest and weariest experiences in politics.
For 40 years, the Democratic-controlled Congress routinely called for subsidized drug prescriptions for the elderly, but somehow never managing to provide them. Only today, under a Republican president and Congress, has such a law been enacted — at serious risk to the GOP’s reputation for frugality.