Mario CUOMO’S SPEECH Tuesday night fell far short of his performance in 1984. Its impact on the convention floor was dwarfed by Jesse Jackson’s oration a few minutes earlier. But Cuomo, more than any other speaker last week, did succeed in highlighting a fundamental difference — perhaps the fundamental difference — between the two political parties:
“The Republicans — this now, this now is the most important idea of all, in all of this welter of sophisticated notions, in all of this quarreling and quibbling politically, keep your eye on the one big idea. The Republicans are the real threat to the most fundamental of all the ideas, the idea that this nation is at its best only when we see ourselves, all of us, as one family. That is the heart of the matter. That has always been the heart of the matter. That will always be the heart of the matter.”
Mario Cuomo is right. The claim that the nation is “one family” is the heart of the matter. For this claim is the theoretical foundation of the nanny state. And even if Bill Clinton has proclaimed the era of big government to be over, his administration is more committed than ever to an era of busybody government — to the nanny state.
This was made clear last week by both the president and Mrs. Clinton. The president concluded his endless building of an unnecessary “bridge to the 21st century” by reassuring his fellow Americans that “you are part of our family.” Two nights before, while reiterating her ” it takes a village” trope, Mrs. Clinton drew out the implications of this statement. She acknowledged that “of course, parents, first and foremost, are responsible for their children.” But, she went on to say, parents aren’t enough “to raise a happy, healthy, and hopeful child.” That “takes a family. It takes teachers. It takes clergy. It takes business people.” And on and on until we get to (and this is underlined in the official text): “it takes a President.” And then, three sentences later: “It takes Bill Clinton.”
No, it doesn’t. Nor does it take Bob Dole. (Nor does it take “business people.”)
But this amazing rhetorical progression suggests why the doctrine of the nation-as-family is so pernicious. For if the nation is a family, its citizens are mere children, needing continued guidance, hectoring, and even discipline from . . . Bill and Hillary Clinton. The nation-as-family eviscerates the understanding, fundamental to a free society, that we are self-governing citizens and responsible adults. Instead, we are all dependents; we can’t even begin to fend for ourselves, let alone govern ourselves.
How should Republicans oppose the claim that “it takes a village” ? It’s not enough to respond with the soundbite, “It takes a family.” Republicans need to explain just why a nation cannot be and should not try to be a family — why this corrupts both the dignity of the nation and the integrity of families.
They need to make the case for the limits of government action; they need to explain how the institutions of civil society are crushed if the space between family and government is obliterated; they need to argue that civic virtue disappears in the nanny state, and they need to show that it can flourish in a self-reliant America.
It’s asking a lot of a political party to address so fundamental an issue in a presidential campaign. But the economy is pretty good, the country’s at peace, and Bob Dole isn’t going to be a better candidate on the hustings than Bill Clinton. To have a chance to win, Republicans need to meet head on the Mario Cuomo/Hillary Clinton challenge and engage the debate on a fundamental level. Doing so would give them a chance to win this election. Just as important, it would lay the groundwork for the more complex task of protecting the institutions of a free society from the attempted encroachments that would surely mark a second Clinton term. ,
by William Kristol Chicago
