TESTING THE LIMITS OF GRABBING THE THIRD RAIL…. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower (R) wrote a letter to his brother. “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history,” Ike said. The president acknowledged in the letter that there are some who advocate such nonsense, but added, “Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Eisenhower’s Republican Party has come a long way in the last half-century, and what was once considered fringe stupidity has become far more common. And with Social Security celebrating its 75th anniversary, there’s a renewed effort to shine a light on the GOP’s willingness to gut this bedrock American institution, if not eliminate it altogether.
The Republican push is not without some precedent. In 1936, repealing Social Security was part of the GOP platform. Seven decades later, George W. Bush launched a ridiculous privatization scheme that the nation strongly rejected, and which congressional Republicans want to great lengths to avoid.
This year, opposition to Social Security throughout the Republican Party is at its strongest, most pervasive levels since the mid-’30s. With that in mind, the DNC released this web video overnight, using the anniversary to remind folks which party supports Social Security, and which doesn’t.
“From Sharron Angle to Rand Paul and from Paul Ryan to John Boehner — Republicans are talking about either phasing out Social Security entirely or making such radical changes to it as to dismantle and make it unrecognizable to the successful program it has been for 75 years,” DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse said.
An initiative like this one serves a few different purposes. The first is pretty basic — Social Security is popular, and Republican plans to undermine it aren’t. The second has to do with demographics — seniors tend to vote in large numbers; they’re very big fans of Social Security; and they’re not especially happy with Democrats right now. A push like this one may hope to give Dems a boost with a key age group.
But in the bigger picture, I think there’s a more subtle point, and it gets back to the Eisenhower quote. The American mainstream embraces Social Security as a pillar of American life. It’s been one of the most, if not the most, successful domestic government program in our nation’s history. The country tends to look at those who would undermine this institution as being radical, or in Ike’s word, stupid.
And yet, in 2010, leading GOP voices, positions of power and influence, haven’t been particularly shy about their desire to privatize Social Security, cut benefits, or pursue the wholesale elimination of the program.
If the goal is to characterize Republicans as extremists, this effort seems to fit the bill.
