Here’s an interesting op-ed piece by Wisconsin historian John Gurda entitled Smashing ‘Demon Government’ in which he examines the many parallels between the current political climate in his state and the temperance movement that led to Prohibition. Thanks to Wisconsin Bulletin reader Jason H. for sending me the link. Subtitled “Walker’s small-government zeal resembles that of the prohibitionists,” here’s a few choice excerpts below:
In its moral fervor, its contempt for compromise, its demographic base and even its strategies, today’s new right is the philosophical first cousin of prohibitionism.
Consider a few of the parallels. The prohibitionists went after “Demon Rum,” while the tea party attacks Demon Government. The Anti-Saloon League preached that barrooms were destroying America’s moral fiber, while the new right declares that onerous taxation and excessive regulation are doing precisely the same thing. Carrie Nation smashed whiskey barrels, while today’s conservatives want to smash the welfare state. Addiction to spending, they might argue, is ultimately as destructive as addiction to alcohol.
Like the temperance movement of the last century, the tea party draws heavy support from Protestant evangelicals such as Walker himself, and their political playbook is a throwback as well. The prohibitionists were media-savvy opportunists, taking advantage of every opening to advance their cause.
When the United States entered World War I, they wasted no time demonizing beer as “Kaiser brew” and even accused Milwaukee’s producers of spreading “German propaganda.” When food shortages loomed during the conflict, the dry lobby convinced Congress to divert America’s grain supply from breweries and distilleries to less objectionable industries. The result was “wartime prohibition,” a supposedly temporary measure that went into effect in 1919 and soon gave way to the 18th Amendment. The national drought would last for 14 years.
It’s worth noting that America wasn’t alone in using the conflict of World War I to push anti-alcohol agendas. Like-minded measures in several countries led to similar alcohol prohibitions, many of which lasted far longer than ours, such as Australia, Canada, Finland, Hungry, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Russia. In each of those nations, temperance groups took advantage of wartime circumstances to push their plans on the rest of the populace in their respective places.
In much the same way that prohibitionists turned World War I to their advantage, the current crop of conservatives is making political hay from another temporary phenomenon: the global economic recession. The need for fiscal austerity has rarely been more obvious, but it’s being used as a pretext for advancing the new right’s legislative agenda.
We’re seeing that happen in most, if not every state, with anti-alcohol groups turning our nation’s economic adversity into an opportunity to raise taxes on beer, already the most heavily taxed consumer good (along with tobacco). The Marin Institute has even created propaganda showing the “worst” ten states, with “worst” meaning the states with the lowest taxes on beer, completely out of context and with no understanding whatsoever of why each individual’s states excise taxes are set where they are. Shortly after Governor Walker created Wisconsin’s deficit by giving tax cuts to the wealthy, Michele Simon of the Marin Institute tweeted that beer should make up the difference. “Dear Gov. Walker: Wisconsin has not raised its beer tax since 1969. At .06/gallon, among lowest in nation. Just one of many ideas.” If that’s not what Gurda was talking about, I don’t know what is. That’s using a grave political situation to further an unrelated agenda.
Walker began with a demand that public employees pay more for their pensions and health insurance – a necessary step to which they have agreed – and then proposed to strip them of their collective bargaining rights. That’s an epic non sequitur that makes sense only when you invoke tea party logic: If taxes are bad, then the people we pay with tax dollars must be brought to heel, even if it means freezing a new teacher at first-year wages until retirement.
But the new right’s agenda goes far beyond public employee unions. With solid majorities in the state Legislature, Walker first declared a budget emergency and then cut taxes by $140 million, which is equivalent to taking blood from a patient with severe anemia. In last week’s budget message, he pronounced the patient so sick that amputations are necessary. Walker’s juggernaut of tax cuts and service cuts, combined with his no-bid privatization plans, trends in one direction and one direction only: dismantling government one line item at a time, regardless of the consequences.
It is here, finally, that prohibitionism and tea party conservatism find common ground: Both are ideologies. They represent fixed, blinkered views of the world that focus on single issues and dismiss all other positions as either incomplete or simply wrong-headed. Get rid of alcohol, the prohibitionists promised, and the U.S. would become a nation of the righteous and a beacon of prosperity to the world. Just cut government to a minimum, the new right contends, and you will usher in a brave new era of freedom and opportunity.
And that’s how I see all of the neo-prohibitionist and anti-alcohol groups, as “ideologies.” All of the anti-alcohol groups that I’m aware of do everything in their power to punish alcohol companies because of their perceived sins and because they want to tell you and me how to live our lives. They do so without thinking through the consequences and overall use an “ends justify the means approach,” especially in the way they frame and distort their propaganda. Simply put, I believe that they think they know better than everybody else, there’s a certain smugness in their position; in its unwavering certainty, their righteousness that borders on religious fervor.
They’re convinced that there’s no free will, people are incapable of ignoring advertising, or knowing their limits when drinking. And while there are a few tragic figures who may fit that description, they’re the tiny minority that such groups are fixated on to make their case. The vast majority who drink alcohol do so responsibly and in moderation. Most people take personal responsibility for their actions, as they should. But personal responsibility rarely, if ever, figures into alcohol abuse if you listen only to anti-alcohol rhetoric and propaganda. It’s always the fault of the alcohol itself, and usually beer because it plays better to the people with money who fund such organizations (they drink wine after all). An op-ed piece in the UK Telegraph by Brendan O’Neil recently shed a light on the class issue in anti-alcohol efforts. If they’re not going after the children, then they’re preying on the weak-minded with the most effective advertising the world has ever wrought. Earlier this year, the hue and cry was because there were 3.5 minutes of beer commercial during the nearly four hours of the Super Bowl and — gasp — the little kiddies might see it.
But anti-alcohol rhetoric single-mindedly focuses on only the negative. I’ve never heard any of them say one word that was positive about any alcohol company. Even when Anheuser-Busch packaged cans of water and sent then to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, one anti-alcohol group criticized them for the deed, because they put their logo on the cans and sent out a press release (oh, the horror). Let no good deed go unpunished, indeed. That alone should convince us they’re idealogues.
I suspect they might say the same of me, but I understand and acknowledge that there are some people who should not drink. That such people can and do cause problems for themselves and often the people around them. I don’t write about it very much because I don’t have to; there’s plenty of lopsided anti-alcohol rhetoric already. I’m just trying to balance the conversation, though more often than not I feel like the lone voice in the wilderness.
But back to Wisconsin. My wife is a political news junkie, and she informs me that a careful reading of the facts reveals that Scott Walker’s entire political career has been in service to a single ideology: union busting. He apparently promised that was not his agenda throughout his campaign for governor, and the media swallowed that wholesale with few examining or reporting the discrepancy between what he said while campaigning and his entire career leading up to that point. In that, there’s yet another parallel between the new prohibitionists and the new political conservatives. Most mainstream news media also take the side of the well-funded anti-alcohol groups and parrot their propaganda without questioning it or providing any meaningful views from the other side of this debate.
As to Gurda’s comparisons, I think he’s right about anti-alcohol groups’ unwillingness to compromise and being self-righteous with “blinkered views of the world that focus on single issues and dismiss all other positions as either incomplete or simply wrong-headed.” That’s certainly been my experience. So as if there wasn’t enough reasons to support the protesters in Wisconsin, if this political test case is successful, not only will we see more unions busted in other states, but I suspect anti-alcohol groups are also closely watching this to see how they might use the same bullying tactics in furtherance of their own agenda. And that may be the scariest prospect of all. As usual, I’m with the Green Bay Packers on this one.
Jay
The observation that ideologues of various stripes doggedly pursue their chosen ideology is a commonplace one, and applies across the political spectrum. Beer mixes well with most activities, but, perhaps, not so well with politics. That’s why I like keeping them separate.
If only that were possible. Unfortunately, I don’t believe you can separate them. Beer is a part of life, and politics is the “science of government,” how we conduct our affairs — all of them, not just the ones we choose. The body politic is everybody, all of us, and concerns every aspect of how we do and ultimately can live our lives. The word itself is from the Greek πολιτικός, meaning “of, for, or relating to citizens.” That’s you and me, brother. We are all citizens of planet beer.
Jay, I am with you 100% on this matter of Neo-Prohibitionism being closely linked with Neo-Conservatism.
It may be so that “ideolgues of various stripes doggedly pursue their chosen ideology … across the political spectrum” BUT, liberal ideology is not trying to take my beers away, or tax it into an unaffordable luxury. No, only the far-right ideology is doing that.
So yes, Beer and Politics can never be divorced entirely from each other. To pretend otherwise is enabling the prohibitionists.
Jay, I will alert all of my friends to read your article – for it is solid, informative and timely reading.
Jay, while I find the idea of embroidering past and present together in search of meaning, I think this particular comparison is not apt. I happen to be reading Daniel Okrent’s prohibition history Last Call right now, so the history is fresh in my mind.
The prohibitionists were quite a bit different from today’s tea partiers in many respects. Although their remedy was wrong, their complaints weren’t: mostly women, they saw the effect the bottle was having in their own lives. Prohibition was an issue the progressives pushed (notably William Jennings Bryan), and it contained elements of economic populism and social equality. The progressives, thanks in large part to the growing fervor around prohibition, managed to push four stunning Constitutional Amendments into law in the span of just a single decade: collection of income tax (which was critical if the US were to lose liquor tax), election of senators, prohibition, and women’s suffrage. These four threads were all bound together in a coalition that managed to create the environment for all to get passed.
Far from single-issue radicals, this was the culmination of the progressive era which, ironically, saw the solidification of workers’ rights under TR.
Historical prohibition has some things in common with modern neo-prohibition, but it was also a very different movement, of a time and place not exactly relevant to today’s conservatives nor the neo-prohibitionists.
Jeff,
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I should point out it’s not my embroidery, but I found Gurda’s thoughts interesting and worthy of discussion at the very least. I have not ready Okrent’s book yet (I’ve pre-ordered the paperback – I have a goofy prejudice against hardback books). I do recall, however, that when his book was first published, that some scholars and historians accused him of being somewhat revisionist in his analysis — what he put in and especially what he left out — though I’ll have to see if I can find those again to be more specific. That was also part of the reason I didn’t pick it up then, too. Obviously, not having read it, I can’t refute your disagreements with Gurda (or my thoughts) but I might suggest his is not the only account of Prohibition and having read others can say there was a certain single-mindedness about the early temperance movement, though as you point out it did evolve to include other related issues (more of the “a friend of my enemy is my friend” variety) along with genuine interest in more than one ideal.
Jessica Warner’s “All of Nothing: A Short History of Abstinence in America,” for example (which I got half-way through during the Christmas break), tells a lot of the history of early temperance and how it grew from being against just hard liquor, which was initially seen as the biggest social problem, to becoming more hardened against all alcohol, and even other “vices” like tea, coffee, cider, meat, and others that various factions were also against at various points in the 19th century. I guess my ultimate point is temperance and Prohibition is always more complex and complicated than I’d like it to be, and any time we try to take one lesson from it, there’s almost always a contradictory example or exception, too. Likewise, I personally find a lot of contradictions in tea party rhetoric, too, and I have a great deal of trouble resolving those to a point where I can take them seriously, though I should point out that while I’m no fan of the republican party, I’m not much of democratic supporter, either. As is probably rather obvious, I tend toward the liberal side of most political arguments but that’s on an issue by issue basis, not through any blind fealty to the democratic party.
We should definitely continue this one in person, and without a doubt over a beer. Thank goodness we can still do that.
Best,
J
Jay, I would like to share a pint sometime. Put that on the list of things to do when we’re in the same city.
As to Okrent’s bent, I suspect that’s true of any historian. The glut of information is so massive that to create any kind of coherence, you have to craft what is necessarily a limiting narrative. And I don’t disagree that there were factions of the temperance movement who were wild-eyed radicals (actually, Bryan seems to have been one).
Where I distinguish between the 19th-century prohibitionists and the current ones is in the the circumstances they face. Okrent does a nice job of detailing consumption levels of the time, and it was shocking. Americans are now quite reasonable in consumption compared to historic norms, and we have a decent array of laws to help contain behavior. I imagine the modern US does as well as any society in history in maintaining a healthy balance of moderate consumption. The current crop of prohibitionists strike me as therefore far more radical than most of their 19th century ancestors.
But I think we probably have 95% agreement–the rest is good for that pint.
I like the idea of getting rid of public unions.
Their leadership pools funds, gives it to a few politicians, then negotiates sweet deals for themselves with those very same politicians. Either that, or they pool their funds to flood the airwaves with one-sided and distorted ads that fool the public into supporting them because if their compensation gets cut — people’s lives will be put in danger.
Meanwhile, everybody gets stuck paying for it.
We have $200K a year beat cops — who then get a $180K annual pensions with platinum plated benefits for themselves and their spouses. Let alone the $400K police chiefs with $360K pensions — who can then go and double dip for yet another pension if they so choose.
I didn’t have a say in letting those compensation packages get completely out of hand — yet I’m expected to pay more, more and more taxes every year to cover these ridiculous expenses.
Beyond that, the sense of entitlement expressed by these public service unions is nothing short of staggering. The police and firefighter unions are shocked, shocked they’re not paid enough to live in the cities their employees work in. Really? They make plenty — yet what percentage of people do you know who live in the same city they work in — as long as they’re employed by somebody else. Pretty much everybody — yet I don’t hear about private sector employees whining about it.
Silly comparisons to prohibition aside — something needs to be done to fight the extortion campaigns waged by public sector unions — and the governor of Wisconsin should be commended for taking a stand — one Jerry Brown will never take because he’s completely bought.
Well, at least your name is accurate.
🙂
Amen (80%), Jeff, on your last post – & good game of point & counterpoint you & Jay played. I’ve always voted the person vice the political party, but these days, REASONABLE Republicans are scarcer than the proverbial hens’ teeth. The recent moronic infusion into the House somewhat scares me – these people are totally unwilling to compromise on anything, as is the Gov of WI.
Mr. Nuts is correct regarding public safety employees – they gained huge wage & benefits increases once the “law & order” mentality that started in Nixon’s days became entrenched during the Reagan years. In CA, the prison guards’ union owned every governor from DukeReagan onward until the Gubernator somewhat slowed them down. Jerry wasn’t in their pocket his 1st time around, & I don’t think he is now, either.
However, union-busting has been gaining momentum ever since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers (which he had every right to do, as Federal employees do not have the right to strike). State govt employees in most cases do have the right to strike (and have, many times). The union-busting Midwestern govs are way out of line – they, like their ilk in the new Congress, have cut off any possibility of reasonable discourse on economic issues – it’s all about power & pushing misguided agendas based on faulty logic that their semi-ignorant supporters bought into.
The idea of a workers’ union originally was to stop abuse of power – better pay & working conditions – the health insurance & similar bennies came after WWII, as the US economy expanded. However, by the mid-70’s, the unions had gotten too greedy & management had turned wimpy, & because the economy was doing well, nobody paid much attention, especially in the auto industry. Mid-70’s, the huge invasion of Japanese cars, which many of us soon figured out were better-made & got better gas mileage, coupled w/US corp management stupidity (as in pushing gas-guzzlers during the 70’s oil crises), started its demise.
70’s American cars were crap (as were most early 70’s Japanese imports). 80’s Chrysler’s K/E-cars & Ford’s revived Mustang (after the disastrous 75-8 “mini”) were decent & reasonably well-made, but not as “tight” or gas-efficient as the Hondas, Nissans, & Toyotas of the same era. GM’s small & mid-size cars were awful. I dubbed GM “Garbage Motors” way back after having driven many GM rentals of those sizes on business & personal travel.
The neo-cons are using their recent election successes to try to screw all but their wealthy supporters – & most of the (poorer) working stiffs who voted for them have no clue. “Entitlement” also applies to the rich f-ers in the form of tax breaks that, if repealed, would solve a lot of budget crises. Only the super-rich have it both ways these days. This “liberal” is all in favor of a o.5-10% graduated “flat tax” with NO DEDUCTIONS & CREDITS – everyone pays something, & the Fed govt & states get more revenue & have a lot fewer “beancounters” & lawyers to employ to sort out all the BS tax law intricacies.
It’s just unbelievable someone trying to blame a group that is fighting to lower all taxes of trying to raise one tax (on beer). Most of the article is just nonsense. Tax cuts for the riches is just a liberal falacy, there is no such thing. ALL taxation will hit the poorer harder, no matter who directly pays them.
Comparing prohibitionists, people who used regulations and government to achieve their goal, exactly what the tea party is against, to the tea party is like saying black people are responsible for slavery.
Please, more beer, less politics.