Trump’s Cabinet could usher in a new era of Jefferson

The rise of President Trump has been widely compared to that of rustic frontier-warrior Andrew Jackson to the presidency. Jackson despised Washington and the colonial establishment. The shift we are undergoing today might be seen reflected in these comments of Thomas Jefferson, “I am much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson become President. He is one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place. He has very little respect for laws or Constitutions.”

But if Jefferson — whose pure and primordial instinct for rebellion fired the world — were alive today, he might be surprised to see what has occurred. His nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, who in their time of revolution claimed, “there was no stability, no security in any kind of government but a monarchy,” may still be a hero on Broadway, but he has been repudiated by America.

For today, we enter a new era of Jefferson.

We might see the change today in how Eastern Establishment conservatives — now of a bygone era — talk of “small government,” boilerplate ideology at any gathering. But it generally means to them the thinning of federal government agencies to rid them of things they do not want, like Departments of Energy and Education, to make room for things they do want, like more military spending.

{mosads}Eastern Establishment liberals, quite likely bygone as well, are much the same only they want to shift resources from what they don’t like, like the military, to things they do like, such as energy and education.

These are both Hamiltonian positions, as both parties until today have been Hamiltonian. Today, however, conservatives must state exactly what they mean by “small government.” Small governments are state governments and that is where federal power must go and where it belongs in the Jeffersonian position.

Ask Vice President Mike Pence.

“Washington, D.C. is not only broke, it’s broken,” the then-governor of Indiana told the National Rifle Association in 2014. “The longer I serve as governor of this great state, the more convinced I am that the cure for what ails this country will come more from our nation’s state capitals than it ever will from our nation’s capital.”

This position, awakened in the Tea Party insurgency, has found its way to the center of the rising administration with Pence; Secretary of Energy nominee and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R); Attorney General nominee and current Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.); former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.), the new U.N. ambassador; Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), nominated for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and others.

In the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) of 2014, Perry gave a succinct outline of this position. It might be considered the jewel heart of a new Western-based or heartland-based conservatism that is Jeffersonian in outlook.

The three key points of Perry’s speech:

Jeffersonian rebellion. Rebellion, not revolution. There are two approaches to American governance articulated at the founding: Hamilton’s vision of centralized power and Jefferson’s heart-based indigenous “natural states” rising across the continent. Perry called for an actual Jeffersonian approach. It is a transformational approach to America’s future.

Red and blue America. “Among the states we see two visions for America. There’s the vision common in blue states, where the state plays an increasing role in the lives of its citizens. And then there’s the vision common to red state America, where the freedom of the individual comes first, and the reach of government is limited,” Perry told the crowd.

Devolution. “That’s why we must elect the right kind of leaders to represent us in Washington,” Perry noted, “leaders who devolve power to the states and not rob them of it.”

This is the truly rebellious idea. Since 1913 and the passage of the 17th Amendment, power has shifted to New York City and Washington, D.C.. Actually reformulating America by restoring power to the states is a holistic crossing of the river to a new America.

This brings a primary shift in America’s orientation here at home and as we face the world outside. In 2017, we leave Alexander Hamilton behind and enter now an age of Thomas Jefferson.

Bernie Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children.

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