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A conservative tide swept over America in 1980, and it hasn't ebbed yet. Unfortunately, it came about 30 years too late. If true conservatives had gained power right after World War II, we might well be spared many of the problems we face now.
Does our domestic economy now suffer from outrageous defense budgets with expensive commitments around the globe? Robert Taft, a conservative senator who foresaw those problems, tried running for President in 1952 -- but the Republicans preferred Dwight Eisenhower, who seemed more modern at the time.
Closer to home, look at the current woes of Colorado. Our gasoline has exotic additives and we might go on Central Standard Time. Those troublesome expedients are just a start on a solution to the Brown Cloud -- most of which comes from cars.
Interstate 70 is clogged from Denver to Vail on Sunday afternoons; more lanes are needed, although that's hideously expensive in the mountains.
Getting around in the city gets more difficult by the day, no matter how many highways. So there is a costly plan to build a light-rail line southeast from downtown Denver.
Now ponder how much money and trouble we would be saving now if a true conservative had taken office in Colorado in about 1950. He would have issued a statement along this line.
Certainly there is pressure on government to be
active, to build highways and the like.
But we aren't going to because we don't need to. A
freeway through Denver will ruin neighborhoods and
encourage more people to drive cars. Our streetcars aren't
perfect, but they work. They don't take up much land and
they don't ruin our air. So we're going to stick with
them.
Likewise, we have an interurban system that links
Denver with Boulder and Golden, for the use of commuters.
That, too, will be kept in operation. The only changes we
support are expansions and improvements of existing
systems.
Our mountains are a big attraction for skiers
and many other tourists. The dozens of passenger trains
that chug in and out of Union Station every day are doing a
fine job of getting people from Denver to Aspen or Alamosa.
Why should we build expensive and unreliable highways, at
public expense, when we already have a tolerable
transportation system built at private expense?
Although there is a big demand for housing, we are
not going to encourage anyone to build tract houses, out in
the middle of nowhere, far from the places of employment.
People need to live and work in real communities, where
they know their neighbors.
But that never happened. We ended up in an awful mess of anonymous suburban sprawl and shopping malls, linked by traffic jams. What sounded like progress in 1950 turned out to be disastrous. The best solutions we hear in 1988 turn out to be restorations of what was working 40 years ago.
Build a light rail system -- to replace one that was scrapped in favor of freeways. Revitalize neighborhoods -- the sterile suburbs didn't turn out to be an earthly paradise, after all. The hottest new thing in real-state development is the traditional American small town -- see the cover story in the March issue of Atlantic Monthly.
Once upon a time, we had all that pretty well in place. Restoring it will take resources that otherwise might have improved our educational system, found cures for diseases, or stayed in our own pockets.
We wouldn't be suffering through this current trauma if real conservatives had taken power right after World War II. The Reagan conservatives arrived too late to do us any good. Like most conservatives, they were bent on preserving the status quo; we are discovering that the status quo of 1980 isn't worth preserving.
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