1890 - The Right's favorite year

I remember a television special hosted by Woody Allen that was broadcast sometime in the early 70's. Strangely enough for a comedy show he had William F. Buckley as one of his guests. Woody told him that he wanted to see a conservative government elected in the U.S. so that we could all see how terrible that would be and get the then growing interest in conservatism out of our system, once and for all. The studio audience thought that was his funniest remark of the night. At the time I agreed, just like the offhand remark he made in one of his films (I think it was "Take the Money and Run") that his mother owned a digital computer. That was hysterical for a time when digital computers meant mammoth room sized ENIAC type mainframes. The idea of a conservative dominated U.S. government seemed equally incongruous to the image of a digital computer in one's apartment. Today it's hard to see the humor in both statements. You had to be there.

With Samuel Alito's pending nomination to the Supreme Court seeming to be a sure thing, Democratic filibuster or not, the Right is on the cusp of achieving that goal of controlling all three branches of the government that Allen casually proposed more than 30 years ago and what they have been seeking for as many years. The prize they have sought is almost won, to paraphrase Walt Whitman.

The ideal America that conservatives have been seeking, in the electoral process and in the cultural and economic sphere was realized once before near the end of the nineteenth century. In 1890 there were few government regulations of the private sector. Anti-trust laws had only recently been enacted and were seldom enforced; accept in the case of labor unions, which were often ruled to be acting in restraint of trade. The Federal Food and Drug Act would not be enacted for another 16 years.  There was no federal income tax and no SEC oversight of the financial markets. The only government agency that most Americans had any dealings with was the Post Office. Spending on social programs was non-existent. The government could easily have been drowned in a bathtub, the often repeated aim of conservative activist Grover Norquist. Tort reform was not a discussed political issue as large jury awards for punitive damages in civil trials was unheard of.

There was also no mistaking America for anything other than a Christian nation in 1890. Abortion was a crime in every state and prayer in the public schools was an unquestioned daily practice. The Supreme Court ruling that enunciated the principle of the "Separation of Church and State" would happen 35 years later. The courts in 1890 were very pro-business and overturned most federal and state laws, such as setting minimum wages and worker safety rules as unconstitutional interference in commerce.

Is this an exaggeration of the ideal America that Weyrich and others have been advocating? Does America really want to return to 1890?