An Alternative History of the Culture War

When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.

I quoted "the Teddy Kennedy that could have been" with the 1971 statement above in comment to a post over at a liberal Catholic site — Ted Kennedy, Fr. Zuhlsdorf, and Jesus. Another commenter followed up:

Many Democratic politicians in the 1970s chose to side with the Feminist wing of the left against the working class ethnic wing of the left. Not all did. Kennedy could have taken Tip O'Neill's position and not risked losing his seat.

That got me pondering what might have been had someone of the stature of a Kennedy taken up the pro-life cause, leading many of his fellow Democrats to do the same. The pro-abortion cause might have been taken up by the Rockefeller Republicans, and "the Feminist wing of the left" would have gone naturally to the that party. After all, it makes more sense that the party whose support for all things corporate, such as corporate welfare, would naturally support women in the workforce. The Democrats would have naturally taken up the anti-feminists.*

Since the "the working class ethnic wing of the left" is essentially conservative, there would have been no Reagan Democrats to lose in 1980. The party of big business, not the party of the working man, would have been found guilty of having been tied up with Hollywood decadence. After all, it makes more sense that the entertainment industry, based as it is on mindless consumption, be attached to the party more associated with corporate welfare.

Benign neglect, as proposed by fellow Catholic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and discussed in a more open political climate, might have led Sen. Kennedy to lead his party away from the disastrous War on Poverty, and Black America might today be much better off today.

Sen. Kennedy, who professed to have "cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war," might have led his party away from its XX^th warmongering back to the United States non-interventionism last practiced by Grover Cleveland. His elder brother Jack, after all, had been a member of the America First Committee. And let us remember, this was a man who, to his credit, said, "My vote against this misbegotten war is the best vote I have cast in the United States Senate since I was elected in 1962" — Kennedy: Vote against Iraq war my best vote I have cast in US Senate.

Yes, this alternative history is full of many "mights" and "what ifs" and is based solely on one man following the teachings of his Church, but in some ways, it makes more sense than the real thing. After all, the party that casts itself as "fighting for the little guy" has as its main tenet the killing of the unborn, and the party of "family values" as its the support for big business and wars of aggression.

*This is not as strange as it sounds; both Mother Jones and Emma Goldman knew that having wives institutionalize their children so that they might join their husbands in wage-slavery was not "emancipation."