A Schwarzenegger Republican
Warren Beatty
May 24, 2005
The following is an excerpt from the keynote address delivered by actor/director
Warren Beatty at the graduation ceremony for UC Berkeley's Goldman School of
Public Policy. Beatty is a member of the board of directors of the Campaign for
America's Future, TomPaine.com's parent organization.
One night a few months ago in Los Angeles, I found myself speaking to a group
with conviction, offering some advice for the current governor of our state. (He
was not there.) I was a little tougher on him than it had been fashionable in
Hollywood to be, up until then.
I've never enjoyed being publicly negative about actors in public office, like
Ronald Reagan, who I really liked, or Sonny Bono or George Murphy, because I've
always had a real soft spot for actors—even if they are right wing.
And although I've never known Arnold, very well I've always liked him. When he
went from body building into the movies and said in interviews he'd like to do
it like Clint Eastwood does it and like Warren Beatty does it, of course that's
pretty much all you have to say to have me eating out of your hand.
But now that he's a politician, I say, why not rise to the higher levels of that
calling, rather than denigrate your fellow politicians, calling them "stooges"
and "girly men" and "losers." They give years of their lives to public service
in the legislature of what is intended to be a representative form of
government, where public policy on decisions affecting 38 million people's lives
are adequately discussed — not a government by ballot initiatives financed by
huge advertising monies that bypass a careful examination of a bill by the
people's elected representatives.
Can't we accept that devotion to the building of the body politic is more
complex and a little more sensitive than devotion to body building? Does that
make me a "girly man"?
I said that night that, although there was an awful lot to do here in
California, there was nothing wrong with his wanting to be the president of the
United States. Doesn't every Austrian parent want their son or daughter to grow
up to be the president of the United States? Fine.
Fine. But to embrace the reactionary right-wing agenda here in California in
order to gain a national political party to become the president with? No. No.
It's become time to define a Schwarzenegger Republican. A Schwarzenegger
Republican is a Bush Republican who says he's a Schwarzenegger Republican.
I'll repeat: I wanted to be rooting for Arnold, but he'd have to take some of
that bombastic marketing and market the right thing — telling rich people like
me the truth: that with a state debt of $18 billion caused by energy
deregulation and the dot-com bust, our taxes are going to have to be a little
higher on the rich. No matter what that group of advisors say. And maybe only
temporarily. Which is what both Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson did.
And tell them, governor, just as your advisor Warren Buffet told you before you
told him to be quiet and do 500 sit-ups, that Proposition 13 has to tax
businesses the same as homeowners, and that'd raise about $5 billion a year. It
won't make business leave California. And that the Bush tax cuts for the upper 1
percent in California alone amount to about $12 billion a year, so what's the
point of ruling out all new taxes on the rich other than to make sure they
continue to finance your nonstop campaign advertising?
And what is the sense in running to Wall Street and borrowing $15 billion,
raising the debt to more than $30 billion, and then coming back here and trying
to cut programs and obligations to nurses, firemen, teachers, cops, students,
schools, the elderly, the blind and disabled and then denigrating these good
people as special interests? Please. These are the people you should be
especially interested in.
We are not the governor's dumbbells.
It's not fooling anybody for him to run around raising money from Wall Street
and K Street and rich Republicans all over the country who hope that if they can
get this reactionary stuff started in California, they can get it done back in
their own states and actually dismantle the New Deal, which they simple-mindedly
forget saved American capitalism, and then they can dismantle the fair deal, the
new frontier and the Great Society and the entitlements and the rights and the
guarantees that make the society safe for everyone—including the rich.
And then to call a totally unnecessary $70 million extra election in November,
when we're going to have another one in June, is nothing but a strategy to
distract attention from the failure to deal honestly with the budget and a fear
of losing the support of the rich if he raises our taxes, while legally he can
raise an unlimited amount of campaign money this year but not next year.
What is the need for an initiative on reapportionment when there is basic
agreement in the legislature? Nobody wants the legislators to pick their voters,
and everybody wants the voters to pick their legislators.
The Republican Secretary of State Bruce MacPherson has said the reapportionment
cannot be done by 2006, is very questionable by 2008, could be done by 2010—but
then a court would throw it out, because in 2010 a new census will be done. So
why call an extra election in November of 2005 when you'll have another one in
June of 2006?
The governor wants to attract conservative attention nationally with an extra
election at a time when very few elections are going on in the country, and win
credit from the right wing for winning on this fake issue—something everybody
already basically agrees on.
And for bullying labor and the little guys with this anti-worker, misleadingly
named "paycheck protection" ballot initiative—which would make it almost
impossible for union members to pool some of their dues, unite on political
issues, and stand up to the big guys behind this scam that tries to castrate the
labor movement and vitiate the dignity of working men and women —and spend $70
million of the public's money doing it.
Cancel it, governor. Call it off. Or you're going to hear the sound of a lot
more losers and stooges and "girly men" like me who want to hear the sound of
their own voices than you seem to think.
Now this is what I call good advice. I'd like to help. So imagine my chagrin
when on television Arnold expresses reluctance to listen to my advice. He said
to Chris Matthews that if I promise not to give him advice on politics, he'll
promise not to give me advice on acting.
I can only advise him at this point that if politics and acting are both off the
table, we are left only with hair and makeup. And you know? I don't want to give
him advice on that.
But I can advise on cosmetics and cover-ups in the makeup of American politics.
The base that is used to constantly conceal the mistakes and the mischief in the
misanthropic agenda.
As a public-policy dermatologist, you might advise that just a couple of minutes
a day of sunlight would be more than helpful. And you might cut down on the
photo-ops, the fake events, the fake issues, the fake crowds, the backdrops, the
signs, the distractions, the scapegoats, the "language problems," the broken
promises, the minutemen, the prevarications and put some sunlight on some taxes.
Nobody likes taxes. But everybody wants their family to be safe and the society
secure.
Not only will the economy benefit if we don't ask our children to pick up our
tab, but inside most Democrats are people who feel they might some day get as
rich as Republicans and don't want to destroy for themselves the possibilities
in the American dream that responsible capitalism offers, any more than
conservatives do.
When did conservatives decide to just borrow more money without raising taxes?
Is the governor now to the right of the head of the Fed? Even Alan Greenspan has
started to talk taxes. This is serious stuff. Tip O'Neill said politics ain't
beanbag!!
Bipartisanship? We don't have it here. And let's not mistake the exploitation of
the name of one of the greatest liberal families in American history for
bipartisanship. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Governor, you're no Kennedy
Democrat.
Stop trying to milk the illusion of bipartisanship. You are a conservative
Republican who likes to have a few Democrats around for show. This is good
advice.
Do I think Arnold will eventually take it? I think so.
Of course, he can joke that I want to defend the nurses because I'm closer to
needing one, and the elderly because I'm nearer to being one, and the blind
because I can't see past tax-and-spend liberalism. And then I can joke that he
should defend the teachers because he has so much to learn, but finally it's not
funny. Government is not a joke, and despite what he's said, it's not a movie.
But he'll have to listen. He's not stupid. He knows I'm a private citizen just
as he was a year ago. I'm an opponent of his muscle-bound conservatism with a
longer experience in politics than he has, and although I don't want to run for
governor, I'd do one helluva lot better job than he's done. But I can name you
lots of Democrats that would be so much better than I would, and maybe even a
few Republicans.
As a Southern Baptist in Virginia, I was taught that good public policy was "Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you." I was taught "Love one another"
was the point.
Good public policy for our economy, our culture and our safety will never fully
exist without:
First, public financing of elections.
Second, assuring the separation of church and state.
Third, creating a single-payer universal health care system: Medicare for all.
Fourth, facing the value to the rich and the rest of a just redistribution of
our enormous wealth with our tax policy. Concern for the unfortunate is not
socialism.
And fifth: moderating against the dangers of the muscular utopianism of an
empire that imposes what some call democracy on places in the world where it
cannot be sustained and will lead to American decline.
Good public policy in a social democracy declares that might does not make
right. Denial of this leads to totalitarianism, communism or fascism. Our
silence is an anti-inflammatory, a steroid for bullies. Bullies are basically
cowards.
I say, inflame. Inflame yourself. Inflammation mobilizes. Enjoy the sound of
your own voice. With humility, with affection for those who are in the dark.
With democracy, in this most formidable state, the world's fifth-largest
economy, California's public opinion can be the beacon of public opinion in
America. With democracy, because we are in this moment the mightiest country of
all time—the power of American public opinion to guide its government may be the
rescue of the human race.
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