President Donald Trump early in his second term renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War. This was the original name given to our federal military in 1789 and it had been in effect until it was eliminated by legislation in 1947 and actively became the Department of Defense in 1949. In William Shakespeare’s great play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet utters the immortal line, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This name change by Trump is not to change the department’s smell, but to signify a change in tone, focus, and commitment. 

This name change has been only one of many actions taken by our present President to push back the decades-long movement from progressivism through the New Deal through multiculturalism and the historical revisionism of the Obama years. The erosion of the philosophical and institutional/constitutional structure of America has intensified during a period exceeding one hundred years beginning with Woodrow Wilson. 

Although Wilson soundly defeated the socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs for the presidency in 1912, he was committed to dramatically altering the institutional and cultural landscape of the USA in ways that enlarged the power of national policy at the expense of local and state mores and institutions.

Wilson actively supported the creation of the Federal Reserve, an institution intended to stabilize the economy which, owing to banking greed and instability, had faced various collapses over the decades. The Federal Reserve’s stated goals were “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” However, as all students of history know, the banking collapse of U.S. history began less than twenty years after the creation of the Fed, i.e., the Great Depression beginning in 1929.

The Clayton Antitrust Act was also passed and signed into law by Wilson. Among other matters it prevented labor organizations and farmers’ associations from being sued under antitrust legislation. It also prevented price fixing and interlocking directorates. However, we still see oligopoly power being applied in various sectors. For example, Internet companies have collaborated in setting up divisions in major urban areas, so that even if a cheaper service is available in your city, it may not be available in your zip code. 

Further, the big unions cling to their Democrat Party allegiance because their power cannot be challenged by the government in support of dissident groups within the unions that are blocked from growth by the dominant insider union leadership. Listen to the aggressive and uncompromising left-wing rhetoric of various big unions, especially the teachers’ unions in our major cities, and the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten. They cannot be rejected or unseated by their own membership -- such is their tight grip on power.

Although the federal income tax was passed into law as a constitutional amendment under Pres. William Howard Taft, it became law under Wilson and he set up the Internal Revenue Service. Imagine, there was no income tax in the USA until 1913! This writer had a brief correspondence with Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the conservative organization Eagle Forum, a couple of years before she passed. I sent her the tax rates from the early years of the income tax, and she was surprised at how high they already were. In 1917 the top tax bracket was already being taxed 67%. If you think that is because of WWI, it should be stated that in 1921, the top bracket tax was even higher at 73%. The top bracket when Pres. Reagan took office was 70%, and during his term it dropped to 28%.

This marked statism of Progressivism morphed into increasing the size and scope of the federal government under the hegemonic leadership of FDR. The New Deal kept increasing the size of the federal government with its many alphabet agencies (WPA, AAA, CCC, NLRB, etc.). Layer after layer of increased powers accrued to the federal government with high federal income tax. Social Security came into existence to help the elderly survive and have a better quality of life, but at the same time, inflation lowered the value of the dollar so that more dollars were required to meet basic needs. 

With every drop of increased government influence over income, outcomes, employment, and industry came a sharp decline in individual initiative, individual spirituality dependent upon a loving God, and increase and entrenched dependence upon the power brokers who were going to make it happen for the people. Government increasingly was shaping the lives of our citizens rather than facilitating those lives. The federal government began establishing outcomes rather than providing justice for citizens in the context of individuals and states being responsible for outcomes.

Ideals of independence and freedom were being diluted to an extreme. Then we faced WW II. While we were ourselves on the brink of full-blown socialism, we condemned the movements of Germany and Russia with their undo government control at the central level combined with their disgusting racism (Germany) and anti-family/anti-private ownership (Russia) rhetoric. But we had to move forward against those extremes despite carrying our own burdens of Wilsonian and Rooseveltian statism.

Meanwhile, in the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping had the brilliant idea of turning his wacky, impoverished post-Mao PRC into a semi-capitalist haven with “empowerment zones.” These would be areas where capitalists could come in, set up their companies, and manufacture goods (with appropriate bribes paid, of course). This incentive attracted exporters as well as manufacturers (including many American corporations) to set up plants in China using cheaper Chinese labor to manufacture goods and ship them to the U.S. as well as other countries. Even with the cost of shipping, profits were greater than manufacturing in the USA or Western Europe.

Then, towards the end of the Clinton presidency (yes, another Democrat quisling), Bill Clinton pushed through allowing duty-free imports to the USA for China under the World Trade Organization Agreement, and this really put manufacturing into full blown exodus. That’s when the world of economics started referring to the USA as a service economy rather than a manufacturing economy. 

Coming back to the opening statement of this article, the name change to Department. of War is a change with great symbolic significance. It’s not only about the military. The name change is a reminder that we have been on the wrong side of the historical curve for a long time. We must find our way back to a more historically true sense of identity as a country, as a people. All the foundation assumptions must be rethought. There have to be readjustments as we seek to recover the love for freedom, hope in the individual and in the states, and literally a more peaceful vision of our identity as freedom lovers within a pluralistic institutional context.

E. Jeffrey Ludwig has been a regular contributor to americanthinker.com since 2010. He has taught as a Teaching Fellow in American History and Literature at Harvard, and also taught high school history and economics for 20+ years. He is pastor of a small Bible believing church, and teaches philosophy p/t.

Image: Library of Congress