GOP Brand Pablum
(posted by Mona)
Occasional commenter here, Chris in DC –who built a demand to start a blog with his incisive commentary at Greenwald’s site using the handle DCLaw1, and has now done so — gets it mostly right on what is wrong with the GOP’s election strategy, and what that party’s loyalists blindly or obstinately refuse to admit:
All this recent “brand” pablum reveals a major truth about the Republican Party and today’s political environment that all voters should keep in mind. That is, most Republicans still cannot seem to acknowledge or admit that the American public is simply rejecting their ideas, issue positions, and political philosophy, and these Republicans are instead opting to believe in the self-soothing fiction that their serious problems with the electorate are mostly cosmetic and superficial.
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What the Republicans seemingly cannot grasp - or just refuse to admit - is that a political philosophy finds its defining quality and characteristics not in its high-minded theoretical expression, but in its practical, real-world execution. In this way, the past several years of nearly unrestrained Republican rule have demonstrated that the failures of the Republican Party are the failures of conservatism, because the two simply cannot be separated in the arena of political reality and practice.
This is all too true. (And for an example of Republican obtuseness — real or contrived — see Bill Kristol’s Editorial on the GOP brand in today’s NYT, in which Kristol posits that e.g., all McCain has to do is continue the GOP strategy of beating up on “activist courts” and teh gheys. [Addendum: also see Greenwald on how fact-free Kristol is, as usual.]) But. Dwight Eisenhower was not a bad President, and the United States does need — crucially — some actual electoral choices (not echos, and all that). Woodrow Wilson sent our boys into the killing trenches of WWI. Depending on your take of WWII, that was a Democratic President as well sending our GIs off to death, as was Truman’s Korean War a Democratic enterprise. JFK and LBJ continued Vietnam well past the point when sanity and morality should have dictated otherwise.
The problem now, however, is that extreme hawks known as “neoconservatives” and their useful idiots of the religious right have overtaken the GOP. Neocons find domestic policy interesting only to the extent they can manipulate voters to go to the polls to “stop the gay agenda” and the like; they refuse to hear that, even if (as I believe) a huge federal health-care bureaucracy is a bad idea, the public nevertheless wants something done on the health insurance issue. The historical fluke of health insurance being an employment benefit was all fine and dandy when John Doe stayed with Acme Hardware for 40 years until he retired. But portability, and the issue of pre-existing conditions are deeply problematic in a mobile society.
The far-right, neoconservative faction that has captured one of our two major political parties is a serious problem for the body politic. Democrats, Republicans and “other” alike. And pace folks like Kristol, packaging the pablum differently ain’t going to fool an angry electorate. The Republicans are going to have to actually purge themselves of people just like, well, Bill Kristol.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Actually, if it were just a question of the American public not liking their ideas, I think the Republicans would actually be in better shape than they are now. Ideas are cheap, and new ones easy to introduce.
The real problem is that Republicans demonstrated an utter failure to deliver on their brand promises, so to speak, when given control of the government. Republicans were supposed to be the party of limited government, instead they grew it. Republicans were supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility, instead they ran up huge deficits. Republicans were supposed to be good for business, instead they gave Wall Street Sarbanes-Oxley. Republicans were supposed to be the party of national defense, instead we saw 9/11 and the Iraq disaster. Republicans were supposed to be more morally upright, instead they delivered a series of sex and corruption scandals.
About the only place they did deliver was a few abstinence-only and faith-based services funding sops, and one moderate conservative on the Supreme Court replaced by someone more reliable (and Bush put in a damn good effort to mess that one up with the Miers nomination).
It’s really, really difficult to rebuild your reputation when people fundamentally don’t trust your ability to do what you say you’re going to do. And given that McCain spent seven years aligning himself with the Republican mainstream in order to capture the party nomination, it’s going to be awfully difficult for him to meaningfully dissociate himself in the next six months.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
While I disagree with your assessment that conservative ideas themselves are not being rejected by the public, I think the substance of what you are saying is more or less what I meant when I said that “a political philosophy finds its defining quality and characteristics not in its high-minded theoretical expression, but in its practical, real-world execution. In this way, the past several years of nearly unrestrained Republican rule have demonstrated that the failures of the Republican Party are the failures of conservatism, because the two simply cannot be separated in the arena of political reality and practice.”
“Conservatism,” like nearly every other ideological label, has come to embody many different things over time. Even the definition of today’s conservatism is often hotly debated. Just as communism is most accurately understood as its typical real-world applications, every other political philosophy - including conservatism - finds its meaning in its actual practice.
When 8 years - arguably more - of Republican conservatism in motion reveals itself as embodying certain “principles,” those principles become the definition of the ideology. Besides, evidence of the public’s outright rejection of conservatism - as the GOP has defined it - is everywhere.
While more Republicans are drifting to libertarianism, independents and moderates are surging much more strongly to the Democratic party and to more liberal principles. Free market concepts have lost much of their favor. There is now a decidedly populist, worker-oriented sentiment sweeping the country. The idea that government should play a major role in reversing global warming is now mainstream.
Even the die-hard conservative concept that government is inherently “the problem” has lost traction - people are increasingly demanding not necessarily “less” government, but effective government that will be there when we need it.
Anyway, you get my point. I think there are many, many indications that the nation has not just thrown its hands up at GOP hypocrisy (although it largely has), but has even come to reject many of the abstract notions of conservatism in favor of liberal tenets.
This is why the GOP will inevitably have to fall back on nativist, tribal signals and paranoia to stand a chance in November, and why no amount of re-branding or reaffirmance of conservative principles will save them. Even if they move left or to “the center,” they will lose to the candidate that more genuinely embodies the ideas for which people have come to hunger after 8 years of Republican rule.
Unless they successfully play to bigotry and paranoia, which they will certainly try to do.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Yeah, but which conservative notions are being rejected? It doesn’t have to be one way or the other (just hypocrisy or actual rejection) for all issues. I think it’s more likely that the net effect of all of the GOPs failures will be that some of their policies will end up seen as hypocritical and others will be rejected in favor of an alternative.
The comments you directed at Psyche are tied to the long-standing debate between establishment Democrats who push moderate policy stance and activist Democrats who push unapologetic liberalism. Establishment Democrats would partially agree with Psyche (that conservative ideas are still in vogue). It seems to me that both sides are right.
You can’t build a political coalition without being moderate about some issues. Your never going to have a majority of full-blown liberals any more than a majority of full-blown conservatives (or libertarians or authoritarians). However, you also can’t hold together a coalition without taking strong stances on something.
The trick is to be strong on some issues and moderate on others in whatever combination pleases a consistent majority of the public. The New Deal held together due to strong stances on economic intervention. In the meantime, all sorts of social issues — notably segregation — were papered over for the sake of the party. The GOP since Nixon has really not had a stable coalition. Mutual hatred of liberals is pretty much the glue of the GOP. At least that was the glue until that hatred became absurd.
My own estimation is that the liberalism trend is most pronounced in foreign policy, followed by social issues and lastly in economics. To demonstrate this, consider which is the public more upset by — the Democrat’s failure to alter policy on the war or Bush’s veto of SCHIP? That, ultimately, should be a guide to where the Democrats will need to be strong, and where to be moderate in order to build a stable governing coalition.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Kurt -
I don’t disagree that there needs to be a balance, that you can’t go whole-hog on the full slate of “liberal” (or other) positions. But that’s just common sense. I’m not sure that I implied otherwise.
What I’m saying is that there is definitely a leftward drift - not that the public is ready to consume an entire buffet of hard-left positions.
Also, while I don’t eschew the “liberal” label (it’s just a label, and I don’t consider it insulting), I earnestly regard most of my issue positions as simply making more sense, or befitting the constitution most faithfully.
For instance, the FISA/warrantless wiretapping issues are often portrayed in the media as a left vs. right battle. It most certainly is not - it is a constitutional vs. unconstitutional, legal vs. illegal issue. I am a serious constitutional law junky, and I make a conscious effort to align my views with a faithful reading of the constitution and the founders’ intentions.
I digress. Regarding your last point, don’t confuse ideological disposition for intensity of opposition with your example of Iraq War vs. SCHIP. The Iraq War hits people emotionally much harder than do most economic issues - but even still, Democrats are far, far more trusted on the economy as a whole than even the most principled and earnest Republican. And that’s not just due to the “brand” of either party identity - people are definitely moving back to more populist, worker-oriented positions on the economy, and taking a dim view of unbridled, free market capitalism.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Chris wrote: people are definitely moving back to more populist, worker-oriented positions on the economy, and taking a dim view of unbridled, free market capitalism.
Just as an FYI, what you’ll find here from most libertarians is not a support for state-enabled coproratism, but much for free markets. There is a huge difference, and one that should engender some common cause with liberals and “our (AoTP’s) kind” of libertarians, even on economics.
Populism, however, of any sort is rightly feared. It lends itself quite well to demagoguery and authoritarianism. George Bush, after all, is a kind of populist, altho a different sort than, say, William Jennings Bryan or Huey Long, whose economic views were all about hating big business and being for the “little guy.” But I’m glad the latter two never became president.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:38 am
In a way it is, though. We’re entering a political re-alignment where anyone who leans toward the constitutional position in the FISA debate will be considered “on the left” and those who lean towards a police state will be considered “on the right.” FISA is one of several litmus test issues for the new political alignment.
I concede that the public is leaning towards anti-capitalism on economics as well, just not with anywhere near the intensity or passion as other issues. That intensity makes a difference, since it determines where the Democrats will be able to get more votes, which over time will affect their policy stances.