depressed conservatives

“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated” -Mark Twain

The Republican party is undergoing a rapid and drastic change. As we speak, all sorts of factions vie and joust for preeminence within a party that seems to be deflating overnight. People associated with the party for a long time look about them in disbelief, as if after an airplane crash where there seems nothing at all recognizable left of the original vehicle, just little pieces strewn as far as the eye can see.

It is speculated that the GOP have become the new Whigs, and will inevitably be cast aside in favor of a one party state into the foreseeable future. Of course, this sort of speculation is frivolous.

What happened to the GOP becomes clear with the benefit of some distance from the tremendous shifts of the 2006 and 2008 elections. It is linked to a massive shift across the board amongst our media, political class, and intelligentsia that has been so big as to have gone almost unnoticed until now.

The problem with the GOP from an electoral perspective in both 2006 and 2008 stem from a fairly simple source, but that source is deeply rooted and readjustment will inevitably be painful.

As a Congressional staffer, I worked on Capitol Hill, and saw the GOP leadership in the House from a relatively close vantage point. As a member of my generation, and coming as I do from California, I found the culture of Washington DC to be unique, and that found within Republican areas of Congress even more so. That is the first clue as to what went wrong for the party

Washington is anachronistic. The culture is a leftover from an earlier age. While the rest of the nation is culturally very firmly in the 21st century, the area inside the Washington DC beltway is probably approaching the 1980s or so. This cultural divide is a result of necessity, it is the natural effect of the machine that Washington is and the function it serves.

For decades, we were every bit the Republic. We sent our representatives to Washington based largely on our estimate of their judgment, with no idea what issues they may have to face in the years until the next election, and we judged them based on what we thought that they had done, based largely on the reports of a few media outlets and the statements they released themselves. Since the machinery for more direct government simply did not exist, this was the best system we could use, and it worked quite well for a very long time.

In the resulting culture within Washington itself, something I call the “cult of the gentleman”, and more negative people describe as an “old boy’s club” developed. It was the logical creation of our very political system, and it too had it’s uses. In this system, a person sent to Washington had to be a “gentleman” to get anything done. A gentleman was somebody who was first and foremost loyal to his friends, who stood absolutely on his word to his close associates, and who closed deals with a handshake, not a contract, and certainly never a press release. Because representatives were there to act as independent agents on behalf of the voters, and could receive but little input from those voters thanks to distance and technological limitations, they were effectively on their own. They had to rely on their own judgment exclusively, and since the landscape of Washington is composed of other such persons, the first skill they had to know was how to be a gentleman, so as to get along with the other Washingtonians, so that they could get something done; because you could not accomplish anything if you could not sign others on to your initiatives.

This is where “horse trading” comes from. Elected agents would agree to support one another, just as bloggers today mutually link to one another for support. One would vote for the bill his friend proposed, not based on the contents of that bill, but based on his relationship to it’s author. In return, one of his bills would be supported. This was logical, since politicians could rely on face to face contact with people they spoke to every day, and had to rely on one another’s word, just as their constituents relied on them based on their word.

What has happened in the last ten years is a technological revolution in America that is easily as significant as the opening of the first newspaper presses in the American Colonies. This change was rapid, and it has not yet reached the full extent of it’s tremendous impact on our whole civilization. Suddenly, average voters are able to track, through a constant stream of information coming onto the internet, the activity of their representatives in far greater detail than ever before. Suddenly people could speak back quickly and efficiently in real time, and they could use the internet to organize rallies and political activities all by themselves, coming together like the crystal in saline solution; spontaneously, with only a small spark.

In the old Washington, you voted for the bill your friend proposed because he was close and your constituents were far away. It is quickly changing into a situation where your constituents are close and your friend is far away; separated by the barriers to human interaction we all experience as information flows at us in an ever increasing stream. This utterly changes the paradigm for Washingtonians, but they are the last to realize it.

What we ourselves do not realize is the extent to which this has shifted the political game in the United States. Nor do we understand how irrevocable that shift has been. Both the Democrat and Republican parties have for many decades had two fundamental factions within their ranks; “personality politicians” and “ideology politicians”. To a greater or lesser extent, virtually every politician of any party can be placed in one of these two categories.

A personality politician runs on his personality, he makes the case that he can be trusted with the power to represent a given region because of his inherent judgment, character, or wisdom. The ideology politician makes the case that his ideology (which he will elaborate if he wants to be successful) is one which most closely represents the people of his district. This is a divide long understood and written about by political scientists; the obligation of a politician to try to accurately represent his constituents or the obligation of a politician to use his own judgment. There is no one answer to this, it is not black and white, and a politician will always have to strike some balance between what he perceives to be the will of his constituents and what he perceives to be the right thing to do.

As a result of far greater technical ability to follow every word and action of politicians, via people recording them with cellphone cameras, vloggers following them with palmcorders, and the old established leakers and journalists of days gone by, we have become a far more well informed body politic than previously. The result is the triumph of the ideological politician over the gentleman politician.

Now, traditionally, an ideologue was mistrusted in Washington, because they necessarily saw everything through the lens of their ideology. Nobody wanted to work with a guy who lived his life as a result of a political ideology. Why is this? Just think about it, you may vote for a guy who does nothing but spout his political ideology, and who becomes fiery and enraged when somebody strays from the political line, but would you want to have a drink with him in the Republican Club (or local bar)? Even more to the point; would you want that guy in your living room all the time? No, gentlemen, though ideologically slippery, were far and away more congenial to be around, and even when standing in opposition to you, were ready to go out for cocktails after the day’s joust was over. Thus, ideologues gained a reputation as people who couldn’t be taken seriously. They could raise an angry mob back home, but in DC, they couldn’t get anything done, because they estranged people.

But you say, if we are “closer” now to our politicians than we were, shouldn’t the gentlemen be rewarded for being personable? In answer, I ask if you have ever read the comments on your average youtube posting. We do not consider the internet to be equivalent to sitting in the bar with someone or we wouldn’t treat online postings the way we would a bathroom wall at a truck stop. We would never think to write on any part of our homes what we write on online forums. No, we are incredibly critical, often hostile, and always highly ideological when online, and are personable, quiet, neighborly, and uninterested in politics when we meet our neighbors mowing their lawns. That is the America of the 21st century.

Simply put; he is rewarded who can consistently put forth an ideology and intelligently defend it, and is rewarded more to the extent that that ideology is broad and consistently fits with the facts of our world. What a gentleman politician can explain eye to eye in a cocktail lounge inside the Beltway sounds like absurd flip-flopping when he explains it in writing to an online critic. In this environment, ideology is king.

The Democratic party has already dealt with this revolution, but the GOP is only going through this transition now. Back in the late 1990s, I was very surprised at the degree to which the Democratic party was beginning to drift leftward. This accelerated rapidly after President Clinton left office, and I was puzzled, and incorrectly assumed (based on 20th century political calculus) that as they moved hard to the left, they would alienate the center, which they needed for national office.

You saw personality politicians in the Democratic party left behind (Sen. Joe Lieberman is a perfect example). I knew something significant was going on when the Democrats could nominate Lieberman as Vice Presidential nominee for the 2000 election, only to abandon him as too centrist in 2006. How could a party move that much, ideologically speaking, in so short a time? How could Al Gore run as hard left as he could, for as long as he could and still be sidelined and honestly be probably too moderate for today’s Democratic party? How could Hillary Clinton have been undermined and ultimately toppled from the left in 2008? Even more interesting is why the Democrats could move so hard to the left and win such a big majority in the 2008 election if the entire nation has not shifted very much?

Clinton lost in 2008 because she was using the old calculus; you have to win the middle, and personality is more important than consistent ideology. Simply put, in the no holds barred debate forum of today’s America, a politician who consistently maintains a single ideological stance over time will win out over one who does not. Just consider the case of the criticism of Hillary’s vote on the Iraq war. Just look at Barack Obama’s voting record. He is as rock-ribbed liberal as you can be. With so many easy to use online rating systems and sites that describe every vote a politician ever made, it is easy for bloggers and pundits, and anybody else to look at a voting record boiled down to hard facts. It is easier to defend a consistent record from critics who disagree with your premises than to defend an inconsistent record from people who question your judgment.

If we analyze any one vote to make a demonstration, we should look at the most important vote cast by the Republican majority since the decision concerning the Iraq war; the financial services bailout vote of August 2008. In this vote, the GOP was split. The party divided neatly between those who stood by the Bush administration, and those who stood by Republican ideology. Tradition would dictate that a party stand by a guy they had gone to lunches with and spoken to face to face, and who was probably 75% kosher ideologically from a GOP standpoint, not that they would throw an old colleague and fellow gentleman to the wolves the first time he makes a major break from the party line. Tradition was wildly out of date in 2008, as the Democrats, still reeling from their own internal bloodbath, knew perfectly well.

The Republicans were left behind because of the nature of being in power in Washington. Remember where I said the Democratic shift accelerated after the end of Clinton’s Presidency? When a party is in power, they are very busy; they are working with other members of their party inside Washington. Ideas are bouncing from the Republicans in the House and Senate to the White House, back over to the Congress, and being churned over and put into laws or discarded. The fast pace, and volume of work to be done in running our nation do not allow a lot of time for reflection. White House staff consider it normal to suffer a rolling staff turnover as people burn out after a year or two in those conditions. In this environment, with the best and brightest in a party occupied by their jobs, there is no time or energy left for a rethinking of the party itself, and traditionally, this has led to a party too long in power getting out of touch with the country.

In this case, it isn’t just a matter of being out of touch, but a small matter of the most significant communications revolution since radio taking place across the world. The Democratic party was out of power and therefore subject to the rapid changes. This was well documented by the media, who speak of the “netroots” movement. What is not being considered is the truth that this revolution in two way communications is not limited to the left wing in politics, nor is the Internet as a whole liberal; certainly, despite the impressions given by early internet being linked to academia, it is far less liberal than the major conventional media outlets such as newspapers or television.

This brings me to predictions. We see today that the steady, individually tiny, and collectively overwhelming pressures of rapid feedback are utterly transforming our conventional media. Newspapers are increasingly obsolete. If a columnist wishes to be heard, he can make a blog like everybody else and his writing will stand on it’s own merit, not his ability to fight a bureaucratic battle within a little news company hierarchy. If he complains that he needs money, let him make a blog as well. Successful bloggers have found ways to make more money blogging than the average columnist makes writing columns. We, the blogosphere, feel no pity for the newspapers.

Major television, no matter how big the mother company, is not immune. MSNBC was moved further faster, but we see CNN also polarizing in their editorial outlook hard to the left, while Fox polarizes more and more to the right. All the media outlets are giving up the idea of “objective” journalism in favor of the far more honest understanding that everybody has some kind of bias one way or another and it is better for everybody if that bias is known in advance and not concealed. This is precisely what is effecting politics as well. We want reliability and predictability from our politicians and news anchors, not so much personality. This was the death of John McCain, whose war hero record was necessarily non-ideological, and therefore necessarily irrelevant to the principal debate. While Obama could defend a consistent stance, even if it was no the same as the majority of the country, McCain had none. We respect those we disagree with utterly but who honestly believe what they believe and stick to their guns; we do not respect those who seem to have no philosophy whatever.

This is why the GOP seemed like the party of the old boy’s club. This is why the party seemed to have no ideology at all. This is why the GOP leadership seemed to betray the country on the most important legislation in a lifetime, when it so obviously was opposite their ideological stance against out of control government, and it is why the Democrats are veering so hard to the left in so many ways in so short a time.

McCain lost the Presidency when he came back to Washington, suspended his campaign, the nation held it’s breath, and then instead of siding with the vast majority of voters against both an unpopular President Bush and his opponent, he simply echoed both of them on the bailout issue, losing his credibility and watching his poll numbers evaporate. At that moment, his campaign was lost and they knew it.

As a result of this new world, the GOP will re-form. It will do so even if it does not want to, but will be forced to by the will of the American people to have some check on the other party. The Republican ranks will be purged of those who cannot consistently defend their ideology or even explain what it is. Gentlemen will be brutally dropped, just as we saw in the bloodbath that left a former Democratic nominee for Vice President end up supporting the opposite party’s nominee for President only eight years later. What happened amongst Democrats will now happen on an accelerated time scale with the GOP, and it will look messy, but in the end, the party will be reborn far more fit, far more in tune with today’s America, and ultimately, since we have not lurched to the left as a nation, with very good prospects considering that all this is taking place in a center-right country.

For more commentary visit www.jubalbiggs.wordpress.com

The Republican Party's recent troubles have given birth to a new breed of conservative that I don't recall having ever dealt with before.  They're a rather sullen lot, given to extended periods of despair marked by an almost irremediable sense of nihilism.  So morose are these newly arrived conservatives that one is tempted to disregard them as little more than emotionally stunted attention seekers who are best ignored.

However, as you can see from the image below, that would be a mistake.  These melancholy conservatives are quite serious in their despondency and will not hesitate for one moment in inflicting serious harm upon themselves and the entire conservative movement in their desire to teach the world a lesson.

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Conservatism traditionally being an ideology of optimism (George Will and John Derbyshire being notable exceptions), its adherents most often find themselves at a loss when confronted with emo-cons.  Imagine, if you will, Larry Kudlow trying to talk Paul Krugman off a window ledge after Steve Forbes is appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve.  Every attempt at consolation results in deeper dejection, because reasoning with emo-cons is the intellectual equivalent of attempting to escape Chinese finger cuffs through brute strength.

So, how does one go about dealing with an emo-con when he has reached the nadir?  What is the best way to prevent that nihilistic tendency from taking hold of its victim and sending him into an emotional spiral that threatens not only himself, but all the people around him who struggle in vain to understand and remedy the sense of alienation that has robbed them of a one-time compatriot and ally?  Sadly, the truth is that there are no easy answers to that question.  Each emo-con is unique and must be dealt with as an individual.

However, that doesn't mean that we are powerless in the face of this crisis.  There are things that we can do to, if not completely alter the emo-con mindset, at least buy time until the gathering gloom finally gives way to a sense of perspective, and hope is allowed to crack the shell of this exquisite anhedonia by way of more aggressive means of intervention should they become necessary.  In some cases, it is that buying of time that serves as the singular ray of light that obliterates the darkness that envelops the soul of the emo-con.

Remembering that the following suggestions are to be used only when confronted with an emo-con mentality in its most acute stages, and when there is an imminent danger of serious harm to the emo-con or the people in close ideological proximity, I will list below some techniques that might be employed to avert disaster.  It is vitally important, however, that the person using these techniques do so only as a last resort, and only in cases where more conventional means (reasoning, giving time and space, education) are untenable.

One of the hallmarks of the emo-con is the rhetoric of futility.  While it is not solely the property of these implacably forlorn denizens of the right, it is a near-universal identifier.  While scrolling through the comments sections of blogs and discussion forums, you will invariably encounter paragraphs that pronounce the demise of all that is worth preserving about the Republican Party and, by extension, America itself.  By way of example:

"It is a sad day when, in America -- once the greatest nation on the face of this planet -- we can't even field a candidate who isn't willing to surrender our national interests to international socialists who want to obliterate the very concept of national borders and enslave all of humanity to one gigantic superstate.  I fear that we have lost the will to defend ourselves as a nation, and as such, I see no point in even voting in this election.  Goodbye America.  It was a wonderful idea.  Too bad we proved unworthy of the trust our Founding Fathers placed in us."

Understandably, the first impulse upon reading passages like this is to simply roll one's eyes and dismiss the writer as an overly dramatic fantasist composing an ode to a time and place that exists only within the pages of New American.  While this may be true in many cases, it would be wrongheaded to assume it is always so, since many emo-cons are susceptible to the allure of people who able to express lament in such romantic terms.  By employing patronization, you can achieve one of two goals -- either of which is desirable.  For instance:

"Indeed, it is truly a tragic day in the history of humankind.  The America in which I grew up has ceased to exist, and all that is left of it is a once-revered, tattered scrap of paper called The Constitution of the United States of America.  I mourn the loss of this indescribably glorious experiment in human freedom, and curse the bastards who trampled it beneath their filthy, tyrannical jackboots so that my grandchildren shall never see a day free of bondage.  I shall now go and cut myself, and revel in the sweet numbness that only the sweet nectar of Mansinthe can deliver upon my tortured soul."

By replying in such a manner, you will provoke a reaction that will make your day, whether the original author is actually an emo-con, or just some florid literary scion of Robert Welch.  In the case of the purple prose wielding conspiracy monger, you will inspire the kind of rage that will compel a response that makes the original passage read like the nutritional information on a box of saltines.  However, if the person happens to be an emo-con who has fallen under the spell of such a person, you will have established a rapport by invoking Marilyn Manson's brand of absinthe and the gloomy language that is the currency of emo-conservatism.  You can then exploit the emotional connection you've created to establish your emo-cred, and perhaps set the emo-con on the path to reason.

John Stuart Mill once wrote, "A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule."  And that is true enough.  However, emo-conservatism isn't profound and has very little to do with conviction.  It's merely an expression of antipathy toward people who don't agree with whatever it is the particular emo-con believes.  And emo-cons are capable of having some widely divergent beliefs.  So, you see, emo-conservatism isn't a belief system or a philosophy.  It is merely an attitude.  As such, it makes a wonderful target for ridicule.

In employing ridicule against the emo-con, the object isn't necessarily to bring about a change in mindset.  Ridicule isn't a very effective tool toward that end as it tends to harden the position of its victim, and often leads to his becoming radicalized.  Ideally, this will lead the emo-con to ultimately become overly forthright about what he truly believes, which is frequently so off-the-wall that, upon realizing that he has outed himself, he will slink away in horrified embarrassment, never to be heard from again.

Say, for example, you have read a post at Michelle Malkin's blog concerning, Rachel Ray's recent appearance in a Dunkin' Donuts ad wearing a scarf which some people insist was a keffiyeh.  And, since you're not a lunatic, you just don't see what the big deal is.  To you, it looks much more like what is commonly known as "a freakin' scarf".  So, in order to let it be known that not all conservatives buy into kind of conspiracy mongering that Malkin often engages in at her blog, you decide to post a response that goes something like this:

"Good grief!  It's just a scarf.  A keffiyeh is a very specific kind of garment with a very specific kind of pattern worn in a very specific way.  What Rachel Ray was wearing bore no resemblance to a keffiyeh, and I think Michelle has jumped her third or fourth shark on this one."

Shortly following your response, you can expect the emo-con to chime in with his own.  Likely, it will be along these lines:

"None are so blind as those who will not see.  It has become fashionable among many of the trust fund radicals and those living the soap-free lifestyle to wear what are called 'peace scarves' in order to show allegiance and solidarity with the Palestinians.  Michelle is right about this, and I suspect that those who are attacking her are the same people who support open borders and selling out our national sovereignty.  They obviously don't care about national security, or they would be doing everything they can to stop the mainstreaming of radical islamic violence.  This country is going to hell in a handbasket because of all this PC bullcrap."

Amused at this response, you decide to address the charge that you are somehow an advocate of open borders who doesn't care about national sovereignty or security, and that your views are somehow driven by political correctness.  And, so, you respond thusly:

"Look, I understand that there are many people who visit Michelle's site because of her advocacy of border security.  But, honestly, is there any subject on the face of the earth that you people won't use as a springboard to rail against the Mexicans?  This blog entry was about a bunch of kooks going nuts over a scarf.  Michelle saw it as an opportunity to get herself showered with adulation for standing up for the apparent right of people to never see anything that looks like a scarf, because a keffiyeh is a scarf-like object which, if we let down our guard for one moment, will bring untold death and destruction to our shores and the end of America as we know it.  Just like the Mexicans."

This will invariably inspire unspeakable rage in the emo-con.  His face will become a carmine vision of indignation obliterating the emo-con's normally blue-tinged palor as he frantically pecks, backspaces, and re-pecks out every third word in response to your ridicule.

"Isn't it just like one of you leftwing hacks to denigrate true conservatives?  All you know how to do is attack people who care about the future of this nation and don't want to see it absorbed into one big North American Union with the socialists in Canada and all those illiterate criminals in May-hee-co.  You try to tell us to ignore the Trans-Texas Corridor even though there is evidence that proves it is the start of the NAFTA Superhighway, which will run from our southern to northern borders, effectively eliminating both.  Look it up on the internet!  The plans are all right there in the Security and Prosperity Partnership!  Look at the back of the North Carolina driver's license, which already has the logo for the North American Union!  And there are plans for all American driver's licenses to have the same logo!  But, then, you already knew all of this.  You're obviously one of the people who want it to happen.  Unfortunately for you, there are people like me and Michelle who won't let you ram it down our throats."

Voila!  You have just caused the emo-con to connect Rachel Ray and Dunkin' Donuts to the conspiracy to fold the entire North American continent into a borderless superstate.  And, so, you say in response:

"So, not only can Rachel Ray make an entire gourmet meal in sixty minutes.  She can also change the map of the world with a scarf.  That's pretty impressive, and I admit, merits some pretty close scrutiny."

Well done!

Ignoring

Finally, if patronizing and ridiculing don't seem to be working, there is always the option of ignoring the emo-con.  This, however, is the least effective, and potentially the most dangerous of all options.  Essentially, this is what the majority of the online conservative movement has been doing over the past few years.  And, it hasn't worked very well.  The only saving grace of this technique is that it grants its user some peace of mind.  

But, it's a false peace, which became most obvious during the recent controversy over the online community at Barack Obama's campaign web site.  Having assured themselves that no one would ever take seriously the malarial rantings of one of its contributors, the administrators allowed an anti-Semitic screed to be posted on Obama's official campaign site.  Needless to say, some conservatives jumped on the piece with both feet and used it as an illustration of the kind of supporters that the Obama campaign attracts.

While it may be true that it is unfair to attribute the opinions of web site commenters and contributors to the person they are supporting, fairness doesn't really matter.  As many emo-cons are quick to point out, politics is war.  And, they are very serious about it.  They approach politics in very much the same way that propagandists approach disinformation in wartime, though they may not always be cognizant of the fact that it is disinformation.

For the past few years, various conspiracy theories have been bubbling in the comments sections of blogs and in discussion forums.  It is often left to other commenters to swat these theories down, but doing so doesn't really have much impact.  After all, people who visit blogs and discussion forums do so because they find the people who run them persuasive and grant them a degree of authority.  So, simply allowing commenters to hash things out among themselves while the guy running the show stays above the fray amounts to handing over a fertile piece of ground on your property to a marijuana growers association.  The seeds will turn into weeds.

Pretty soon, a strange phenomenon began to occur.  Conservative blogs and discussion forums began to devolve into gathering places for the chronically dyspeptic, and pretty soon, you had border hawks consorting with anti-war libertarians consorting with anti-war liberals consorting with anti-free trade populists consorting with paleoconservatives.  From this, two factions were born:  the Ron Paul revolution and the emo-cons.  The emo-cons are essentially those churlish conservatives who, like so many suburban teenagers, have grown disenchanted because the Ron Paul folks don't really like them, and the regular Republicans don't pay enough attention to them.

Neither fully accepted, nor rejected, they simply long to feel something to remind them that they're alive.  And, so, in their longing inspire some reaction beyond disregard, they act out in ways that guarantee a reaction from those around them: anything is better than being taken for granted.  Like the emotionally numb suburban kid with a fondness for wearing black nail polish, lipstick, and clothes, he cuts himself to feel something.  Only, in the case of the emo-con, instead of using a razor blade, he advocates an Obama victory.

It's hard to say how many of the emo-cons we'll find dangling from a doorknob with a studded leather belt for a noose this fall.  It could be just a few, or it could turn out to be a big, Gothic Jonestown massacre.  But, if it turns out to be a black-clad version of The Peoples Temple, it will be the fault of so many above-the-fray conservatives.  And, it won't be because of a failure to indulge the emo-cons.  It will be because, for too long, too many conservatives pretended they weren't there.