Time will square the Douthat-Limbaugh circle

Submitted by Soren Dayton on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 22:40

Ross has an excellent analysis of what the near future of the Republican Party looks like. A bloodbath between several different views of the party is coming. He characterizes Rush's:

For Rush, there are only two kinds of people in Republican Party: True conservatives like him, and "moderate Republicans." The latter is an ideologically-inclusive category: You can be pro-choice or pro-life, David Frum or Colin Powell, a Rockefeller Republican or a Sam's Club conservative; indeed, the only real requirement for moderate-Republican status is the belief that the Republican Party needs to reach out to voters who don't agree with, well, Rush Limbaugh on every jot and tittle of what conservatism is and ought to be.

Ross is right that "the whole argument collapses" while "it has a certain surface plausibility" to "many, many conservatives eager to be convinced that the '08 outcome had everything to do with John McCain's heresies and the treason of the Beltway elites, and nothing whatsoever to do with them". Earlier today, I noted a particularly bewildered form of this analysis out of John Ensign. Ross notes that "moderates", in this framework believe that "the Republican Party needs to reach out to voters who don't with with" ... us.

That's a very nice static analysis. But the good news about politics is that the goalposts always move. A Barack Obama presidency would undoubtedly overreach and create the conditions for the political unraveling of his experiments, probably long after leaving the White House. The tax rates would probably be too high. Healthcare reform would probably go too far. Too much regulation would probably stifle financial services. Obama would probably go too far in addressing (sometimes) legitimate grievances about crime, welfare, etc.

But the next powerful, dominating conservativism will likely be different. It will be responsive to those overreaches. Reagan responded to high-teens inflation, confiscatory taxation, a marginalization of faith in public life, an overreach of the sexual revolution, insufficient defense of western liberal (as in market, not sexual, liberalization) values, an insufficient defense of public safety, etc., which were either the product of policy or "progress." Reagan's critique was relevant, while Rush's (and, sometimes, McCain's (staff's)) is not.

A part of me thinks that we need to just let this play out. I cannot identify the leaders who will bring us back to a majority. They have to learn and prove themselves, through things like pension and tax fights. The two parts of the coalition Rush and Ross speak for will, inevitably, come back together in some form. In the meantime, they will fight over who is in control of the process first. (and sells more books, sells ads, books more consultanting contracts, places friends in jobs, etc.)

Our focus needs to become identifying talent, solving problems, and providing the intellectual and mechanical tools to help people when the time comes.

Some perspective is desperately needed.

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You cannot fix the GOP without first getting right with the base

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 23:00.

Ross is right that "the whole argument collapses"

No. Rush was proved RIGHT by Colin Powell's sickening back-stabbing endorsement of Obama. A lifelong advancement of Powell's career by Republican administrations, and he endorses the most left-wing and inexperienced candidate ever to run for office.

Basically, the RINO opportunists jumped ship because in their heart of hearts they had no principled adherence to the GOP. It's the RINO opportunists who destroyed the chance of the Republican party to credibly stand for conservatism when they were the majority, and as a result, they abandoned the core grassroots supporters.

The sickness in the GOP has been the schism between the elites and the grassroots. This has been building for 4 years. The 'reaching out' BS misses the point - its not the 'moderates' or 'liberals' that need reaching out to - IT'S THE BASE THAT THE PARTY LEADERS NEED TO REACH. They need to re-energize the base voters, who btw are mostly Rush-listening-type conservatives, not wimp-pundits like Brooks. Without the base understanding and accepting the leadership direction of the party, you will have a party with leaders that have no followers.

You cannot fix the GOP without first getting right with the base. Only THEN can you reach out, branch out and rebuild (which I am all for, but FIRST THINGS FIRST).

What you are missing...

Submitted by Matthew Gagnon on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 23:18.

The trouble with your analysis Freedoms, is two fold.

First, what is "the base" anymore? The schism in the republican party has made that nearly impossible to even identify. Is the base Huckabee and his followers? The religious, social conservatives concerned with using state power to legislate society? Is it the libertarians, who have become inflamed and infuriated as to the behavior of the GOP, and would like nothing more than to shut up the social conservatives and slash and burn all levels of government (something people like Huckabee have little interest in)? Is it neoconservatives, who are seemingly only concerned with national security issues, and start every sentence with "radical islamic jihad" or "its a dangerous world out there..."?

The problem is that these groups, and many more that make up the republcians, have often times diametrically opposing viewpoints on things, and they simply will never end up agreeing. People like Reagan might be able to forge a coalition out of libertarians and religious conservatives, but that can't happen very often, and takes a lot of tight rope walking.

The second problem relates to the first. What the living hell is a RINO anymore? I can find things to label every single republican member of Congress, from Ron Paul to John Boehner that would classify them as RINOs in some fashion or another. Think the grassroots is immune from that label? Outline to me your belief system, and I'll poke some holes in it and find a way to call you a RINO.

To me, being a republican has always been, and must always be a very broad, general, philisophically wide argument. We are for small government, low taxes, spending restraint, balanced budgets, government reform, conservative social progress (notice I didn't say "social conservatism"), individual rights and economic growth. Beyond that, when you start getting into the nitty gritty of what everyone believes, you can call a ton of people in the grassroots "RINOs".

George W. Bush is a RINO - he grew governemnt, bloated entitlements, ditched reform and ballooned the deficit. Mike Huckabee is a RINO - he claims to be for small government and individual rights, yet is comfortable with the state using federal power to exert social control, and has been horrid on taxes, spending and government reform. Mitt Romney is a RINO, because we all know he doesn't have any interest in social conservatism, and is just talking a good game to get elected. John McCain is a RINO, because while he fights hard for national security issues, he's democrat-lite on economic issues, as well as cultural ones.

I can barely label anyone a RINO anymore, because of the schism within the party. Unless we define being a republican more simply and broadly as I did above, and leave it at that - then the party is dead and will be relegated to second class status for decades.

2008 is a turning point, which could see the fracturing of the right into three or more distinct camps - OR it could see the right's resurgence as it comes together, identifies and makes peace with both its common causes and its differences, and moves together as a movement.

I hold out hope for the latter, but I am expecting the former.

How to succeed in politics despite bein’ an elephant

Submitted by jhmccloskey on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 13:34.

2008 is a turning point, which could see the fracturing of the right into three or more distinct camps

'Tis a step in the right analytical direction to get beyond simply RINOs versus Rio Limbaugh, but there are more than three distinct subfactions to the Party of Grant. I'd make it five (5) and that is without admitting ~~Planet Dilbert~~ the so-called 'libertarianism' to count as even a subfaction.

Maybe what is least visible to the inmates of the asylum is the schism in the ranks of "pro-business" reaction. There is Big Management, the classic Owners of America and chief patrons to America's Otherparty, and then there is Little Business, itself a combination of practical Horatio Alger wannabes on the one hand and pseudo-academic Heritagitarians and Catoholics and Hoovervillains and AEIdeologues on the other. The Denkpanzer gentry put out the semi-official Party-line economic positions, but their baloney has not much to do with how Big Management conducts itself, which conduct leads straight to "grew government, bloated entitlements, ditched reform and ballooned deficit." Plus probably the tragedy of psoriasis also.

George XLIII is of course a Big Manager. Bein' a lousy one does not make him be somethin' different. An MBA from the Harvard Victory School is about as clear a tip-off as one could wish for. (Heritagitarians &c. are more like Hillsdale College or conceivably MIT.)

Big Management has run the Otherparty ever since 1868 with only one genuine exception, the Epoch of St. Ronald, a sort of anti-Camelot, when some idiot with his economics engraved on a cocktail napkin crashed the Party. "Voodoo economics!" exclaimed the Big Managers, and soon restored the status quo ante. Read their lips: "grew government, bloated entitlements, ditched reform and ballooned deficit'!

(( Maybe Big Management should have pursued a different agenda after the Restoration of c. 1986? Dr. (?) Greenspan did sort of admit the other day that the HVS MBA's are not always infallible. Mais que sais-je? What can a Demoncrat know about such a question? ))

Passing over the Fabulous Flyboy as a mere episode or epicycle, curious but unimportant, I expect Big Management will continue to be the core of America's Otherparty. If I belonged to the conspiracy myself, I should probably be trying to get this traditional B. M. hegemony more distinctly acknowledged by the other ‘camps’ of Elephant Folk. Even RonPaulites can scream "You guys can't win without our votes!" and of course that is true enough, at least for the top four or five subfactions, but it really will not do to have everybody blackmailin’ everybody else all the time. Ordnung muss sein! And who fitter to restore Order than Big Management, which has done the trick before and even has a graduate degree in how to do it?

So this keyboard disinterestedly recommends that the various sects of neocomrades agree to submit or re-submit to old-fashioned Country Club Rule, all its bloats and ditches and balloons notwithstandin' -- not to mention its ignominious appeasement of ‘crimmigrants’.

The principle is more important than personalities, but at the moment Gov. Romney looks like the most eligible Countryclubber goin'. If Mitt would rather (hope to) be President in 2013 than official bigmanager of the Otherparty in 2009, no problem: simply ask him to designate a viceroy.

If it be thought important to avoid encouragin’ any one individual ambition, much the same effect could be achieved by the Otherparty simply doin' whatever is recommended to it by unsigned editorials of the Wall Street Jingo. Only the anonymous pieces, though: heresy creeps in from time to time with amateur and occasional WSJ scribblers, especially heresy of the Little Business or "Political Capitalism" type, <I>Denkpanzer</I> stuff . [*]

Happy days.

[*] It goes without saying that Mr. Thomas Frank is to be specially eschewed. In the other direction, those named individuals who have been sufficiently murdochised and/or rupertated to speak of "Members of Congress" are nearly as reliable as Ms. Outis herself. I think.

I agree that "RINO" is played out.

Submitted by noufa on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 21:25.

But it's not an entirely useless word. Bloomberg was a RINO. The man was a lifelong moderate Democrat who changed parties just to skip the formality of a primary.

So the party will be seen as

Submitted by Cristiano on Thu, 05/14/2009 - 10:51.

So the party will be seen as an alternative to the democratic party. Using the old buzz words and phrases blur the lines between the sağlık two parties. We need to get away from the tired "the Democrats are the party of big government" when the last 7 + years have shown Republicans can be big gov't too. Also the " there needs to be less regulation " şarkı dinle line is being proved wrong day after day. "Too much regulation would probably stifle financial services" .

we need to..

Submitted by cenotaph on Sat, 07/25/2009 - 10:28.

We need to get away ibrahim saraçoğlu from the tired "the Democrats are the party of big government" when the last 7 + years have shown Ahmet Maranki Republicans can be big gov't too. Also the " there needs to be less regulation " line is being proved wrong day after day.

Freedoms...

Submitted by tango7799 on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 00:00.

I thoroughly sympathize with your viewpoint. The establishment has been out of sync with reality, and that includes being out of touch with the base. But you've got to be admit that we need even the RINOs to win elections. I'm not saying we should sacrifice our principles; I do think that we all need to be able to sit in a room and have a reasonable discussion without a shouting match. There is so much more that we agree on, than we disagree -- especially against a united Democratic party.

Also, candidly, I have to say there's too much talk about the base vs. moderates vs. independents vs. everyone else. When I hark back to the most successful Republican of our time, Ronald Reagan, he never once referred to any base. He had his ideas, and communicated them. The American people loved him, and it's probably why he won landslide elections. Reagan never saw parts of the GOP coalition as us vs. them. Our politics today is too personality-drive, too constituency-driven -- a by-product of the Rovian way of doing things (i.e. winning just takes 50.1%). If we think of ourselves as folks who know we have better ideas than the opposition, and can communicate them effectively, then it doesn't matter who's the base, or who are the moderates. What matters most is that our ideas meet the relevant needs of the American people and that our vision ultimately wins.

Listen to the base

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 23:46.

Only if they are part of the base, who VOTES GOP and who WORKS GOP and who helps create a unified majority party. Fact is that we can win many elections with conservatives. Fact is that if you had a real conservative GOP party in the northeast, it might be a minority but it would be more effective than the hollow parties that are there.

I can tell you right now, the problem with the GOP is certainly not "oh, we arent running enough moderates" Far from it.

The problem is with RINOs who deliberately diss parts of the base, who destroy the GOP brand by voting against core principles, thereby demoralizing everyone and who then demand the benefits. The brand is ruined for everyone.

I am all for getting more people in the big tent, but I can tell you point blank, the days of giving lip-service to the base and running the game of "we have to nominate 'electable' moderates" is over. Conservatives are sick and tired of working in election after election only to see their efforts elect turncoats. I've seen it first hand in our local area - a name-dropping self-promoter who hated the RR types, running the county party - he killed the grassroots. And guess what? Did he elect anyone? No, we went backwards. All the state parties run by RINOs are complete disasters - CA, IL, NJ, etc.

Our leaders need to be servant-leaders and we need to show the showboaters and opportunists the door. We need to reject the nonsense that winning elections is about abandoning principle and 'running to the middle'. Hogwash! Winning elections is about reaching out to people and giving them a compelling message that your agenda and principles are the right ones and you have the character and competence to enact your promises. Guess what, you cannot sell principles that you run away from!

We need to build the party from the bottoms up and respect ALL the members of the GOP coalition. The politics of ADDITION. And that means to STOP dissing, disrespecting and disregarding the prolife, pro-liberty, gun-owning pro2ndA, homseschooling, Christian church-going and praying, Constitutionalist small-govt-desiring, small-business-owning, law&order and secure-the-border-demanding, flag-waving patriot /veterans grassroots base of this party. LISTEN TO THEM and they will lead the GOP back to a better place.

If we think of ourselves as folks who know we have better ideas than the opposition, and can communicate them effectively, then it doesn't matter who's the base, or who are the moderates. What matters most is that our ideas meet the relevant needs of the American people and that our vision ultimately wins.

I agree, and I think I am saying the same thing. in my own way. The caution is that no party can be 'all things to all people' and Ronald Reagan made that point in his famous speech in 1974 "pastels vs bold colors". We can never outpander the Dems and I think that is one lesson from the failure of Bush/Rove to cobble a majority out of such panders (the His-pandering on immigration and the medicare drug deal both ended up being political suicide that destroyed GOP unity and the base's confidence in our leaders). So let's stop slicing and dicing the factions and start rebuilding by reflecting on the core principles we can rally real voters around. Things like - freedom, responsibility, choice (school, healthcare, retirement), work ethics, law&order, fiscal responsibility, etc.

Well said Soren...

Submitted by Matthew Gagnon on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 23:02.

Soren, great article... it needed to be said... the analysis is spot on... Rush has always been like that... the thing he has never understood is that a "true" conservative has changed a half dozen times since he started on radio - yet he seems to think "true conservatives" have existed as some monolithic idological goal post since 1776...

Dewey was not Eisenhower. Ike was not Nixon. Nixon wasn't Goldwater. Goldwater was not Nixon (again). Nixon was not Ford. Ford was certainly not Reagan. Reagan was not 41. 41 was not Dole. Dole wasn't W. W is not McCain.

What a "true conservative" is has changed so much its absurd to even use the term. Barry Goldwater would shudder to look at what a "true conservative" means today.

Its always amusing to listen to people in the republican party hold up as icons people like Reagan and Goldwater, and also be so firmly behind people like W. Goldwater, a hero to people like Rush, HAAAAAAAAATED the religious right, was pro-choice and was favorable to gay rights (in his later years). That doesn't sit well with the current makeup of "true conservatives".

Its a shame, but he, Hannity, and people like them will be our biggest obstical in remaking the party into something positive, because they will drag so many people around with them who know little more than this type of demagogeury.

Oh well, it'll certainly be interesting to watch, that's for sure. Nice work Captain.

Goldwater's legacy has been distorted.

Submitted by noufa on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 21:19.

The guy was only hostile to the religious-right during the 80's-90's. That started in the twilight of his life. Remember that Goldwater was the anti-Rockefeller for most of his career. He was pro-life and supported prayer in public school during the 60's-70's. This was how he built up the conservative movement.

Reagan's 11th Commandment was originally articulated as a defense of Goldwater against the moderate wing of the Republican party.

I'm not blind. The party is in trouble & needs to change something. But crass insults directed towards religion don't help.

Please

Submitted by Repack Rider on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 23:10.

Don't include the egocentric blowhard as any part of an argument. Rush is an intellectual embarrassment, and letting him define anything just adds to his insufferable ego. His whole schtick is defining "them" and "us," just the opposite of what we need right now.

Rush has nothing on the line. He keeps his job no matter who wins or loses, and his listeners are never going to vote Democratic anyway. As a radio audience they are a big number, but as a national voting bloc, not so much, because they were already safely Republican. Right now those who hew to his paring of the "faithful" from the apostate seem to have decimated the party.

See, the idea in politics is to have MORE votes than the other guy... Appealing to a hard core minority doesn't accomplish that.

In addendum...

Submitted by tango7799 on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 23:40.

...And dare I say, some pragmatism is desperately needed as well. Not to equate pragmatism with RINO-ism, or political expediency, but the kind of pragmatism that matters to people. Small government, yes, but how and in what way to the lives of real Americans? Private-sector solutions to health care, yes, but to what end? Well, not just to improve health care availability, but also to improve the health of Americans. And why are market-led remedies better than big government solutions? These questions, and the answers that follow them, need to be explained and communicated clearly to the American people.

Just as Barack Obama has appropriated the terms of the Right (95% tax cuts, anyone?), new leaders of the conservative movement must offer solutions and policies to the bread-and-butter problems of Americans. As this election shows, it's not enough to say the Dems are going to raise your taxes. We have to explain in a clear way why that's bad (which our candidate, by the way, has a habit of not doing) both in a macro- sense and in the way that it affects people on a daily basis. Then, we have to offer our own solutions, and these have to be bold -- framed in a new way around the tried-and-true philosophy of limited government and individual freedom: "Not only will we FREEZE government spending, every penny of every dollar saved will be given back in tax cuts. Did I mention that I'm trebling the pre-tax deduction for catastrophic care?" Let's link back spending to taxes; let us frame the discussion of economic policy the way American families view their budgets. It strikes me as utterly incredible that the GOP and conservatives more broadly are losing to the Dems in this election cycle on the issue of fiscal responsibility. This should be our issue by a landslide.

And yes, let's be candid. Rush is a challenge, but he's also an opportunity. He wants to win too. And it's true, there will be the inevitable internecine war. But I trust cooler, smarter, younger heads in Congress (read: Paul Ryan) and in the states (read: Bobby Jindal), alongside with Heritage, Cato (even Cato), and other relevant institutions to lead us out of this wilderness to do the very things you suggest us we do. We can change and reform the party, and it begins with proposing new 21st century solutions under that old Lincoln adage that the government that works best, works least. With fresh ideas, the base, the moderates, the vegetarians as McCain likes to say, and everyone else will flock to our banner once more.

Sonofagun, you guys actually make sense

Submitted by bcb1 on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 07:47.

Holy crap, this is what I've been looking for. You guys are actually talking some sense here, and it appeals to people like me - the moderate that feels the Republican party has gone off the deep end in pursuit of the wingnut base.

Thank you for showing me that at least there are a few people left around that aren't blinded by the same ridiculous argument that Rush uses...you know, "all we need is to get more conservative and more exclusive and more right-winged and BY GOD THEN WE'D WIN US SOME ELECTIONS". Ugh.

I can honestly say I have some hope for maybe someday voting Republican again if voices like Soren Dayton's prevail in the upcoming "idealogical wars" that are sure to happen after the Nov elections. For now, it seems to me that the Democrats now occupy much of the middle ground that the Republicans used to occupy. The Republicans need to find a way to reoccupy that middle ground, and to not be a party of the extreme right religious wingnuts.

In other words you want us to become Democrat-lite

Submitted by Big Ben 4 liberty on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 09:40.

That is fine if you actually wish to lose elections. Lets face it, this is the same argument that Goldwater had with the "Dime store New Dealers" (the "moderate" country-club blue-blood wing of the GOP) who offered to give everything the Democrats promised but at 80% of the cost. They have always been there, when the Democrats are in power, offering their Contructive Republican Alternative Programs (the acronym for which says it all), and when the GOP is in power, they are running around demonizing its base with the approval of the left.

There is nothing "centrist" about the Democrats, they are socialists plain and simple. If we want to be like them, then we are going to lose. You can't out-Democrat a Democrat. When voters are presented a choice between Democrat-lite and the real thing, they always go for the real thing. Especially since we of the base have no reason to vote for either candidate in that scenario.

I don't want to go...

Submitted by tango7799 on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 20:58.

off the deep-end here, but the way to win elections is not to demonize the moderates, nor is it to cave into Democrats. We are a giant coalition driven by a vision of limited government and individual freedom. I think the American people get that; and what they do get is that we have been proven unable to formulate and communicate a vision that meets their needs. We need to change that... immediately.

I also think voters prefer the candidate with the sunny disposition and the sunny message. All too often, Republicans and conservatives -- in their drive and passion for their ideas, which I share -- get confused for being irascible and angry. This is clearly not the way to win elections; as Reagan noted, we need to win positively. We need to offer positive change. Instead, the McCain campaign has regressed into tactics, focusing on celebrity and Obama's past. Those are important, but they are clearly not campaign game-changers. For conservatives, vision is, and has proven to be, the only effective game-changer.

Good one!

Submitted by Jon Sandor on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 10:11.

it seems to me that the Democrats now occupy much of the middle ground that the Republicans used to occupy

Right. Because we all know that the GOP used to be a Marxist party, and that Marxism is in "the middle".

plenty of centrists for you to vote for ...

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Wed, 10/29/2008 - 00:33.

Starting with McCain.

I dont get why the mod squad whines so much about GOP over-catering to the base, because for sure the base didnt feel that way when McCain the centrist was nominated.

And if you are going to pick sides, either you are Tocquevillian or you are not... mods are going to have to decide if they are more threatened by the tyranny of leftist multicultural political correctness and socialism or the tyranny of low tax rates and family values:

Obama’s brand of Marxism is Neo-Gramscian Marxism. Gramsci pondered why the proletariat never rose up in violent revolution the way Marx said they would. He realized that the “revolution” would have to be a peaceful struggle of ideas from the bottom up, or the inside out. He said capitalism can only exist through the oppressed classes’ agreement to buy into the ruling class’s hegemony, and the way to break the hegemony is to form coalitions among oppressed minority groups until they are strong enough to form a counter-hegemonic culture and deconstruct the existing hegemony from within.

If you look at the page on Obama’s web site where they have all the little variations of the “O” logo, one for each oppressed group (none for straight white males), you see evidence of Gramscian Marxism at work.

Here’s a great read on Gramsci and Tocqueville and the culture war in America.

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/FonteCultureWar.shtml

Reaching out

Submitted by Jon Sandor on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 10:14.

"the Republican Party needs to reach out to voters who don't with with"

If that means "explaining to them why we're right", then sure. If it means telling them "we don't believe anything, so you're free to join us and believe whatever you want", then no. That sort of reaching out is what has made us a minority party.

The party definitely needs redefinition

Submitted by bcashncali on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 14:31.

So the party will be seen as an alternative to the democratic party. Using the old buzz words and phrases blur the lines between the two parties. We need to get away from the tired "the Democrats are the party of big government" when the last 7 + years have shown Republicans can be big gov't too. Also the " there needs to be less regulation " line is being proved wrong day after day. "Too much regulation would probably stifle financial services" . How could they be more stifled then now ? People see these lines and compare them to their reality and begin to doubt the veracity of the speaker. How can " liberals are evil " be true when two Republican administrations have been caught making spying a central part of their policy? Throw out the old crap and find new catch phrases to engage the public. Otherwise Nader becomes more correct everyday, there is no difference between the two parties and the public will follow whoever is on a winning streak.