I For One, Welcome our New Liberal Overlords
Sorry, but I had to use a version of that Simpsons quote (and I basically copied it from a writer).
Piggybacking on yesterday’s post, I found this article by Reihan Salam about the doomed McCain Presidency. It’s not as much his problem, but it is the problem of the GOP not being able to notice that the times they are a-changing. As I said yesterday, the nation is moving towards a new liberal era as the conservative era ends. He notes that Britain is in its own liberal (or more precisely, Labour) era and the British Conservatives have wisely tailored their party to suit the new time. Here on the other side of the pond, the GOP still thinks it’s “Morning in America;”
Britain’s Conservatives might be plotting a triumphant return to power but America’s Republicans are in a state of utter collapse. And it’s not just because the tide is turning after two terms of George W. Bush. For better or for worse, the Cameron Conservatives have adapted to a more culturally liberal, urban, diverse society. They have reconciled themselves to the welfare state in a way that Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher never did. Republicans, in contrast, are labouring under the illusion that America remains the yeoman democracy of yesteryear, full of plucky individualists. Slowly but surely, American politics is catching up with the country’s demographic transformation. American exceptionalism — the many quirks of geography and culture that conspire to make US society something of an anomaly among advanced market democracies — is all but dead.
Salam goes on to note that the United States has become a more urban and therefore more government-friendly society, which gives the Democrats the advantage. He goes on to say that Barack Obama’s “brand” is one that is “cool,” akin to an Apple or a Prius. The GOP doesn’t have anything like that.
My own personal opinion is that, in this modern liberal era, the GOP is going to have to tailor itself to the times in the same way that Bill Clinton tailored the Democrats to fit the conservative era. Of course, die-hard conservatives won’t like it, but they will go along because after a while, winning becomes more important than losing on “principle.”
The fact is, there are many of us who might lean Republican who do like small government, but doesn’t see that to mean “no government.” We believe government can be a tool to better things without running the show. Government will have to in some form, work on issues like global warming or health care and the Republicans will need to come up with credible alternatives to what the Democrats will offer.
The downside, is that the GOP will have to follow the same course the Democrats did in the 80s; face many losing elections to see that the old ways aren’t working and that something new is called for. One election loss will not do it.
So, I guess I do welcome our new liberal overlords, they might force the GOP to change in ways many of us have wanted to see.
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5 Responses to “I For One, Welcome our New Liberal Overlords”
“For better or for worse, the Cameron Conservatives have adapted to a more culturally liberal, urban, diverse society.”
Hmmm…not sure about that one.
Boris Johnson…the new Conservative Mayor of London who just defeated Labour icon “Red Ken” Livingstone…recently declared:
“Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.”
Not a word of a lie! Look it up. Bojo would overload the Gaffe-ometers of the US media. Crazier than a bag full of ferrets.
It is thus very difficult, if interesting, to extrapolate between UK and US politics.
Perhaps McCain should take a cue from the recent British Tory success and go urban sophisticate.
Maybe add Breast Enlargement to a promised health program for all Americans?
Actually McCain is promising to take steps that he says will help American health care while carefully promising things that will do no such thing.
Things go in cycles. During the rise of the conservatives the democrats not only thought it was still the era of the new deal but, tracked farther left to the point where the whole idea of it wasn't working.
Now the conservatives are going through the same. They have tracked father right then people like and it is no longer working.
In both cases the parties took the winning ideas and after awhile took it to excess.
The gop is suffering from the excess of their ideas. Like the neocons and Bush took everything to excess.
That causes things to not work anymore and the ones to suffer are the average person. So many are now suffering and fears of depression, not just recession lurks.
Given this, people want a democratic majority and to put things in order again.
If the urban school systems are any indications, the belief that Democrats are good at running the government is laughable. The public schools in Senator obama's home town of Chicago are lousy and no elite liberal would ever send their children to them. The cool elites work hard at avoiding the government (private schools, gated communities, private social clubs) whereas the middle class bears the full force of governmental incompetence while having to foot the bill.
What has affected Republicans much more is changing demographics. Affluent whites are socially liberal but can avoid many of the effects of the government in their professional lives whereas the growing minority classes get the benefits of government spending while paying little of the bill.
Instead of comparing the U.S. to Europe it would be much more applicable to compare politics in the U.S. to the third world where it is the rich and poor versus the middle class.
The mistakes Conservatives made were to allow corporate lobbyists to write their own regulatory policy, and allign too closely to the religious right. Both of these decisions came back to haunt them as the public finally woke up and realized that their government no longer protected consumers or focussed on the problems of the poor or middle class.