Conservatism’s Path Out of the Wilderness
With CPAC in full swing, much of the focus has been on examining the root causes of the electoral trip to the woodshed which the Republicans took in the 2006 and 2008 elections. In the usual fashion, it’s expected that if you can determine what you did wrong last time you will hopefully avoid those mistakes in the future and improve your prospects. Yesterday, at Pajamas Media, Rick Moran examined their progress, noting that conservatives are talking the talk, but wonders if they can walk the walk.
Conservatism has become loud, obnoxious, closed-minded, and puerile, while its classical tradition of tolerance and hard-headed rationalism has been abandoned in favor of emotional jags and a vicious parochialism that eschews debate for “litmus tests” on ideological purity.
Can CPAC accomplish anything that will begin to address what conservatism has become — both the perception and reality?
Not when some major conservative figures kid themselves that there is success in unity and victory in simply standing up and saying “no” to the Obama bailout culture.
I was never what you would call a social conservative, (a chief factor leading to my departure from the GOP in 2005) but always took comfort in the validity of my small government, fiscal conservative principles. Unfortunately, as Rick goes on to point out, even fiscal conservatism is having a rough time attracting converts these days. Hard core conservatives are aghast at the spending spree currently going on in Washington, but it has truly become a minority opinion. Yes, it’s true that most Americans are unhappy with growing deficit numbers and are worried about the economy. But in a recent Rasmussen poll, less than 1/3 of respondents felt that the recently passed stimulus package will hurt the economy. A full 2/3 feel that President Obama and his Democratic majority Congress are doing a good job in dealing with the fiscal crisis. This is not an environment where a fiscal conservative message will send voters rushing to the polls to return Republicans to power.
So where is there left to turn? Rick points to some damaging facets of modern conservatism which I’ve been complaining about for some time. In an examination of a particularly hopeful analysis by David Keene, Moran offers the following:
While there may be an agreement by conservatives regarding that critique, it presupposes that there were not other, more fundamental aspects of what conservatism has become that were roundly rejected by huge swaths of the American electorate. The movement is seen as intolerant of gays, immigrants, and other non-white, non-middle class citizens — a perception that the Republican Party does little to counter and makes attacking conservatism on these issues extremely easy. When one of the stars of the conservative movement (and a CPAC speaker on Saturday), Ann Coulter, can get up in front of conservatives at the CPAC conference in 2007 and refer to Arabs as “ragheads” to loud applause, there is more to reform than just the message.
Coulter is certainly one of the symptoms of a larger problem. She also famously stood before her conservative fan base at one time and referred to John Edwards as a “faggot” to raucous applause. This year’s CPAC audience also broke out in while cheering when John Bolton suggested nuking Chicago and Cliff Kincaid referred to the President as a communist and then accused him once again of not having been born in the United States. This hardly seems like a performance which will inspire the suspicious and disaffected potential Republicans and conservatives to come thronging back to the party. In fact it does, as Rick suggests, make it extremely easy to attack the movement and paint conservatives as intolerant, out of touch clowns.
If you can’t frame your social issues in a more tolerant, reasonable fashion and your economic message isn’t selling, where do you turn in your efforts to regain traction? The assaults launched against Rick in the comments section of his column carry a similar theme. There seems to be a belief in the core of the party that Americans didn’t reject the Republican Party or conservatism in general, but rather punished them for not being conservative enough, or perhaps not fighting hard enough against the gays and communists leading the Democratic party down a path to America’s destruction. Such delusional thinking isn’t going to lead to a path back out of the wilderness… it’s going to dig an already deep hole further into the graveyard soil.
32 Responses to “Conservatism’s Path Out of the Wilderness”
There is no conservative party in politics today. Both the GOP and the Dems have conservatives, but neither party is consistently conservative. There is room for a third party in American politics today, and it will likely emerge over the next several years as the GOP ship sinks from lack of credibility. This party will be both fiscally and socially conservative, what the GOP purported to be, but hasn't been in a long time. Its foreign policy will be realistic, not idealistic, and will forge a compromise on the immigration issue, not the garbage that Lou Dobbs dishes up every day. (Foreigners serving honorably in our military and getting a fast-track to citizenship will lead the way on this issue, and break down barriers). On marriage, a European solution will emerge, where those marrying will be required to do a civil wedding (whether opposite or same sex), and those who want to have a religious wedding can do so, with voluntary participation from clergy as they see fit, and not under government coercion. On abortion, this new party's plank will be to return the question to the state level, where it was before Roe v. Wade, so an overturn on that one will eventually happen, and settle the issue in our time. What to call this party? The Conservative Party? Who knows? But emerge it will.
Barak Obama just gave the GOP a path out of the wilderness.
He promised to govern to the middle. He just sent a budget that is perhaps the most liberal since FDR and is forcing the GOP to take a stand.
If there was a 400-600 billion dollar surplus every year then sending this budget might not stir even the common man to ire. But we have gone from the Gluttony of Big Business to the Gluttony of Government overnight. Once again it just proves the old Adage. Whose in power determines who is mindlessly reckless with OUR money.
Brought to you by Obama, Pelosi and Reid and cheered on by the far left wing of the Democrats. You know that wing whom everyone claimed Barak Obama was not a part of. You know that report that had him as one of the 3 most liberal senators in congress but of course was a lie. You know the guy who set in church for 20 years and never inhaled. The guy who hangs with a Terrorist but never spoke to him. The guy that…….well you get my drift.
We were all crossing our fingers that he would actually instill responsibility to our government and he is just another Fraud.
The democrats just mailed the Republicans a road map back to power and sent them a survival pack. Obama is making the same mistake that Clinton made. He is trying to press his agenda from day one and the GOP got their game face on and took him down. The rest of his 7 years he was a pretty good president with a relatively idealist approach to governing a land 1/2 full of Democrats and 1/2 full of Republicans.
In one fell swoop Obama has spent his entire capital and has fallen into the same mind numbing trap that every president seems to fall into. The old political capitol mumbo jumbo.
My consistent argument is that BOTH Democrats and Republicans alike dont want to fix anything. They just want power and they play both sides(Liberals and conservatives, Dems and Pubs)against each other in order to keep that power.
Here is a classic example of even the best and the brightest playing this game while preaching a new message. With this budget he just guaranteed a filibuster by waving under the GOP nose a bill that just can not be swallowed. In the end much of this will be written down. The bill will not pass and the Democrats will blame the GOP and the GOP will blame the Democrats and the country will continue to hate each other and point fingers at their neighbors all the while those people in Washington will go home to their 10 million dollar homes and huff and puff about the other side, while laughing at us behind closed doors.
So goes Washington. Its why it does not matter who we elect. They will all fall under the thumbs of those that have already got Seniority and toe the party line, play the game so that they can all be reelected next cycle and the next and the next. On and on it goes.
America is like a giant rocking chair…………left……………right……………left…………..right……..back and forth the political pendulum swings with nothing ever getting done.
Power and greed. 10 million dollar houses. Billionaire senators. And the liberals actually think they care about the little guy.
I propose to balance the budget that our congressmen and senators be paid a percentage of any budget surplus. That their staffs and their budget be doled out as a percentage of any budget surplus they created that year.
I bet we would have a balanced budget next cycle. Huh?>
Actually, greenschemes, the biggest difference between Clinton in 1993 and Obama today is that the public is much farther to the left now. The GOP can jump on the very progressive Obama budget and rail against big government all it wants. The problem is that the country is just not receptive to Reaganite arguments about small government conservatism anymore. Remember, when Clinton moved to the left in 1993 the Democrats had controlled the House of Representatives for 40 years. The public had never seen what Republican reformers would do once actually in power on the Hill. Gingrich masterfully capitalized on the freshness of the conservative critique. The Reagan Revolution was only 12 years old at that point and still percolating through the country. Clinton was, as he called himself, a “progressive President in a conservative time.”
But after 8 years of Bush – 6 of which with a DeLay-led big spending GOP Congress – the public simply does not trust the Republicans as a responsible alternative. The GOP's arguments are as stale as ever and with a genuine economic catastrophe – which you seem to think is being exaggerated – the American public is more receptive to liberalism than any time since the 1930s.
What's worse for Republicans, they have no messenger. Instead of galvanizing opposition against him as Clinton did, Obama is making FDR-style progressivism seem like common sense. And that is driving conservatives up a wall.
I certainly would like to see the emergence of a third party in American politics, with some of the ideas and goals as outlined by Manchester. But, alas, if past history in this area is any indication, it may not happen.
Perhaps the best we can hope for will be the “coming-more-to-the-center” by both major parties. Should this happen, we wouldn't have the huge and sometimes disastrous swings anjd upheavals in policies every time the other party regains power with all the accompanying waste in energy, time, resources, and emotional capital.
Jazz
If you want to know why conservatives and the Republicans are in the wilderness and likely to remain there read this by conservative Daniel Larison.
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2009/02/26/need…
Someone mentioned the alleged use of “fear” by Obama/the Democrats.
I would highly recommend that he, or she, read the post just preceding this one, “The Great Republican Fear Machine Backfires “, by Shaun Mullen. Interesting!
Mr. Rodriguez
You are right. It pretty much failed, but not before it did a lot of damage and spent a trillion dollars.
Huh?
Elrod, he can do it because people have been scared into feeling they have no choice, not because people have actually moved that far to the left or believe that the govt solutions are going to work. Poll after poll shows that people still don't have confidence in these plans, they just don't know what else to do.
As we learned from Hoover- small government won't cure our economic ills. Obama inherited an economy in deep crisis- which was not true of Clinton, who inherited a relatively milder recession. Cutting spending in this economy would just accelerate the downward spiral.
We tried massive deregulation- thought to spur economic growth in business, but it resulted in costly abuses of public and private funds, with almost no accountability instead. Tax cuts for the wealthy resulted in a large deficit, and an increase in inequality- as wealth became concentrated at the top.
Conservative policies have failed the country- so lets try something else!
Actually, greenschemes, the biggest difference between Clinton in 1993 and Obama today is that the public is much farther to the left now.
This could be true. Im not really sure if its the country has moved left or its a reaction to the GOP's perceived policies of the last 8 years. Remember that the Democrats cheered on the ownership society that has come crashing down around us. To me the Democrats have managed to pin the blame on the GOP. I accept the blame because we lost the argument.
We tried massive deregulation- thought to spur economic growth in business,
Deregulation is never the solution but in this last 12 years the Democrats had a huge hand in deregulation as well so that they could get the “ownership society” into full swing. IN this particular case what has befallen us is 50/50 Dems and Repubs. The problem is that the dems turned the public against the GOP with their antiwar fervor and then the nail was the economy which the democrats are trying to pin on the GOP.
Also, if conservatives want to be taken seriously they need to sideline talk radio wingnuts like Rush, Sean and Laura
Ill trade you Hannity, Rush and Laura for Olberman, Mathews and Rhoades.
Greenschemes— Matthews at least offers a wide spectrum of opinions- and none of those you mentioned has any influence on the Democratic Party line.
Can you say the same about Limbaugh???
Kritt
You are trying to convince me that Olberman and Mathews…….feature anchors on MSNBC have no influence upon the Democratic party?
The other night I went to a democratic site to watch the Obama budget speech. They were running a poll as to which network you were watching the speech. MSNBC 66 percent. CNN 22 percent. the other 3 sites were about 18 percent and Fox was ZERO.
While statistically insignificant I think that speaks volumes to how important the hard core dems view MSNBC and Mathews and Olberman. Even Joe in the morning has started leaning way left compared to where he was at when he first started his show over there.
I share your frustration over the redmeat conservatives, Jazz, but it's getting tiring and it's a self fulfilling prophecy in my opinion. The more we complain about this kind of thinking, the more that sensible people are turned off from the GOP and the party becomes marginalized even more. Why not focus on positives and find the few rational voices and amplify them to try to reverse the trend?
MSNBC's audiences are much smaller than Fox's or Limbaugh/Ingraham's on talk radio. And Randi Rhoades' ratings are so small that her show has been cancelled by many stations.
You bring up an intriguing point which I have actually done some research on. Conservatives are………well conservatives. They like the old medium such as tv and radio. Liberals tend to be……….well progressive and as such they are turning to differing means of communication. Utube, flickr, podcasts, cell phones etc. So does this mean that the reason ratings for liberal traditional media is down while it seems the conservative markets are holding up.
If it is so then its another reason why the Conservatives/GOP are being handed their political hineys at the polls. They once again havent moved ahead but remain entrenched in the old, past but tried and true ways which have transcended their current state.
1.75 Trillion Dollar Deficit?
ONE TRILLION, SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in the hole and hes been in office 30 days?
Come on Anyone left of John Birch has got to be nervous over this. I know Im hand wringing and I havent done that since Bill Clinton ordered a Box of Cigars.
Greenschemes-
MSNBC has a miniscule audience- most of their shows are on the verge of cancellation. Rush has an audience of at least 10 million listeners-so does Hannity. OReilly's show is #1 in cable news.
And I've seen Matthews forced to apologize to members of Congress, but NEVER the other way around!
Greenschemes— The debt has been there for a lot longer than 30 days- and the conditions which made the recovery package necessary albeit painful have as well. Are seriously putting this all on Obama? He's just trying to clean up Bush's mess.
He's just trying to clean up Bush's mess.
This thread is getting hijacked. Ill leave it at that and return to the original post.
Coulter is certainly one of the symptoms of a larger problem.
I think this is very true. From my perspective I see the passions running deep on both sides of the isle. The problem is that someone Like Coulter can call Arabs ragheads and get trash talked for it, but the left can call Conservatives Nazi's and get put in office for it.
This is a disturbing trend in American politics and until the GOP cleans up their acts and redirects their anger not at Illegal aliens, or Arabs or Blacks but redirects their efforts at…………….READ MY LIPS………
SOLVING PROBLEMS.
its our problems that are fueling the anger by both sides. I have a novel Idea. Why dont the Democrats and the Republicans work together, split their differences right down the middle and every solution would have the 50/50 formula applied.
Odd. I can't find a single comment from the GOPers before the election suggesting any sort of 50:50 consensus building. In fact, it looks more like “my way or the highway” and other such niceties, like “defeatocrats” and the “blame America first crowd”. But now that the so-called conservative ideology has trashed our country, we need to turn to these criminals for 50% of the solution? No thanks.
[...] READING: Jazz Shaw. Posted in: [...]
This thread has kind of wandered but on the original topic I think most of us “fallen Republicans” realize that Limbaugh, Hannity, etc are a poor public image for the GOP and cater to the most extreme members of the GOP. How much power they actually hold is questionable but GOP politicians would probably be well advised to dissociate themselves from them if they want to attract any but the hard core.
The problem is the hard core is running the show, not just the radio show but the GOP in general. I would compare this to if the Democratic Party were run by the commenters at MoveOn. In the Democratic Party you have the Clintonites/DLC which seems to provide a counterbalance which I don't see in the GOP.
The biggest chance of the GOP recovering probably rests with the Democrats, who most likely will screw things up as badly as the GOP has. I know that's not what the Democrats want to hear but you are where the GOP was in 2000, essentially in control of everything and fired up to change things to the way you think they ought to be. I think the unopposed power of the Democrats will probably turn out as poorly as the unopposed power of the GOP, they will probably overreach and do something to alienate the middle.
Likewise, Greendreams, I don't recall anyone left of center who didn't complain about “50+1″ governance before as though they opposed that on principle. It turns out they only felt that way if they were part of the 49.
Well GreenDreams and Kritt seem to epitomize whats going on in this country right now.
It basically boils down to the GOP had their fun for 8 years. Its out turn now.
The problem is that in 8 years it will be the GOP saying the same thing, then 8 years late the Democrats……………Left………..Right………..Left………..Right.
I rest my case. So much for getting things done in a bipartisan ways.
Obama “Change we can believe in” RIP.
greenschemes– What good does it do for Democrats to try to compromise with hardliners? Answer— none at all. Their version of compromise is you walk 10 feet towards me and hold your hand out with a white flag- and I might accept it, LOL!
Many conservative columnists (other than the Limbaugh loonies) have come out and stated that the loyal opposition should obstruct, obstruct, obstruct while they are in the wilderness. Any Repub who doesn't heed the call can find a new job come next election because the RNC will no longer back anyone who HAS compromised.
GS, it was a long and diligent pitch to the public. Reaganomics, Thatcherism, trickle down, deregulate, “set the market free,” “personal responsibility” (ie. you're on your own) “free markets, free people” and all the other memes that have driven conservative thought for 30 years. Yes, we finally got to test drive that. Right into the ditch.
CS, you and GS can both claim that somehow Obama is betraying us by changing the channel on all that. None of those memes has any merit for us now. The idea that we need more of what got us into trouble in the first place is just not selling. You guys need some new ideas. We have tried full throttle exactly what you propose and it failed. The whole world saw what the GOP does when it has power, and it's pretty much just what Kritt describes. Trick and scare the public, whip them into nationalistic and religious frenzy while picking their pockets. Rob our kids, trash the air and water, give away all the public property and pull the rug out from under anyone middle-income and below.
Now, let's look at “bipartisanship” because you guys seem to be trying to sell it, too. The Dems met with GOP, inserted GOP crap into the stimulus bill and got not a single vote for their trouble, then get thrown down the stairs as “socialists”. Adding insult to injury, some of the naysaying legislators now try to take credit for it. Vote against it, claim credit for helping their constituents and run against it in 2 or 4 years. Priceless.
I say to hell with bipartisanship if THAT's what you mean by it.
And though it's not a fair test, let's see what total Dem control can do. Test drive that too. It's not a fair test because we're in such trouble after the travesty of GOP rule. If we'd had the opportunity when the country was strong, say with Gore in charge, we would have upgraded tech infrastructure, a healthier manufacturing sector, cleaner air and water, less cowboy posturing and more levelheaded leadership and some regulation and oversight that might very well have headed this thing off at the pass.
I just cant believe the hogwash I seeing.
For the last 8 years the Democrats have been screaming about the deficit and how Bush is tearing up future generations and were all gonna die and times are dire and the end is here and on and on and on about how evil those republicans are.
So what do I find when I go to democratic sites now?
“Bogus Arguments about the Burden of the Debt”
You got it……..Lordy………..they are advocating now that deficts are good things………..
I quit. I have put in my retirement papers.
GS did you ever really believe that Democrats were serious about the deficit? I mean, get real here.
DaGoat– What do you think would happen if Obama decided to pay down the deficit and cut federal spending??? This is a classic case of throwing stones without coming up with an alternative.
Obama did not create this financial crisis. Bush's buddies feasted on the treasury- and Wall Street financiers had a free-for-all with no oversight. Bush started two wars, doubled the federal budget and wasted Clinton's surplus on tax cuts for his base.
We're pointing out the inconsistency of Democrats complaining about a deficit for years, then turning around and hugely inflating it. In the case of the stimulus bill I can accept the concept that additional spending is needed to help the recovery. The budget is not the stimulus bill, though. If there was ever a time to hold the line on budgetary spending isn't this it?
When exactly does Obama go through the budget line by line like he promised and get rid of anything that's not necessary?
The American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI) was signed into law on December 16, 2003. The American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act authorizes up to $200 million annually for fiscal years 2004 – 2007.
ADDI aims to increase the homeownership rate, especially among lower income and minority households, and to revitalize and stabilize communities. ADDI will help first-time homebuyers with the biggest hurdle to homeownership: downpayment and closing costs.
The rascally republicans. How dare they pass a law to help the poor people.
GS, I think this comment was maybe for another thread, in which I pointed out that BUSH supported the initiatives that the GOP is now trying to blame on Dems, namely allowing non creditworthy individuals to get subprime mortgage loans. I'm beginning to see inconsistencies in your positions and troll-like comments. For the record though, I support ending homelessness in America, but not necessarily by making home owners of every citizen. I have no issue with the ADDI, only with the GOP now claiming that the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac meltdown was the Dem's fault. It wasn't. It was a failure of oversight on your watch.