So, Where Are the New Republicans?
Ross Douthat has a good post today about Obama and the Center-Left. He notes that conservatives were happy with some of the Clintonite picks he made in the cabinet. However, as policy started coming out, those same conservatives (myself included) were not as happy.
So what happened? Douthat posed three solutions and it is the third one that makes the most sense:
But there’s a third answer as well – which is that the smart center-left, embodied by Larry Summers as much as anyone, has moved steadily leftward over the last ten years, as part of a broader Bush-era rapprochement between the Democratic Party’s moderate and liberal factions. On health care, the environment, income inequality and other fronts, figures like Summers are closer to their erstwhile lefty antagonists than they used to be, sharing common ground even when they don’t have identical policy preferences. Thus the Obama team can include many of the same people who worked for Bill Clinton in 1998 or so, and still produce a more leftward-tilting policy agenda than the second-term Clinton White House – because the people in question don’t have the same priorities they did a decade ago.
I think this is correct. What many conservatives (again, myself included) forgot is that the so-called New Democrats ala Bill Clinton, came about because the Dems had lost the presidency several times and were losing key voting blocks. The Republicans were ascendant, so the New Democrats decided to steer the party where the country was at that time.
These days you don’t hear much about the New Democrats and they have for the most part, disappeared. That’s mostly because as the Bush Administration drifted ever so rightward, that caused the moderates and liberals in the Democratic party to seek common ground and move leftward. As the GOP faltered, there was no need for the New Democrats on a social or economic front, so we have what we have today: former Clintonistas who are more left of center than a decade ago.
But Douthat notes that something else has changed, besides the Dems-the nation:
American public opinion has moved leftward with the Clintonites, and under the influence of the same trends and events – from the mounting health-care crisis to the post-Clinton return of wage stagnation to the current financial debacle. And this is what’s missing from the conservative attacks on Obama’s radicalism – a recognition that the political landscape has shifted dramatically since the days when Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich were struggling over the American center, and that in the absence of a conservatism that’s responsive to the changing situation, yesterday’s radicalism can start to look a lot like today’s common sense.
Let’s face it, the ideas being proposed by Obama are hardly new: they are old liberal chestnuts that have been sitting on a shelf somewhere for the last 30 years. But the fact that the nation is moving leftward and more importantly, the fact the the GOP doesn’t seem interested in engaging in debate on this, means that everything old is new again.
The speech that Rush Limbaugh gave a few weeks ago at the Conservative Political Action Committee Conference was not that surprising- I mean that’s the stuff Limbaugh has been pushing for years. Nevertheless, what was disturbing was what he had to say in response to those within the GOP calling for change:
Now let’s talk about the conservative movement as it were. We, ladies and gentlemen, have challenges that are part and parcel of a movement that feels it has just suffered a humiliating defeat when it’s not humiliating. This wasn’t a landslide victory, 52 to, what, 46. Fifty-eight million people voted against Obama. There would have been more if we would have had a conservative nominee. [Applause] I don’t mean that — I mean that in an instructive way, as a lead-in to what I’m talking about here. No humiliating defeat here. I can’t — sometimes I get livid and angry. We do have an organizational problem. We have a challenge. We’ve got factions now within our own movement seeking power to dominate it, and worst of all to redefine it. Well, the Constitution doesn’t need to be redefined. Conservative intellectuals, the Declaration of Independence does not need to be redefined and neither does conservatism. Conservatism is what it is and it is forever. It’s not something you can bend and shape and flake and form. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.
His belief, which is shared by others, is that there is nothing wrong with conservatism, that it does not need to change, and that those who question that are elitists.
No doubt, there were many a liberal saying that circa 1988. They believed that nothing was wrong with liberalism and that it didn’t have to change with the times.
That worked out well.
So, the question that needs to be asked today is where are the New Republicans? Where are the people who are interested in trying to make the GOP and conservatism viable for the current age?
Rush and others are betting that people will not go for Obama’s plans. That well might be the case…in time. But in the midst of a crisis, people want answers and if the only person around is giving bad answers, then they will take them.
Cross-posted at NeoMugwump.
12 Responses to “So, Where Are the New Republicans?”
Well, I guess I agree with your first premise: Reality definitely has a liberal bias.
As to quoting Rush for insight and wisdom, just one of many points that could be made about the quote above.
In 2004, Bush beat Kerry 50.7% 48.3% – that's 2.4%. At the time, Rush and Republicans in general touted this as an overwhelming victory. George bragged that he had gained political capital and he intended to use it.
In 2008, Obama's 6% victory makes 2004 look like a squeaker. Conservatism needs a refresher in objective analysis, the neo-cons that ruined the Republican party also drive a delusional sense of society today. People are tired of the bait and switch from BOTH parties. I think Obama won against all odds because he realized this.
Bush messed up so badly that voters no longer believe the simple, black white answers to complex problems or obvious contradictions. Do you think anybody doesn't see the hypocrisy of slamming the Omnibus bill's earmarks when 40% are from Republicans?
Conservative thought has a history of brilliance and well as bluster. Re-find and strengthen the brilliance, and recognize that the bluster does not promote your ideas or your future.
I am not sure I agree with the argument without more details. Specifically what in the budget / plans is so lefty radical? Is it the funds for energy and healthcare? But the reason for such fast movement on those is not necessarily that the moderate Clintonites are now more leftie, but that the situation has changed in the last 10-15 years, and it's time to move. Is it the size of the stimulus bill? But again we are in the middle of a major recession, with the possibility of a Depression if things aren't righted, while 2nd term Clintonites were overseeing a vast expansion of the economy (even if some of it was phantom wealth, almost everyone thought it was real).
Looking at it from the other side, Obama came out against a couple of the major platforms of the Teacher's Unions yesterday, and yet Obama seems to get no “centrist” creds for that. Finally, it's not clear that the Democratic Party has moved further left, since the reason they were able to capture almost 60 seats is largely due to finding solid moderate Democrats in moderate to conservative areas.
All that you say could be correct. The major place where we might agree is that the Dems are in the ascendancy and acting like it. But we really need more details on what exact policies are being suggested now that more moderate Dems would not have suggested in the past. I suspect that many of the differences there are are due to the different circumstances in which we find ourselves.
I think there aren't New Republicans because it's still only been five months since the election. This stuff takes time and unfortunately it might take longer than even 2012. I kind of feel that 08 was like Reagan/Mondale more than 88. It will take awhile to get New Republicans and increasing the tent for libertarian/moderate GOP in the northeast and midwest. Seems we are on a course to put up another failed candidate in 12 and I can only hope they will finally get the message than. At least I hope they will. Pacatrue is right that the Dems starting electing moderats and conservatives. There basically candidates they would have ran fourty to fifty years ago. I can't see why the GOP can't start finding libertarian candidates from the Northeast and Midwest in the next decade.
Also I hadn't heard New Democrats in awhile either and than today Obama called himself one.
Why would anyone want to be a New Republican when the current GOP leadership makes it pretty clear they don't want them in the party? And it didn't just start in the past year, the divide has been growing for several years. Anyone pushing centrism in the current GOP is just beating their head against a wall.
There are no new Republicans because even they have no real new ideas other than the move away from dependence on the social conservatives. All of their economic beliefs are still of the variety that thinks that economic policy should have frozen in place well before that blasphemer (In the eyes of the Church of Free Market.) FDR came along. There's no possibility that the evil Commie-Pinko-Liberal ideas of people like Obama exist simply because they are what are needed in the 21st Century. Oh, no.
Excellent piece, Dennis. You might add another component: demographics. One of the reasons the country has tilted leftward is that the nation is substantially less white than in the past. With the immigration debate raging in the GOP base – and African Americans long gone to the GOP – the less-white population has pushed further away from the Republican Party.
I'll also add that it will take a few more cycles for the Republicans to figure out that the country has left them behind. First, they will insist they “weren't conservative enough.” Then, they will get it.
“I'll also add that it will take a few more cycles for the Republicans to figure out that the country has left them behind. First, they will insist they “weren't conservative enough.” Then, they will get it.”
Elrod nailed it! This is their problem in a nutshell. The real question is, What will they do once they get it??? And how will the hardline ideologues react if the party moves toward the center?
One of the reasons the country has tilted left is most of the Republican leadership has been almost completely devoid of actual governing competence and workable ideas – the majority of the country is simply sick of their BS.
I agree, Rev Dave. If you believe government is the problem, you may use it to enrich corporate supporters, party bigwigs and cronies, rather than to attack a crisis.
For example, what has been done by Republicans recently to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure? This is not a problem that can be handled by state and local governments: it should be addressed by Congress. Laissez-fairism on this challenge and others such as health-care and environmental concerns have only served to put off the solutions.
For example, what has been done by Republicans recently to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure? This is not a problem that can be handled by state and local governments: it should be addressed by Congress.
Yet even with an unprecendented level of support for addressing infrastructure needs in a serious manner, the current Congress didn't make it a top priority in the stimulus bill.
Yet even with an unprecendented level of support for addressing infrastructure needs in a serious manner, the current Congress didn't make it a top priority in the stimulus bill.
Yep. I still think the best hope for a GOP revival is the ability of Democrats to be equally as bad or worse.
I might agree with CStanley and DaGoat's last couple of comments. For me, the problem with the bills and programs so far coming out of the Administration and Congress are not their aggressiveness (energy, healthcare, and economic recovery all at once!) but their focus, or lack thereof.