I agree with the spirit of Peter Beinart's column about why the Right needs its own version of the DLC, but not the specifics. Soren Dayton has extended analysis and caveats here; my main gripe is that when Beinart cites specific instances of how conservatives have lost touch with the public, and how they're hostage to a "hard-core" base, his list is heavily weighted toward the excesses of the religious right. Not that religious conservatives' blunders haven't played a role in the GOP's difficulties, certainly, but Beinart's choice of anecdotes suggests that he thinks - as many people on both sides of the aisle do - that the right-wing version of the DLC ought to be a home for the Christie Todd Whitmans of the world, rather than, say, the Tim Pawlentys and Mike Huckabees, and that it should spend more time taking on Jerry Falwell than, say, Grover Norquist. Which seems like a good way to ensure such an institution's immediate and lasting irrelevance.
« The Baseball Test | Main | Hope Is Not a Policy » A Conservative DLC?15 Aug 2007 03:12 pm Comments (16)
Well, yes, taking on Jerry Falwell would be a bit difficult, without at least some sort of industrial-strength lift for the casket. Also, it seems a bit mean-spirited at this point. Unfortunately for you, the plain fact is that wars and tax cuts are much more popular with religious conservatives than theocracy is with tax cutters and neocons. Which makes this shunning contest over before it began. M. Barrett: The GOP desperately needs a think tank/organization based on strengthing the party's committment to traditional values in a modern manner whilst reaching out to the working class and providing economic security to the middle class. That is about as likely as one wearing a blue shirt in a yellow way. Look, if you want to reach out to the working class and care about providing economic security to the middle class, consider the Democratic Party, and then live a life as traditional (yet somehow modern) as you want. The idea that traditionalism is something that needs to be governmentally mandated is exactly why so many people in both parties (and independents too) hate the religious conservatives' guts in the first place. 
By all means, let the GOP continue to knobgobble the Dobsons and the Sheldons and the Bob Jones University crowd. I can think of no better way for the Grotesque Old Party to continue to marginalize itself as this country recovers from the Bush Error.
Well, Huckabee doesn't believe in evolution. Other than that, he's a likeable enough Republican. But it really bothers me that he doesn't believe in evolution, and it should bother a lot more people than it does. Supply-siders are not quite as bad as creationists, but they get huge tax cuts passed while intelligent design's designs are thwarted in court. This, though, is why I don't expect to support the GOP any time remotely soon.
Huckabee doesn't believe in evolution, but he believes in torture, pre-emptive war, prayer in public schools, jailing abortionists, continuing the Completely Insane War On Drugs, Dick Cheney's benevolence, quick death penalties with minimal appeals, and pardoning Scooter Libby. I guess he's a "likeable enough Republican" because he doesn't seem like he has a cellar filled with torture-porn, unlike Giuliani and Romney - but if you look closely he's still an authoritarian with the morals of a starving wolverine.
Bo, Well, I don't particularly want the government to mandate traditionalism (and find it exceedingly unlikely it ever will). It and the commanding heights being a little less _hostile_ to traditionalism would be nice, though. If tradition is something that can't actually be allowed to make claims beyond the immediate family sphere (and even then, by the thought of many liberals, it faces great restrictions -- imagine if I don't want my 14 year old to get an abortion!) -- then it can't really be lived very much, other than as a hermit. Hermits have their place in Christian life, but we aren't all forced to be hermits. Given that some of the hostility is baked into things like the educational system and the tax code, I see no reason not to try and make some political changes in the middle of making the larger cultural changes that are most important. Yeah, it's annoying that Huckabee doesn't believe in evolution, but in the extremely unlikely event he becomes president, I doubt it really changes any policy any of us actually care about. Evolution is fascinating, but in some sense the whole controversy both ways makes me feel as if people were having a giant battle about whether certain people didn't get Maxwell's equations.
TMoC writes: "Well, I don't particularly want the government to mandate traditionalism (and find it exceedingly unlikely it ever will). It and the commanding heights being a little less _hostile_ to traditionalism would be nice, though." A little less hostile than the Bushpigs who rushed en masse to rustle the husk of Terri Schiavo out of her death bed? You must be joking. What more would you like to see? An exorcism amendment added to the Constitution? An invasion of Turkey to find "Noah's Ark"? How about "Female Genital Mutilation Day"? That's another "traditionalist" cause. How do you feel about that one?
I should note here that I don't think Ross' main point was normative. I mean, I think Ross generally believes in many religious rightist causes, but I don't think that's his critique of Beinart - that the Republicans ought to be culturally conservative because culturally conservative is the right way to be. Rather, he's arguing that cultural conservatism is pretty popular - soft-pedal abortion, talk about the traditional family a lot, remember that a very small percentage of Americans actually believe the Darwinian thesis. If the Republicans want to reform their party for electoral gain, it isn't the culturally conservative strands that have to be marginalized - it's the extreme business right, the fundamentalist tax-cutters, beast-starvers, and the big pharma lobbyists who write the health care bills. The reform the Republicans need is class, not religiously based. The Republicans could be a dominant party if they could shed Norquist and the Chamber of Commerce. I am, however, exceedingly skeptical that such a thing can be done. Huckabee has made occasional gestures in this direction, and he can form some sort of coalition after this election, but I have no idea how one is supposed to get the Republican party out of the hands of the people who supply it with all its money.
Cultural conservatives should keep in mind that the Iraq War is still more popular than the Terry Schiavo intervention was. Heck, Bush's response to Katrina was more popular than that. While tax-cutters and warmongers may be slightly annoying to social conservatives, the 360 degree busybodyhood of the Cultural Right alienates the 70% of the country outside the Republican Party. And there's no point in having an RLC if it's not going to help reclaim that 70%. PS: Dear Marquis, I'm not quite sure what the practical difference between 'mandate' and 'make claims beyond the immediate family sphere' is. Could you perhaps provide some examples of this government hostility to traditionalism and the alternative laws and policies you would enact?
Letter I sent to Peter Beinart: Dear Mr. Beinart: You left out a large portion of your history lesson in "Back to School for the GOP" in your August 15 column in the Washington Post. (Fortunately, you only write for the Post once a month.) People like you on the left have been praying for the downfall of conservatism for decades. I encourage you to refrain from taking the conservative movement lightly. Political pundits do so at their peril. The last time the Republican Party was divided by moderates and conservatives was in 1976. Ronald Reagan took on the moderate Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination while liberals sung the downfall of the Republican party. Everyone said a conservative Republican would never win. Other media types said it was time for the Republican party to change its name! The moderates of the Republican Party barely hung on and Reagan lost in 1976. But that race paved the way for his victory in 1980. We took no lessons from the Democrats then and won't take any now. Oh yeah, since then we have held the White House five out of the last seven times. Obviously, there is no one like Reagan in the GOP today, but a large majority of Americans still favor smaller government, lower taxes, and a strong defense as a result of his legacy. Those are tenets of conservative Republicanism. Need proof? Take a look at approval ratings for today's Democratic-controlled Congress-- 25%! Your Democratic Leadership Council needs to buy a clue and fix Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid first. I don't think anyone wants to take notes from them. Sincerely, Brent M. Eastwood, PhD George Mason University School of Public Policy
Bo, Well, Ross has done an ok job of it, already, as have the crunchy cons, whatever you think of them otherwise. The current tax policy is not, perhaps, ideally set up for any family looking to have more than two kids and one earner -- I'm not talking the wage structure here, but the tax code, in the event you have one wage earner who can manage enough to handle that (but isn't remotely rich) in the current scheme. I'm not sure why Schiavo is the end-all, be-all of traditionalist causes in government. Ross and others aren't suggesting all things traditionalist are popular, or prudent -- that would be quite amazing for any political program! In practice, I very much doubt Schiavo was the marginal factor in deciding many outcomes in 2006. Iraq may be more popular than Schivao, but dollars to donuts it lost more people their seats in Congress than Schiavo did. I'd like to see evidence otherwise. The naked popularity of an action is not a measure of its political impact.
The current tax policy is not, perhaps, ideally set up for any family looking to have more than two kids and one earner That's a pretty long way from the hostility you alleged earlier. After all, the tax system is set up much better to screw me: as a self-employed contractor with minimal capital investments, I write a check for almost 30% of my income to the IRS every quarter. Is that hostility? Also, it's not really accurate to claim that two earner, few kid families are preferred over single earner, many kid families. Consider the following points: First, taxes can be filed jointly, which has the effect of doubling the exemption for a single earner household, while not helping two-earner households at all. Second, you get a per-kid exemption. Obviously, it's not enough to raise a kid, but, given a constant wage, the fact is more kids translates directly to lower taxes. Third, the extra services that are required by two earner households, such as day care, are generally not tax-deductible. Over all, the tax system is bending over backwards to be friendly to single earner families, at the expense of single people and two earner families. It's precisely this sort of mis-characterization that is so galling. By failing to make people like me completely subsidize your basic economic problems, like 'less work earns less money' and 'raising kids costs money', somehow the government is showing hostility to you? That's, frankly, BS.
Bo, Well, I didn't say that was the only thing the code was a bit hostile to, you know? But, er, everyone who has more than two kids is subsidizing, the way the current pyramid scheme works, the retirements of everyone who doesn't have kids, as far as I can tell. This is only ok if you assume that having future generations of Americans is not something pretty useful to the nation. Anyway, I'm not liberal at all -- I don't think the government should be neutral to all notions of the good.
the way the current pyramid scheme works, the retirements of everyone who doesn't have kids, as far as I can tell. That's not true either. People who make more money are slightly subsidizing people who make less on Social Security and quite a bit more on Medicare/Medicaid. But that's all. To define this, a neutral tax policy is one that doesn't change ones taxes. For example, the tax code is completely neutral on whether my shoes are Nikes, Reeboks or Kenneth Coles, could claim an exemption for Reeboks, but not Nikes or Kenneth Coles, the Reeboks would be said to be subsidized. Similarly, a neutral tax policy on children would be one where having kids wouldn't affect one's tax rate at all. Our current system, where having children results in a tax cut, is subsidizing childbirth. I don't think the government should be neutral to all notions of the good. That's funny, I'm pretty liberal and I don't think that either. In fact, I even support the deductions for children we already have under our current system. What I do think is that people whose lifestyle is already being subsidized owe us the honesty to argue why they should be more subsidized. Claiming that the current level amounts to hostility or discrimination is just plain dishonest.
Bo, It's not subsidized to the extent of the benefit children are to the state. A tax code that is neutral between living off capital and contributing to the continuation of the system is not really neutral. Social Security and such do not, I think, really work as you pretend -- the current system relies on more workers, or at least not less workers. If what you describe is "all" then why is there the problem with tax rates having to grow in the future to preserve the current benefit scheme?
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking when I'm writing those tax checks: 'Why oh why can't I throw in a thousand or so extra to bribe some broke-ass traditionalists to have unprotected sex?' The biggest problem with your line of reasoning is that the people who would be most susceptible to bribery as a motivation for having kids are not the same people who would raise kids with a higher benefit than cost. Obviously, there are other problems, but life is short. OTOH, go ahead and embrace welfare queen traditionalism for all I care. Just don't act surprised when that Republican DLC goes after you instead of Grover Norquist.
|
Subscribe to this blog by Email 
Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream 
Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class  Recent Posts
Monthly Archives
Categories
The Atlantic, October 2008 Is Pornography Adultery?The Atlantic, June 2008 Redeeming Dubya
|
Copyright © 2008 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
I couldn't agree more. Everytime one of these DC insiders says the GOP needs to move to the center I wait for just one of them to advocate something akin to what you have proposed as "Sam's Club Republicanism" instead it is always a "ditch the Religious Right and embrace Moderate upscale voters." Christie Todd Whitman types indeed, that doesn't even work in New Jersey anymore.
The strength of the GOP, if any, is in the antithesis of the Whitmans of the world. As Bob Casey Senior wrote in his book being fiscally conservative but socially liberal may be popular on the DC cocktail circuit but its a recipe for the long term decline of the GOP.
The GOP desperately needs a think tank/organization based on strengthing the party's committment to traditional values in a modern manner whilst reaching out to the working class and providing economic security to the middle class. Hell, I'd go work for such a group. Unfortunately I don't see one on the horizon nor would I be optimistic about securing funding for such a group. I don't think the GOP business interests would be to eager to open their checkbooks.
Posted by M. Barrett | August 15, 2007 4:56 PM