Jackson Free Press

Conservative columnist David Brooks rethinks today's Republican Party in the cover story of this week's New York Times Magazine: "Democrats may imagine that the G.O.P. is an amalgam of fat cats and conservative ideologues, but things feel different inside Republican circles. Inside there are, beneath the cheering and the resolve, waves of anxiety, uncertainty and disagreement. You hang around Republicans, and you begin to hear all sorts of discordant things. Jesse Helms recently remarked he wouldn't have voted for the tax cut if he'd known how bad the deficit would become. Three of the senior right-wing columnists -- George F. Will, Robert Novak and William F. Buckley Jr. -- have come out, in their different ways, against the war in Iraq. I had lunch recently with a senior Republican official who said his party had succumbed; it was ''defeatist'' about reducing the size of government. As Will himself has observed, under President Bush, American conservatism is undergoing an identity crisis."

"There used to be a spirit of solidarity binding all the embattled members of the conservative movement. But with conservatism ascendant, that spirit has eroded. Should Bush lose, it will be like a pack of wolves that suddenly turns on itself. The civil war over the future of the party will be ruthless and bloody. The foreign-policy realists will battle the democracy-promoting Reaganites. The immigrant-bashing nativists will battle the free marketeers. The tax-cutting growth wing will battle the fiscally prudent deficit hawks. The social conservatives will war with the social moderates, the biotech skeptics with the biotech enthusiasts, the K Street corporatists with the tariff-loving populists, the civil libertarians with the security-minded Ashcroftians. In short, the Republican Party is unstable.

"Whether the Republicans win or lose in November, the party of 2008 is not going to look like the party of 2004, any more than the party of 2004 looks like the party of 2000. Parties change radically, even while remaining true to some essential nature. The Republican Party is in the midst of that kind of change; the transition is nowhere near complete."

It's a long piece, but it ends: "Trench warfare finally ended because somebody invented the tank. It is time for one party or another to invent the tank, some new governing philosophy that will broaden its coalition and transform the partisan divide. For Republicans, the progressive conservative governing philosophy is the tank. It is the approach to politics best suited to the emerging suburban civilization, best suited to life during a war on Islamic extremism. It is the way Republicans can build a governing majority and leave a positive mark on the nation and its destiny."

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Another interesting excerpt, this one about Alexander Hamilton's beliefs that government and the free market can (must?) co-exist: What Would Hamilton Do? Today we have one political tradition, now housed in the Democratic Party, which believes in using government in the name of equality and social justice. We have another tradition, recently housed in the Republican Party, which believes, or says it believes, in restricting the size of government in the name of freedom and personal responsibility. But through much of American history there has always been a third tradition, now dormant, which believes in limited but energetic government in the name of social mobility and national union. This third tradition was founded by Alexander Hamilton, embraced by Henry Clay and the Whig Party, taken up by Abraham Lincoln and the early Republican Party and brought into the 20th century by Theodore Roosevelt. It withered during the great 20th-century debate over the size of government (its philosophy was confusedly crossways to this debate), but it is this tradition the Republicans must embrace if they are to become the majority party for the next few decades. This progressive conservative tradition is built on an admiration for a certain sort of individual: the young, ambitious striver, who works hard, makes something of himself, creates opportunities for others and then goes on to advance America's unique mission in the world. Alexander Hamilton was the first embodiment and definer of this creed. Hamilton came from nothing and spent his political career trying to create a world in which as many people as possible could replicate his amazing success. ... Hamilton sought to smash all that, to liberate and stir Americans to exploit the full range of their capacities. ... Hamilton believed that people had inside them vast wells of untapped resources, and that it was the job of government to open up opportunities, to arouse, stimulate and cultivate an energetic populace so citizens could compete with one another. First Hamilton had to break up the vested interests that encrusted American life. ... He believed, in other words, in using government to enhance market dynamism by fostering more equitable competition. He believed government could usefully promote social revolutions, in his case the move from an agricultural to a commercial economy. In short, he rejected the formula, assumed too often today, that you can be for government or for the market, but not for both. For his part, Hamilton saw entrepreneurial freedom, limited but energetic federal power and national greatness as qualities that were inextricably linked. It was always the cause of America, or rather, the cause America represents -- universal freedom -- that was uppermost in his mind. Hamiltonianism was about spurring individual initiative, but it was also about gathering the fruits of that energy in the cause of national greatness.

DonnaLadd

Sep 1 2004

As noted on the Zell Miller thread, Andrew Sullivan is on some roll -- away from the Republican Party. He writes today: It was the second best speech I have ever heard George W. Bush give - intelligently packaged, deftly structured, strong and yet also revealing of the president's obviously big heart. The speech writers deserve very high grades for pulling it off, to find a way to get the president to deal substantively with the domestic issues he is weak on and to soar once again on the imperatives of freedom in the Middle East. I will be very surprised if the president doesn't get a major boost from the effort, and if his minuscule lead in the race begins to widen. In this way, the whole convention was a very mixed message - but also a very effective one. They presented a moderate face, while proposing the most hard-right platform ever put forward by a GOP convention. They smeared and slimed Kerry - last night with disgusting attacks on his sincerity, patriotism and integrity. And yet they managed to seem positive after tonight. That's no easy feat. But they pulled it off. Some of this, I have to say, was Orwellian. When your convention pushes so many different messages, and is united with screaming chants of "U.S.A.", and built around what was becoming almost a cult of the Great Leader, skeptical conservatives have reason to raise an eyebrow or two.

DonnaLadd

Sep 3 2004

More Sullivan today: THE END OF CONSERVATISM: But conservatism as we have known it is now over. People like me who became conservatives because of the appeal of smaller government and more domestic freedom are now marginalized in a big-government party, bent on using the power of the state to direct people's lives, give them meaning and protect them from all dangers. Just remember all that Bush promised last night: an astonishingly expensive bid to spend much more money to help people in ways that conservatives once abjured. He pledged to provide record levels of education funding, colleges and healthcare centers in poor towns, more Pell grants, seven million more affordable homes, expensive new HSAs, and a phenomenally expensive bid to reform the social security system. I look forward to someone adding it all up, but it's easily in the trillions. And Bush's astonishing achievement is to make the case for all this new spending, at a time of chronic debt (created in large part by his profligate party), while pegging his opponent as the "tax-and-spend" candidate. The chutzpah is amazing. At this point, however, it isn't just chutzpah. It's deception. To propose all this knowing full well that we cannot even begin to afford it is irresponsible in the deepest degree. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only difference between Republicans and Democrats now is that the Bush Republicans believe in Big Insolvent Government and the Kerry Democrats believe in Big Solvent Government. By any measure, that makes Kerry - especially as he has endorsed the critical pay-as-you-go rule on domestic spending - easily the choice for fiscal conservatives. It was also jaw-dropping to hear this president speak about tax reform. Bush? He has done more to lard up the tax code with special breaks and new loopholes than any recent president. On this issue - on which I couldn't agree more - I have to say I don't believe him. Tax reform goes against the grain of everything this president has done so far. Why would he change now? I remember the days of conservatives loving to quote Sullivan. The times are changin'.

DonnaLadd

Sep 3 2004

Now if we can just get some of the people who write letters to the CL to figure this out, I'll be happy. I'm *so* tired of seeing letters in there about how Dems are the 'tax and spend' and 'big government' party. Hunh? Where have these people been? Hooray for the true conservatives, especially those who have the courage to take on the religious right. My hairdresser in Berkeley predicted we'd en up with 3 parties - dems, republicans and something for the religious right. It may still happen.

kate

Sep 3 2004

Thanks for a really interesting article. I was struck by several things: a. Brooks talks about a "political tradition" that is moribund - an active govt that works for social mobility and national union - I disagree - it is an active part of the ongoing political dialouge, in fact it's part of many conversations I have with other GOPers on the Hill currently and when I was there... perhaps it wasn't part of the daily news because it didn't fit the easier sterotype of "govt is bad" of many Republicans vs "govt is great" of many Dems b. "Bush himself seems to agree. On July 21 he noted that while ''government should never try to control or dominate the lives of our citizens,'' nonetheless, ''government can and should help citizens gain the tools to make their own choices.'' " this is followed by a statement that Bush's statement is not yet a governing philosophy - true - it's hard to keep the govt from expanding its authorities - the Harris rule states that "A govt bureaucrat will expand his authority, through rules and regs, to the furthest extent possible - and then take one more step" it is the natural tendency of a bureacracy to expand its reach - which is one reason why this third political treadition is hard to define and maintain - where and what exactly are the limits on what the federal govt shuld be doing? as it expands, it grows larger and larger - and prompting a backlash from the sterotypical anti-govt GOPer c. another quote from article - "Like Hamilton, Lincoln was indifferent to his own wealth. Rather, he wanted economic development because it meant more fluidity, more competition, more opportunity. For him, the market was admirable because it cultivated a certain sort of upward-climbing individual." this is exactly what I tried to do and what many others I know are striving for - it isn't just about getting richer (ask my wife - heh - sigh) it's about making a level playing field where everyone can compete as equals - where to draw the line of appropriate lvls of government involvement is the tough question d. Pres Bush spoke last night about revisions of the tax code as a whole - this was mentioned in Brook's article as well - a truly Herculean task that will be and not unlike cleaning out the Augean stables - unless there's a flood that cleans everything out at the same time, it can't be done e. I really really like the idea of a Homestead Act for charter schools - I like the idea of school choice also... f. the war on terror or on Islamofascism if you prefer has to be the number one priority - if you can't take care of the homefront and keep it safe, the other stuff really doesn't matter - ok, it does matter, but taking care of our homeland is a thresehold issue... gotta be first

Fielding

Sep 3 2004

I think it probably will; the question is when. The Republican Party *should have* rejected the radical right when the New Democrats moved to take the middle (miserably, I might add), but they didn't. It seems extreme greed does not mind playing bigot cards and such. The truth is, the Democratic Party's platform and such really is the party of reasonable and moderation (and fiscal responsibility) at this point; they just need to counter the snow job of the right. They are starting to do that, I think, although there's work to be done. I think what David Brooks is trying to say, without giving the Democrats any credit, is that the Republicans better hurry the hell up and wake up and excise this radicalism that has shored it up -- that is, lose the southern strategy and all its nastiness, and fast. There are other voters to take the place of the extremists, of course, but now they're going to have to fight the Dems for them. They wouldn't have had to fight so hard a few years back. I have a feeling that folks like Haley Barbour, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove et al. (not to mention that idiotess Ann Coulter) are going to go down in history as the yuck-yucks who ruined the GOP, at least for the moment. Now that the current GOP has proven itself the party of fiscal irresponsibility, not to mention all sorts of other anti-Americanisms, it's going to have a hard time continuing to convince Americans that the Democrats are socialists. As Brooks points out, that's just not true these days. (And, duh, supporting government assistance of whatever sort, welfare or else, is NOT socialism, so that ignorance needs to stop right now.) Personally, I am not a partisan mainly because I haven't seen a party of late (or probably in my lifetime) that I want to be a member of. I want to be among fiscally responsible moderates who believe in (actual) free enterprise, the American spirit of freedom and entrepreneurialism, that the government (meaning all of us) is supposed to play limited-but-laser-sharp roles in public life (from ensuring fair competition to helping level playing fields), that civil liberties (including religious freedom, which can only exist without the establishment of a particular religion. duh) cannot be tampered with, that the U.S. lives in a larger world that it must be responsible in, that freedom comes from changing hearts and minds, etc.

DonnaLadd

Sep 3 2004

MORE If that party ends up being Republican after the radicals are excised, then I'm all for it. If it's Democratic, then I'll support it. If it's a third party, I'm in. It's true progressivm I'm interested in, no matter what it's called. Funny thing, as much as David Brooks frustrates me with his excuse-making (which is showly diminishing as he turns on the current GOP), I agree with a lot that he says in this piece. The big mistake he makes is assuming that Democrats, or people he believes to be Dems, would not agree. I agree wholeheartedly that a progressive movement is going to happen--I'm justs not sure it's going to happen from the right. I think it needs to happen from "both" sides of the spectrum. What must stop, though, is the sheer stupidity of people who say, "You don't like Bush? You must be some left-wing pinko." (or however they put it). Bar none, this is the dumbest, most jackass thing I hear anybody say these days. The good thing is, more people are starting to realize it.

DonnaLadd

Sep 3 2004

A wee bit more from Sullivan's blog: CHENEY'S SPEECH: It was a sound one, certainly defensible in its sharp attacks on Kerry and heartfelt in its defense of the character of the president. But it was over-shadowed by the foul rhetoric that went before him, rhetoric he blessed with his opening line. On a substantive note, it is astonishing to me that neither he not anyone, in invoking the war on terror, has mentioned any developments in Iraq or Afghanistan over the last year. These speeches could have been written as Baghdad fell or at the latest, when Saddam was captured. And this party and president claim to be war-leaders. Real war-leaders explain defeats and set-backs, they recognize the current situation, they grapple with reality. But this war is easy, it seems. There are no problems in Iraq. Everything is peachy. Democracy is breaking out everywhere; no mistakes have been made; no rethinking is necessary after the travails of the occupation (sorry, Zell). I understand the political need to put a gloss on things. But the surrealism of the rhetoric is, in some respects, an insult to the American people, who deserve a real accounting of where we are. Of all the difficult choices we have to make - in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia - nothing is spoken. There is not even a nod to reality. Just an assertion that only the Republicans have the balls to fight this war. It may well work in the election. But it speaks to the character of our leaders that they prefer bromides and denial to a real accounting and real leadership. TWO SMALL POINTS: Cheney barely mentioned the economy. Almost no one has. They realize it's a liability. Another missing link: Mary Cheney. Where was she? She was "disappeared" from the family tableau, perhaps of her own choice. (Note: Mary Cheney is the veep's open lesbian daughter.)

DonnaLadd

Sep 3 2004

NY Times editorial on Bush speech: Despite the enormous changes the United States has undergone since the last election, from terror attacks to recession, Mr. Bush has been sticking resolutely to the priorities he brought into the office in 2001. He won his tax cuts and his education initiative. American foreign policy managed to wind up focused on the same country on which Mr. Bush and his advisers had fixated from the beginning. Each of those policies has cost the nation dearly: the tax cuts have exploded the budget deficit, Mr. Bush has failed to finance his education programs adequately, and the war in Iraq has been fumbled from the day Baghdad fell. Nobody expected the president to admit that any of his initiatives had turned out to be less than smashing successes, but wavering voters might have been buoyed by at least a hint that the administration realizes that the course needs adjustment. Instead, the president presented troubled, half-finished initiatives like his prescription drug plan as fully completed tasks, just as he presented the dangerous and chaotic situation in Iraq as a picture of triumphant foreign policy on a par with the Marshall Plan. He tossed out a combination of extremely vague concepts - like creating an ownership society - along with small-bore ideas like additional college scholarships. The combination of minor thoughts and squishy generalities was typical of John Kerry's convention speech as well. But Mr. Bush's contribution doesn't raise many hopes for the level of campaign discussion to come. The president, who dropped his laudable attempt to begin desperately needed immigration reform as soon as he ran into political resistance, gave the idea not a mention last night. There was no hint that he realizes his "uniter, not a divider" vow ran aground on the administration's insistence on right-wing judicial nominees and inflexibility on social issues like stem cell research. Full editorial

DonnaLadd

Sep 3 2004