Ruffini: The Right Must Abandon Gimmicks and Addiction to the Past, Embrace Newt Gingrich…
If you want an idea of how completely brain-dead the conservative movement is, you desperately need to read this post from Patrick Ruffini.
It starts strong:
If you want to get a sense of how unserious and ungrounded most Americans think the Republican Party is, look no further than how conservatives elevate Joe the Plumber as a spokesman. The movement has become so gimmick-driven that Wurzelbacher will be a conservative hero long after people have forgotten what his legitimate policy beef with Obama was. [...]In these serious times, conservatives need to get serious and ditch the gimmicks and the self-referential credentializing and talk to the entire country. If the average apolitical American walked into CPAC or any movement conservative gathering would they feel like they learned something new or that we presented a vision compelling to them in their daily lives? Or would it all be talk of a President from 25 years ago and Adam Smith lapel pins?
And then it ends . . . um . . . not so strong:
This is why I love Newt’s emphasis on finding 80/20 issues and defining them in completely non-ideological terms.
That’s right; the man to bring the right-wing out of its addiction to gimmicks and icons of the past is—Newt Gingrich! I could see someone arguing, perhaps, that these gimmicks are clever gimmicks but the idea that they’re an alternative to gimmick-based politics is insane.
See also what Chris Orr says here.
53 Responses to “Ruffini: The Right Must Abandon Gimmicks and Addiction to the Past, Embrace Newt Gingrich…”
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February 27th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
The movement has become so gimmick-driven that Wurzelbacher will be a conservative hero long after people have forgotten what his legitimate policy beef with Obama was.
No, it doesn’t even start strong. If it wasn’t intended to be deliberately misleading, Joe The Plumber’s “legitimate policy beef” was still every bit as wrong as Jim DeMint’s apparent assertion yesterday that small-business owners pay income tax on their gross receipts.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
What’s “gimmicky” about coming up with right-of-center policy solutions that happen to be popular with a majority of Americans? Sounds like common sense to me.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Ruffini’s take on the present situation is that Republican’s should play to “[p]eople’s first instincts in a recession [...] not to overspend, but to tighten their belts.” In other words, Republicans should sell people the disease by pretending it’s the cure.
Personally I hope and expect that they’ll keep losing for as long as they’re this wrong on the facts.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Joe’s legitimate policy beef was that he would have to pay more taxes on his imaginary plumbing business.
I know this is a difficult point, but the reason Republicans are having trouble is because they are idiots who have terrible ideas. While it is entertaining to read about their soul-searching, it is ultimately unsatisfying because they don’t have any souls.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
“6. Congress should make it a crime to advocate acts of terrorism, violent conduct, or the killing of innocent people in the United States.”
Jeez. Maybe wingers should stop hyperventilating about the never-gonna-happen-and-barely-ever-advocated fairness doctrine and start pointing their fingers at Newt. If there’s one thing that would put right wing talk radio out of business in an instant, it’s criminalizing the advocacy of terrorism and violence. Telling people they should be hoping and working to tank the economy so that Democrats get the blame and Republicans regain power is prototypical advocacy of terrorism.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Me too. But what the hell does that have to do with anything the republicans are proposing?
February 27th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
What’s somewhat sad about this is that the GOP has trouble beating something like the Center for American Progress, MattY’s intellectually dishonest employer. What the GOP really needs to do is to learn to attack their opponents in an honorable, intelligent way no matter how much it costs their sponsors. For instance, the wider issue discussed in #9 could be used to inflict a great deal of damage on the Democratic Party. Instead, Newt has wimped out and isn’t going beyond supporting something that most people do support.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
right-of-center policy solutions that happen to be popular with a majority of Americans
Right-of-center policy solutions are not popular with the majority of Americans.
The majority of Americans support Obama.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Oh come on. It’s gimmicky for the same reason Clinton’s school uniforms were gimmicky. Right of center and popular is all well and good but if it’s not actually a real solution to real problems, who cares? To wit, from Newt’s list:
Keeping the reference to “One Nation Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is very important. (88 to 11)
Thanks, Newt! ALL OUR PROBLEMS ARE NOW SOLVED.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
“Right-of-center policy solutions are not popular with the majority of Americans.”
These look pretty popular. That’s why Republicans would be smart to run with some of Newt’s ideas.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
6. Congress should make it a crime to advocate acts of terrorism, violent conduct, or the killing of innocent people in the United States
Wouldn’t this require arresting Glenn Beck?
That nonsense quote from Ruffini is priceless. Given the utter collapse and discrediting of the policy agenda they’ve put forward for the last 40 years, Republicans can no longer pretend to be the party of ideas. Instead they are just a big club defined by identity politics, which is why Joe the ________ is their spokesman. Some (not all) Republicans know that identity politics is a loser in this country, so they are looking desperately for some publicly acceptable rationale for the party’s continued existence. Good luck to them.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
“Thanks, Newt! ALL OUR PROBLEMS ARE NOW SOLVED.”
Ha, Ha, Ha. Let’s look at the rest of them:
Top 10 Reasons YOU Should Support the Platform
English should be the official language of government. (87 to 11)
We want our elected leaders in Washington to focus on increasing the energy supplies of the
United States and lowering the costs of gasoline and electricity. (71 to 18)
The option of a single rate system should give taxpayers the convenience of filing their taxes with
just a single sheet of paper. (82 to 15)
Every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election
when deciding whether to organize a union. (79 to 12)
Keeping the reference to “One Nation Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is very important.
(88 to 11)
Congress should make it a crime to advocate acts of terrorism, violent conduct, or the killing of innocent people in the United States. (83 to 12)
We should dramatically increase our investment in math and science education. (91 to
We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no
carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible. (71 to
Illegal immigrants who commit felonies should be deported. (88 to 10)
We support giving a large financial prize to the first company or individual who invents a new,
safer way to dispose of nuclear waste products. (79 to 16)
February 27th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
All that said, I’m still pretty surprised, looking back on it, that the Democrats as a group managed either (a) to get their sh*t back together or (b) have their sh*t gotten back together by outsiders for them (or some combination of a & b).
The Democrats lost Congress for a dozen years, 1994 – 2006, so I bet someone with their thinking cap on (I don’t, been a long work day) that there were some pretty idiotic suggestions in 1995 about what needed to be done. Maybe not.
I’d like to think the Dem’s were never GOP-levels of crazy, but I bet someone could convince me otherwise (and I don’t mean “Nancy Pelosi! Syria!” type barkings).
February 27th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Fred,
Ha, ha, ha.
Go for it, dude. Please grab hold of Newt’s “ideas” and run as hard as you can. You’re making our work easier by the day.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no
carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible.
And I believe that if research indicates that chanting “I believe, I believe” makes everyone win the lottery without even having to buy a ticket, then it would be important to start such chanting as rapidly as possible.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
What shall we call this 2nd Newt effort?
Contract On America II: The Douchening?
Shutdown the Government Begins: The White Haired Knight
February 27th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
What shall we call this 2nd Newt effort?
The Big Yawn, The Path to Irrevelancy…
February 27th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
7. We should dramatically increase our investment in math and science education
8. We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants…
Puleez! This coming from the no-science, AmTaliban crowd? I don’t think graduates of fundicrat U with biology classes that teach the earth is 6000 years old are going to catapult us ahead of India, China, Korea, Japan, EU.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
“English should be the official language of government.”
In other words, screw you immigrants. This just got voted down in Nashville a month or two ago.
“We want our elected leaders in Washington to focus on increasing the energy supplies of the
United States and lowering the costs of gasoline and electricity.”
In other words, drill here, drill now, drill everywhere! Yeah, that was a real winner.
“The option of a single rate system should give taxpayers the convenience of filing their taxes with
just a single sheet of paper.”
In other words, the far-right unpopular flat tax. Yeah, you should run with that.
“Every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election
when deciding whether to organize a union.”
I agree. They should also have the right to other forms of determining how to organize as well. Republicans really, really hate unions if you forgot.
“Keeping the reference to “One Nation Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is very important.”
Uh…sure. I guess we can do that one.
“Congress should make it a crime to advocate acts of terrorism, violent conduct, or the killing of innocent people in the United States.”
If you really want, but I’d listen to what Republicans with mics are actually saying before you want to go down that road. And it’s probably intended to limit pro-choice talk.
“We should dramatically increase our investment in math and science education.”
Sure, this is a no-brainer.
“We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no
carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible.”
If real research indicates this, not the people Bush used to deny climate change, sure.
“Illegal immigrants who commit felonies should be deported.”
The right seems to have an unhealthy obsession with immigrants. But sure, whatever. This really doesn’t matter to the people Newt’s trying to win over though.
“We support giving a large financial prize to the first company or individual who invents a new,
safer way to dispose of nuclear waste products.”
That seems fine. Nuclear pretty much has to be among the things to look at if we’re getting off foreign oil.
So, 5 for 10. Not as bad as I was expecting. But things like these aren’t the reason Republicans are losing. It’s because the rest of their positions are way out of line with what people want. But baby steps are a start, I guess.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
The problem Ruffini is facing in trying to pull the Republican party away from gimmicks is that the Republicans are at this point in a bind. Their ideology is tied two unshakable beliefs 1) the government does nothing of value, does nothing to support business, it just ‘interferes’ in the market 2) government functions like copyright protection, licensing the radio waves, and incorporation are absolutely necessary for business to exist. We on the left are pretty sure one of those must be false, and generally believe that the second is true, therefore it makes sense to charge business money to get these services. The Republican party is still wedded to policies which depend upon both being true. The American people are catching on to the absurdity of the conservative position on this. Given that their position is absurd, they have no choice but gimmicks.
As Matt notes, Newt’s 80/20 issues are useless for the Republicans. They are 80/20 precisely because they are peripheral and not central to people’s interests. Yes, they are popular, but the 80 percent who favor them are also not really concerned about them.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
“As Matt notes, Newt’s 80/20 issues are useless for the Republicans. They are 80/20 precisely because they are peripheral and not central to people’s interests. Yes, they are popular, but the 80 percent who favor them are also not really concerned about them.”
That’s not true. What is true is that the current deflationary recession has made some of these issues less acute: fewer illegals are coming here now, gas prices are down, etc. But these issues will gain salience when the economy recovers and energy prices go back up. Most Americans don’t want to pay more for gas; liberals want them to. Most Americans see the damage done to their communities by illegal aliens; liberals (and Chamber of Commerce Republicans) want an expanded helot class.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
“Most Americans don’t want to pay more for gas; liberals want them to.”
Obviously Americans don’t want to pay more for gas, even if it’d be the best thing for the country. But a massive gas shock and chants of “drill baby drill” didn’t really help in the polls last year. And uh, if you haven’t noticed, the offshore drilling ban is completely gone now. Not that there’s any wells, because there never were going to be, but there’s no ban. So how exactly do Republicans intend to increase oil supply? The two cents a gallon from ANWR? The completely infeasible shale oil? You can’t just say “Republicans = lower gas prices” and expect people to believe it.
“Most Americans see the damage done to their communities by illegal aliens”
You realize Bush won 44% of Hispanics, right? And then Rush went on his anti-immigrant tirade and McCain got far, far less. The problem you have is that you think people care about illegals as much as you do. They don’t, at all. 3/4 the country doesn’t even have any noticable amount of illegals, and of the ones that do a lot of people use them for cheap manual labor. If you really think the way back to the promised land is to be *more* xenophobic, then, well…wow.
Oh, and “most Americans” will be minorities in our lifetimes. Good luck with that.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
“You realize Bush won 44% of Hispanics, right? And then Rush went on his anti-immigrant tirade and McCain got far, far less.”
No Republican was more pro-illegal alien than John McCain. That just proves the pointlessness of trying to pander to Hispanics by being pro-illegal immigration (it’s also condescending of you to assume that all Hispanics favor illegal immigration. Many of them don’t).
Adam,
Pray tell, why do you favor more illegal immigration? Is it the drain on emergency room resources you like? Or the way they lower the wages for native unskilled workers? Or is it the drug gangs?
February 27th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
By the way, one reason Bush did so well with Hispanics was by making it easier for them to get no-money-down mortgages they weren’t qualified for. How’d that work out?
You can’t make America richer by importing more poor people who will stay poor for generations, as Mexican-Americans tend to do. It’s bad economics, and it’s bad for American citizens, including Hispanic citizens. So why are you in favor of it? To prove you’re not a “xenophobe”? Is it worth wrecking the country to prove that?
February 27th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
I do not favor more illegal immigration. I think that’s the case across much — though not all — of the political spectrum.
The problem arises when you move beyond that simple statement of a desired policy end. I think it’s an enormously difficult issue, practically and economically, and can only be addressed in a hugely multi-faceted approach — including stabilizing and improving the economies of the nations at the ‘push’ end.
It’s a pretty rare forum, though, which seems serious enough about the topic to waste much time on a subject which requires such serious answers and yet offers so little cheap entertainment.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Fred,
I said that these issues are not important now and you respond that isnt’ true because someday, you believe, they will be. My point is that Newt’s strategy has nothing to do with issues that are important to people now. You didn’t contradict that.
Liberals do not particularly want people to pay more for gas. They want to stop subsidizing the use of gas by providing free space to dump the wastes and have the government cover the full cost of defending vulnerable oil fields overseas. Also, liberals would love to see the price of gas kept low by build more mass transit, which the public is clearly interested in using, which would free up roads and reduce the demand for (and therefore the price of) gasoline. We don’t want to subsidize (at least not to the extent conservatives want the subsidies) your use of gasoline with government expenditures and the live of our military personnel.
By and large Americans want fewer illegal immigrants, but they also would like a fair number of the current illegal immigrants to be legal. To be clearer, Americans don’t much mind the number of immigrants, but would like better control on who gets in and who does not.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Do you get oxygen in your bubble? Your entire thought process is a punchline.
I don’t deny this, but the Rush/Tancredo right screwed the pooch for this for McCain. Put it this way: Eisenhower was a rather pro-civil rights president, especially for his time. For convenience sake, on a scale for 1-10 on supporting civil rights, let’s say that in 1952 Eisenhower had that time’s equivalent of an 8. Let’s say he didn’t run/win in 1952 and instead ran after a Nixon administration in 1976, while holding an 8/10 on civil rights issue for 1976. Chances are that by virtue of being a Republican post-Nixon, Eisenhower would have received a smaller share of the black vote in this theoretical election in 1976 than he did in reality in 1952 and 1956 through no fault of his own. Add in the fact McCain had to appeal to the racist base, thus alienating Latinos, and you have why McCain lost so many Latinos (how Obama gained so many Latinos is a different subject, as Latino voters who left the GOP could have voted third party or just not voted). Face it Fred, you’re the reason the GOP lost.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Michael Robinson,
“I said that these issues are not important now and you respond that isnt’ true because someday, you believe, they will be.”
What you actually said was this,
“They are 80/20 precisely because they are peripheral and not central to people’s interests. Yes, they are popular, but the 80 percent who favor them are also not really concerned about them.”
Nothing about them not being important “now”. Your point was that they weren’t important, period. I refuted that. I also mentioned why, because of the unique nature of our current, deflationary recession, they weren’t a foremost concern now.
“someday, you believe, they will be”
That’s wholly-headed me, thinking that “someday,” when the economy recovers, oil prices will go back up and Mexicans will want immigrate here again.
“Liberals do not particularly want people to pay more for gas.”
A lie. Ask Yglesias if he agrees with that.
“Also, liberals would love to see the price of gas kept low by build more mass transit, which the public is clearly interested in using”
You base your belief in the “public’s” zeal for public transportation on what, pray tell? American’s love of car-based suburban communities? You are confusing the preferences of urban liberal elites with those of average Americans. They aren’t the same thing.
“By and large Americans want fewer illegal immigrants, but they also would like a fair number of the current illegal immigrants to be legal. To be clearer, Americans don’t much mind the number of immigrants, but would like better control on who gets in and who does not.”
Evidence to support this?
February 27th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
“Blah, blah, blah… racism… Tancredo… Rush”
Are you claiming that Hispanic Americans were too ignorant to know that McCain was the most pro-illegal immigration Republican in the party, and that they’d have a better chance of getting an amnesty enacted by a President McCain + a Dem Congress than by a Dem President + a Dem Congress? That strains credulity. Look the facts are these: McCain danced the limbo for illegal immigration advocates, and most Hispanics still voted for the other guy.
“Face it Fred, you’re the reason the GOP lost.”
As much as I’d like to take credit for the defeat of McAmnesty, he was leading in the polls before the global financial system crashed. That happened on a Republican’s watch, and that’s what put Obama ahead in the polls for good.
February 27th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Fred,
I used the present tense to indicate, well, the present. In any case, these issues are not currently, in the present, central to American’s interests and it is these issues that Newt is focused on. Also, these are not issues, except for gas prices, that have been of any electoral importance for the past several elections. And even at that, gas prices hardly proved critical this latest election.
Liberals want to see us depend less on oil, both for national security reasons and for the environment. Gas taxes and higher prices will reduce dependence, so will increased mass transit.
I think that people are willing to use mass transit because of the recent surge in the use of mass transit after the rise in gas prices and that ridership is still high. Many folks, whether or not they are “elite”, like mass transit, and if there were more and better transit, it would be used more.
I have no stats that I can cite to prove that people don’t mind the number of immigrants. This would be an opinion, my impression. Certainly, however, the immigration issue has hardly been a great success for Republicans for a while now.
February 27th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
“I blame the darkies.”
February 27th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Fundamentally, what Gingrich seems to have are a bunch of ideas which are vaguely conservative and poll well, strung together with no underlying principles or cohesive vision. As raw data, perhaps that’s useful to a conservative political strategist, but it’s not strategy in itself. There’s none of the feeling that this is a coherent set of principles, along the lines of Contract with America, or Change We Can Believe In. It seems like Penn-style Microtrend politics.
As for immigration, I realize that guest worker programs make a lot of people queasy, but I think that’s probably the best solution to balance the interests of all parties. I’d envision some sort of three-way contracts between employers, immigrants, and the federal government, in which immigrants are largely free to come in on such terms in whatever numbers would accept them, and employers are largely free to hire them, but the government takes a big cut of the wages, so that immigrants don’t find it attractive to work here in numbers greater than we’d tolerate, and employers don’t find it attractive to hire immigrants at the expense of natives in excessively large numbers either. (The government’s cut could vary with profession or category; construction workers could have a different cut than domestic workers who could have a different cut than radiologists etc.)
Naturally, this wouldn’t replace all immigration visas, such as section O or B visas, but it could be the most widely available and easily acquired visa for longish-term employment (naturally, term of visas couldn’t exceed seven continuous years of residency if we wanted this to comply with the 14th amendment and not grant citizenship rights).
Perhaps that strikes many as a shitty way of treating people, but our current system involves simply denying most people who want to come to the country the right to do so through a system that makes getting a visa barring extraordinary connections tantamount to winning a lottery (which is why, of course, they come illegally), and the relative economic positions of the U.S. and some other countries means unlimited immigration wouldn’t be viable unless there are measures to prevent people from either working at American wages as an immigrant or hiring at Guatamalan wages as an employer (or somewhere between on both ends).
To curb abuses, there should be a clause allowing “anytime opt-outs” for workers, allowing them to return to their country at any time, paying for (cheap) transportation from the government’s withheld share of their employer’s pay if necessary. (If they’ve worked a sufficiently short time that neither their own cash reserves nor the government’s withheld pay is enough, then they’d have to figure out their own way back, I suppose, unless they can prove outright abuse or fraud.) In addition, there should be some means of switching employer on the same visa.
This view seems to be unpopular with everyone, though, so maybe I’m just really misguided. Certainly it wouldn’t be the first time, although I wish I knew exactly where my reasoning was going wrong here.
February 28th, 2009 at 12:36 am
As for immigration, I realize that guest worker programs make a lot of people queasy, but I think that’s probably the best solution to balance the interests of all parties.
So long as we eliminate birthright citizenship for any baby a guest worker might have on this side of the border.
“You realize Bush won 44% of Hispanics, right? And then Rush went on his anti-immigrant tirade and McCain got far, far less.”
Bush probably got no higher than 40%. The 44% claim has been pretty thoroughly debunked.
February 28th, 2009 at 1:50 am
I hope Fred’s getting overtime for all the hours he’s putting in on a Friday night.
February 28th, 2009 at 2:02 am
Re: English should be the official language of government.
Congress holds debates in some other language? The President conducts cabinet meetings in some other langauge? The Supreme Court hears cases in some other language? Who knew?
Re: We want our elected leaders in Washington to focus on increasing the energy supplies of the United States and lowering the costs of gasoline and electricity.
Yes, and while they’re at it please repeal the laws of supply and demand. Not to mention the second law of thermodynamics. Oh, and make me twenty years younger too– I’ll vote for anyone who can pull that one off.
Re: The option of a single rate system should give taxpayers the convenience of filing their taxes with just a single sheet of paper.
Um, there’s no convenience there at all. The different tax rates are NOT (I repeat NOT! NOT! NOT!) what makes taxes so complex. (Hint: “loopholes”)
Re: Keeping the reference to “One Nation Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is very important.
I’m sure honoring motherhood and being nice to kittens and puppies polls really well too. But this is significant politically how exactly?
Re: Congress should make it a crime to advocate acts of terrorism, violent conduct, or the killing of innocent people in the United States.
At least at the state level, it is already is a crime. Incitement to violence is the technical term. And it’s very odd that people who say they don’t want a federal hate crimes laws (and are suspicious of state hate crime laws) seem to want that sort of thing under a different name.
Re: We should dramatically increase our investment in math and science education.
Hm. I thought the Democrats were the ones who wanted to spend more on education. Nice to see the GOP getting on board finally.
Re: We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible.
Certianly, of course. But this is a technical problem, not a political issue.
Re: Illegal immigrants who commit felonies should be deported.
Not tried and (if found guilty) punished to the full extent of the law? Who’s soft on crime now?
Re: We support giving a large financial prize to the first company or individual who invents a new, safer way to dispose of nuclear waste products.
Again, a technical problem, not a political issue.
February 28th, 2009 at 2:42 am
So long as we eliminate birthright citizenship for any baby a guest worker might have on this side of the border.
That would not be constitutional. The 14th amendment prohibits it. I don’t know whether it would also be unconstitutional to make not-being-pregnant a condition for obtaining such a visa, let alone whether such a visa could make becoming pregnant (past, say, four months) a violation of its terms. Such no-pregnancy conditions for visas strike me as fairly clearly illiberal and authoritarian, but I’m not sure if they actually violate the constitution.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Re: That would not be constitutional. The 14th amendment prohibits it.
Not quite. But it would mean that if a guest worker committed a crime, s/he could not be prosecuted for it, just expelled, like diplomats. The 14th Amendment includes the limiting phrase “…and subject to the laws thereof” Hence the children of diplomats do not become American citizens if born here. In the 19th century this also applied to Native Americans since (in principle) they were subject only to their tribal laws, not ours.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:23 am
I love the Orr post, and Matt’s comment. Basically, what you’re seeing here is the end of Nixonland. There was a good 40-year period when it seemed obvious to everyone that cultural bullshit issues could trump the economic interests of middle-class Americans. By railing against atheistic elitists and the black underclass, you could get the (white) middle classes to back the economic interests of people much wealthier than themselves.
In 2009, suddenly it no longer seems obvious. Chris Orr and his friends have woken up to discover that they never were the “natural” governing party. Most of them are looking for new gimmicks. Orr himself has gotten to the point of realizing that gimmicks aren’t going to do it. Except that he doesn’t really have any alternative, so in the end he buys into Newt’s gimmicks.
The reality is that, as cultural/racial polarization wanes, there’s no reason why the middle classes *shouldn’t* support a European-style social democracy. The Republican party is going to have to become something more like the British Conservative party; it’s going to have to compete by claiming that it can more successfully *deliver* and *administer* that social democracy. But they seem to be a couple of election cycles away from realizing that.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Obviously, I’ve systematically substituted Chris Orr for Patrick Ruffini. GOD knows how that happened.
Whatever. Here’s a Douthat post that shows he understands the nature of the problem:
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/layer_cake.php
February 28th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Republicans seems intent on making us spin our heads so fast that one day they’ll just pop off.
Gingrich anti-gimmick. Is he a cast member of “Lost” or something?
February 28th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Re: The Republican party is going to have to become something more like the British Conservative party
Or more likely something like a European Christian Democratic party, which would appeal to the upcoming generation of conservative Christians, who are less about finger-wagging scolding, and more about justice and “Creation Care”.
February 28th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
“I know this is a difficult point, but the reason Republicans are having trouble is because they are idiots who have terrible ideas.” –Mark S
Come on dude, what’s the point of this kind of discourse? We are on a liberal blog with liberal commentators; must we preach to the choir as well? There’s no debate if no one disagrees with you, and there’s no healthy debate if you sling mud like this. I disagree with most Republican positions, but I don’t believe either party has a monopoly on truth. It’s pretty clear that the arbitrary bifurcation of American politics is formed by the dialectic of having two parties. I mean, there’s no inherent philosophical connection between abortion rights, corporate tax rates, and the death penalty, yet I bet if I know your position on one of these I have a significantly better than average chance at predicting the others. The same is true in other countries. That’s why sometimes a society’s religious fanatics are on the left and sometimes (as in our society) they are on the right. I don’t know, I’m guess I’m trying to say let’s just try and understand where our opposition is coming from, see if there are any commonalities, anything to learn, and if not, engage in constructive debate. Too much to ask?
“You can’t make America richer by importing more poor people who will stay poor for generations, as Mexican-Americans tend to do. It’s bad economics, and it’s bad for American citizens, including Hispanic citizens.” –Fred
Yes, yes you can. The same logic that applies to the free flow of goods and services across borders of tribe (nation) applies to labor as well. American businesses have a demand for cheap labor. Mexico has a supply. The money is nothing for American business, but better than average for Mexicans. Everyone wins. Mexicans get jobs that pay better than the ones in their home country, and Americans get goods cheaper than they would otherwise be. If it was really bad for Mexicans, why would they risk everything coming to this country for these jobs?
“Liberals do not particularly want people to pay more for gas.”
I do! I want people to pay lots more for gas. Yes, I want the subsidies axed, but I want more than that too. There should be a graded gas tax that is phased in on the federal level. Why? Gas produces a negative externality: pollution, global warming, supporting totalitarian theocracy and undermining our national security. Come to think of it, that’s one hell of a negative externality. As such, there should be a hefty ass tax to compensate for this. Because demand for cars is inelastic in the short term, the tax should be phased in so as to give people time to adjust. But still, I, a liberal, want people to pay much, much more for gas than they currently do. If there’s no pain we won’t ever break the addiction.
February 28th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
“6. Congress should make it a crime to advocate acts of terrorism, violent conduct, or the killing of innocent people in the United States.”
It already is. Gingrich has his ass on his head too tight.
February 28th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
That happened on a Republican’s watch, and that’s what put Obama ahead in the polls for good.
That and Sarah! deciding that remorseless, relentless lying about the Bridge to Nowhere was the way she wanted to go.
February 28th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Smarmy liberal,
I agree with you completely! The trick is that we mean slightly different things by “pay for gas”, and I was certainly the less clear of the two of us. Currently, we are paying something like $2 a gallon for gas at the pump, we are paying another $2 per gallon in taxes to support military operations and another $2 per gallon on negative externalities. (These numbers are WAGs, put in bigger numbers if you like, I wouldn’t argue). If we could put a tax on gasoline that got rid of these hidden costs and had us paying $5.50 a gallon at the pump, we would be paying ‘less for gas’, but it would be seen. You and I would respond by using a lot less gas, keeping the cost of gasoline at this same “low” level. That is what I am talking about.
Now it is likely that some real increase in gasoline costs will occur and will be needed, but I, as a liberal, would be perfectly happy if we could get rid of the hidden costs without burdening Americans. That is what I meant when I said I don’t particularly want to make Americans pay more.
February 28th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“You can’t make America richer by importing more poor people who will stay poor for generations, as Mexican-Americans tend to do. It’s bad economics, and it’s bad for American citizens, including Hispanic citizens.” –Fred
– Smarmy Liberal.
No, no you can’t. “Everybody” doesn’t win. Have you seen what black unemployment rates looked like before this recession? Take a look. It is a better deal for individual Mexicans, but not for America, or for Hispanic American citizens who are already here.
February 28th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
If labor can’t flow across borders with the same ease as capital, “free trade” is a sinister joke.
February 28th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Re: Currently, we are paying something like $2 a gallon for gas at the pump, we are paying another $2 per gallon in taxes to support military operations and another $2 per gallon on negative externalities.
But the taxes and to some extent the externality costs are somewhat progressive in their application: the rich pay more. Most of us would like to keep it that way. The United States has such a hugely regressive economic system these days that I donlt think we should do anything to make it even worse.
February 28th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Um no, I’m not claiming anything of the sort. I’m pointing out how parties are brands and the GOP wrecked its brand for Latinos with immigrant-bashing (which went well beyond bashing illegals). You’re just arguing in bad faith.
This isn’t an either/or question. To win the base, GOP politicians have to win over white racists like you. When they do that, they alienate everyone else.
Hell, even Trent Lott thinks campaigning against illegal immigration is a political non-starter and he’s pretty racist. You also have to love how the only time racist conservatives care about black people is when the subject of illegal immigration comes up. You want to slow down immigration? Help Mexico develop – end our farm subsidies, end our war on drugs that helps to fuel violence there, etc. It is funny how conservatives can’t understand how capitalist logic works when it comes to the free movement of labor.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
“You also have to love how the only time racist conservatives care about black people is when the subject of illegal immigration comes up.”
Let’s see: I’d like to see more black people be able to get jobs. You’d like to see them knocked off the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder by illegal immigrants. And I’m the racist?
“You want to slow down immigration? Help Mexico develop”
What a great boil-the-ocean suggestion! Why enforce laws against hiring illegals and build a real fence along the border (infrastructure! stimulus!) when we can just turn Mexico into a first world country instead! Why didn’t anyone else think of that? Maybe because we have no power to make the reforms that Mexico needs to develop. But Mexicans do — Mexico is a democracy, last time I checked. If Mexico hadn’t been able to export its poor here for decades maybe it would have tackled its dysfunctions already. Instead, it’s on the verge of collapse. More Mexicans have been killed in the country’s drug wars in the last year than Americans were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
February 28th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
“I agree with you completely! The trick is that we mean slightly different things by “pay for gas”, and I was certainly the less clear of the two of us. Currently, we are paying something like $2 a gallon for gas at the pump, we are paying another $2 per gallon in taxes to support military operations and another $2 per gallon on negative externalities. (These numbers are WAGs, put in bigger numbers if you like, I wouldn’t argue). If we could put a tax on gasoline that got rid of these hidden costs and had us paying $5.50 a gallon at the pump, we would be paying ‘less for gas’, but it would be seen. You and I would respond by using a lot less gas, keeping the cost of gasoline at this same “low” level. That is what I am talking about.” –Michael Robinson
Gotcha. Yep, simple misunderstanding. Dig.
“Now it is likely that some real increase in gasoline costs will occur and will be needed, but I, as a liberal, would be perfectly happy if we could get rid of the hidden costs without burdening Americans. That is what I meant when I said I don’t particularly want to make Americans pay more.” –Michael Robinson
Well, here I disagree. There really is no free lunch, and you can’t break an addiction without pain. I’m fine with what you said earlier, if we shift the costs from our wars etc to a gas tax, you’re right, over all we would be paying less. But that is in the aggregate, which is somewhat abstract and hard to conceptualize. People will just be seeing the gas tax and thinking they’re paying a lot more. But regardless of whether or not they’re actually paying more, I think the most important point is that we as a people are willing to do what it takes to get us off oil. The truth is this might involve us artificially putting costs on ourselves that exceed what we’re paying now in the aggregate. It might not, but it might, and we have to be willing to do it anyway even if it is more painful than the status quo.
“No, no you can’t. “Everybody” doesn’t win. Have you seen what black unemployment rates looked like before this recession? Take a look. It is a better deal for individual Mexicans, but not for America, or for Hispanic American citizens who are already here.” –Fred
Yeah, sorry for the oversimplification on my part. Everybody certainly doesn’t win. The people who don’t win are the poor, unskilled American workers who can’t compete with Mexican immigrants. But while I think that sucks, you’ve got to ask yourself, who has it worse: a poor dude in Mexico or a poor dude in the United States? Then you’ve got to ask yourself another question: will keeping the poor Mexican out somehow help the poor American? It seems like this argument could be made at every wave of immigration this country has ever had, and yet we’ve been the better off for it. Also, the point you made about black unemployment rates is a bewildering non sequitor. Does the recession have something to do with immigration that I’m missing?
“If labor can’t flow across borders with the same ease as capital, “free trade” is a sinister joke.” –DuBois
Huh? Free trade is the free flow of capital. Uninhibited immigration is the free flow of labor. Together they are the free flow of supply and demand. I don’t know how to rebut your point because I don’t know what you mean. How does the fact that labor moves across borders slower than capital invalidate the advantages to either being free flowing and fungible?
“But the taxes and to some extent the externality costs are somewhat progressive in their application: the rich pay more. Most of us would like to keep it that way. The United States has such a hugely regressive economic system these days that I donlt think we should do anything to make it even worse.” –Jon F
One of the problems I have with my fellow liberals is that we focus too much on anything that is flat or regressive. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important to focus on these issues, but one can go too far. A gas tax would indeed hit the poor harder than the rich, but there is nothing we can do about this ugly fact. To some extent, this is an inescapable burden of the poor–everything hits them harder. But if you are not willing to pay that price, nothing can be done on a national scale.
“Let’s see: I’d like to see more black people be able to get jobs. You’d like to see them knocked off the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder by illegal immigrants. And I’m the racist?” –Fred
I don’t think anyone here is a racist, and we should just stop the silly name calling. Again, a common misconception among my compatriots of the left is that jobs are zero-sum: if I gain one, you lose one. This is not how it works. Machines, illegal immigration and better technology massively improved the efficiency of agriculture. Two hundred years ago, something like 98% of this country worked in agriculture. Those jobs are all lost. Do we have a 98% unemployment rate? No, because people move on and learn new things.
Also, there seems to be a fundamentally illiberal (and worse, nationalist) force at play here. If person X is willing to work harder, longer, and for cheaper than person Y, who are you or anyone else to deny person X that job? Another thing illiberal about this is the implication that black people need your special protection. Genetically, race does not exist. What we think of as race is a social concept. Those we call black are humans like the rest of us, and are just as smart, capable and hard working as you or me. Somehow I think they’ll survive immigration.
“What a great boil-the-ocean suggestion! Why enforce laws against hiring illegals and build a real fence along the border (infrastructure! stimulus!) when we can just turn Mexico into a first world country instead! Why didn’t anyone else think of that? Maybe because we have no power to make the reforms that Mexico needs to develop. But Mexicans do — Mexico is a democracy, last time I checked. If Mexico hadn’t been able to export its poor here for decades maybe it would have tackled its dysfunctions already. Instead, it’s on the verge of collapse. More Mexicans have been killed in the country’s drug wars in the last year than Americans were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.” –Fred
The drug war is stupid and should be axed. I think we’re all in agreement there. You’re right to note that we can’t magically turn Mexico into a 1st world country. But it’s getting there. And I find the notion that if Mexico didn’t emigrate many citizens to America it would in a significantly better state than it is now to be a rather dubious assertion. It’s not neccessarily wrong, but I see no reason to believe why this would be the case. Can you explain?
February 28th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Smarmy Liberal,
Ok, at this point we are really in agreement. There will be some pain. I’m mostly thinking of liberal proposals to minimize that pain at the low end of the income scale, but yes we need to get off of oil and there will be some pain and dislocation. I do think that far less pain is needed than we, as a country generally imagine.
February 28th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Yeah, I’m sure you would like to see more black people employed, just as long as the affirmative action you hate so much isn’t used. I also love how you tell people what they believe and can magically read their minds. When the only thing you’re in favor of on the basis of helping black people is deporting brown people, there is a good chance you are a racist.
As long as poor Mexicans have the incentives to come here illegally, they will come here. Expecting a border fence to work in the long-run is just plain utopian. Surprise: the market will respond and new ways of getting past the border will be developed. The money that would go into building a border fence could just as easily be re-directed to developing majority-black communities. Also, infrastructure – bridges, tunnels, electrical grids, roads, canals, etc. – are things which improve economic efficiency when done right. They help make capital and labor more mobile. A border fence doesn’t do this.
Are there things we do in the US that depress wages in Mexico? Yep. Can we stop doing them? Yep, unless you think we should always have farm subsidies and drug criminalization. Ending these things won’t turn Mexico into a rich nation overnight, but they can help.
You really seem to make yourself go crazy over the oddest things. It’s amusing to see. What is it like living as a racist loser punchline for liberals to point and laugh at?
Also Smarmy Liberal, since you’re new here, you should know Fred has a long history arguing that black people are genetically inferior on an intellectual level than white people and also tends to link to hate sites.
A lot of the problems associated with illegal immigration tends to be caused by the illegality side of the equation. It simply forces people underground. When people have to live underground and in the midst of black markets, problems occur. Conservatives used to understand this and would use this as arguments for de-regulation. A legal immigrant with the same skills as an illegal immigrant would be more likely to see their wages rise over time, thus meaning that the legal immigrant would no longer be competing directly with poorer people. Liberals want to bring immigration law into alignment with how people actually live and thus negate the black market effects of illegality.