A “‘Heritage of the Left’ of the Right”
The political system enters a period of infinite regress:
In the wake of another chastening set of GOP defeats at the polls, Holtz-Eakin is now setting out to address those problems head-on. He’s developing a proposal for a new think tank that he describes as a “Center for American Progress for the right” — a reference to the liberal think tank that has supplied staff and policy proposals to the Obama administration and developed new ways to market its ideas. [...]
The irony, of course, is that the Center for American Progress itself was developed as a liberal answer to the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that has been a source of Republican policy ideas for decades. But Holtz-Eakin says established think tanks of the right, like Heritage and the American Enterprise Institute, were “not helpful” during the McCain campaign because they weren’t politically engaged or innovative in their media strategies.
That’s why Holtz-Eakin says he now looks to the Center for American Progress as a model. The center, headed by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John D. Podesta, combined a battery of domestic and foreign policy proposals with outreach innovations, such as hosting film screenings around the country and collecting e-mail addresses of people who sign up for the screenings.
This seems pretty misguided to me. In particular, DHE needs to think harder about the fact that there are already well-resourced conservative think tanks with plenty of capabilities. Before CAP came on the scene, there really wasn’t a “Heritage of the left.” On the right, Heritage and AEI already exist. The problem they face is that the conservative movement, as presently constituted, is not prepared to accept anything other than “tax cuts” as a solution to anything. Consequently, they’re not really even prepared to accept the premise that other problems exist. Tax cuts can’t solve climate change, so there must be no such thing! Tax cuts can’t curb inequality, so there must not be a problem with growing inequality.
If you’re a white guy looking to vent about how Puerto Rican women growing up poor in the Bronx get unfair advantages in life, the conservative movement has a lot to offer you. But otherwise there’s nothing there policywise. That’s not, however, because there are no organizations out there capable of developing or marketing policy. It’s because the movement has become unremittingly hostile to constructive policymaking. Everybody’s too busy cowering in fear from Rush Limbaugh to come up with anything.
25 Responses to “A “‘Heritage of the Left’ of the Right””
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May 27th, 2009 at 9:17 am
OK, but maybe starting a new think tank is the only way to get yourself a think tank that will generate and support new policies. In other words, if Heritage and AEI won’t budge, what else can you do but go around them?
May 27th, 2009 at 9:21 am
The Old Whores are looking as shopworn as Ann Coulter.
Time to bring out new, young, dewy-eyed whores.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Yeah, where does Holtz-Eakin fit into the pecking order at these think tanks? If he has no influence there, then its pointless to spend effort trying to make in-roads into an already hostile environment for his alleged ideas. That would take too many election cycles.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Oh, snap.
The thought occurred to me: the Tories only really got their groove back at the third attempt of embracing a kind of pragmatic libertarianism, but the UK doesn’t really have a dogmatic libertarianism. (I could snark about that, but won’t: the lay of the land is just not set up for libertarians.) In the US, though, you’ve got Paulites who pine for the 1890s and Cato market-libertarians and the Reason gang, which makes pragmatic social libertarianism subject to a purity critique.
Anyway, wingnut welfare ain’t what it used to be.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Maybe I’m just cranky, today, but it seems to me that the Democrats in Congress are the ones too busy cowering in fear from Rush Limbaugh to come up with anything.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Maybe I’m just cranky, today, but it seems to me that the Democrats in Congress are the ones too busy cowering in fear from Rush Limbaugh to come up with anything.
You’re just cranky. Have some coffee; it perked me up today.
Remember, it’s Republican legislators that levy a criticism of El Rushbo, and turn right around and apologize to him; a man who’s never ever held an elected position in his life.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:48 am
No no no, inequality is bad and tax cuts on the rich reduce it by letting the rich employ more people who then make more money, reducing inequality. Also, inequality is good because the people who have money worked harder for it than poor people worked and thus deserve to keep their money. Of course these two positions are not contradictory at all, or more to the point it doesn’t matter that they are contradictory because tax cuts are the answer to everything.
Also, I bet if we gave coal companies a tax cut they would use it to make green energy and solve climate change. And, since climate change doesn’t exist we should give the coal companies a tax cut so they can build more power plants.
See how it works? As long as you have a reflex reaction that tax cuts are the solution, and have the memory of a goldfish, conservatism makes perfect sense.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:50 am
The plethora of right wing ‘think tanks’ were foisted upon us in part by the right wing and business’ class’ frustration with the late 1960s and early 1970s academic and scholarly organizations who could no longer be counted on to crank out useful material, say, in recommending anti-union and anti-majoritarian economics, or in cheerleading for counter-insurgency among any vaguely independent nationalist movement anywhere in the world.
So it only makes sense that they would need to relaunch when the previous generation of propagandists proved less useful, which they appear to have so proven.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:57 am
“The problem they face is that the conservative movement, as presently constituted, is not prepared to accept anything other than “tax cuts” as a solution to anything.”
You forgot about torture!
May 27th, 2009 at 10:03 am
If you’re a white guy looking to vent about how Puerto Rican women growing up poor in the Bronx get unfair advantages in life, the conservative movement has a lot to offer you.
Funniest thing I’ve read in a month.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:15 am
[...] blogger Matthew Yglesias notes that the top economic advisor to John McCain’s failed presidential campaign, Douglas [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 10:16 am
What happened to Freedom’s Watch being the answer to MoveOn.org?
Repugnican’ts need a boogeyman to mobilize support. That said FW failed miserably. It helps to have a message as well.
We’ll have to see how Damnocrats imitating George W. Bush sells in the next election.
Private equity is having a field day under President Obama. Shadow bankers become real bankers? They could only hope under Georgepetto. Obama team granted their wish.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/27-3
May 27th, 2009 at 10:54 am
the conservative movement, as presently constituted, is not prepared to accept anything other than “tax cuts” as a solution to anything.
And war. Can’t forget war.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:05 am
[...] I wrote this morning “If you’re a white guy looking to vent about how Puerto Rican women growing up poor in the [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am
[...] Holtz-Eakin wants a conservative version of the Center for American Progress. But as Matt Yglesias points out, there are plenty of think tanks on the right, funded at levels beyond the left’s [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 11:30 am
I think you’re missing his point. AIE and Heritage are policy shops. Messaging isn’t their business. Republican messaging is very much cut off from their policy shops, while CAP does both.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Let me help you out with that, spoketown:
No no no, inequality is bad and tax cuts on the rich reduce it by letting the rich employ more people who then make more money, reducing inequality.
Gay people!
Also, inequality is good because the people who have money worked harder for it than poor people worked and thus deserve to keep their money.
Reverse racism!
Of course these two positions are not contradictory at all, or more to the point it doesn’t matter that they are contradictory because tax cuts are the answer to everything.
Terrorists!
Also, I bet if we gave coal companies a tax cut they would use it to make green energy and solve climate change.
9/11.
And, since climate change doesn’t exist we should give the coal companies a tax cut so they can build more power plants.
Fairness Doctrine.
See? You have to have an ear for these things.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
pseudonymous in nc
but the UK doesn’t really have a dogmatic libertarianism. (I could snark about that, but won’t: the lay of the land is just not set up for libertarians.)
Libertarian Party UK (LPUK)
http://www.lpuk.org
http://lpuk.blogspot.com/
There is, you just need to look.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
[...] Matt Y [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I have to make (yet) another bitch about the actual production of the post. When including pictures, could we please have a caption, or at least an intelligible “alternate text” tag for the picture? I assume the photo in the post is of Holtz-Eakin… but there’s no way to know.
Minor in the grand scheme of things, and MY is far from the only bad actor here… but still. It really would be helpful to have a good label on pictures that appear.
May 27th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I thought Twitter was going to solve all of their problems.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
There is, you just need to look.
With a magnifying glass. The Monster Raving Loonies have a greater presence.
(Seriously, though, thanks for the links. But my point stands on the comparative presence and clout, in part because the the econo-libertarians of the Thatcher era seem mostly to be working for US non-profit free-market inherent-paradox foundations these days.)
May 27th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
“If you’re a white guy looking to vent about how Puerto Rican women growing up poor in the Bronx get unfair advantages in life, the conservative movement has a lot to offer you.”
That is really funny, but its so sad. Nobody gets better advantages the upper class WASPs. I know, because I was one of them. I really did have the academic performance to get into an Ivy League college. But if I didn’t, I’d have gotten in anyway through legacy issues. Nothing like White Man’s Welfare, baby! And if I screwed up, which I didn’t, I’d always have a job at daddy’s company. Daddy didn’t actually own it, but he was an executive and it was listed on the Dow Jones. I had to leave the East Coast just so I could live a real life without privilege and a safety net. I just couldn’t live with myself and those White Guy advantages. That’s why I’m in Colorado, there aren’t really any privileges here. You screw up here, and you’re hanging sheetrock with the Mexicans. And the Mexicans ain’t gonna care about your Ivy League degree. Welcome to reality, white boy. But that’s what I like about it here. I don’t get special treatment just because I’m white and my ancestors fought in the Revolution. I have to work for it, and that’s exactly how it should be. On the East Coast, I don’t have to try. Somebody will give me a job even if I don’t show up for it just because I’m an old school white boy.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:58 am
The movement has been unremittingly hostile to constructive governing for quite some time. There is no need for policy making if government is the problem.
Hence the total atherosclerosis.
June 1st, 2009 at 2:05 am
Matt:
I feel as though the people who provide millions to support AEI, Heritage, etc. are not inclined to be ideologically flexible in a way that would make a “CAP of the right” effective. That is, the current right-wing think tanks will not be able to break from the “tax cuts are the answer” model that you described, since this would break faith with their benefactors. Therefore, I think Holtz-Eakin may be correct. You cannot build on what currently exists because they are ideologically rigid, and so the answer is to start a 21st century, center-right organization. Certainly, there are plenty of wealthy, Rockefeller Republicans (and other people on the right) who can provide monetary support for such a venture.
As a political centrist – socially progressive, fiscally conservative, moderate on foreign policy – I would really welcome this. I think that the Think Progress blog alone is something the center-right needs; in addition to the absence of fresh ideas on the right, there has been a real lack of responsiveness to the left wing’s ideas, and it sounds like Holtz-Eakin has a vision for how to fill that vacuum.
Thoughts?