Is it really a press conference if there’s no one there (and other thoughts)?
F29th has the latest on Kuhl’s absurd “Fix Washington” program:
Today’s Messenger-Post has a story on Randy Kuhl’s “Fix Washington” program. Kuhl held a press conference on Friday to announce the program, but nobody spoke because no press showed up.
Rotten also points out that this program is part of a larger Republican “rebranding” exercise. You see, Republicans don’t think they’re in trouble with the pubic because they’ve lied us into a disastrous war, given away trillions of dollars to the wealthiest Americans, and botched the response to every single domestic threat that has come their way (from Hurricane Katrina to the childhood obesity epidemic)…no, Republicans believe they’re in trouble with the public because they don’t have a catchy enough slogan. Come up with a killer tagline like “Fix Washigton” and all the dead bodies and wasted money will be forgotten, right?
A wiser neoconservative, George Packer of the New Yorker, has penned an article about the fall of conservativism. He and others describe the modern conservative movement as “intellectually bankrupt” which isn’t quite accurate since it suggests that the movement once had some intellectual capital. It didn’t — it has been a crock and a sham since its inception at the hands of Goldwater and Nixon.
One of the things I found most telling in the article were the thoughts of conservative intellectuals (something of an oxymoron, I realize) about how to save their movement and, among the sharper ones, where it went wrong. Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam suggest that if the Republicans can dupe enough working class Americans into voting Republican using bogus “cultural issues”, then the party can survive. Sounds like more marketing with no real product development to me. These comments from David Brooks seemed to say the most, though, albeit unintentionally:
Brooks had moved through every important conservative publication—National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard—“and now I feel estranged,” he said. “I just don’t feel it’s exciting, I don’t feel it’s true, fundamentally true.” In the eighties, when he was a young movement journalist, the attacks on regulation and the Soviet Union seemed “true.”
Once it seemed true, now it doesn’t feel true. Where is the hard analysis, the facts? Is this the government of the most powerful country in the world or a meeting with a counselor? And remember, Republicans never even tried to pretend they cared about facts. Indeed, they lionized Bush for governing from the gut and not bothering to read up on issues.
At the end of the day, what has made the conservative movement such a complete and unmitigated disaster for the United States is that it was never based on anything other than feelings. The last 30 years have been the most expensive therapy session in the history of mankind.
Maybe their problem is that the neocon side was premised on beliefs that reducing government (and benefits) would somehow increase the wealth of its supporters. Although the very rich have gotten richer, the rest have not. And the “us versus them” approach to governing can only take the Republican/conservatives so far, before too many of their base become “them.” On the other hand, as they have screwed (and screwed up) one group of people after another, Democratic principles of increasing the welfare of all not only become more appealing, but necessary.
I love your ending line.
I like the therapy metaphor, too. It’s classic daddy issues, and the daddy is Reagan.
A quibble: the Conservative movement did indeed have some intellectual grounding and fundamental core issues in mind when it started, but they’re all the kind that only benefit them and the top of the food chain.
When it was clear that they couldn’t sway voters with a simple statement of their beliefs - and when it became clear that, for all their talk, men like William F Buckley weren’t so good at the “Thinking” - they spent a lot of money on “Think Tanks” which do precisely what you say: market messages in the absence of any genuine “R&D” in the ideas department.
So, while you seem to think John “The Boner” Boehner and his cronies are wrong in thinking they need new packaging, the truth is precisely that.
I don’t think the modern conservative movement ever had any intellectual grounding. More classical conservatism does and I think that someone like George Will does. It’s interesting that in this piece George Will criticizes conservatives who talk about the “conservative movement”. He doesn’t come out and say this, but I think it’s clear that he and his ilk feel that their style of thinking has little to do with what movement conservatives do.
I think there is a respectable intellectual tradition in conservatism. Will is probably an example of that tradition, as is perhaps Buckley, though he’s a mixed bag. The last bastion of intellectual conservatism that I know about is libertarians like the Reason magazine crowd, who at least has the intellectual rigor to stick to their principles even when the result of applying them to cases might not lead to outcomes that mainstream conservatives accept. Other than fringe groups, though, I agree that today’s mainstream conservative organs and “think tanks” do nothing but enforce orthodoxy.
That said, one of the real strengths of the article Exile cites is its ability to trace the line that goes from Nixon/Buchanan to Reagan to GWB/Rove. That form of “conservatism” just took the parts of intellectually grounded conservatism that sounded good and could be used to stitch together a coalition. “Small government” and “cut taxes”, for example, were used as rhetoric, not policy. Reagan and GWB grew the size of government, put cronies everywhere, and simply allowed the deficit to grow to avoid the politically risky move of raising taxes. And they used the social divisions of the 60’s to polarize the population and keep their majority bloc in line. The observation that the Republicans have been turning every Democrat into McGovern and running the 72 campaign playbook every election is a key insight.
A conservative values a person’s property, belongings, earnings and hard work. He or she feels that the government should only take what it has to, not what it wants to. A conservative does not want to set up programs where someone is on welfare not because they have to be but because they can or that keeps generation after generation on welfare. A conservative wants to see someone stand on their own two feet, not become a ward of the state. Wants school districts and teachers that really put the kids first and that will move our country back to the top as far as scholastic achievement is concerned. A conservative thinks that the primary role of government is defense, not handing out pork.
Have all conservative politicians lived up to what I want - absolutely not. But for the most part they believe in individual accomplishment, not the collective such as teachers’ unions or the welfare state where individual accomplishment is not rewarded or even frowned upon.
Also, I pointed to real, actual things: the failure of the war in Iraq, the massive budget deficits of the Bush era, the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, and you come back with some vague litany of things people complain about on talk radio.
I mean this to be constructive: conservatives need to focus on concrete facts and programs, not on bogeymen like teachers’ unions and welfare queens. And they need to make sure their elected officials do the same.
I agree with the first two sentences of what you said, Elmer. Individual liberty and property are important. Judging by concrete action, I don’t see that Republicans offer me a better deal than Democrats. In fact, government has tried to take more of my freedom in the last 7 years than it has under any Democratic administration of the last 30 years.
That’s hard to comprehend when the Conservative Party will not even interview or consider ANY candidate running that is not on the Republican ticket.
The leadership of the Conservative Party locally allowed themselves to become the shadow of the local GOP party leaders. By becoming the second level of the GOP, you lost the credibility of your own party and have now suffered the consequences of that action.
Sure, it was good for you when times were good and the majority elections went in your favor. But riding the coat tails of another means you lose your own identity, and in that process, your own credibility.
And because it’s been allowed to happen for SO many years, you have no more seperation. You ARE the republican party. Now you have to accept the fact that when they go down, you ride with them.
Your core beliefs are not only flawed, they are shattered. Perhaps someone within your ranks can pick up the pieces and reassemble something of independent leadership. It hasn’t happened in over 20 years in Monroe County. Somehow I doubt it will happen now. And even if the leadership of the Conservative Party did decide to step outside the box, it would only look like postering.
Don’t feel so bad. The past couple of years the Indies have done the same thing. Payback is a real itch.
Elmer, our point is not that traditional conservative beliefs themselves are flawed. But name a single thing that the modern conservative movement has accomplished.
not to mention the fact that if conservatives want small, laissez faire government and individual rights, why do they use the government to take/deny people’s rights and meddle in free market practices?