All Of This Has (Not) Happened Before…
Posted on October 22nd, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
|
The conservative movement at the time was disillusioned, and fearful that they’d need “time in the wilderness” in order to rethink and reform itself. Reagan was viewed as a mixed success at best — really! [bold mine-DL] The book’s third chapter is titled “The Failure of the Reagan Gambit,” and it details all the ways in which Reagan, the supposed small-government hero, disappointed conservatives by failing to reduce the size of federal government. Frum’s criticisms of Reagan aren’t quite as harsh as current complaints about Bush II, but they’re eerily similar. ~Peter Suderman
Peter’s own description of Reagan as the “supposed small-government hero” is telling, because it shows the degree to which we have reconciled ourselves to the reality that Reagan the Goldwaterite got lost along the way or perhaps was never as intent on shrinking the size of the federal government as many of his supporters hoped. Reagan was a mixed success, which was a lot better than some of the failures and complete wrecks that have followed since, but I think this is even more readily apparent to us today than it was in the ’90s when the Reagan mythology was already being constructed. The power of that mythology and the Reagan nostalgia that has gripped the GOP and conservatives since his passing have served to discourage reflection and self-criticism, as if all we needed to do was to get right with Reagan and then all would be well. To a large extent, that ignored the extent to which Reagan the President had not been right with the Reagan the Myth.
As with Bush, one of the main things conservatives could look back on with satisfaction was the reduction in income taxes, which was obviously much more dramatic and significant under Reagan. In foreign affairs, it was truly a mixed bag, and this would be true regardless of which side of the debate you were on: nuclear arms reductions went along with needless deployments, questionable backing of guerrilla forces in various flashpoints around the globe and rather dodgy arms deals took place alongside some important public diplomacy and covert support for dissidents. On immigration, Reagan signed off on a disastrous amnesty that Bush was not able to repeat; in this one respect, Reagan was demonstrably worse than Bush. That being said, Reagan left office as a popular President presiding over generally good economic times who quickly became a widely-respected former President, and most of the conservative discontent in the early ’90s was focused on his rather squishier successor in the midst of an economic downturn. Things are clearly much worse for the GOP and conservatives today than they were in 1992. Management, competence, responsibility–all of these words that might have once been associated with the GOP no longer are, and Republicans find themselves largely discredited in the eyes of the majority in both foreign affairs and economic policy.
It is fair to say that Republicans–and conservatives–have not faced a situation like this one since the eve of the 1964 landslide loss. While the result will not be that lopsided, this will probably be the second-worst defeat of a Republican presidential ticket since WWII, and it will be the first time in over a century that Republicans are not going to win an open presidential election. Unlike Goldwater 1964, however, McCain has no coherent message and leaves no legacy to be seized on later. There are times when parties lose elections badly but find a coherent set of arguments that can make them competitive soon thereafter, and then there is the case of the Tories after 1997 as they stumbled and bumbled from one leader to the next as obsessed with Europe as McCain and the rest of the GOP leadership have been obsessed with earmarks. The GOP’s alienation of the rising cohort of 18-29 year olds, which it was always going to have difficulty with because of demographic and cultural changes within that cohort, is going to reverberate for decades to come, even though it is the youngest voters who have the greatest incentives to respond to a new agenda of entitlement reform and fiscal responsibility. The GOP is going to find itself increasingly saddled with ageing Boomer voters who will reject the kind of policy innovation that is needed to offer a coherent alternative.
Filed under: politics
10 Responses to “All Of This Has (Not) Happened Before…”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
this will probably be the second-worst defeat of a Republican presidential ticket since WWII, and it will be the first time in over a century that Republicans are not going to win an open presidential election.
What do you mean “open presidential election?” Kennedy won an election where the President was not running for re-election.
If by open you mean that no President nor Vice-President was running, we haven’t had one of those since at least 1952, so there is going to be a rather small sample size.
and then there is the case of the Tories after 1997
Err, unless there was a recent Tory Resurgence that I missed, I think you mean 1797. :)
Well, the latter is exactly what I mean, because that’s what an open presidential election is. The sample size is small, but open elections as I mean them account for four of the last 29 elections (they were 1896, 1920, 1928, 1952) and the GOP has won them all and won them handily. Maybe this is just coincidence or contingent on particular factors unique to each election, but it is true. The last time the GOP lost an open presidential election was to Grover Cleveland in 1884. It doesn’t happen that often.
I’m going to argue that conservatives need to spend time in the wilderness in order to shake things out within the “conservative umbrella.” Right now the conflict between authoritarian conservatism (Neo-Cons) and the civic republicansim/libertarian strand of conservatism (Paleo-cons) is real and deep. Many of my fellow students who classify themselves as conservatives reject the former for the latter. Now whether this is due to the current national unpopularity of the former remains to be seen. But the fact of the matter is that many young conservatives want to have this debate.
Secondly, I would argue that this time in the wilderness can be highly beneficial to conservatism. I see it as a blank slate and a time where people can honestly ask the question of “What is worth conserving?” And I just cannot seem to believe a majority of conservatives choosing the last 30 years of neo-con dominance as something worth preserving. Furthermore, it is plausible that neo-conservatism is a historical anomaly that thrives off of the Cold War and harsh anti-communism. The Bush Administration has tried to replace communism with terrorism, but it is not sticking. This is clearly a good thing. By conservatives spending time in the wilderness, conservatives are forced to have a substantive debate over the future of conservatism. Nobody wants to be on the outside looking in (Tories from 1997-present) and I hope the urgency creates solid discourse.
ISI, AmCon, AmSpec and others are putting in solid work, but Frum and the boys at National Review (slowly morphing into The Weekly Standard 2.0) are churning out book after book defending big government conservatism. We have also seen this with Douthat and Salam (Grand New Party), but not real substantive response to that (in book form). I’ve yet to come up with an answer (other than ‘nothing’) to “what is worth conserving about big government intervention?” With the GOP likely getting drubbed in a couple weeks, it presents traditional conservatives with their best opportunity since Goldwater to make a push to shift the debate back to where it rightfully belongs.
And I guess the question that remains is how to shift the debate.
There are times when parties lose elections badly but find a coherent set of arguments that can make them competitive soon thereafter, and then there is the case of the Tories after 1997 as they stumbled and bumbled from one leader to the next as obsessed with Europe as McCain and the rest of the GOP leadership have been obsessed with earmarks. The GOP’s alienation of the rising cohort of 18-29 year olds, which it was always going to have difficulty with because of demographic and cultural changes within that cohort, is going to reverberate for decades to come
__________________________________________________
In fact, the main obsessions of the GOP leadership are those very cultural factors that will continue to alienate the 18-29 year olds. In the real world (that of JSP), the argument about gay rights has been over for some time. Most major companies offer benefits to same sex partners. People in the real world understand, by and large, that abortion is a complex and often highly personal issue. The god/gays/guns approach is a guaranteed loser with this age group.
I suppose you could assume that pre-1968 elections are relevant to the current state of play for Republicans and Democrats. However, if you look at the electoral maps, it is obvious that the two parties have flipped constituencies. The South used to be the Democrats’ stronghold, while the northeast and west coast belonged to Republicans. It is now the exact opposite.
Also, I have been anti-Republican since I became eligible to vote in 1996. However, I am generally dissatisfied with democrats as well and I am not registered with either party. I voted for BJ Lawson this year because I found a number of his arguments very persuasive. If you want to know the most appealing conservative arguments to young people that literally hate Bush and the modern Republican party, here goes:
Federalize abortion rights (I personally believe that abortion should be legal in the first 3 months or first 5 months in case of rape or abortion, but I am tired of the culture war)
Federalize gay marriage (abandon the Constitutional amendment)
Reform drug laws and punishments
Reduce the size of the military and militaristic adventurism
Simplify the tax code (especially remove the tax supports for home ownership)
Stop subsidies for big agriculture (I am especially opposed to the subsidies that artificially lower the price of corn syrup and animal feed)
Increase government transparency, especially with regard to the justice department and actions of the executive branch
Eliminate domestic surveillance, illegal detention, and torture
Increase the penalty for white collar crime and the ability to seize the assets of those that profit through fraud
Refocus the prison system to rehabilitation. I personally favor a prison system that better sorts criminals: level 1: murderers and violent rape, level 2: non-violent rape, manslaughter, attempter murder, level 3: armed robbery, violent assault, level 4: domestic violence, unarmed burglary and theft, fraud. I am not sure of the exact levels, but I would allow prisoners to move up and down levels based on behavior and desire to participate in job training and education. Upon release, I think criminals should be identified by which type of facility they were released from, which would be indicative of their efforts at rehabilitation.
Anyways, the modern Republican party is nauseating to most educated young people due to its tribalism, corruption, bigotry, cronyism, and favoritism to the aristocracy. However, it is not necessarily because we love democrats, who are also seen as corrupt, big business toadies with no backbone.
“In fact, the main obsessions of the GOP leadership are those very cultural factors that will continue to alienate the 18-29 year olds. In the real world (that of JSP), the argument about gay rights has been over for some time.”
The argument never really began, in part because the GOP leadership isn’t “obsessed” with the issue. Moral conservatives have lazily assumed they didn’t have to argue the distasteful matter, which has been more advanced by the normalization of internet pornography than by rational debate.
ncbrian,
As a young conservative, 21 years old, I feel I should respond to your post above.
“If you want to know the most appealing conservative arguments to young people that literally hate Bush and the modern Republican party, here goes:
Federalize abortion rights (I personally believe that abortion should be legal in the first 3 months or first 5 months in case of rape or abortion, but I am tired of the culture war)”
I know of very few conservatives that want to keep abortion rights federalized. Many of them just hate the automatic religious attachment to the GOP’s response to Roe and Casey. They feel that people can make a compelling argument that rejects the right to privacy argument made by Blackmum (oddly, Ginsburg rejects the right to privacy argument). They feel that conservatives can make a strong Constitutional right to life argument, as well as an argument against violent action of a human. And instead of religious evidence, conservatives should use scientific evidence that goes along the lines of a fetus is a human regardless of viability. A single celled fetus is ultimately a very immature form of a human. Because of this, abortion should not be constitutionally protected because the right to life is an unalienable right. Of course the response is that liberty is as well, and women should have the liberty to abort their fetuses. However, the right to life trumps the right to liberty in this instance because without life, you cannot have liberty. Ideally, young conservatives want this issue back at the state level where it can be better debated and many different abortion laws can be experimented with to see what is best.
“Federalize gay marriage (abandon the Constitutional amendment)”
Again, young conservatives do not want to see *any* marriage federalized. Marriage is a states issue. Young conservatives see any law prohibiting gay marriage as simply discriminatory. If conservatives want to reduce gay marriage, churches and social groups should be the ones discouraging it. Not the government.
“Reduce the size of the military and militaristic adventurism”
I wouldn’t say the young conservatives I have spoken with would advocate the reduction of the size of the military, but rather, stop the rampant interventionism from both parties. The idea of “unforeseen externalities” or as Chalmers Johnson puts it, blowback, runs deep in young conservatives philosophies. Foreign Policy is currently the main example of this. Many of us have grown up during an era where government decisions have had serious consequences that our generation has to deal with. Government programs such as Social Security is running out of money. Government interventions during the Cold War coming back in the form of terrorism. Government intervention in the housing markets through Fannie and Freddie. Government interventions in our personal life via Patriot Act. I can go on and on. And young conservatives are simply saying “stop.”
I guess, simply put, young conservatives want to see a gradual return to federalism. But they don’t want the GOP doing it right now because the GOP is incompetent. Nobody is patient enough to let it happen. I have talked to many young conservatives, older conservatives, and some moderate liberals who are sympathetic to federalism. But conservatives really have to make a push to make their ideas easily digestible to the masses, but intellectually powerful enough to stand rigorous analysis. It is definitely possible, but has to be done right. I think this is where traditional conservatives should be focusing.
I appreciate the response. For the record, I am much more of a moderate liberal than any type of conservative. I was attempting to lay out common ground for conservative ideas that will appeal to the non-ideologues of my age group. Most of us associate Republicans with corrupt, lying jerks with faux sincerity. However, we associate democrats as the go along to get along crowd that is more interested in gaining power than accomplishing anything. It is probably not as hard to win over our age group as some think because the democrats don’t have any major accomplishments to win our allegiance. When I listen to BJ Lawson, I find his sincerity compelling. I agree with some of his positions, though I certainly don’t agree with everything he says. For instance, I have a PHD and generally believe in the value of government funded research, but I doubt that Lawson is in favor of such funding. However, I voted for him anyway, because I believe he would stand up for what he believes in relative to interventionism, individual liberty, and government transparency. In contrast, his opponent is a government insider who has lost touch with his constituency. I suppose a sincere commitment to improving government is more important than any individual policy in my opinion.
As for abortion, I think every abortion is a tragedy and that abortion should never be encouraged. If one of my family members were to consider abortion, I would strongly persuade them not to get one. However, phiolosophically, I don’t think a fetus obtains personhood until they achieve self awareness. I don’t know when that occurs, but I think it is safe to say the morning after pill would end a pregnancy prior to the fetus obtaining agency. On the other hand, by three months, I believe that fetuses develop distinctly human attributes and should be assumed to have agency.
As a man, I don’t think I could contemplate the emotions of becoming pregnant from incest or rape, so I think those women should be given more time to recover from the shock and embarassment before choosing whether to give birth to the child. However, I would defer to women who have undergone that experience to inform policy.
I also have strong concerns about self-induced or back alley abortions that might lead to permanent damage or death. Since I know abortion would be legal in some states, I don’t have a problem with federalism on this issue. In general, I think all life is sacred and treated too cavalierly. I have been a vegetarian for a number of years and I don’t think God ever bestowed gave humankind the authority to engage in factory farming meat production. While I believe in granting women the ability to have abortions in the first trimester, I would certainly not encourage them to have an abortion in any situation. I also have strong ethical concerns about the practice of in-vitro fertilization and I think it is completely hypocritical to oppose the morning after pill and support in vitro methods.
As far as the defense budget, I don’t know why we would need to spend so much on our military in the absence of interventionism. We are already spend much more than any other country and I don’t foresee any threats of invasion.
[...] Is it 1976? October 28, 2008, 10:04 am Filed under: conservatism, politics So Ross Douthat had a fair amount of fun with the suggestion that the apparent relevance to our present situation of a 1992 piece announcing the “death of conservatism” somehow reflects well on its argument. And he’s right. But as Daniel Larison pointed out the other day, 2008 is pretty clearly a much worse year for the electoral prospects of political conservatives than was 1992 (or 1995, or 1998), and is much more likely to lead to the sort of wallow through the wilderness that folks across the spectrum have been anticipating with a range of emotions spanning amusement, excitement, discouragement, and downright dread. An unpopular party with its leadership mired in scandal and its agenda defined more by resentment than legislative seriousness, huge and growing Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, domestic discord and international strife, a flagging economy, and a hugely unpopular war which only the Democrats have come around to oppose … all the ingredients are there for a long-term liberal realignment. [...]