The Weakness Of Economic Conservatism
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I’m sorry, but people who say that they want small government yet refuse entitlement reform and a shrinking military budget are not to be taken seriously. ~Freddie deBoer
So that would leave maybe 30% of Republican voters and maybe three-quarters of the conservative movement. I’m trying to be as generous as I can, so I am counting those who are in favor of either entitlement reform or shrinking the military budget. The numbers would go down dramatically if we are requiring support for both. Freddie has much the same problem with Ruffini’s post that I did. He cannot accept the idea that “the standard conservative economic message is deeply popular with the American people and a political winner,” and this is not surprising–this message is not deeply popular and is not a political winner. It wasn’t even popular when times were good, and it is particularly not popular now. Someone could try to argue that it is nonetheless superior and right, but most voters do not agree. Republicans have prevailed in the past in spite of what is called “economic conservatism,” and not because of it. It has been cultural and social issues along with a (now destroyed) reputation for foreign policy competence that kept the GOP competitive and made Middle Americans into reliable supporters, and it was decidedly not the party’s economic policy that kept these voters from drifting away. Incidentally, this is what makes the push to embrace amnesty and and the call to abandon social conservatism so much more foolish than many other reformist proposals, because these are arguably the only things that hold the majority of the coalition together any longer.
I would add that the “standard conservative economic message” these days is not much of a message at all. Telling voters who pay more in payroll tax that their income tax rates won’t go up (which is all that McCain promised last year) and that someone somewhere is going to get a capital gains tax cut is not compelling to anyone, regardless of their real views on the size and role of government. Calling subsidies and tax credits for people who do pay payroll taxes “welfare” is not going to win anyone’s vote. This is one of the most crucial problems with the Plumberization of the right: the basic complaint about tax policy at the core of the Myth of the Plumber is inaccurate at best. It isn’t just that conservatives rally around symbolic folk heroes, but that they do so in defense of a policy critique that isn’t really valid. In the end, the elevation of the Plumber is what happens when a party and movement are reduced to ridiculing the agenda of their opponents because they have no particularly compelling message of their own.
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3 Responses to “The Weakness Of Economic Conservatism”
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I think the message ran out of real estate. Speaking for myself, the doom and gloom that didn’t materialize during the Clinton years and then waiting for the morning that would never come during the Bush years made me at least re-examine my assumptions. Also, I think most Americans can understand and accept some disparity in incomes, but $1 mil in income and bonuses often exceeding 2 or 3 times the every man’s income put a real dent in the solidarity the GOP tried to establish amongst its coalition at all income levels. It was embarassing watching Obama and McCain last fall attempt to define middle class. Even Obama defining at $250K/yr income seemed to leave a lot of people worried about the poor only making $300K or whatever. Regardless, past a certain point, reasonable people say it is impossible to ‘earn’ a certain amount of income. To parallel your point, there are not an insignificant number of GOP voters receiving the EITC and there are many more getting the refundable portion of the child tax credit.
This is one of the most succinct and devastating critiques of the GOP I’ve read this year.
” It isn’t just that conservatives rally around symbolic folk heroes, but that they do so in defense of a policy critique that isn’t really valid.”
Face it Daniel, the whole conservative/Republican platform is riddled with policy critiques that aren’t valid. They are based on either social myths that have been invented or a least elevated to prominence to energize a particular group, or economic theories that are demonstrably flawed like supply side. The cupboard is bare. I could go through a list of policy propositions that basically don’t command majority support and even on a few like immigration reform where opinion is more equally divided the “conservative” solution isn’t remotely practical. All this is the result of 30 years of relentless polarization as a conservative strategy. The effect has been to harden the opinions of a declining demographic behind a bunch of propositions that are electoral poison. Take global warming. The vast majority of the country can see this is a problem, but conservatives have been able to create a minority narrative that it’s all a hysterical invention by democrats. The funding for this narrative came from energy companies who were looking to protect their interests rather as the tobacco companies did for forty years over cancer. In the process conservatism and its political arm the GOP has essentially become a prisoner of this minority supported narrative. One of it’s notable consequences has been the annihilation of Republican support amongst the 18-30 group where Democrats now outnumber Republicans two to one with electoral consequences that are going to be felt for 50 years. Frankly I don’t see a way out of this canyon for conservatives other than the total failure of the Obama administration which isn’t going to happen however much conservatives may hope for it. This hope which is so contrary the national interest is a measure of just how parlous is the condition of conservatism.