Who Needs Policy Ideas?
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One thing we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas right now. ~Rush Limbaugh
Not to worry–there seems to be no great danger of this “better policy idea” approach catching on anytime soon, but this is a practical suggestion that everyone who wants to heed Limbaugh’s words can follow. Yes, this is something you can do every day from the comfort of your own home. You can do this without getting up in the morning. Indeed, you can do this in your sleep, or perhaps even in a vegetative state. The latter would be the most appropriate condition in which to do this, as the higher brain functions will have already ceased, and you will never become aware of just how unsuccessful an approach Limbaugh’s recommended course of action really is.
If we want to take it seriously, there are two ways to take Limbaugh’s statement. He is either saying that conservatives cannot possibly come up with better policy ideas, so there’s no point in trying, or he is claiming that policy ideas are entirely irrelevant to all of conventional American politics*. If he meant it in the first way, there are two options for conservatives: surrender or wait until Democrats fail and try to pick up the pieces. If he meant it in the second way, this would seem to be an endorsement of an even more intensified use of gimmickry, phony populist rhetoric and symbolic biography politics.
* I am willing to grant that policy ideas and issues generally are not as important as many of us would like them to be in determining electoral outcomes, and for many swing and late-deciding voters they have little role at all in influencing voting behavior, but it seems crazy for any movement that is at all concerned with electoral politics to ridicule the work of developing policies as something detrimental to electoral success.
Update: In one of those priceless moments, Limbaugh said near the beginning of his endless speech that the Preamble to the Constitution says that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights,” revealing the sort of historical and constitutional illiteracy I have come to expect from his sort. Naturally, the geniuses at CPAC gave him their Defender of the Constitution Award. This is what you get from people who so cherish the Constitution and Declaration that they cannot remember what phrases belong to which document.
Second Update: Another truly bizarre element of Limbaugh’s remarks is the idea that liberals are somehow lacking in optimism. Optimism has been a constant theme in Limbaugh’s rambling for years, but in light of Jindal’s oddly-framed speech (“the American people can do anything!”) there seems to be this weird trend in trying to outdo the Hopemonger himself in optimism. Of course, optimism is the very last thing we need, and we have had far, far too much already.
Filed under: politics
Everything is style, nothing is substance. Isn’t that the modern Republican Party. If the optics are right then Republicans win. Of course that is joined with the odd idea that Conservatism is somehow an objective truth. There are too many conflicting ideas in the rhetoric of Republicans these days.
The Democrats didn’t win with ‘better policy ideas’. They won because the Republicans screwed up and the voters decided to give the other party a chance.
The Democrats are already starting to overreach in their own way. I think this is one of the best points in Limbaugh’s speech, as it has been largely overlooked in the internal Republican debate.
Returning to the quote itself, your version isn’t accurate.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030209/content/01125106.guest.html
Well, the one thing, and there are many, but one thing that we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas right now.
The ‘right now’ is a bit muted on the video, but it’s audible if you listen for it.
I did listen to it, and I agree that he swallows the last two words. It makes no difference, but I will correct the quote accordingly. He makes it quite clear that he is mocking the very idea of discussing policy at the present time, and that is a ridiculous position to take. There is no better time to be developing competing policy ideas, and it is a sorry state of affairs when the Democrats’ good fortune of GOP misrule is taken as some kind of model for GOP revival.
In one of those priceless moments, Limbaugh said near the beginning of his endless speech that the Preamble to the Constitution says that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights,†revealing the sort of historical and constitutional illiteracy I have come to expect from his sort.
I noticed that the second time I read the transcript. (I haven’t listened to the whole speech.)
That’s far from the worst bit of nonsense. What most impresses me is Limbaugh’s apparent amnesia for the policies of the last administration. He rages against ‘the TARP’ as if it were the progeny solely of Obama and the Democrats. Then this:
Except the wards of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who were given homes that everybody knew they could never pay for, and now Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the architects along with Bill Clinton of the policy that gave us the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis, get to sit around and act as innocent spectators to investigate what went on when they largely had the biggest role in causing it. [The transcript has 'words' instead of 'wards', but I'm assuming transcriber error.]
Congressman Frank’s definition of affordable housing is you get a house you don’t have to pay for that everybody else in the neighborhood will pay for. Why? Because it’s unfair that some people can have a house and some people can’t. Geez, it’s just unfair. So here we have two systems. We have socialism, collectivism, Stalin, whatever you want to call it, versus capitalism.
And Bush’s ‘ownership society’ falls on which side of that divide?
I did listen to it, and I agree that he swallows the last two words. It makes no difference, but I will correct the quote accordingly.
I think it makes a big difference to understanding Limbaugh’s point, and makes at least some of your initial criticisms into straw men.
I’d like to elaborate, but I’m about to retire for the evening. Perhaps we can continue the discussion tomorrow.
Daniel, when I think of “better policy ideas” I think of Newt Gingrich or Jack Kemp babbling about some technocratic, gimmicky, half way, me too proposal.
I think I agree with Rush but maybe differently than he meant it. The way to oppose the stimulus is to oppose the stimulus not come up with some “better” alternative. Obviously the Republicans have little credibility opposing spending, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the terrible problem for Republicans/conservatives is that what you call “gimmickry, phony populist rhetoric and symbolic biography politics” doesn’t work so well anymore. The public is bored with it, or anyway, those swing and late-deciding voters are. The rest of the public either loves it or hates it, but they’re unpersuadables.
Thus, the conservative movement finds itself bereft of EITHER policy OR gimmicks. They literally got nothing.
“Daniel, when I think of “better policy ideas†I think of Newt Gingrich or Jack Kemp babbling about some technocratic, gimmicky, half way, me too proposal.”
I agree. I’ve never understood why people claim Gingrich is the “ideas man”; his image as a technocrat always seemed kind of half-baked, and mostly to do with his time out of office, when he wrote about his futurist ideals. But otherwise, if you are comparing him to the other side of the aisle for sheer intricate (or byzantine if that’s your take) legislation, you really can’t compare. Even the Contract for America’s “radical” ideas such as term limits were rebaked from populist platforms a 100 years before.
Hey Sean! I wrote a significant part of the Regulatory Reform component of the Contract for America. Say what you will about The Contract in general, my part at least was not cribbed from William Jennings Bryn.
The problem with the Contract and similar phenomena is that unlike left reforms, they don’t have greedy continuing constituencies endlessly defending and expanding them.
This is the same Rush Limbaugh who three days earlier was telling his listeners they should NOT go after Bobby Jindal on the basis of style.
“This is the same Rush Limbaugh who three days earlier was telling his listeners they should NOT go after Bobby Jindal on the basis of style.”
Whatever serves his turn at the moment is what he says. If praising poorly-executed but allegedly “substantive” presentations helps his interests, he’ll do that, and if mocking the formulation of policy alternatives gives him an angle, he’ll do that. As I’ve said before, the man is a disgrace, and if the movement anoints him as their champion they will endure even more humiliating defeats in the coming months and years.
I thought Andrew Bacevich’s Limits of Power did a good job of showing how the much ballyhooed optimism of Reagan was not conservatism, delayed our reckoning with big government, oil dependency, and big deficits, and is a major cause of our current troubles in general.
“I wrote a significant part of the Regulatory Reform component of the Contract for America.”
Gordianus, no offense to you in particular, but from a conservative standpoint most federal regulation should go away because it is not authorized by the Constitution. So “reforms” that are less than that are inherently “gimmicky.” Carbon emission credits as a quick off the top of my head example.
I don’t naively believe that the public wants to phase out federal regulations not specifically authorized in the Constitution, but that is the conservative’s dilemma. Half measure ideas concede the liberal premise and concede the moral high ground.
I am not sure what Daniel meant by better policy ideas. Closing down the Fed and the IRS, returning to sound money and actually following the Constitution are certainly better policy ideas, but they are not what I generally think of when I think of “policy ideas.â€
Whatever one may think of Rush, I think he was right here in a certain way. Better policy ideas are likely not the way to defeat Obama. Opposing his stupid ideas and then pointing the finger after we crash and burn are.
I obviously agree with the general notion that “conservatives†are idea bereft and this is not a good thing.
if the movement anoints him as their champion they will endure even more humiliating defeats in the coming months and years.
Humiliation doesn’t seem like a strong enough word. There’s something horrible about watching people who style themselves conservative thinkers, writers and policy wonks appointing Rush Limbaugh–a dishonest, hypocritical showman–their leader. It doesn’t just open up the GOP to the possibility of humiliating defeats–it’s inherently degrading to glorify and take direction from someone who thinks that what you do is ridiculous and irrelevant. The analogy that leaps to mind is of young women who go to Hollywood intending to become actresses, and end up working for porn producers instead. Or maybe of revolutionary intellectuals who end up cranking out mindless propaganda on the orders of the uneducated and thuggish elements within their own movement.
“The problem with the Contract and similar phenomena is that unlike left reforms, they don’t have greedy continuing constituencies endlessly defending and expanding them.”
Which is to say, in a snide way, that they evidently don’t attract voters. I’ve never quite understood what electoral system people are running for when they suggest that popular pieces of legislation being, well, popular, is a bad thing. Now we can get into other issues of whether a piece of legislation is bad, good, or indifferent, but from a purely electoral standpoint, people voting for legislation they want is ideally what the system is set up to do.
If you wish to change what people desire, than electoral politics is not your stomping ground. Someone once stated that politics is the excrement of action and it still rings true. For years Republicans, amongst others, have been convincing themselves that the changes that are happening politically are simply because of “judicial activism”, government fiat, and general acquiescence on the part of people. They refuse to accept that, on a cultural or demographic level, the game has shifted considerably and that this results for the dejure approval of things that have already been defacto for years. I’m not arguing that this is good or bad, but rather how it is.
Admittedly this is a tough row to hoe especially for those whom are attempting to win elections with a point of view that is, majority wise, no longer popular. Unlike certain groups that cordon themselves off from the world to build their own society of their own culture and mores, some want to rule based off being “right” (the so called “natural governing party” rhetoric), as opposed to winning elections. Until somebody builds their glorious Ayn Rand objectivist meritocracy, were all going to be stuck with what we got.
Red, regulation can only exist in relation to legislation. Regulations are supposedly the method by which legislation is implemented. So if you don’t want the Federal Government to legislate in a given area, citing a lack of Constitutional authority I’m with you 100%. We had a very different mission. We tried to make it more difficult to go beyond legislative intent. we also tried to make federal agencies justify both the necessity and the methodology of rule making. Unless you propose a cessation of all legislating, you need to make rule making/regulation more rational and less onerous.
Sean, my point was that environmentalists, race and gender hustlers etc. for instance, organize around passing and enforcing idiotic reg’s that inhibit your freedom. You and your neighbors on the other hand, are not organized to protect yourselves. You can make a nice living off foundation money helping the government stick it to taxpayers. But there is no career path that is going to pay you as a taxpayer to protect yourself.
“You and your neighbors on the other hand, are not organized to protect yourselves.”
That seem’s rather simplistic. And it also presumes theres this mysterious seam of Silent Majority voters out there to mine for Republican’s, or other third-parties. It’s possible, in fact it may be probable, that the majority is truly and surely NOT silent, and in fact is actively voting, donating, and volunteering for the other guys. Which means the issue is beyond trying to sell a product every two or four years. It’s far deeper, and culturally rooted than running TV ad’s or direct mailers can effect. Which poses far more significant problems than simply tinkering with the message.
People use to mock, and rightly so, left-wing groups made up of college students who proclaimed that they “spoke for the People”; Republicans are increasingly looking as ridiculous as they clearly don’t represent the cultural majority of the country. Clearly the work of renewal is beyond electioneering and to more substantial things, something that Daniel has touched up with ideas of cultural renewal and the like.
Sean, what I wrote was an attempt to set the record straight about the Contract for America from the perspective of someone who was involved. The mechanics of regulation are a small but significant aspect of American governance.
I did write: “You and your neighbors on the other hand, are not organized to protect yourselves.†I’ll try to explain this again. Interest groups are organized and funded to dominate the whole rule making process. They actually write the rules before you and your neighbors ever learn about them. In fact most rules pass into existence without the publics knowledge. The citizens learn about them only when found in violation.
I wrote nothing about “Mysterious seams” of “Silent Majority voters” or of “Renewal” or electoral politics for that matter. Sorry if my attempt to describe a very real if mundane process interfered with your manifesto.
“I did write: “You and your neighbors on the other hand, are not organized to protect yourselves.†I’ll try to explain this again. Interest groups are organized and funded to dominate the whole rule making process. They actually write the rules before you and your neighbors ever learn about them. In fact most rules pass into existence without the publics knowledge. The citizens learn about them only when found in violation.”
Except thats not true, and it can be found in the often public, very aggressive war that happens over the bevy of environmental, business, and labor regulations that are constantly in flux. Hell, litigation from either side of the debate is constant.
I’m not trying to write a “manifesto”; what I am trying to write is that your assertion that everyone is secretly being hoodwinked on regulations is nonsense. Not only is it nonsense, but it backs up the general attitude that the only reason why conservatives lose is because that somehow that voters all got bamboozled by those wily trust-fund babies on the left. Certainly that kind of thinking is incredibly convenient for the leadership that led everyone into this mess into the first place, as they can continue to blame boogeymen on the left for their own incompetence.
Sean, if you think the average citizen is keenly aware of proposed regulations in the Federal Register, or his states equivalent, and is mobilized to defend his interest before they are adopted, then I suppose we must be living in different Republics. The interests who collude with government regulators in drafting and modifying regulations have access that individual citizens just don’t have. If you don’t believe me, pick up the phone and try to reach any senior regulatory official in the Federal Government, then try your State Government. I’ve been in offices when calls from the non-profit pro-regulatory got right through. I’ve never been interrupted by a mere citizen. Or try this, go to Starbucks and ask all the people you meet what the fine per day they can expect if their oil tank leaks. Think they’ll know? Or just ask them who their State Senator is.
You write “Litigation from either side of the debate is constant.” It sure is. And your point is? The fact that the legal profession is paying their kids way through Yale on the fees we pay to prevent the government from over regulating us is hardly proof of a successful system. Do you imagine that litigation is carried on by private citizens? When the Sierra Club pushes for regulations that affect your property and that will also increase the budget of the Department of Environmental Protection, just who’s side do you think the Department will take, yours of the Sierra Clubs? This is a tough one, think hard.
The Regulatory Reform portion of the Contract was just an attempt to make litigating to get your property back less necessary. It was to provide some balance in the rule making process. Have you read it by the way?
Once again you impute stances and motives to me that are not mine and do not appear in the text. Did I write that anyone was “hoodwinked?” Where did the “Trust fund babies” come from? You seem to be confusing me with someone from the Business Round Table, or the RNC.
My recommendations were drawn from case studies drawn from all Fifty States and several foreign countries. They don’t reflect a dishonest system(s) so much as over-lawyered, lazy, and politically correct ones. Nowhere did I find citizen participation welcomed or powerful.
For instance, in one State I studied, individual citizens have had the power to formally propose regulations for decades. Not one was ever proposed. Several States have sunshine provisions on regulations making State Departments re-propose regulations. Yet even though enforcement of these rules is the basis of their authority, state agencies needed to be reminded to re-propose their own reg’s.
You seem to have a problem with “The leadership” whomever they may be. If you understood these things you would perceive that the regulatory system consists of the bureaucracy and the special interests manipulating the system to their own advantage. They share the same culture and values. “The leadership” of both parties have no incentive to change it because they both benefit from their occasional power to intervene.
“Do you imagine that litigation is carried on by private citizens? When the Sierra Club…”
Well considering the Sierra Club is made up of members who donate, or pay dues, then yes, it IS litigation made by citizens, albeit by joining common cause. The NRA is not significantly different, nor any number of other non-profits that are involved in a wide variety of litigation. Considering the sheer population of America, the formation of specific groups to pool and address issues of concern amongst people is reasonable, and in reality, the only realistic way handling such disputes. Why would I remake the wheel, for instance, by starting up my own 2nd Amendment lawsuit when I can donate to the NRA for the same cause?
“where did the “Trust fund babies†come from?”
From this line asserting that people”…can make a nice living off foundation money helping the government stick it to taxpayers.” Which I presume is talking about well heeled groups that are involved with litigation. My rejoinder might be slightly inaccurate, and maybe I should rephrase it to “lawyers of foundations paid for BY trust fund babies”.
I’m not asserting that everyone knows the tiniest bit of regulation, especially in industries or issues they may not work in. And the issue of people with low information on government on a Federal level, let alone a state level, I agree, is fairly sorry. But it seems that most people aren’t of the mind that regulations (or other refrains about earmarks, spending, etc) on a broad level are of that much concern. That’s mostly what I was getting at, and echoing my agreement with Daniel that it seems that regulatory reforms (in the direction of LESS) doesn’t seem to be setting electoral fires.