Your hope for America is a nation against taxation, against competence, against education and expertise, in which every state receives more in federal payments than it pays in federal taxes? Personified by a selfish, divisive, vindictive demagogue fundamentally ignorant of and disinterested in national and international issues beyond their immediate impact on her, personally? What tops the list of attractions? Her concern over witchcraft and right religion, her openness to secession or her impeccable family values?

Thank the lord of your choice that you’re among the shrinking 20%.

It’s clear to me that you’re saying all of that in good faith. But from where I sit, that represents such a massively flawed view of reality – not a logical flaw, not a flaw in terms of political philosophy (we differ there, but not in a way that precludes discussion – but rather rather a massive failure to accurately appreciate the real facts on the ground, so to speak, that any kind of discussion is impossible – certainly in the context of a blog comments section.

I don’t know what exactly this is referring to. I have hope for Palin as a politician, but more important than Palin the politician is who she represents. In lots of important ways she is the personification of Greater Red State America.

This might not be such a big deal in other circumstances, but right now the lack of lower-case Republican legitimacy in America is staggering, and it’s focus was the wholesale trahison des clercs against the (John) McCain campaign. The reestablisment of the sovereignty of Greater Red State America is not necessarily sufficient for anything but a necessary part of any kind of recovery for America, economically, culturally or otherwise.

Yes and no. There’s been a lot of mistakes over the last decade or so, but the loyalty is real. To see that, just take a look at this Mark Levin business and see who’s on which side. Levin is perceived, correctly, as having skin in the game defending the interest of Greater Red State America. That’s the only reason he’s being defended, and in ought to be pretty clear that Stacy is defending him on exactly these grounds.

With a few exceptions that’s more or less the problem with the various dissident conservatives. They have either consciously or otherwise repudiated the sovereignty of Greater Red State America. And it’s a particular issue with the paleos, whose aesthetic sense is commendable in some ways but as a practical matter is the driving force behind their mindless factionalism.

Actually, the fact that the situation is as dire as it is is what makes the whole thing work. Otherwise the tendency to play the game between the 40-yard lines would be too much.

Remember how Mitt Romney campaigned on the “three-legged stool”. Well, instead of that let’s think of a three-link chain. Theres Greater Red State America, linked to the movement conservative intelligentsia, linked to the GOP political establishment. All three links have adapted to the welfare state in various ways but none of them really like it.

The crooked timber of humanity has many flaws but adaptability is one of its singular virtues. In the next 3-5 years, the foundations of the entitlement state in America are going to be in play unlike they’ve been at any time since LBJ. The other team is going to be spending all their energy adding to the already heavy dead weight on the economy. But mainstream conservatives, and the three link chain that it’s a part of, has the talent _and the instinct_ to get us out of this jam.

But, even setting aside all of the factors that turned off moderates and even many center right conservatives, one would think that populist conservitives would have realized very early on, with her enthusiastic embrace of neoconservatism (in apparent contrast to some earlier paleo-friendly positions/statements), that Palin is, like so many other politicians of every political stripe, perfectly willing to accomodate herself the power structure as a means to gain political power.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the first two sentences are true. Why you think that the second sentence follows from that is a mystery to me. I mean, if the situation was significantly less dire than you think it is, I could see a sort of lesser of two evils argument. But if things are as bad as you say, how is current movement conservatism – with all of it’s yes, manifest faults – possibly going to save the day. Limited government? Are we talking about same GOP and “mainstream conservatives?” Or are you, perhaps, referencing a GOP and conservative movement from some sort of alternate reality?

Okay, that last sentence came out too snarky. But really, it’s hard for me to understand supporters of limited government supporting EITHER party in the United States today.

I think the problem with this statment is that modern movement conservatism – and Palin is not just part and parcel of this, but is really the apothesis of this – does a horrible, horrible job of representing what you call “Greater Red State America.” And I DON’T mean that in a “What’s the Matter with Kansas” sort of “they are voting against their economic interests” kind of way. Modern movement conservatism is an uholy alliance of the neocons and Corporate amerca – and doesn’t give a damn about the base, and in fact laughs at it in private. And to believe that Palin is some sort of genuinely populist alternative to that reality is delusional in the extreme. It may be a delusion born of desperation and lack of reasonable alternatives, but it is deperation none the less.

Koz, your understanding of disagreement is as nebulous as your explication of the super mojo you believe you (meaning, I guess, some version of conservatism) the nation will turn to for its salvation. I doubt that by your terms I’m a garden variety liberal; you would probably find me reprehensible, some kind of screaming wild eyed radical; in world terms maybe some kind of social democrat. My “bogeymen”–more accurately, my disdain/disgust for the Republican party–goes at least to Nixon, the prior overtly criminal administration that trained the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal, the heart of our most recent overtly criminal administration. I don’t have a good definition of “conservative,” and most of Daniel’s posts indicate to me that self-described conservatives don’t either. Your claim about all the good done under the Republicans over the last few decades is laughable to me. I don’t think there’s an actual progressive on the national scene, but at least Democrats seem to have some interest in governance for the good of the country and most of its citizens. Republicans appear to me to be a collection of radical imperialists, corporate cronies and really stupid economic theorists, interested on ruling at all costs, not in governing. The actual result of Republican rule over the last 40 years has been increasing deficits, erosion of middle and lower class economic position, deepening social divides, foreign adventurism and erosion of US standing and influence abroad, and concentration and abuse of executive power. I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed.

Yes, actually we can. The important thing is to figure out what exactly the dissent is _dissent from_.

To some extent, John McCain, Stacy McCain, the GOP, and Mark Levin are all side issues. At bottom, the real target of the dissent is Greater Red State America, its aspirations and capabilities. For the all the Palins out there, who want to build their own families, earn their own keep, and mind their own business, if freedom in America has any future, this is _their_ country. This is the crucial point that (Stacy) McCain is getting at, though sometimes he should state it better than he does.

There wouldn’t be any point in belaboring this, except that there’s more than one thing in play here and it’s worth some effort to keep them straight. RINO’s came about as “moderate” members of the GOP establishment turned selling out conservative principle into an art form. That was the point of the Specter defection: it’s not that you have to compromise something to achieve a higher good. It’s that you can’t keep them on the reservation no matter what you promise. (By contrast, I think the Maine sisters are actually pretty reasonable. They have differences with mainstream conservatism, but as I read it they’re not out to stick a needle in our eye just for spite.)

It’s also somewhat blameworthy, imo, for people of more or less conservative inclinations to vote for Chuck Baldwin or write in Ron Paul or whatever. But whatever can be said for this, it’s not RINOism.

IIRC, the stuff Stacy is complaining about isn’t either one, so in particular isn’t RINOism. So he probably ought to be a little more careful about using that word. What he’s really complaining about is the establismentarian mentality of the GOP. But the thing to bear in mind is, that’s a 100% legit beef. The party establishment is too caught up in the sausage-making part of governance to really care about limited government. But, the Tea Party-ish base still does care. And anybody else who cares needs to find a way to help them out.

I’m not quite getting everything jetan wants to conclude from his post, but I wanted to touch on this because it’s important for teasing out the relationship between the “thirty year talking points” and where we are today.

It’s a little unfair to say that the early Reagan years were indifferent to crazy deficits because the problems that we had then were different, just as I wouldn’t necessarily characterize someone as an inflation dove based today’s problems. The point being was that Congressional spending demand was irreformable and in any case we had bigger fish to fry. The key data point was the 1983 tax increase where Bob Dole engineered a deal where the Congress would supposedly agree to $3 in spending cuts for every dollar in increased taxes. As it turned out, we got the tax increases but no spending cuts at all, in fact spending increased moderately. On the other hand lower taxes did (and does) lead to increased growth so that was the genesis of what became the Norquist strategy.

The theory was that we could “grow our way out” of the deficits. The problem with that theory wasn’t that it didn’t work, but rather that it did. We did this under Reagan and under Clinton so the political establishment in both parties internalized this and lowered their already subterranean levels of spending restraint.

So at this point we have to leave the thirty year talking points. The Norquist strategy is past its usefulness. It’s something of a cliche to say that the principles are constant, but the circumstances to apply them change. But cliche or not, it’s true nonetheless. The interesting part, the hard part is to show exactly what this means in concrete terms instead of abstract ones. We can no longer afford to view Congressional spending as irreformable. There’s a chart circulating around the blogosphere showing the Bush fiscal policy vs. Obama’s projections. The economy can’t survive Obama’s projections. That’s the point of the Tea Parties. That’s why, for all their faults, mainstream conservatives and the GOP are still _today_ the best hope for prosperity, civilization and limited government.

What does McCain say in this other post? Here is one claim:

“You’re not going to get favorable treatment from, say, “60 Minutes” by being a dependable voice for the grassroots GOP.”

It is unlikely that anyone on the right is going to get favorable treatment from 60 Minutes under any circumstances, but who determines what counts as being a “dependable voice for the grassroots GOP”? (Note once again that McCain is putting things in explicitly party-political terms.) Is it the person who cheers the grassroots on as are they are duped with crude pseudo-populist identitarian appeals to rally them in support of a GOP agenda that harms their actual interests? McCain has a line about “GOP quislings,” but who was a bigger booster than anyone of Palin than R.S. McCain? Palin’s nomination was the ultimate exercise in co-opting the grassroots to serve the cause of a national party that McCain himself attacks as being disconnected from and hostile to the grassroots, yet the relative few on the right who criticized Palin were presumed to be cocktail-sipping quislings. Maybe it is the Palinite cheerleaders who are the enabling quislings of the party leadership. How about that?

One point I would make here is that complaining about the talking heads who receive favorable media attention is at best a distraction from addressing what is really wrong, and at worst it is an attempt to deflect attention away from those who are actually responsible. Moaning about how this or that columnist is not a team player–which is the core of the issue–is all very well as a movement and/or party solidarity-building exercise, but can anyone honestly say that the movement and party have lately suffered from an excess of internal dissent? Would we not say, as long-time critics of the movement and party, that this constant demand to be a team player and not to speak against “the family” is the source of many current political woes? Does this demand make any more sense when it is being imposed on people we disagree with?

I think most of us here can agree that conservatives were entirely too deferential to the former President and his officials. There is a misguided attachment to the Presidency among conservatives for reasons we can discuss later, but it creates an atmosphere in which there is great reluctance to make strong principled critiques of a Republican President until it is far too late. This same excessive attachment to prominent figures, such as Limbaugh, and the resulting pile-ons against the Jerry Taylors of the world make it clear that the path to advancement in institutional conservatism is to keep one’s mouth shut or to engage in apologetics on behalf of the approved figureheads. It’s not as if the defenders of Limbaugh are wearing hairshirts and living in the wilderness–they’re doing all right for themselves, too.

Why not be a little harder on the people who flatter and ingratitate themselves with a radio personality–they are abasing themselves no less, and perhaps more, than the ones who are getting temporary favorable coverage as a critic of the radio personality. The latter may occasionally get some attention from the media, but the former are the people leading and running the conservative movement, which makes them a more significant obstacle to recovery. It is the same refusal to accept constructive criticism of leaders happening all over again. Typically, paleo and alt-right people see how deeply foolish this resistance to criticism is when applied to politicians, but I submit respectfully that the same wariness is not always on display when the discussion turns to figures such as Limbaugh and other movement favorites.

Regarding the 5/18 post on “RINOism,” I would just add that McCain’s interpretation of GOP collapse across demographic groups is like something from a Politburo officer. He describes the collapse as a result of “the Republican elite’s anti-grassroots strategy.” He says this not even eight months since Palin, his grassroots-mobilizing heroine, was on the presidential ticket. What “anti-grassroots” strategy is he talking about? Base mobilization has been the political strategy of the GOP leadership for almost a decade. Of course it has always been cynical and exploitative, as I have been saying for years, but who was cheering on the biggest example of that cynical exploitation all of last year and into the new year? It was RSM. Now he wants to put all of the blame on some “anti-grassroots strategy” that never existed.

If anyone wants to know why the meliorists and “reformers” frequently get the upper hand in setting the agenda when it comes to actual policy, he needs only to look at what is being offered by some of their most vocal, vehement opponents (an inchoate “return to principles,” which is never related to contemporary conditions or political reality) and then look at the often-wrong but frequently practicable proposals provided by the meliorists. It is because I disagree with so many of those meliorist proposals that I cannot stand RSM’s sort of opposition. We aren’t going to beat something with nothing, and for the most part nothing is what McCain and those like him are offering at the moment. That he compounds this mistake with other misreadings and sloppy language (e.g., “RINOism”) just makes it even more clear that his analysis is unreliable.

“Republican In Name Only, or RINO, is a neologism created by Los Angeles conservative activist Celeste Greig. It is considered a disparaging term for a member of the Republican Party of the United States (the GOP) whose political views or actions are perceived as insufficiently conservative or otherwise outside the party mainstream.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_In_Name_Only

But what does Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia of the people, know about what a term is popularly understood to mean? Better to have Jacques Derrida up there deconstruct the language for us and tell us peons what it really means.

Here is how the Urban Dictionary defines RINO with example sentences included.

“Republican in name only; typically means a member of the GOP who’s more liberal than a Republican should be

Schwarzegger’s one big RINO!”

and

“Republican who acts and votes like a liberal and ignores the wishes of other Republicans.

Specter and McCain are RINOs.”

Now I hope we can be done with this ridiculous conversation.