Who’s a Republican?
Digg 
Stumble Upon 
Newsvine 
Slashdot 
Mixx 
Diigo 
Delicious 
Reddit 
Facebook
Arlen Specter isn’t. Nor am I. And nor, it seems, is much of anyone else:
… when you are looking for clues as to where the two parties stand politically there is only one number to remember: 21.
That’s the percent of people in the Post/ABC survey who identified themselves as Republicans, down from 25 percent in a late March poll and at the lowest ebb in this poll since the fall of 1983(!).
In that same poll, 35 percent self-identified as Democrats and 38 percent called them Independents.
Glad as I am to see the War Party get its comeuppance, there’s little question in my mind that in the short term at least this is a very bad thing. These are trying times that call for serious dialogue and a responsible opposition, and a rigidly doctrinaire* party that hemorrhages independents and screams treason at the slightest sign of intra-party criticism is not going to be able to provide any of that.
* Though N.B.: When Ta-Nehisi Coates adds opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage to Ross’s list of the issues that define the predominant understanding of “real conservatism”, I can’t but feel that he’s missing something. There are plenty of people whom movement groupies will gladly identify as among their own despite diverging positions on “social issues”, while the You’re a closet liberal! treatment is usually reserved solely for anti-interventionists, opponents of torture, and others whose jingoism “patriotism” can conveniently be impugned. Oh, and people will also get that treatment if they support trillion-dollar deficits and massive interventions in the domestic economy … so long as their names aren’t Cheney or Bush.
Filed under: conservatism, patriotism, politics
This is largely due to simple math. Democrats are typically in urban settings. Republicans are typically in rural settings. As the population shifts more and more to urban settings (urban growing faster than rural), you’ll see the ranks of the Democrats increase. Add to this, the segment of the population that likes to be on a band wagon (like we saw 8 years ago), and voila! There you have it.
But if you want to destroy this country, support a political party as they serve zero purpose aside to raise money, keep their own members in power, and stop out other parties with great ideas.
http://xkcd.com/552/
Right. How many trillion-dollar deficits did Bush have?
Aside from the ones he left for Obama, you mean?
In any case Bush ran up many trillions of dollars in deficits over the course of his presidency, and it’s not at all clear why the thirteenth digit should matter all that much anyway; shouldn’t the level of outrage bear at least a nearly linear relationship to its supposed source?
“Glad as I am to see the War Party get its comeuppance, there’s little question in my mind that in the short term at least this is a very bad thing. ”
John, I have to disagree with you here. One of the most startling – and indeed, welcome – revelations of the past few years has been the emergence of the non-interventionist, pro-civil liberties, anti-statist Right, primarily exposed by Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy but carried on by the blogosphere.
Without the existence of the Tax-cuts & Torture party (or wing of the party), the aforementioned group would have had much more trouble grabbing the spotlight during the recent election cycles. To put it more bluntly: would I be reading Daniel Larision religiously if he wasn’t so damn correct in his analysis (mostly critical) so often? Of course not.
It’s impossible to carve out differences, let alone individuality, in a political culture of homogeneous thought. Additionally, when one feels that adherence to protocol is necessary for one’s own political survival (and the concept of political survival is, itself, a more dire pathogen infecting our polity), protocol wins, which is NEVER a good thing. What we are witnessing is the death of protocol, and the beginning of resistance to deference. I can think of nothing more necessary for the health of our republic.
I’m not quite sure I follow your comment, Matt. I agree that the presence of a vocal pro-war, -torture, etc. contingent isn’t itself a bad thing; the biggest problems arise of, course, when they get to put those views into action. But my post – which I’ll admit went by a bit quickly – was meant to pick up on the fact that the institutional GOP, such as it is, has shrunk to such a point that it takes such ideas as dogma, and that as a consequence dissenting voices like Larison’s (or mine, or even Ross’s or Reihan’s) can barely find a place in it. This leaves the dissidents essentially powerless, and puts the crucial job of playing opposition in the hands of a bunch of self-congratulatory loons.
No, I think you followed what I was saying perfectly.
It is true that dissidents are essentially powerless, via minimal political representation. However, it is also true that dogmatic partisans are also becoming powerless, if not already so.
I am happy about both of these situations (the third leg – Democratic majority – not so much), because being the competitive free-marketeer that I am, I want to see more tents, not bigger ones. Larison has continuously pointed out that it is the “big tent” bipartisan lovefest that most frequently produces the worst legislation and induces the worst policy decisions. I wholeheartedly concur.
It is a difficult task to take a dissident minority and get it political representation in a big ole democracy – which is why federalism and republican (small r) government must rule the day. However, as long as we have people seeking to maintain political power, they will seek to latch onto to dogma so long as it ensures political victory. Specter only left the GOP once it became untenable for him to keep his Senate seat as a Republican – it has very little to do with his views or the dogma of his party changing.
Yes, there should be some concern that those in the GOP still in power are becoming more rigid and dogmatic, and yes this could be a net negative for the country. I disagree that it is or will be a net negative, because the short-term results of this rigidity is the development of an antagonistic (or is it protagonistic?) political opposition (and, hopefully, culture) more aligned with my personal views.
In fact, I hope more defections are in the future.
I think what you say here is right, but that’s why I restricted my comments to the short term. It may be – I hope it is – the case that the effects of the GOP’s implosion on American conservatism and American politics in general are salutary in the long term; right now, though, there is a vital political role which thanks to that implosion just isn’t being fulfilled.
I agree with Mat’s position. Punditry is fun, but ultimately you’ve got to make it work on the precinct level. I think the Paul folk are figuring this out.
When the torture crowd finishes imploding, it will be the likes of Will, Larison, and John who will be the remnant to build the party on. It will come, just not yet.
“Matt’s” sorry.
“These are trying times that call for serious dialogue and a responsible opposition, and a rigidly doctrinaire* party that hemorrhages independents and screams treason at the slightest sign of intra-party criticism is not going to be able to provide any of that.”
The GOP hasn’t been responsible for quite a while; I’d say that they clearly abandoned that in 1994.
US Democrats will fix things up as well as we can, and the GOP will eventually come back. If they continue to blow things in 2001 and do a Palin-Joe the Plumber Epic Fail in 2012, *somebody* will get a clue and purge the whackjobs.
Here’s a useful graphic: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/77669/
For me at least, it’s very difficult under this scenario to suppose that the displeasure with the Obama fiscal policy is in any way misplaced.
[...] John Schwenkler notes of those sobering numbers, These are trying times that call for serious dialogue and a responsible opposition, and a rigidly [...]