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The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety. They tend to take global warming seriously. They tend to be intrigued by the way David Cameron has modernized the British Conservative Party.Would it "insult the sensibilities of the educated class" to shove David Brooks out the cargo door of a C-130 flying about 50,000 feet above Jalalabad? Because that's the kind of Change I can believe in . . .
Moreover, the Reformers say, conservatives need to pay attention to the way the country has changed. . . . They cannot continue to insult the sensibilities of the educated class and the entire East and West Coasts.
UPDATE: John Hawkins:
David Brooks . . . can pretty much be counted on to love any idea that loses elections for Republicans.Airdrop his pointy head on the Taliban, I say, and let the healing begin.
Thank you. I love it when I spit coffee on my Mac.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for insulting the sensibilities of the educated classes and the entire (North)East and West coasts.
ReplyDeleteBut what Brooks, I think, is getting at is in the previous-here clause "the way the country has changed." The map, the demographics, the national self-image, the spread of education and professionalism and the particularity of state political cultures are simply so different now, that populist rants against pointy-headed professors who can't park a bike straight are no longer an effective **political strategy** and possibly a counterproductive one (as distinct from something true).
If the problem were merely being uncompetititive in California, NY and New England ... small price. But Obama won Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, Michigan, Indiana, and North Carolina. And not one of those states has 2 GOP senators, while several have 2 Dems (so this isn't just about Maverick or the peculiarities of this year). North Carolina and Indiana were anomalies, I think, and the GOP is still strong in Nevada.
But when the nine top statewide officeholders in Virginia, Colorado and Michigan are all Democrats (and Michigan is hardly even considered competitive any more), the GOP has a brand problem that goes beyond Harvard elitists, and the recognition of this does not call for giving the Harvard faculty the back-of-the-throat treatment.
I pick on these three specific states because each is a synecdoche for groups the GOP has been losing ground with -- NoVa suburban professionals, secular frontier Westerners and the Midwestern working class -- and whom Ronald Reagan was able to appeal to in a way that the current GOP does not.
The Republican Party will never be competitive in Michigan if, just for example, free-market-worship leads us to say "Big Three, go to hell" or to blame Michigan's recession on "moonbat state government."
But if you want the GOP to be a Southern-Plains regional party with no appeal beyond its base ... be my guest. Ranting about dropping David Brooks from a plane or about the age of Ross Douthat viz your T-shirt collection is the perfect strategy.
Set him up for a speaking tour selling his message to all the precinct committeemen in the red states, see how long his teeth last. We could have a State by State lottery to see how long he lasts.
ReplyDeleteIan
I wouldn't want to soil your blog with my New York repartee, but lets just say I don't like Brooks...My only question is, is that with or without a parachute?
ReplyDeleteVictor:
ReplyDeleteI live in the mid-west now and they are pragmatic populists. It's hard to find an ideologue out here like there are in NY. Anti-abortion, freemarket out one side of their mouth, and government farm subsidies out the other. If people are going to look to what they can get from the government, then as a nation we have already lost no matter who the party is. What I think Stacy is saying is that there is a disconnect between the elitists that run the RNC and those that are members of the party. This is probably true. You may be correct that the RP is out of touch, but I hope it is not to the extent you assert. It is my hope that this election was just a repudiation of Bush, who as far as I am concerned presided like a RINO. The problem is McCain had to carry Bush's albatross.
If people are going to look to what they can get from the government, then as a nation we have already lost no matter who the party is.
ReplyDeleteIf that's "the battle," it was lost when the snake came up to this naked chick and said ...
Or to be less snarky, popular government has never not been about conflicting interests and what government can deliver. As long as certain interests in society profit from the government doing A, B and C, then certain other factions will profit from its not doing A, B, or C (and free trade, e.g., is just as much a government policy as protection). All that's necessary for that to be true is for (1) society to be made up of people who disagree about What Is Good; or (2) social policies to have multiple effects. The second condition necessarily obtains always and everywhere by definition. The first doesn't necessarily do so; it merely has in every real human polity in recorded history.
What I think Stacy is saying is that there is a disconnect between the elitists that run the RNC and those that are members of the party.
Correct. But as your example of Midwesterners proves, the working-class is not now (and really, never has been) a fan of libertarianism or Randroids.
It is my hope that this election was just a repudiation of Bush, who as far as I am concerned presided like a RINO. The problem is McCain had to carry Bush's albatross.
It no doubt was a repudiation of Bush in significant part. Between Bush's popularity ratings and the October Economic Surprise, Jesus Christ would have had a hard time winning as a Republican presidential candidate in 2008.
But at the same time, that doesn't really explain 2006. Nor the way those three states I mentioned, and the underlying voting trends, having been trending Democratic for several elections now.
"It's hard to find an ideologue out here like there are in NY"--the right guy.
ReplyDeleteWhat?...
How ironic. This is exactly what Brooks is talking about.These nonsense statements from the random moron who listens to Rush and Hannity and actually gives credence to what they say.
This guy has never been to NY so how would he know.
Congratulations, you're the dying breed of buffoon that David Brooks so eloquently is putting to rest.
Right guy,
ReplyDeleteHistory shows that McRino would have been WORSE than Bush, that's why he lost. Look at the voting pattern of the 'rich'. People WITH money tend to have a better understanding of what it takes to KEEP it, and knew that McCain didn't have the smarts to keep his hands off the market.
ian
4 eyes:
ReplyDeleteStand up philosopher? I met plenty of left wing douchebags like yourself at NYU. How is that job working out for you? what I was saying about mid-westerners is that while they try to promulgate good mid-western values, they really have no values other than being corn whores. You have to stand for something other that holding your hand out. As far as Rush or Hannity goes, I listen to John Batchelor more often than both put together. Glenn Beck is a different story....
It no doubt was a repudiation of Bush in significant part. Between Bush's popularity ratings and the October Economic Surprise, Jesus Christ would have had a hard time winning as a Republican presidential candidate in 2008.
ReplyDeleteIndeed and yet McCain still got 47% of the popular vote.
But at the same time, that doesn't really explain 2006. Nor the way those three states I mentioned, and the underlying voting trends, having been trending Democratic for several elections now.
I explained 2006 back in 2005 on my blog but in a nutshell: it is the standard party in power being rebuked in the midterm of a two term presidency scenario. The only presidents I am aware of who was spared this happening in the last hundred odd years were Clinton in 98 (who was rebuked in 94: the midterm of his first term) and Coolidge in 26. A "trend towards the Democrats" the events of 06 and 08 do not make -the first was typical and the second was the result of the economic meltdown in the presidential campaign and McCain's inability to adequately separate himself from the two term unpopular incumbent president.
And of course if the latter overreach by much in the first two years of Pres. Obama's term, one or more bodies of congress will leave Demoratic control.