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Tucker, Doug, Jim, Kathleen, and Christine,
Two years ago, while the Republicans were busy losing the House and the Senate, a young conservative writer named Michael Brendan Dougherty inclined his ear to the sound of right-wing recriminations and observed that "at the end of the day, the arguments all seem to boil down to something similar: If it were more like me, the Republican Party would be better off. It's failing because it's like you."
In the wake of Barack Obama's victory, this will be the pattern of conservative commentary for months and perhaps years to come. Foreign-policy realists will insist neoconservatism doomed the Bush administration to failure. Anti-immigration activists will claim that the Republican Party would have beaten Obama if only it had nominated somebody who actually opposed illegal immigration, instead of just pretending. Small-government conservatives will claim that if the Bush administration had only held the line on domestic spending, everything would have turned out differently. The dwindling band of Rockefeller Republicans will blame the whole thing on social conservatives for being too strident about abortion and gay marriage and turning off moderates; social conservatives, for their part, will argue that John McCain didn't talk enough about abortion and gay marriage. And so on.
I have my own dog in a number of these fights, but it's important to point out that nearly every faction will be able to score some points and lay some blame: A pair of defeats as resounding as '06 and '08 have a thousand fathers, no matter how much every right-winger would like to assign paternity to someone else. Which means that the best thing, by far, for the American right would be for every sect within the conservative temple to spend some time in self-examination before it turns to flinging blame.
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StumbleUponSocial conservatives, a group in which I count myself, might profitably meditate on how to disentangle our primary political goal—the protection of the unborn—from secondary issues like, say, abstinence-only education and the debate over evolution and intelligent design, which dovetail too easily with caricatures of religious fundamentalism (as Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin both discovered in the media coverage of their campaigns). Meanwhile, those Republicans who wish that the GOP spend more time talking about, say, capital-gains tax rates and less time talking about abortion should recognize that in this election, the McCain ticket did exactly that, sidestepping the social issues and instead emphasizing a business-friendly tax agenda and (late in the game) Joe the Plumber's case against progressive taxation. This strategy did not exactly reap impressive returns.
Or, again, anti-immigration hawks should ponder the fact that in the long run, the GOP cannot win without Hispanic votes, and recognize that the party's increasingly poor showing in the Southwest has a lot to do with the bile that some conservatives direct at illegal immigrants. But advocates of comprehensive immigration reform should recognize that they lack credibility with many voters who are motivated by concerns for law and order rather than by bigotry; that by nominating John McCain, the most pro-immigration figure among the primary contenders, the GOP gained exactly nothing with Hispanic voters; and that the party will need other ways to win Latinos than simply pandering to their ethnic loyalties.
Likewise, in foreign policy, neoconservatives would do well to draw chastening lessons—about the utility of pre-emptive war, America's capacity for nation-building, and so on—from the debacles of the last four years. But neoconservatism did not give us Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, and it's not as though there was a groundswell of opposition to the invasion of Iraq among non-neocon right-wingers. And the realist community, in particular, might profitably ponder how so many of its members found themselves supporting the invasion of Iraq and then opposing the only strategy—the surge—that's offered any hope of a decent outcome in that country.
There's a great deal of talk about a conservative crackup at the moment, as there always is after a big defeat. And some cracking-up will no doubt take place: Some factions and demographics will leave the right-wing tent, never to return, and others will (I hope!) join up in their place. But I suspect that the conservative coalition won't change all that much, once the dust has settled: There will still be free-marketeers and religious conservatives, idealists and realists, libertarians and law-and-order types. And as long as we're all going to be living together, each faction would do well to give the beams in their own eyes at least as much attention as they give the motes in the eyes of their neighbors.
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I was floored by Douthat's response to Kmiec, especially by the arrogance it took to call him an idiot with such a convoluted, faux-academic tone.
Knowing nothing about Douthat's views, I can only say that he sounds like the sort of pro-life hardliner that sees no other issue as important. The reason that Roe has not been struck down is simple; someone who wants to criminalize an activity that half the population does not see as criminal has a tough row to hoe. I don't know anyone who loves abortions, or who wants there to be more of them. But hawks like Douthat think nothing is acceptable short of an outright ban, which means that when his allies are in the White House, noting gets done to reduce the need for abortions.
Just because Obama is staunchly pro-choice does not mean that he has nothing to offer Catholics on the issue. On a personal note, I live in a strongly Catholic European country, where abortion on-demand is legal. Catholic groups do not wring their hands trying to get clinics shut down, or to demonize abortion practitioners. They merely offer help and alternatives to those finding themselves in unwanted pregnancies, as well as education on how to avoid them. It's a pragmatic approach that I believe most pro-lifers in America are starting to see as preferable to another 30 yars of deadlock because of their hardline position.
--Junggai
(To reply, click here.)
Tucker, I realize you have to think in terms of political philosophies, but most Americans are not ideologues. The only reason for most people to vote is to improve their own individual lives. They vote with their wallets and their hearts. They balance personal pragmatism with their personal feelings about the likeability and trustworthiness of candidates. […]
The GOP's next presidential horse could win by speaking in tongues, if individual Americans could only believe they would make their lives better. If you want the GOP to survive, try dropping the unproductive ideology, regulation of social issues, and the promotion of enemies. […]
Show average Americans, the great middle of the voting bell curve, a plan for making their personal lives better. From their viewpoint, the great Left/Right political divide that defines your professional career doesn't actually matter.
--whitehat
(To reply, click here.)
Is this The Onion? Is Slate staging some sort of high-minded comedic prank by letting their guest conservative writers become caricatures of exactly what they are trying to address?
Hilarious Irony aside, you blogging heads are inadvertently pinpointing the exact problem with Republicanism right now - the party has focused way too much on how to market their policies, and has ignored the actual substance and content thereof.
Instead of thinking about "how do we sell this hooey to voters?" maybe you should think about upgrading your product. Message management is all well and good, but when the message and the product become one-and-the-same, that's when you know you have a problem. […]
The republicans didn't offer any solutions this election. They tried to run on a platform of change, which meant running on a platform that was nearly identical to Bush's, but under the title of "maverick." Americans do love some good advertising, but c'mon, we've got to get something similar to what is advertised.
Only when you folks figure out the disconnect between creating policy and selling policy, will the republicans win again.
Until then, be my guest to keep fighting amongst yourselves like infants.
--jwschmidt
(To reply, click here.)
I think some of us are really tired of arguing with people about abortion and are ready to move on. IMO, we lost this argument long ago. For whatever reason, the majority of people in America want to keep abortion legal, so we need to work within that framework. Who knows? If enough of us organize, maybe we can hold Obama's feet to the fire on his statement to reduce abortions and respect the sanctity of life.
--Ripley
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"Once the party figures out what it's for—or more precisely, against—it ought to stick to its story. People respect principle, even if they disagree with it."
I don't know about that. When you define your big tent as being united in opposition to something, don't you just come off as being a bunch of haters? The problem with making "out of the frying pan" into the basis of one's political ideology is that a thoughtful person could realize that "into the fire" fulfills the letter of your platform. But I guess the main problem that I have with a party defining what it's against as a means of tying itself together is that I've never been sure that I wouldn't find myself as being one of the Despised Other when it became politically expedient.
--Lyger
(To reply, click here.)
(11/08)