Political Discussions
"Is Conservatism Dead?"
Posted by clioandme • 10/04/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: conservatism, usa
The front page of the Washington Post's Outlook section asks the question in this thread's title today. And the same headline answers, "Nope. Maybe Just Brain Dead."
No time to comment. Just wanted to share this gem of a title, which is about something real, not simply an easy putdown.
Here's the image of this page: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/print/outlookfrontimage.html
And here's the article: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100103889.ht...
User Comments
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No Conservatism is not dead it is just that their agenda has been hijacked by media commentators. The Republican Party needs to get it's act together in the way it presents it's position. They just are not managing to get any sort of organised message across perhaps because there seems to be something of a leadership vacuum.
Into this vacuum unelected media types have stepped and obviously they are going to concentrate on stories that sell rather than important policy differences which can be relatively dull. Like Obama's tariff on Chinese tyres, the fact that Gitmo is not going to be able to close on schedule or that Obama's renewable targets are unachievable within their time scales etc etc
The core Republican beliefs of small government and individual self determination are a very strong political argument. These core beliefs have picked up a lot of baggage along the way.-
Polybore- You are absolutely correct. The Republican party should be rallying everyone they can against Obama (and it is clear that there is a lot of opposition). There are a whole boatload of policy differences they could go after. Just pick a few and run with them. Republican leaders need to start distinguishing themselves and get their act together because they very well could repeat the 1994 election cycle. Right now there is no clear opposition leader to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. If the GOP wants to capitalize on next years election, they better get a move on it. -
they COULD just quibble over policy differences... OR they could produce a unified political philosophy. ...or would that be too scary?
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No not dead. I think of myself as more pragmatic than conservative mainly because the company I would have to keep as a conservative. Polls show that a large portion of Americans are conservative, whether or not they consider themselves to be.
Conservatism is more ideology than party or platform -
Strictly speaking there are even Conservative Democrats. They were quite instrumental in giving the Democrats their majority in the house in 2006, and arguably some of the political hurt the democrats have suffered is from trying to stiff this small but effective part of their party out of influence.-
"Conservative" and "democratic" seem sorta mutually exclusive...
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Conservativism is a set of ideals about the nature of society, progress and the individual, and certain Democrat Policy stands (including consumer protection, environmental protection and antiwar movements) have done a very good job at securing Conservative votes for the Democrat Party, including conservative districts like Montana and the Rocky Mountains (Antiwar), Santa Barbara and Seattle's Eastside (Environmental), and certain portions of the Southeast (Consumer Protection).
Likewise, certain Republican policy stands (like taxation and supply side economics, bans on abortion and gay marriage among Christian Authoritarian type liberals, law enforcement and anticorruption, especially for Giuiliani in New York, Reagen in California, and Ahn Cao in New Orleans, and, when Republicans have supported it, trade protection and looser zoning and urban planning laws) have scored Liberal votes for the GOP.
Political parties are machiavellian organizations. They will do whatever they can to win votes, and that sometimes means going against the principles of their members.
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Mortally wounded?
Only 26% of voters have a positive view of the GOP and only 7% say they feel “very positive” about the embattled party. President Obama’s approval rating is at an all-time high, even as the economic crisis continues to worsen. Party chairman Michael S. Steele has just rolled over and allowed talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh -- who, for all his qualities, does not appeal to as broad a spectrum as the GOP itself once did -- to assume de facto leadership of U.S. conservatism.
The Kubler-Ross model is the basis for the five stages of death with regards to the Republican Party:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance: Under ideal circumstances, a courageous conservative patient may be able to talk about their death as they face the unknown. If they reach this stage, those Republicans in the bible-belt with supposed strong religious beliefs who are convinced of life after death can find comfort in accepting the fact that the GOP is dead in the water.-
GOP does not equal conservatism
I don't see Obama at an all time high. Gallup has him need the low www.gallup.com/home.aspx, although his approval rating a couple of years in is more important IMO -
@timethief: Conservatism and the GOP are not synonymous, though there is clear overlap.
(Edited to add: I see xmarks was observing the same thing at the same time I was typing.) -
Further, TimeThief, may I remind you that many liberals felt similarly about the Democrat Party in 1988. In fact, I believe you may find that this is a different recurring cycle:
1. Party gains power
2. Through foolish overuse of power, corruption, excessive ideological purity, becoming disconnected from the people, horrifying scandals, or all of the above, party loses power.
3. Various leeches and parasites make deals with the devil, or the other party, or various contractors and business people, to selfishly promote themselves at the expense of a sinking ship.
4. Voters throw various party candidates from office.
5. Party goes in to shock.
6. More candidates get thrown from office.
7. Other party goes through exact same thing.
8. New candidates in office.
9. New candidates, learning from the mistakes of the last generation, bring the party to a golden age of prosperity, dreaminess, charismatic young leaders, vision, a messiah complex and beautiful eloquence for approximately 2 months while the other party compares them to the Antichrist.
Some times the party platform changes (Republicans in 1978) sometimes it doesn't (Republicans in 1994), and sometimes it changes back to what it was before the last change (Democrats 2006) but every time, the corruption, nepotism, inbreeding, ideological stupidity, overdependence on singular leaders, and general filthiness of a party that has overstayed its welcome shatters its "permaneant majority."
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Have any of you actually read the article? If not, here's a taste, written, very clearly, from a conservative standpoint:
> . . . The conservative movement has been thrown out of
> balance, with the populists dominating and the
> intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with
> new ideas. The leading conservative figures of our time
> are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable
> news. We've traded in Bucley for Beck, Krostol for
> Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites.
>
> President Obama has done conservatives a great favor,
> delivering CPR to the movement with his program of
> government gigantism, but this resusication should not be
> confused with a return to political or intellectual
> health. The brain waves continue to be erratic, when they
> are not flat-lining.-
For the most part correct, although I think that analysis may be equally valid of the Democrat party right now. I'm wondering if it's more of a general intellectual malaise.
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we are in a sound bite couture
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Yep polybore read it and obviously pretty much agrees with it as it is what polybore has been saying time and again on this board.
Polybore thought the article did not emphasise the leadership point enough which was the gist of polybores post. You can intellectualise until you are blue in the face but unless you can get your message across in a coherent manner it does not matter how good your ideas are.
Also, and comments in the thread support this, the Republicans need to get back to pragmatic politics based on their core ideology and ditch the unattractive, intellectually and otherwise, baggage. There are loads of intellectuals whose interest is in free market principles and the like. Maybe they will be more keen to associate themselves with the Party if it lost some of it's "nasty" image. -
@Polybore: One thing that will certainly help is RBC theory, a crucial update to supply-side economics that finally makes it applicable to the short-term as well as the long:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Business_Cycle_Theory
I think that economic theory will be a very integral part of conservatisms future. Also, a more stringent focus on civil rights and antidiscrimination legislation will help bring more of a sense of justice to the merit and individual success rhetoric of the economic GOP. -
I think the current GOP leadership is caught up in the same endless reactive media cycle that the pundits and newsrooms are. They'll need to take a step back if they want to offer actual concepts for governance. Democrats also need to avoid that trap. We spend way too much time living in the last 23-minute news cycle of who said what instead of trying to solve our most entrenched problems.
But Democrats have done okay on the strategy front. Sure, they're in power partly because Republicans lost. But they're also in power because they won, because they had something positive to offer, not just the obvious benefit of what they were not. -
@c&m: What "current GOP leadership"? And how?
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I wish we could just send it to a death panel...
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So you ARE admitting to them!! -
Sadly, it doesn't need your medical treatment.
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it's a humorous devise known as "irony"
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And this is being a sarcastic jerk beefhead!
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Early this morning I was reading some commentary, on an I guess what you call more or less well known conservative blog, though the blogger leans more toward libertarianism. He was wondering at what point is everyone in his party nuts, because the non-intellectual nazia was complaining about that article you linked to, the one Harvey wrote.
Harvey, and American Enterprise Institute Scholar, and the man who rebutted an Inconvenient Truth, speaks some truths - according to this conservative - and the crazies Limbaugh, Beck and those who follow them, including some random Red State Blogger are so far gone they don't get it. Hence the Brain dead title.
Harvey of course isn't my cup of tea, but you can see how those who actually think are getting fearful of what is happening, and once they start saying so our comes the crazies like Beck, and those who know no better. -
To save conservatism, appearently they are rewriting the Bible:
blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/10/conservatizing-the-bible.html-
Agit8r, you put down that here tin-foil hat and go to bed right now!
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I should have cashed in my 401k last october and put all my money in Reynolds Wrap
Course if McCain had won I would have been S.O.L.
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