I believe that the political change that would most benefit America would be a conservative movement that was able to extract itself from the Republican Party and refocus is energies on ideas and policies. Then and only then can we (Americans, progressives) look forward to a the beginnings of a rigorous, healthy debate in this country over our shared future.
Lately, David Brooks, everyone’s favorite punching bag at the New York Times, has either been abducted and secretly replaced or has become so fed up with the GOP and what it has done to American conservatism that he’s lashed out against it. While it still may be the case that we do not always (often!) agree with his opinions, let’s give credit where credit is due and applaud his rebirth.
In his latest column (behind subscription wall), Brooks writes:
[C]onservatism has been semi-absorbed into the Republican Party. When conservatism was in its most creative phase, there was a sharp distinction between conservatives and Republicans. Conservatives chased ideas, while Republicans were the corporate hacks who sold out. Now that conservative Republicans are in power, that distinction is obliterated.
Whoa! Wait a minute there! That almost sounds like an accurate representation of what happened! Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Brooksie? You have become very perceptive. I’d say it has become more than “semi-absorbed,” but I suppose that if you bear in mind that George Will still has the occasional good day and there must be a few people out there who still read Patrick Buchanan’s stuff, it hasn’t quite devolved into a case of complete absorption. So, score one for Uncle Davey….
Brooks goes on to admit that the party’s coöptation of the movement has led to an emphasis on message discipline instead of rigorous ideas and has allowed corporate interests to hijack the GOP’s stated 1994 mission: reduce government spending. Brooks talks about “intellectual flabbiness” and even goes so far as to admit that the “liberals” don’t really control the media. “Now conservatives can be just as insular as liberals,” he writes, “retreating to their own media sources to be told how right they are.” I hope no one tells his employer about this line! They might think that their crazy pinko-commie ideas aren’t brainwashing all the kiddies anymore. (Oh, right….)
Furthermore, Brooks points out that
To win, Republicans depend on white rural and suburban working-class voters making $30,000 to $50,000 a year. Conservative Republicans offer almost no policies that directly benefit these people. Americans at that income level tend to be financially risk-averse. But the out-of-touch Republicans offered a Social Security plan that increased risk.
This might not explain what the matter is with Kansas, but it at the very least exposes that teh conservative movement is waking up not only to the fact that they’re being used, but that they’re not the only ones.
Lastly, and perhaps most significantly for both conservatives and those of us on the progressive side of the spectrum, Brooks’s pièce de résistance comes when he states what is most obvious and most important: the Republican party takeover has prevented the conservative movement from engaging the questions that matter for this generation and the next one:
Conservatives have not effectively addressed the second-generation issues. Technological change has really changed the economy, introducing new stratifications. Inequality is rising. Wage stagnation is a problem. Social mobility is lagging, and globalization hurts hard-working people. Global warming is real (conservatives secretly know this). The health care system is ridiculous. Welfare reform is unfinished. Conservatives have not addressed these second-generation issues as effectively as their forebears addressed the first-generation ones.
Perhaps Republicans are just scared that Bush’s poll numbers are in the tank (when 40% is a good sign….) and are trying to reposition themselves in order to maintain their legislative majorities next fall. But I’d rather think that we’re witnessing something of a rebellion in the ranks. Even if the modern Republican Party offers little to America except for soundbites and carefully-crafted visuals, Conservatism has had and can again have ideas. If the conservative movement is able to wake from its slumber and begin articulating them, it can be the start of a new debate in America.
And progressives ought not be frightened of this: we must embrace it, hope for it, encourage it and celebrate its every nascent step. An engaged conservative movement offers the left a debating partner. This will push us to refine our ideas and think more about whether they’re right and why they work for us, for our constituents and for America as a whole. Furthermore, it seems clear to me that the conservative-Republican matrix isn’t the only corner of American politics where the ideas of a movement are mixed up a bit too much with the interests of a party….
So, let’s congratulate Mr. Brooks (please note that I don’t say “agree with”) on his recent transformation. I hope that it is the sign of things to come: the opportunity to move our national conversation back to one about ideas and ideals. Then Progressivism will have the chance to shine and talk about what it believes in to an audience that is listening.
Crossposted at Daily Kos
Hilarious and insightful! Keep writing!
Where Brooks leads, other conservatives will follow – he is lending respectability to the idea of intellectual conservatives abandoning the bushco junta.
Business people, even conservatives, have to deal with the reality of the economy, and Bush’s policies pose long-term risk to future profits, and climate change destabilizes the whole “playing field” so risks of an unquantified (and unquantifiable?) nature go up. The insurance industry is scared to death over global heating. The war in Iraq was to ensure our oil supplies, all platitudes for “the masses” aside. Business leaders all knew this. Now Bush/Cheney have gone and totally screwed that up as well.
From a business perspective, we’re left in a world a whole lot worse than when they took office, and terrorism – which had been a marginal problem before for businesses – is now another wild card. If I was a Republican businessman I’d have pulled my hair out of my head in frustration by now.
The business wing of the party is in the process of decoupling from the (mis)administration, but it’s a slow, tectonic movement. It will be 50 years before they go to bed again with the zealot wing of the party, who have had their fling and will now be retreating back under the rocks after their upcoming “betrayal” by the very Republican party “that they made.”
Brooks is a bright guy, even though we disagree with him. If he wasn’t tapped into this zeitgeist of the business wing of the Republicans he wouldn’t have lasted this long in the pundit shark pool.
Polls are a momentary barometer, and as AP pointed out yesterday in a different diary, are more a reflection of the price of gasoline. This administration is sinking like a stone no matter what the polls say; they have been “weighed in the scales” by the forces that created them, and have been found wanting.
My sense is that the battle isn’t over by a long shot yet, but we’ve turned the corner in the last couple of months. We may still have some setbacks, but it’s going to get better from here to 2008.
If I remember correctly, this was the whole rationale behind last year’s Iacocca surprise? Which begs the question, if (or better yet iff) big business should become disenchanted with the Bush Administration and the current Republican Party, what significant, stable bloc remains under their sway? And, the most important question of all: will progressives be there with a coherent explanation of why their ideas are better? (So, don’t stop talking about those ideas!)
Someone over at the other place brings up the fact that I omitted Brooks’s final point, which, in the interest of complete disclosure, I’ll include here:
So, he is, of course, still a Republican, and he can’t resist taking a little dig at the left on the way out. But doesn’t he have a point here…?
People have also been raising the possibility that this is just a classic case of repositioning before the height of election season. Sounds like a distinct possibility to me. But, is there something we can do to take advantage of this moment in the cycle and help the conservative movement climb out from under their rock? How can progressives engage what may be a nascent reawakening on the right and help them help us (and everyone) restart a national debate of ideas. Can we help provoke a politics that is not all about power, but actually has something to do with people and policy?
(This comment is also a tip jar.)
is that David Brooks knows full well he’s lying when he writes his screeds. And that the Republican Party is in disarray.
I’m still never going to click on that fucker, my TimesSelect membership be damned.
I don’t know if he was lying or bullshitting (more about that some other time). But can we take advantage of his moment of clarity and the Republican’s moment of disarray and start getting some of our ideas out there? If the right is feeling like it needs to pull back from the GOP line and start selling its ideas, can’t we win that battle? For a long time, the conservative movement has been content to let the Republican Party do its thing and one consequence has been that the left has been locked out of the discourse. For example: the tax cut debates of the last five years haven’t been about what their effects would be on people making less than $100,000 a year. They’ve been about jump-starting the economy, which is English for helping out the GOP’s donor class. Any time a Democrat or a Progressive would raise a concern about what would happen to an “average taxpayer,” s/he was, unfortunately, off-topic. The spring’s Social Security fiasco was one example of this strategy cracking, but only because it was so obvious to everyone who heard about it. There are plenty of other, equally important issues that need to be discussed. Brooks even mentions what I think are the two biggest ones: health care and the environment. They have simply been moved off the agenda. But these are issues that progressives can clearly win on. Can we seize this moment and turn it into an opening?
I certainly hope so. The major problem is we’ve elected Democrats who are out of step with progressive thought, and I’d argue even the mainstream of American thought. And then there are people like Kerry, with a good heart and good intentions, but so completely befuddled by years and years in the Washington bubble that he hardly knows what he thinks himself any more.
I drank beers last night with a candidate for Colorado State House who gets everything you’re talking about, and is saying it. I think beyond the pages of The Nation and blogs, we must depend on local candidates to seize this moment, because it’s not happening at a national level.