One way to understand the divisions in the Republican Party is to note that they have none. They are an almost wholly united Party of No. But, that didn’t used to be the case, as Jacob Weisberg points out:
One way to understand the divisions in the Republican Party is as a clash of regional philosophies. Northeastern conservatism is moderate, accepts the modern welfare state, and dislikes mixing religion with politics. Western conservatism is hawkish, hates government, and embraces individual freedom. Southern conservatism is populist, draws on evangelical Christianity, and plays upon racial resentments. The big drama of the GOP over the past several decades has been the Northeastern view giving way to the Southern one. To see this transformation in a single family, witness the shift from George H.W. Bush to George W. Bush.
So, what’s changed? For starters, Mormons continue to grow in numbers out West, and they bring their own form of social conservatism to the GOP. For another, Barry Goldwater’s Arizona had no ‘negro problem,’ but Gov. Jan Brewer’s Arizona has a ‘Latino problem.’ Add to these changes the phenomenon of Western Governor Ronald Reagan. He made it cool to be a social conservative, even in Orange County. So, the GOP in the West has become less and less live-and-let-live and more and more concerned with racial issues and panty-sniffing. This has aligned them with Southern conservatives to an alarming degree.
Meanwhile, there are currently no Republicans from New England serving in the House of Representatives. There are only two Republicans (one from Long Island and one from Upstate) serving in the House from New York. Eight years of Bush was too much for the Northeast to take. Exurbs, suburbs, it doesn’t matter. In the Northeast, by the end of Bush’s second term, there was simply nowhere where the Republican Party was seen as an acceptable alternative. Republicans were also decimated in the Midwest, although to a lesser degree. And they began to lose ground in the Coastal South, particularly in North Carolina and Virginia, both of which Barack Obama carried in the 2008 presidential election.
These developments led many people to conclude that the Republican Party had become a regional party, incapable of winning national elections. And it still looks that way, despite predictions that they will trim their losses substantially in the upcoming midterms. What’s interesting is how they’re positioning themselves. Here’s how Weinberg describes it:
Yet since the second Bush left the White House, something different appears to be happening in Republicanland: a shift away from Southern-style conservatism to more of a Western variety…
On many issues, such as guns, taxes, and immigration, Southern and Western conservatives come out in the same place. They get there, however, by different means. The fundamental distinction is between a politics based on social and cultural issues and one based on economics. Southern conservatives care about government’s moral stance but don’t mind when it spends freely on behalf of their constituents. Western conservatives, by contrast, are soft-libertarians who want government out of people’s way on principle. Southern Republicans are guided by the Bible. Western Republicans read the Constitution. Seen in historical terms, it’s the difference between a movement descended from George Wallace and one that harks back to Barry Goldwater.
Now, here is where I think Weisberg has it wrong. The Western GOP is increasingly racist. No politician has been more stridently racist in recent years than Colorado’s Tom Tancredo. And it’s Arizona, not Arkansas or Mississippi, that’s at the leading edge of anti-minority legislation at the moment. The Deep South still has it’s racial politics, but all the energy is coming from the West, where demographic changes are beginning to swamp the white majorities. During the Civil Rights Era, the end of Jim Crow didn’t threaten white majorities, it just threatened total white domination. Whites in the West are facing a different kind of anxiety. They are on the cusp of losing statewide power. In New Mexico it has already happened, as Mexican-American Bill Richardson is finishing out his second term as governor. So, what we’re seeing now isn’t a shift of influence in the GOP from the South to the West so much as Southification of the West. They’re not only becoming the hub of a new racial politics, but they’re growing more culturally conservative as well. We’re not seeing a new breed of Western politicians, like Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who are pro-gay and pro-choice, but who are conservative on economic issues. We’re seeing Western politicians who don’t disagree with the Southern politicians in any substantive way.
Weisberg appears blind to these developments.
Tea Party darling Rand Paul’s objection the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is clearly Goldwater’s, not Wallace’s. Wallace and his followers resisted civil rights because they wanted to maintain segregation. Goldwater favored integration but thought the civil rights bill infringed upon private property rights and free association. In a similar way, the Palin-Beck opposition to universal health insurance is based on their intrinsic dislike of activist government, rather than on a Southern Strategy argument that federal benefits will help poor blacks and not working-class whites. Many reporters have gone to Tea Party rallies looking for expressions of bigotry. What they have tended to find instead is a constitutional fundamentalism that argues that Washington has no right to tell individuals or states what to do.
Again, this is wrong. You can’t go to a Tea Party rally without tripping over a protester who portrays Obama as a monkey or who tells him to go back to Kenya. During the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin’s rallies were rife with racist posters and attendees making overtly racist remarks. Racism flows easily from the mouths of Republicans like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly. What’s going on is a melding of Southern and Western conservatism. So, you’re as likely to get a lecture on the Bible from a Tea Partier as you are to get a lecture on the Constitution. The only distinction is that people are more likely to openly express their constitutional fundamentalism than their feelings of race hatred. But, even this is not that much of a change. During the Civil Rights Era, respectable opponents of desegregation also relied on constitutional arguments to shield them from charges of holding unenlightened tribal attitudes.
The modern GOP doesn’t have a coherent governing philosophy. But they are more united than ever. Race hated is central to that unity, and it is growing in the West by leaps and bounds. Shit, it’s even growing in Kentucky.
