At this point, pretty much every day brings a slew of new articles about how Republican insiders are “concerned about the tone.” Today we have a typical piece from Politico that frames it like this:
In 2008, after Republicans were routed in the presidential and congressional elections, there was widespread consensus within elite GOP circles about the party’s structural problems: The Republican voter base was too old, too white, too male and too strident for the party to prosper long term in a country growing ever more diverse.
Four years later, many of the same GOP leaders are watching with rising dismay as the 2012 presidential campaign has featured excursions into social issues like contraception and a sprint by the candidates to strike the toughest stance against illegal immigration, issues they say are far removed from the workaday concerns of the independent voters Republicans need to evict Barack Obama from the White House.
Rather than point out that these same GOP insiders are responsible for this situation, I want to talk about a problem with how they view their predicament.
“We can still be a party that’s for border security and one that at the same time says, ‘Hey we’re not an anti-immigrant party,’” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, himself the son of Indian immigrants. “As a country and as a party, we’re not people who are going to turn people away from the emergency room. … We don’t need to change our ideology. We need to be more articulate in voicing the aspirational spirit of America.”
Gov. Jindal says that the Republicans can solve their problems simply by being more articulate. I hear progressives make that same argument all the time, usually with reference to George Lakoff’s framing theories. The idea is that the American people are really progressive/conservative on the issues, and we just need to sell our ideas in a more attractive way. In certain circumstances, that might be true. Going after the Virginia ultrasound law by calling it state-sponsored rape was pretty effective framing. It won a partial concession. But it was a pretty empty victory. If Virginians want to prevent the Republicans from stampeding them, they need to follow Wisconsin’s example, not rely on clever messaging. Organizing trumps messaging every single time.
The Republicans’ problems stem from an increasingly unpopular agenda. They depend almost entirely on messaging (being articulate) to get their agenda enacted. There are almost no signs of any organization in the RNC or any of the presidential campaigns. Romney’s campaign is built almost exclusively on carpet-bombing his opponents to oblivion with false negative advertising, which is just a variation on the Fox News/Hate Radio model.
At the most basic level, the Republicans’ problem is that there are logical consequences to the lies they’ve been telling themselves for the last thirty years. If health and retirement entitlements are so bad, then they ought to be eliminated. If the government can’t do anything right, then it shouldn’t actually do anything. If abortion is wrong, then it should be criminalized. If climate change isn’t happening then we shouldn’t do anything about it. And, most importantly, if the real objective is to keep America as white and as Christian and as socially conservative as it was in the 1950’s, then there is no room for women, blacks, Latinos, Muslims, or gays in the Republican Party.
Conservatives have done a great job of organizing to take over the Republican Party, but they seem like the dog that caught the car. The dog doesn’t know how to drive. The dog doesn’t even think a car should drive. That’s why they chased it in the first place. In the first issue of the National Review, William F. Buckley said “It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” I think he launched a movement that succeeded in slowing the government to a stop. But where do the Republicans go from here?
In other words, conservatives have basically arrived at their destination and now they are in a position to actually act on their rhetoric. And people want no part of their actual agenda, which has been fueled on lies and bullshit and fear and paranoia.
It’s been all about “articulating” a bunch of crap. Bush the Younger was smart enough to blow most of that rhetoric off once he became president. He didn’t eliminate the Department of Education; he increased its power over local schools. He didn’t eliminate Medicare; he added a prescription drug benefit. And when he tried to destroy Social Security, he had his head handed to him and his party lost control of Congress.
You can articulate a bunch of bullshit very effectively, but you can’t enact policies that people hate without being punished. The Republicans’ problem boils down to this: they’ve come this far, and now they’re telling people where they really want to go. Or, to be more precise, they’ve come this far, and now they’ve discovered that their voters actually believed the bullshit and actually want them to act on it.
