If you’ve been surfing the intertubes lately, you’ve probably read something about Jeb Bush criticizing the Republican Party. But what, exactly, is he saying? In Michael Gerson’s column today, he has an interesting quote from the Jebster.
This failure of pragmatism is Bush’s chief criticism of politics in the capital, a case he thinks the press has distorted. “The general thinking among liberal media is that the Republican Party is too conservative. That’s not my point. We have a time of great national need, but we’re lacking the ability to find common ground.”
Bush, who was a decidedly conservative, tax-cutting governor, is not calling for ideological moderation in the tradition of Nelson Rockefeller. He is defending the possibility that conservatives and liberals might find productive compromise on the debt crisis. Cooperation to avoid disaster is not the same thing as spinelessness.
I think this opens an interesting avenue for debate. If Jeb has hit on a real distinction, we might get somewhere. If he’s created a distinction that doesn’t actually exist, then we’re hopelessly stuck with gridlock.
It is possible for both parties to be extremely ideological and diametrically opposed to each other on virtually every issue under the Sun, and to still have government function even in times of shared power. But there has to be a consensus on the idea that the party of the presidency ultimately has to frame the budget.
When we elect a president for a four-year term, we expect them to lay out a vision and try to implement it. If they try to do something really big like enact a major overhaul of our health care system or privatize Social Security, they can and should expect to meet strong resistance. But if they want to spend more money on education or shift money to clean energy projects or give new benefits to veterans or spend a little more on Indian affairs, there should be great deference in those areas.
What the Republicans have done since Obama became president violates this consensus. In particular, their behavior since they won back control of the House of Representatives has been at odds with how our government should work. Through their total unwillingness to support any aspect of the president’s vision and their total opposition to any compromise on a budget deal, they are trying to radically change the form and structure of our government when they only control one half of one-third of our government. This is wrong on at least two levels. It’s wrong because they are not showing a due deference and respect for the office of the president, and it’s wrong because they don’t have the power to do what they’re attempting to do. By acting as if they do have that much power, they simply grind the gears of Congress to a halt, making it impossible to solve problems and doing grave damage to the reputation and credit rating of our country.
The question is, are they doing this because they’re too conservative, or are they doing this for unrelated reasons? Can you remain a staunch conservative in terms of where you stand on the issues, and yet still recognize that the president should have some room to govern and try out solutions to the problems that crop during his term in office?
Personally, I think the Republican Party has become so ideological that you can’t make Jeb’s distinction. Refusing to compromise is just as important to the modern GOP as opposing abortion rights.
In a very basic sense, the GOP’s current stance vis-a-vis the president is irrational. They took a pledge never to raise taxes and they are insisting on deep spending cuts to address the budget deficit. As a result, they are attempting to get a Democratic president to oversee the radical downsizing of the federal government. Why should they think that their grand vision would be endorsed and enacted by a Democrat? If Obama agreed to their demands, he’d be a better conservative than Ronald Reagan ever dreamed of being. By behaving in this irrational manner, they’re doing real damage to our institutions, our economy, and our country. Jeb Bush sees this, and it’s nice that he’s speaking out. I just don’t know that he is justified in saying that the problem isn’t the conservatism but the lack of pragmatism. I think those two things go together hand in glove.
Yes, but is anyone on the Right hearing what he’s saying.
Pragmatism is drown out from the noise of out Obama at all costs. But has it become a habit?
More breadcrumbs please Jeb.
Not sure I agree that the distinction doesn’t exist; I’m just not sure it’s relevant. It’s certainly possible to be ideologically as conservative as the Republicans are, and find compromise.
The kind of compromise Bush is talking about pertains to policy; Republican obstructionism is all about process and perceived legitimacy. They don’t see Democrats (or any other entity) as a legitimate part of the political landscape; that has to do with their fundamental hostility to democracy, not any particular policy issue. Same for their willingness to abuse process to throw sand in the gears.
But I wonder whether the distinction isn’t just semantics. One can imagine in theory a DLC or RINO centrist bloc manipulating process in the same way, but that would be purely tactical. For an authoritarian, though, it is part of the ideology. And that, even more than the gridlock, even more than the anti-intellectual hostility to reality, is what scares me the most about the Teahadists. Way too many of them would be just find dispensing with the trappings of a democratic republic altogether.
There’s an important distinction I think, and I think it is a critical one for understanding our times politically. Because we’re not just talking about a contentious but honest disagreement over ideology or policy between parties. We’re talking about one side ready to drive the nation down via unprecedented destructive tactics in order to hang on to power.
And in addition to the abuse of rules, procedures and precedent…
Refusing to compromise is just as important to the modern GOP as opposing abortion rights.
Yes, because it’s all part of the same puzzle!
Exactly.
I see cooperation as satisfying interests of both sides. An example is Jesse Jackson Jr. cooperating with Henry Hyde on the Peotone Airport. While I don’t support the project, it is a good example. These two are about as far as one can get ideologically, but they worked together for the economic benefit of their constituents. Hyde’s people got contracts and profits. Jackson’s people got jobs, well they would have if the project had been completed.
The other type of cooperation is logrolling. You back my project and I’ll back yours. That can be OK too, depending on circumstances.
But cooperation as in “your signature or your brains on the paper”, No,
I think the distinction is very real and is THE key to understanding what is going on. But I think Gerson confuses Jeb’s quote a bit by applying the term pragmatism to it.
I think a better term for what Jeb is talking about is process. The process is what is broken and it is because Republican tactics (a process) are designed to do exactly that. In my view that is separate from ideology and policy.
Republicans in congress have blasted past all previous precedents in terms of abusing the filibuster, holds, appointments and particularly the debt ceiling vote. Long standing rules and procedures have been ignored.
Some degree of compromise is essential in Congress, but Republican politicians and their voters have turned even well designed compromise that still advocates their ideology into something to be avoided at all costs. How can a deliberative body like Congress function like that? Some compromise is needed. One side has to have the honesty to speak with someone on the other side and recognize their political legitimacy. That “traditional” process has also been discarded by the Republicans.
It’s neither conservatism nor lack of pragmatism; it’s terrorism. That it’s done procedurally rather than through bombs and guns is merely a distinction of tactics, not strategy.
It’s racism and greed – “I’ve got mine, what’s the problem?”
The fear of a black person being in power is a fear that they may redistribute the wealth. That isn’t going to happen unless we’re all starving and then we have enough guns and ammo to have a civil war that will make the first one look like a party. The 1% have become so isolated that they’re betting we will kill each other off before ever getting to them in their gated communities. Strange that they can’t see the civil unrest that will result but “I’ve got mine..let them eat cake”