We continue to hear arguments from the Republican establishment that the party is too socially conservative, particularly on gay marriage and immigration reform. But the social conservatives have a pretty decent rebuttal. Take this, from Gary Bauer:
Social conservatives are particularly — and understandably — bothered that the elites rarely want to discuss the elephant in the room: that the party’s economic policies don’t necessarily appeal to the the rank and file, who vote Republican because it is the party of traditional values.
“If we gave our voters an accurate portrayal of our ideas, that we want to cut the rate of growth on Social Security, give tax cuts to billionaires and then the values issues, the values issues would be more popular than the economic agenda of the current Republican Party,” said Bauer, citing particularly those Mass-attending Roman Catholics who have fled the Democrats.
Bauer added, “I would caution the donor wing of the Republican Party that is driving a lot of this: If they think social conservatives are the only thing preventing Republicans from winning, they’ll learn that their economic agenda will go down the tubes along with the Republican Party’s prospects.”
That’s a pretty astonishing admission on Gary Bauer’s part, if you stop and consider the implications of what he’s saying. If you just read between the lines there a little bit, he’s saying that the Republican Party’s leaders (including Mr. Bauer himself) are not giving an accurate portrayal of their economic policies to the rank-and-file. He’s saying that he basically gives the party a pass on economic policies that don’t serve his value-voters’ interests. He’s saying that he and other socially conservative leaders are basically in on the hoax, and that they’ll tell the truth about the GOP’s economic plans if their social interests are no longer represented in the party.
The basic idea is simple. There aren’t enough rich people to create a majority, so plutocrats have to bind voters to their interests some other way than merely droning on about their aversion to taxes and regulation. Social conservatism is the glue that has made majorities possible for the Republican Party.
The problem over the last two presidential cycles has been that the old coalition isn’t big enough anymore. Rich folks are looking for a new coalition, and gay and Latino-bashing isn’t part of their calculus. Some Republicans are more conservative on racial matters than sexual ones, and vice-versa, but there is also considerable overlap. I think Ken Mehlman is overly hopeful that this problem can be overcome.
To Mehlman, who came out as gay in 2010, expanding a conservative practice like marriage and welcoming immigrants is hardly incongruous with traditional values and is emphatically good politics.
“No smart political party, no successful company says lets be satisfied with yesterday’s customers,” he said. “They say how do we anticipate the needs of tomorrow’s customers consistent with who we are.”
“The key to a principled party succeeding in a changing electorate is to identify core principles that will appeal to rising and new voting groups,” Mehlman continued. “And the reason that more than 60 percent of evangelical millennial voters support marriage for same-sex couples and the reason many conservative politicians from Jeb Bush to George W. Bush have been able to win substantial support in the Hispanic community is because there’s a strong conservative case, indeed a family values case, for more people who want to join the institution of marriage and who want to come here to work, support their families and live the American Dream.”
It’s obviously true that it is easier to convince gay people to vote for you if your party isn’t openly hostile to gay rights. And it’s easier to get Latinos to vote for you if your party isn’t making anti-Latino pronouncements on a daily basis. But it’s much harder to get social conservatives to vote for tax cuts for millionaires, if they aren’t being primed with alarmist rhetoric about the destruction of traditional white culture. And the economic policies of the Republicans aren’t necessarily any more attractive to the average Latino or gay or lesbian person than they are to the average evangelical Christian.
The problem remains the same. The middle class and the poor vastly outnumber the rich. It’s not enough to moderate the Republican Party’s positions on social issues. They need to moderate their economic positions as well.
It’s not enough to moderate the Republican Party’s positions on social issues. They need to moderate they economic positions as well.
Tell that to Brownback, Walker, Corbett, ……..
Be happenin’ when hell freezes over ….
What is really astounding is that the socially conservative base has stayed with the GOP despite the GOP only giving lip service to them on a national level. The GOP really would be happy to have same sex marriage the law of the land because, like Roe vs Wade, it would provide a rallying cry, which they desperately need.
As long as there is something to fire up the base, they can avoid talking about their actual plans to screw that same base economically. For years, the base has been used as a way to win elections, then tossed aside until the next election cycle. That is part of the reason why the GOP where it has the majority in state legislatures, is passing the legislation that really appeals to the base, even though they know in many cases that what they pass will be ruled unconstitutional.
It is a combination of wanting to keep them engaged at the local level as well as the fact that many of those legislatures are actually members of that base. However, the national GOP just wats their votes, not their policies.
(shrug) it has been obvious for awhile: with bigots as the base of the party, they’re too big to fail while being too small to succeed. they max out somewhere above political failure and somewhere below political success.
>The middle class and the poor vastly outnumber the rich.
That should be the chorus line for an MLK-style oration.
It’s the “Wizard of Oz with the curtain pulled back” moment. It really shocks me that I’ve waited so many years for ANYONE to say or write this simple, appallingly self-evident sentence.
>The middle class and the poor vastly outnumber the rich.
Without totalitarianism this can’t go on forever. 2012’s mild democratic victory notwithstanding, the Republican continue to defy gravity to a mind-numbing degree.
>The middle class and the poor vastly outnumber the rich.
This is why I was secretly hoping for Romney to get the nomination even though Gingrich or Santorum would have been more certain to lose. Romney was the perfect candidate to make it impossible for rank and file right-wing voters to ignore the fact that they’ve been voting against their own self-interest since 1980.
>The middle class and the poor vastly outnumber the rich.
The way the phrase “tax cuts for billionaires” rolls so naturally off Bauer’s tongue is the best indication I’ve heard in a long time that we’re finally starting to turn the corner.
Bauer is saying what we’ve all said – folks voting against their own economic interests…that’s who these working class GOPers are
I don’t think that he was insisting they weren’t giving them an accurate portrayal, just that if you put everything on the table social issues are what bring most people to the GOPs table. I think that’s accurate, and I think that’s accurate of both parties. Because let’s get real, neither party has much to offer most people. Both parties are the parties of Wall Street, but differ on which big industries they favor. The GOP can be argued to the party of the “1%” sure, but the Democrats policy is really only for the professional class of doctors and lawyers. So, say the top 10%. But for the vast majority of Americans, there isn’t any reason to vote for either political party in the practical sense other than rallying behind your choice in the culture wars. That or you really enjoy using politicians as a proxy for bashing urbanites vs rednecks.
What I think is glossed over is that the GOP has managed to make some of it’s economic message as a values message as well. There used to be tons of TV spots about capitalism and the profit motive being compatible with the bible. You can have a good laugh looking through that nonsense on youtube, it’s a good way to waste some time. But the root of it was that communists banned religion and thus everything associated with communism was anti religious and anti American. And by proxy, things communists hated, like capitalism, where religious and moral and worthy of praise. Even today, most conservative arguments for their economic policy aren’t about the practicality of it or the results it will deliver, they’re moral ones. Taxation is theft, rich people are good and that’s why god let them get rich, government spending is evil because of debt slavery. Inherently, these are still values arguments.
The problem for the GOP here is simple though. If the GOP caves on some values issues it’s effectively fucked. Because it’s a statement that values issues can be thrown out for the sake of electoral viability. And once that’s done it’s fairly evident that if getting elected is really important, they’re better off chucking the issues that rich people like and hoping to double down on working class whites that might not want to vote for Mitt Romney’s tax cuts, than caving on immigration and hoping to get hispanic farm workers to vote for Mitt Romney’s tax cuts.
And it’s also left unsaid that if the GOP becomes the Democratic party light on social issues, is there a reason to vote for them? Unless you work in an industry the GOP favors more than the Democrats like say resource extraction, nope not much.
Take it one step further: private charity can discriminate between “deserving” and “undeserving” and public safety-net programs can’t do that. Not unlike the Bill Gates that are Republicans to reduce their taxes which allows him/then to choose and organize programs for the poor. Once those like Gates succeed in privatizing education, they too will select the “deserving” from the “undeserving.”
Booman’s made these points before. Still worth repeating and pointing out.
I’m not sure one has to read between the lines that the Rs are trying to screw the proles. Just read their last four platforms from their national party conventions. As in: cut taxes for the wealthy, and austerity for the rest of you suckers.
I think you’re confusing people being screwed as a result of a policy for the goal of that actual policy. You also seem to think they mind getting screwed.
Many social conservatives are flat out against policies they know help them if they come from the government. Because when the government steps in and offers a service, the church takes a back seat. So if the government does less to fight poverty, provide healthcare, provide education than churches can step in to provide this things. Of course getting more converts and then the services become contingent on being a member of the religion and spouting the party line.
Cutting taxes for the wealth gets an easy pass because that’s the money used to fund the hated government that has taken over functions churches used to provide, and thus those funds are used to pay for the war on religion. And if we just left it to private charitable donations, always through the church, they’d much rather have it that way, even if the quality of the services sucks.
That’s one of the reason Republicans always say churches and charity will pick up the slack.
I feel compeled to point out that as crazy as the GOP base has become, it wasn’t the base that decided “deficits don’t matter” and cut taxes. It wasn’t the evangelicals who decided to invade Iraq. It wasn’t the Tea Party who decided to refrain from regulating derivatives. It wasn’t Rick Santorum who tried to privatize SS or passed Medicare Part D without funding. It wasn’t Michelle Bachmann who decided not to raise taxes for two huge overseas wars. This is not a respectable party with a crazy facade. This is a reprehensible party with a crazy facade.
So what??
Numerous poor and middle class people do not vote. they opted out of “our” political system decades ago, and they are not coming back.
Again, let’s look at the 2000 POTUS election and the fact that at the Salon public forum I spent a lot of time on (this was well before “blogs”) numerous progressives were predicting a landslide victory for Gore– as were some of the gasbag pundits on TV and radio.
well, what happened? what happened is this election turned out to be one of the closest in history– in terms of the popular vote. bush went on to win again in 2004, mostly because the democrats were dumb to pick Kerry instead of Dean.
Thus the notion the democratic party has a lock on POTUS election for the foreseeable future– I just don’t buy it.
Just like Kerry was a feeble candidate in 2004– so feeble that he couldn’t muster a win against one of the most ignorant people to ever hold the office– Romney was horrible, too.
Don’t count on the GOP being dumb enough to make that mistake again.
This is true of the Democratic Party as well. It’s true that this is not your Father’s Republican Party. However, it’s not your father’s Democratic Party, either.
Look in the mirror, Democrats. You will see the flip side of the Republicans. Values voters voting for DLC candidates whose policies only serve the rich.