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.
