Republicans need their own rhetoric of reliance

[bemildred]

This is California. What you have here is the Republicans re-discovering the rhetoric of social responsibility in the face of their total rejection by the California electorate.

New leader of the state Senate Kevin de León made waves last fall for both the lavish “inaugural” bash he threw himself and for the speech he gave there. “Isn't it time we shatter the great American myth about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps?” the Democrat said to appreciative applause from his nearly 2,000 guests at Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. “Every single one of us, whether rich or poor, is relying on someone else for our own success. And reliance, reliance is nothing of shame — it is the American way.”

While the media criticized the inappropriate extravagance of the $50,000 party — paid for by a variety of special interests — conservatives jumped on his speech for what they believed De León was saying about the roles of government and citizens. Richard Grenell of Fox News immediately declaimed "Ladies and gentlemen, if you ever thought that the American dream was under assault, that Democrats are out to encourage Americans to learn to love a handout instead of hard work, here's proof.”

Is that what De León was saying? Although De León's remarks might trouble many on the right, California Republicans seeking a road back to relevance in the state should know conservatism's in agreement with the essence of the senator's words, and thereby find our own way of communicating a politics of reliance.

In his new book, “The Pity Party: A Mean-Spirited Diatribe Against Liberal Compassion,” William Voegeli shows that words such as “empathy” and “fairness” are increasingly used by Democratic politicians to win political arguments. As Voegeli puts it, many Democrats believe “that liberalism is fundamentally noble because it places compassion at the center of its political efforts; and that conservatism is fundamentally odious because its central purpose is to reject compassion.”

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-peterson-california-gop-20150125-story.html