Until Republicans Fix This Problem, They Can't Fix Any Problems

[swag]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/until-republicans-fix-this-problem-they-cant-fix-any-problems/262657/

Conor Friedersdorf

The inability to judge arguments on their merits and separate fact from fantasy is what ails the conservative movement.

After years spent reporting on the Bush Administration, Ron Suskind began to understand one of its core flaws when he spoke to a senior adviser to the president who disparaged what he called "the reality-based community." The adviser's full quotation is deservedly famous. "When we act, we create our own reality," he said. "And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

That mindset had its benefits. "George W. Bush and his team have constructed a high-performance electoral engine," Suskind explained. "The soul of this new machine is the support of millions of likely voters, who judge his worth based on intangibles -- character, certainty, fortitude and godliness -- rather than on what he says or does." Much of the right stopped valuing reasoned debate or empiricism. As a result, huge swaths of an excessively loyal right-of-center GOP coalition supported numerous policies it would later look back on in bemused horror.

Come 2008, there was a brief moment of introspection. National Review hosted its "whither conservatism" conference at a Washington, D.C., hotel. Right-leaning intellectuals began dreaming up new journals, Web magazines and blogs to play a part in reshaping the coalition's future. All the old fault lines reemerged. Did the GOP need to end its experiment with "compassionate conservatism" and return to advocating smaller government? Did it need to better address the needs of the working class? Did it need to become more conservative or to moderate?

These were all questions of consequence.

But the American right was incapable of adjudicating them. It didn't matter that Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat wrote a very smart book setting forth one possible political program; that David Frum engaged in the same process; that Bruce Bartlett pressed fiscal conservatives to reexamine their failures; that Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, and their Reason staffers weighed in with sharp libertarian critiques; that figures from Ron Paul to Daniel Larison offered devastating eviscerations of neoconservatism; that Tim Carney attacked the right's penchant for corporate cronyism; or even that the Tea Party grew into a populist force as the Obama Administration began.

. . . more

[Stuart G]

1. I just hope the Repukes get theirs this time. Big Time..

I worked for McGovern, and we were correct on the war..
You know..life and death..and war..

So, they, these unfeeling assholes., need to lose big time too. screw them all..You see, they made fun of 47% and that
is a real problem, since some of those 47% voted for them.

But guess what...they are not unknowingly any more.
.the last two minutes of Romney's Rant..are simple, to the point and easy to understand. And it is getting out...ok..Let us give them Utah...We can have the rest...Fuck em..

[doccraig67]

2. I hope Democrats don't get complacent again as we did in 2010.

We had no idea the damage they could do.

[fasttense]

3. We weren't complacent in 2010, we were demoralized. n/t