2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumRepublican Reformers Stop Being Polite to Tea Party, Start Getting Real
By Jonathan Chait
If John Boehners support for immigration reform is a kind of Prague Spring for the mainstream of the elected Republican Party, the equivalent among conservative intelligentsia can be found in the latest issue of National Affairs, which launches a double-barreled assault on conservative dogma. The first is an essay by Bush administration veterans Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, setting the philosophical and historical precedent for a non-dogmatic Republican domestic agenda. The second is a manifesto by the American Enterprise Institutes Michael Strain laying out a Republican agenda to aid the jobless.
The two pieces represent an important moment in the conservative reform movement, displaying a heretofore rare confidence of the partys movement to frontally attack their own partys shibboleths. They also display the dodges and compromises that make conservative reform both so infuriating and so useless in breaking the fever that has gripped the party throughout the Obama era.
In his book Do Not Ask What Good We Do, Robert Draper reported that leading Republicans met the night of President Obamas inauguration and decided that their path to regaining power lay in opposing every bill that Obama put forward. The political strategy formulated by Washington Republicans was quickly subsumed within a larger flowering of reactionary ideology, flowing from tea-party devotees to highbrow conservative pundits and back: Barack Obama was undermining the basic fabric of the Constitution, threatening an imminent Greek-style collapse and choking out liberty itself.
Gerson and Wehner assail the historical and philosophical underpinnings of this whole line of thought. The Founders, they point out, were not proto-libertarians the staunch ideological opponents of a flexible national government were actually the opponents of the Constitution. The Founders would have little toleration for politicians who are committed to abstract theories even when they are at odds with the given world and the welfare of the polity. They proceed to assail dogmatic opposition to any position for the state, arguing for a government role in furthering the common good, equality of opportunity, and even ensure broad access to modern health care.
full article:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/01/gop-reformers-stop-being-polite-to-tea-party.html
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I like that the teapartiers are sucking up all the modern gop's air.
I want Democrats to campaign on income inequity and the modern gop in its extremist extreme, come 2014 and into 2016. If so, Democrats are looking at taking the House and expanding in the Senate in 2014 and super-majorities in both Houses in 2016.
Then, and only then, will we be looking at progressive legislation becoming law.
polichick
(37,152 posts)from the progressive/populist movement that's getting started.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)but come on! President Obama has been anything BUT a status quo President; though I will grant that it may appear that way to those of instant gratification and "I want what I want right f'ing now."
If anything, President Obama is a student of history. Name one example of lasting society change that came into realization in less than a decade.
President Obama's message/agenda has changed little since his 2008 campaigning; but the American people are just now ready for that change. It seems you confuse "status quo" with "go slow."
I swear ... "liberals/progressives" are determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
polichick
(37,152 posts)but that has little to do with actions.
Think NSA, drones, TPP, etc., etc., etc.
The status quo is all about corporate power, the 1% and the mic - and Pres. Obama, like most others before him, serve these groups first.
I get that you want to believe, but you confuse "go slow" with "toss the poor rubes a few crumbs."
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)name one social movement that realized results in less than a decade of "go slow."
polichick
(37,152 posts)is a populist movement that refuses to be squashed by either party establishment. In order for that to happen, voters have to stop fighting each other and recognize the real enemies of the people: two party establishments who collude to protect the status quo and the powerful groups they serve (corporations, the 1% and the mic).
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)or is it too little, stock in politicians ... they follow the people and will move with the people in order to stay in office. And as history has demonstrated time and time again, incrementalism is the ONLY way, short of revolution, to make that happen.
What you call for is belied by the Kucinchi lesson. He rejected incrementalism (until very late in his career) and he found himself isolated and a none factor. Sander, on the other hand, talks populism but votes incrementalism.
polichick
(37,152 posts)They are totally bought and interested in their next positions as lobbyists - or interested in their war profits, or their private prison profits, or any number of other profit areas they shouldn't be able to vote on because of a conflict of interest.
I'm not arguing that sometimes things move slowly - just saying that what the people want and what the politicians intend don't often match up.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)politicians are self-interested and often those interests lag or conflict with those of the people.
But politicians recognize that in order to be in position for that next post, they must gain the first post first. This is where incrementalism makes its gains as the politicians lag behind the people.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,355 posts)and they can still do a lot of damage on the way down- hopefully, moreso to the Republican Party than to the country. Plus, if the GOP purges itself of the Tea Party, they are going to lose a lot of loyal "foot soldiers", aren't they? How are they going to make up their loss? They gleefully latched on to them following Obama's election in 2008 and used them to basically obstruct President Obama's agenda and rebuild their strength after they were virtually wiped out in 2006 and 2008. What will they do without the Tea Party (to the extent that it's composed of real people and not astroturf)?
Happyhippychick
(8,379 posts)AlinPA
(15,071 posts)never support any improvements to the immigration in the US. He will do exactly what he did during the shutdown and threat to default: Lead the teabaggers in their hatred and stupidity.