Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing
After George W. Bush’s defeat of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, Paul Glastris, editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly, wrote with considerable justification: “…at this point, it requires a willful act of self-deception not to see the deeper problem: conservatives have won the war of ideas.” But what about the results of the conservative movement’s ideas, now that they have been put into practice not only at the federal level but in some states and localities as well? The Conservatives Have No Clothes argues that the most important ideas developed and marketed almost exclusively by the right’s elaborate network of think tanks and advocacy institutions, after implementation by conservative Republican officeholders, have demonstrably failed to produce the promised results and in most cases have made conditions worse in concrete ways.
The real-world outcomes that even many conservatives have joined the public at large in bemoaning are a direct outgrowth of governance arising from a movement predicated on the premise that government is the problem, not part of the solution. Any human beings following the conservative playbook for governing will appear to be incompetent because the playbook itself is filled with hopeless Hail Mary passes, ideas that have never worked but remain cherished, and the sort of trickery found on school playgrounds.
To a much greater extent than movement conservatives are now willing to acknowledge, the Bush administration that most of them are now so hostile toward largely followed their game plan. The right’s coaches noodling in the think tanks and bloviating in the media can blame the players in government all they want, but their ideas and mindset have been just as responsible for the follies.
After an introduction, each chapter of the book is devoted to a particular idea that the right espoused, tracing it from conception through the marketing process and its ultimate implementation. (See the two-page Table of Contents here). In each case, the real-world consequences of the idea are evaluated based on the best available evidence, taking into account the arguments of its conservative defenders. Along the way, readers will come to recognize patterns in the underlying but unexpressed goals of each idea, the often deceptive strategies for selling it to the public, the causes of its failure once implemented, and the right’s response as the bad outcomes became increasingly obvious.
Ultimately, the modern right’s abandonment of conservatism’s historical strengths has much to do with its failure as a philosophy for governing. For all of the elaborate debates that have enraptured followers of the right for decades, definitions of traditional conservatism at a basic level are rather easy to grasp. As Russell Kirk, one longtime National Review editor and author of the 1953 book The Conservative Mind, responded to the question about conservatism’s meaning: “Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?” Similarly, Barry Goldwater, who had much to do with lighting the flame under what has become the dominant force in American politics with his 1964 run for the presidency, wrote: “In its simplest terms, conservatism is economic, social, and political practices based on the successes of the past.” And William Safire, the former speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon who for decades opined from the right as a columnist for the New York Times, defined a conservative as “a defender of the status quo who, when change becomes necessary in tested institutions or practices, prefers that it come slowly and in moderation.”
The mission of the right’s new wave of think tanks and affiliated institutions, beginning with the launch of the Heritage Foundation in 1973, was to do the very opposite of adhering “to the old and tried,” pursuing “practices based on the successes of the past,” “defending the status quo,” or ensuring that change to “tested institutions or practices… come slowly or in moderation.” To abide by those principles would have required sustaining and building on established and largely successful government activities. Social Security, Medicare, civil rights legislation, environmental regulations, food and drug oversight, anti-trust laws, transportation safety rules, and other public protections have demonstrably improved conditions in the United States. Poverty among the elderly declined from more than 35 percent before 1960 to about 10 percent today, primarily because of improvements to Social Security and the advent of Medicare. The nation’s air and water are vastly cleaner than before the introduction of the 1970s environmental regulations. Crime levels, death rates in automobile and other transportation accidents, racial and gender discrimination, workplace injuries, and cigarette smoking have all significantly declined over recent decades in no small measure because of governmental efforts. But preserving and enhancing those “successes of the past,” as Goldwater put it, necessitates not only acknowledging the usefulness of government but actively supporting it with resources, capable civil servants, and innovation that draws lessons from experience based on attention to reliable data and research.
The sponsors of the right-wing ideas industry simply wanted to roll back government, through any means necessary. In contrast to the tweedy intellectuals who reveled in the conservative canon, the central financiers of the modern conservative movement were successful businessmen with enormous wealth, in most cases built on inherited assets. Most of them harbored a barely contained sense of fury over their own personal encounters with the government – especially despising taxes and regulation. Not coincidentally, the Coors, Bradley, and Koch families – three of the movement’s leading funders -- all had roots extending to the John Birch Society, the secretive organization founded in the late 1950s that suspected that Communists were taking over the U.S. government, among other conspiracies. Richard Mellon Scaife, the biggest contributor of all to the right, believed that Clinton aide Vince Foster’s death was “the Rosetta stone” that would explain what he believed to be untold conspiracies related to a president he abhorred. The leading funders of movement conservatism didn’t think twice about what the consequences for the public – intended or unintended – might be of getting rid of this or that program or regulation or tax or policy. Just do whatever it takes to get on the offensive, attack, and beat back the government. Those were the kinds of results they wanted.
The philosophies of the leading individuals who financed movement conservatism are far outside of the mainstream. (David H. Koch ran as a vice presidential candidate on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980, receiving just over 1 percent of the vote – a typical showing for libertarians running for public office). But the institutions receiving their largesse needed to concoct strategies for simultaneously keeping those funders happy while also building a broad political movement.
The real wonder of the conservative enterprise has been its ability to transform the rudimentary desire of a handful of wealthy families to gut the government into a set of public policy ideas that would help accomplish that goal while sounding appetizing enough to attract large numbers of voters. Rather ingeniously, the simple, easy-to-understand ideas they developed are largely consistent with each other and elegantly link to a broader story line that the conservative movement has effectively sold with remarkable sophistication. That’s how the right won the war of ideas. It’s also the underlying reason why those ideas keep failing in practice.
Comments (54)
If you take these conservative ideas to their logical conclusion, you're back to the one-room neighborhood schoolhouse with a teacher hired by parents, who moves from house to house during the school year. Naturally, the state will not need to certify that the person is a teacher. That would cost too much!
Police? Use vigilantes! Fire dept? Bucket brigade! Need water? Go to the local stream! Children's toys? Put up with what they send from China! The list goes on....
But if you're wealthy, you deserve more. Wealth proves your right to goods and services. Private Schools. Private body guards. Private lakes and water supplies. Etc. Especially the body guards!
September 17, 2007 8:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
When someone says that conservatives won the battle of ideas, it might be better to say they won the battle of promises. It might also be better to say they won it in 2000; 2004 is an aberration, as it's an incumbent wartime president determined to scare the living daylights out of the American people to increase his stature.
The battle of promises arises from people's mixed distrust of government and admiration for the autonomous individual on the one hand, but also the protection of government in both economic security and when needed in reinforcing whatever side in the culture wars provides an additional emotional safety net on the other hand. That has to do with the usual poll results that people think liberal on issue after issue but identify as conservatives.
So in 2000 Bush is letting people find a comfort zone in a successful economy they can take for granted and with codes like "compassionate" assure them he'll even give them more, while using the language of small government (no nation building, tax cuts). We can, the promise goes, have social security, the social programs of the 1960s (but naturally saving by less kowtowing to nonwhites), the environmental protections of the 1970s (but not to the extent of curtailing business growth), the tax cuts of the early 1980s (but, we forgot to tell you non-plutocrats, not for you personally), and the surplus of the 1990s. You can have it all and not pay for it! Apparently, something went awry, especially with a trillion dollar war that also has to be paid for.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 17, 2007 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Conservatism risked paradox from the start.
All of these are negative attributes. The best is Goldwater's but it implies a decreasing stock of ideas, as what used to be successful runs afoul of new circumstances. Eventually nothing remains that is both traditional and successful. Conservatism is only an attitude, not a philosophy.
The current version is, as noted, libertarianism allied with corporatism and a pinch of fascism. Put most simply, it is elitism---we've got ours, tough for you. Taking elitism to its logical limits showed that it needed government to guarantee the wealth acquired, so forget small goevernment.
September 17, 2007 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
the problem with the conservative tendency to want to dial back the clock, is that there were VERY GOOD REASONS people progressed past those paradigms. For instance, there are economic conservatives/libertarians who view the late 19th century/early 20th century as the ideal economic state to which we should return.
But there are VERY GOOD REASONS why this country turned its back on laissez-faire capitalism, at the very time they were living with it! Same could be said for the New Deal, or 50s morality.
It becomes even worse when conservatism, faced with popular resistance to such revanchist 'reforms', attempts to force society to step backwards in its misguided belief that they know what's best for us and we'll thank them in the end for doing it.
September 17, 2007 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
"In contrast to the tweedy intellectuals who reveled in the conservative canon, the central financiers of the modern conservative movement were successful businessmen with enormous wealth, in most cases built on inherited assets."
This is a very significant point. Marketing aside, from real life results and any examination of their backers, it's apparent conservative economic policies are primarily designed to protect and increase the assets of established wealth. Their embrace by voters has committed the nation to economic policies based on catering to the deadening paranoia of those who have much but are afraid of losing even a little, while undermining opportunities for those who have little to lose but are ambitious to create more.
I can't think of a better recipe for humbling a once-dynamic economy and society.
September 17, 2007 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am reminded of the die-hard communists who maintained that government initiated disasters in the Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao were due to deviations from the philosophy, not the logical consequences of its application in real life.
We should point out as often as possible that it is the ideas, not the application thathave failed. I blame economists(such as Friedman and most neo-classicists) that assume away the role of government and then use the results from their models to conclude not only that government is not necessary but a deadweight cost. Inanity that leads to insanity.
September 17, 2007 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I keep getting the sense (first from Chait now from Anrig) that people want to make the argument that conservatism has changed and has become far more dangerous and bereft because of it.
I'm sure it has changed.
But what it was, the Goldwater style of conservatism was pretty bad as well. Anrig quotes people from the Nixon administration like Safire who talk about conservatism as simply letting the past guide us. Meanwhile, in secret, Nixon tried to consolidate his power and to run a presidency that was above the very laws that Safire would have so respected.
We shouldn't pretend that they were all cuddly Republicans 50 years ago. They assassinated elected world leaders, spied on Americans, stood in the way of civil rights.
Old times were not good times either.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
September 17, 2007 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
That which you describe plus oil dependencey
September 17, 2007 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's that old saying (whose?): Democrats come to town to make the government work; Republicans come to town to work the government.
September 17, 2007 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Somewhere in the last year or so I came across--and then lost track of--an argument that the single fundamental idea underlying conservatism is the belief that society should be dominated by an aristocracy. Anyone have a citation for that? It certainly seems to cut through all the b.s. about small government and laffer curves and enterprise zones and whatnot.
September 17, 2007 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
absolutely true, and in a certain sense I can't blame Republicans for standing up for these values; there will always be wealthy people and they will always seek to advance their interests and protect their wealth, power and status... just like any other normal self-interested human beings. There will always be a 'Tory' party and if the GOP didn't exist, it would have to be invented.
What I object to is how the GOP bamboozles middle and lower classes into believing that they represent their interests as well, because they clearly do not. The 'social agenda' - gay-hating, race-baiting, xenophobia, anti-choice - is entirely intended as a ploy to get the votes of rubes, because otherwise a Gooper couldn't get elected dogcatcher. Even the rich can only vote once, and there aren't enough of them for Republicans to win elections without bamboozling the proles.
September 17, 2007 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's without even getting into the culture wars. I just saw the documentary Inside Deep Throat on cable the other night (about the legal and social reaction to the 1972 porn movie, not Watergate,) and boy oh boy, did it ever bring it all back for me. Culture wars today are baby wars in comparison. For crying out loud, back in those good old days, not so very long ago, a big controversy could be something like women trying to wear pants to a restaurant in New York City, and FBI agents were sitting in movie theatres, not mosques. Basically, looking back on my youth now, I think they (they being the Nixon-to-Bork conservative coalition) LOST most of the culture wars with the boomer generation, and eventually much of the Greatest Gen. eventually came around, too, that's part of the whole problem we are still dealing with today, including the invention of "neo-conservatism."
September 17, 2007 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Conservative ideologues are confronted by the same sort of realities that leftwing ideolgues face: the reality of American puplic. If conservatives want to stay in office they both need money for which they have to use government power to earn and they need votes for which they have to use government power to garner. Thus the Norquists of the world risk eliminating their ability to stay in office if they actually carried out their agenda.
The right has an additional problem of their own greed. Democrats have been corrupt and no doubt will be corrupt again. However, too many rightwing Republicans act as if they are morally superior to everyone else even as either seek their own financial benefit or even just loot the government.
The great conservative President not only raised taxes more than any president, ever, but he left a much larger deficit. He cared about his tax cut, supplyside economics was a fraud and he did nothing to reverse this but raise taxes, especially the payroll tax, and then have Republicans lie about it.
Ideologically driven movements in America are doomed to failure in governance in America precisely because Americans want government to do things for them but not to pay too much in taxes nor to be too regulated in their daily lives.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
September 17, 2007 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points to Destor and others on not idealizing the Goldwater generation. Along with minimal government, which for him included opposition to civil rights legislation and helped introduce the race card to presidential politics before Nixon, his presidential campaign also had as a pillar moving from containment to rolling back the Soviet Union, introducing the kind of idealistic use of the military we associate now with the Neocons. It's no wonder he was the model for the conservative resurgence.
What got added after that was something ArtA is getting at, the fight for a lost cause. That's what underlies so much of the sense of the right as victim even as it held a lock on power. It had won power but not really the war of ideas. It kept waging the culture wars and Vietnam because, well, it'd lost them both in the mind of the America people.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 17, 2007 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I saw that film too and it was really incredible. I had forgotten how Nixon's porn commission had actually had the temerity to come out with a report stating that porn did no real harm, and how fast Nixon was to shitcan the whole thing.
It was heartening to know that over time, our values will win out over theirs. For instance, someday gay rights will be as uncontroversial as minority rights are now. I predict that time will come within 30 years, when the current teen generation is middle-aged or approaching it.
September 17, 2007 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's important to distinguish between genuine philosophical conservatism and American political conservatism. Conservatism as it is actually practiced in this country strives to entrench, defend, extend, and justify privilege (mainly wealth). As a political project, this of course is indefensible, so an edifice of specious theories and outright lies has been constructed. The laborers doing the hard work of constructing convincing lies are libertarians, history's original useful idiots. Libertarians construct elegant and even theoretically truthful arguments about the costs, injustices, and unintended consequences of government action. Conservatives then deploy those arguments in cases where they are helpful in enhancing privilege at the expense of the less privileged, and they ignore or attack those arguments in all other cases.
It's easy to see this in practice. Libertarians believe that the government should not be in the business of favoring this type of income-producing activity. The government, they say, should not be picking winners or losers,a nd should let the market sort that out. It should treat everybody equally.
True, true.
And conservatives will say just this when they're attacking progressive taxation or, say, cigarette taxes. Yet with a straight face, they will tell you that government should reward risk-taking, and that therefore the taxes on capital gains should be - wait for it - zero percent, while the taxes on wages should be rather higher than zero. And to suggest that this is perhaps because the incomes of the wealthy derive overwhelmingly from capital gains and not wages is to engage in "class warfare." Indeed.
Libertarians, perpetual suckers or deliberately useful idiots (take your pick), have provided the edifice of respectability for this argument, making the reasonable-sounding claim that government should be neutral in these matters. But they rarely raise a peep when conservatives immediately betray the argument by demanding that government exempt capital gains from taxation completely - that is, by demanding that government pick a winner, namely, rich conservatives.
So back to my point - I'd argue that conservatism in modern America isn't really about deferring to tradition at all, but about making rich people richer. I think this is where the author is going, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in. Also, the ideas conservatives are so famous for were developed by libertarians, not conservatives, and then selectively deployed by conservatives as a mask for their real program, which is entrenching privilege and redistributing wealth upward.
Libertarians, happy to be asked to the ideas dance in the first place, keep putting out even though conservatives keep cheating on them. But instead of calling them suckers, maybe we should call them prostitutes, since they're almost all funded by movement conservatives (ask anybody at Reason) and are in it for the money. Just like everybody else.
September 17, 2007 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
The difference between steeply scaled progressive income tax and the rather narrow range we currently enjoy can be seen in the usual version of The American Dream. I remember it being "Anyone can grow up to become President", but now it's more like "some may get lucky enough to become Bill Gates". How much is Powerball paying?
And the result in the Oval Office ensues. Talent goes for money instead of status, now, since money is status. Accomplishment is secondary (or tertiary) to wealth.
So I would argue that reducing wealth disparity thorugh taxation would lead to an unalloyed Public Good: honor for accomplishment and talent, instead of accidental, inherited, or stolen wealth. Once one is wealthy, no further effort is needed. But once one is famous through talent and accomplishment, one has to keep delivering or become a has-been. Unlike wealth, the PR-produced famous don't last, while the real talent remains.
Want to know where are the statesmen? Making a killing on Wall Street.
September 17, 2007 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
When someone says that conservatives won the battle of ideas, it might be better to say they won the battle of promises.
Right, and when someone says that conservatives are the party of lower taxes, it might be better to say that they are the party of debt.
Jan
September 17, 2007 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
And just to be fair to conservatives, many, many of them operate and argue in good faith and most of them actually believe what they say with regard to economic policy (but not social policy - that's another story I suppose). In fact in many ways I'd call myself a conservative. I was one in college, and although I call myself a liberal democrat now, that's largely because conservatism has become so revolutionary and radical since 1994. As somebody earlier said, conservatism is really a temperment, a skeptical attitude. Conservatism is what puts the brakes on suddenly fashionable political ideas about reinventing human nature and overturning society overnight. It is therefore indispensible, but a governing philosophy it is not. To put it more bluntly, conservatives are excellent critics and skeptics but are terrible leaders, and make a natural opposition party. That is their role. But give them power, and they go absolutely batshit crazy, as happened somewhere around November 15, 1994. And as a consequence of Bush 43, I think it's likely Republicans will find themselves in the desert again for another 40 years.
September 17, 2007 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
renato --
I agree.
Can there be any more craven, supine assumption for once-proud, ordinary Americans to make than the assumption that if they just cater to and take care of the rich the rich will take care of them?
In accepting the absurdities of "supply-side" and the passive promises of "trickle down" middle class and working class voters gave up the active pursuit and protection of their own interests -- and the best interest of the nation as a whole.
And for that they should be ashamed.
September 17, 2007 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I object to is how the GOP bamboozles middle and lower classes into believing that they represent their interests as well, because they clearly do not.
Right, and to this: The 'social agenda' - gay-hating, race-baiting, xenophobia, anti-choice -
You left out the "Death Tax," that every self-respecting trailer-living, beer-drinking, church-going repub supports, without a freaking CLUE about what it means! Of course we share some of the blame...every time a repub talks about the "death tax," we should correct them: "Oh, you mean the Paris Hilton free-inheritance bonus!"
Jan
September 17, 2007 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
If a gasoline tax could encourage conservation, do you suppose a death tax could discourage death? Or maybe cap-and-trade credits, to get more in the spirit of free markets. You're allowed to die, but someone else has to live longer.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 17, 2007 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, how dare we let pople like Paris Hilton take away all of that money from the government! How dare her parents assume that the money is theirs to dispose of as they wish after they die, as opposed to belonging to the government, and that whatever the government doesn't take it is giving to their children!
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
September 17, 2007 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
2004 is an aberration, as it's an incumbent wartime president determined to scare the living daylights out of the American people to increase his stature.
Bush won in 2004 because Kerry was too cowardly to actually stand up and criticize the war. He wanted to blame Bush for the war without saying that the war was a bad idea, and without being against the war, and without admitting that he made a mistake in voting for the authorization of force back in 2002.
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
September 17, 2007 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
C'Ville has it correct. Expanding on that a bit, conservatives claim to be the party of lower taxes and smaller government, but in fact, their idea of government is every bit as big as Democrats, except that they want to spend it on vastly different things such as the military and wars (notice I didn't say defense), and tax cuts for the wealthy, then pay for it by loans, passing the cost onto someone else, anyone else, but them, witness the explosion in debt the past 7 years. I believe that the small government/low taxes mantra of the Republicans during their years in the wilderness, was because of a dislike of what our money was spent on, and the fact that they didn't get to do the deciding as to where it would be spent.
September 17, 2007 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, double posted.
September 17, 2007 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: How dare her parents assume that the money is theirs to dispose of as they wish after they die
Um, once you die your rights in this world end, since your existence in this world has also ended. And if any of the world's religions are right, then you shouldn't give a damn what happens to your money anyway, in fact you shouldn't have let your life revolve around money to begin with.
September 17, 2007 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
When someone says that conservatives won the battle of ideas, it might be better to say they won the battle of promises.
Instead of talking about winning or losing battles, couldn't we simply say that all politicians are liars - only conservatives have proven to be better at it than liberals? ; )
Or maybe it's simply that liberal politicians can't admit that they're lying and conservative politicians know that they are and don't care. Either way it's all about promising and not delivering on both sides isn't it? LOL
September 17, 2007 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not the case. If you don't see the world of difference in governance between the sides you're not looking. Certainly there will be common points, but please don't tar everyone with the inanities of conservative "thought".
September 17, 2007 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Were Thatcher and Reagan "batshit crazy" and if you think so today, did you think so in 1994 and if not, what persuaded you to your current view?
September 17, 2007 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was certainly not trying to tar everyone, particularly with "inanities" of conservative "thought". I was simply speaking to results. And when I see the Democratic party shifting to the "center" and when I see little or no liberal candidates or policy in years I begin to wonder what's going on.
There are certainly differences between liberal and conservative. I've posted to many of them in the past. I even hinted (although a bit jokingly) to one of them in my above post as I see it. "Liberals" as defined in today's Washington parlance seem to me to be a bit in denial. They promise but don't deliver. Call it a systemic problem, call it Republican obstructionism, or call it a failure in their characters it does not alter the end results. Now this is different than what I observe as the Conservative failure to deliver. They've made promises which were either impossible or they never intended to fulfill. This is a marked difference in purpose but the end results are very similar.
September 17, 2007 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I look at today's conservatives, and I see the progeny of their forebears, who were: anti-women's rights, anti-civil rights, anti-minority, anti-sex, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, etc. with one of the few pros being pro-slavery!
In other words, while there are intellectual conservatives, many who claim to be so are merely reactionaries--they don't like anybody who doesn't think, look or act like them, so much so that they feel the need to take it beyond a personal level and attempt to legislate their morality into law.
September 17, 2007 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, thought you meant over a longer term. The last few months are disappointing in some ways, but the power shift in Congress is not done.
September 17, 2007 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe in my post I referred once or twice to "American conservatism,"and Thatcher, as you may recall, was not the American prime minister but the British one.
And I wouldn't consider Reagan crazy, certainly not by today's depraved standards. But you're sort of missing my point, which had to do with movement conservatives and conservatism in general and not any particular individual. I liked Reagan and still do. He had his serious faults, but the mind reels when you compare him to the cretin we call president today. By comparison Reagan was a real intellectual (by comparison!), and generally intolerant of the kind of rightwing craziness that's mainstream today. Also, you'll recall that Reagan had a Democratic House his entire term and a Democratic Senate for most of it.
And you don't have to read between the lines too much to see that my reference to 1994 had to do with conservatism unbound, ascendant, and in total control of the government - answering the question, what would Republicans do if we gave them total control? And the answer was, they would go batshit crazy and nearly destroy the country.
September 17, 2007 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
To a much greater extent than movement conservatives are now willing to acknowledge, the Bush administration that most of them are now so hostile toward largely followed their game plan. The right’s coaches noodling in the think tanks and bloviating in the media can blame the players in government all they want, but their ideas and mindset have been just as responsible for the follies.
Alan Greenspan's hemming and hawing is a perfect, very public example of this very thing.
September 17, 2007 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cutting taxes is not spending, nor is it big government. You may disagree with tax cuts, particularly marginal cuts for the higher bracjets, but to call them spending, or to refer to tax cutting as "big government," is an Orwellian lie. As for the GOP spending too much on offensive war, yes, you're right about that.
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
September 18, 2007 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right wing ideas were never intended to succeed. They were simply a con job. The real agendas and real purposes always lay elsewhere. The 'ideas' and 'talk' was just a sugar coating.
September 18, 2007 6:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
This sounds like a terrific book, similar in spirit to my own recent writing on "Why Conservatives are Always Wrong" (http://conservativesarealwayswrong.googlepages.com/) but more specific as to particular policy debates of the recent past. But I'm not sure -- and granted, I haven't read the book's full explication -- about the statement I just quoted. Sure, in defending the status quo, conservatism is sticking up for the progressive successes of the past that brought us to this point and made it the status quo. That's a dynamic my article discusses too. The problem is, conservatives can't openly embrace the progressivism of the recent past, at least, without becoming functionally progressives themselves. Some will go ahead and do so, thereby decamping from conservatism, while others will bear down and demand ever-stricter fealty to received conservative doctrine.
I expect that's why we saw the Goldwater movement rise up in the midst of Eisenhower Republicanism (and in direct opposition to Rockefeller's). To the Goldwaterites -- and their successor ideologues today -- the moderates who try to "build on" Social Security, civil rights, environmental legislation, etc., aren't really conservative, and eventually they'll get hounded out of the Republican Party once the true believers succeed at taking it over. And thus does conservatism keeps re-defining itself precisely as the opponents of success and advocates of failure.
September 18, 2007 7:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do not see anywhere that he conflated tax cutting with big - spending. Even though a case could be made for this without calling on Winston Smith.
Their's IS a big government of a different kind. Note the sham medicare drug benefit that benefits mostly the drug companies [ no price negotiations and other nicities for the pharms ]. Then look at military spending. ANY agency or program that directly benefits a soldier / vet has suffered while at the same time, contracts go to Haliburton and the gang. Name 5 defense contractors who have lost out the way vets have.
Hydrogen fueled cars... dig into that one and figure out who benefits most.
Now, sit back and think about how we essentially borrowed money to pay for tax cuts. That money will be paid back through inflation. Just watch over the next 6- 12 months how the yield on bonds starts going up. And who pays for inflation? Kinda sounds like that flat tax they're always on about.
dc
September 18, 2007 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shorter Conservative theology: If there is a problem that cannot be solved with tax cuts, then its not a problem worth solving.
September 18, 2007 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you have the same, "How dare they take my money?" attitude about taxes in general, or is it just about billionaires who inherit their (unearned) billions tax-free?
Jan
September 18, 2007 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Come on JPF! Surely you know that the old conservative pro-rich right is only ever really "religious" when they need to get some votes! They don't actually LIVE by those standards, they just love to point out everyone else that doesn't. :D
September 18, 2007 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shortly after I turned 18 and I was searching for my "political identity" I was briefly captivated by Libertarianism. Then I looked a little closer and realized the philosophy was fatally flawed. Where I ended up can be best encapsulated as a Socialistic Civil-Libertarian...somewhere generally to the political left of most Amercans.
But the fatal flaw I saw in the Libertarian philosophy was the false supposition that the private sector was better able to provide services than the government was able. The Libertarian philosophy that the private sector is results driven and better able do things cheaper, more effectively and therefore be a benefit the economy is a lie. This whole is based on the idea that we actually have a free market. We don't. Our markets are closed because of myriad of laws which have been passed that favor existing corporations and aid their desire to stifle competition. Secondly corporations do not do things more effeciently, they do things in a way that maximizes their profits. So the funneling of money into a closed private sector, where the only concern is profit maximization, does not lead to efficiency...it is just redistribution of wealth upwards from the governmental civil servants to Corporate America. I am not saying that the government is a shining example of how to do things efficiently. But at least the government can be held accountable (in theory) more than an anti-competitive private sector is.
And the conservatives gladly use the Libertarian economic model because it helps them with their goal of upward income redistribution...which also makes Libertarians happy.
My home when I am not ranting here...
September 18, 2007 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Orwellian lie?
The devil is in the details Glaivester. Cutting Taxes and cutting expenses is small government.
Cutting Taxes and using debt to cover the shortfall is spending. i.e the modern conservative definition of "Big Government".
Bush 43 is a big big spender.
September 18, 2007 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
The flaw in private-sector worship is that the Prime Directive is not Quality, but Profit. Non-governmental services will certainly show more profit.
But efficiency is secondary for government; delivering the service is primary. It doesn't matter if your army is a bargain if you lose the battle.
And it doesn't matter if the product is worthless if the profit is satisfactory, for a business.
September 18, 2007 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have that attitude toward anyone who acts as if everyone's money belongs to the government and that the government letting you keep any of your money is a handout. If you think Paris Hilton should be taxed, or whatever inheritance she receives should be taxed,I don't mind your saying so, but I dislike the idea that the money isn't hers and that the government letting her keep more of it is the government "giving her something."
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
September 18, 2007 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you that spending more than we take in is bad. And to be honest, I agree that tax cuts do not necessarily reduce the size of government (indeed, as long as government spending is greater than revenues, there are no real tax cuts (the government just borrows the money, which still takes it out of the private sector, or else taxes the public by devaluing their money through inflation - why yes, I am a Ron Paul supporter)).
This does present problems with supply-side economics - the only way that tax cuts without spending cuts could benefit the economy in a time of deficits is if we assume that inflation or borrowing are less destructive to the economy than other taxes.
Nonetheless, lowering taxes is not, in and of itself, a giveaway, nor does it constitute bigger government to boorw and spend than to tax and spend.
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
September 18, 2007 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
You left a couple of hairs unsplit, Glaivester. Better go back and slice 'em down with your semantic razor or they might go wild on you.
When people reap enormous benefits from a system, they should expect their society to exprect proportional contributions. When society fails to do so, it is indeed a giveaway. Regressive (or far less progressive) taxation is an example of such a giveaway.
I won't follow your example and pick apart your statement that borrow and spend is no better an example of big government than tax and spend, but I will make three points:
September 18, 2007 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: If you think Paris Hilton should be taxed, or whatever inheritance she receives should be taxed,I don't mind your saying so, but I dislike the idea that the money isn't hers
Assuming we are talking about her inheritance not about her income from "The Simple Life" and other such ventures, the money isn't hers. She did nothing to earn it after all. Therefore, what makes it hers? I can see the point about keeping taxes low on earned income and yes, investment income, but inheritance income is no different from finding money on the roadside or winning the lottery. We tax gambling winnings and we tax "found money" so why not tax inheritances too? Do you suppose rich people will quit having kids if we do that?
September 18, 2007 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
DrBB, are you perhaps thinking of this?
September 18, 2007 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please show me a reference from some of our posters that indicates that this is the basis of progressive thought:
I have that attitude toward anyone who acts as if everyone's money belongs to the government and that the government letting you keep any of your money is a handout.
I don't ever recall seeing anything like that here at TPM. Now, I hear Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, and their ilk drilling it into the heads of their flocks. Why is that? Because it is a far-right talking point! That is all it is! Do you also believe Ann Coulter when she says Democrats want us to lose in Iraq? (As an aside, how is that okay, but a play on Petreus' name is dirty pool?)
Anyway, back to the far-right agenda to make middle and low income republicans think that voting republican will benefit them. As big a lie as that is, that is all it is, so please, don't bother to repeat it here unless you can show it to be true. It is a very feeble argument.
Jan
September 19, 2007 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is exactly right. "Convervatism" is a useful counterweight to the impulse to progress. In that role, conservatism has served us well, and as a raging progressive I welcome it.
Sadly for our nation, lots of other types have shanghai-ed the term term "conservative" to stand for any number of quite odious things, generally hatred of fellow Americans for one reason or another (race, sexual orientation, political orientation, etc.) Of oourse, rich people have used it as a way to protect their wealth, but from their support of anyone who will promise to make them riches (cough, Hillary Clinton, cough, cough), I think their real agenda is clear.
Leave the heavy lifting of governance to those who have ideas, have a vision of a better future, have a passion for serving their fellow man.
September 19, 2007 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The history of conservatism is basically the history of opposition to nearly everything. In other words, conservatives have been gloriously and spectacularly wrong about almost everything: child labor did NOT destroy our economy, maximum work periods did NOT impoverish the working class, medicaid and medicare did NOT destroy the quality of American medicine (nor reduce a single physician to penury).
A useful brake on out progressive impulses at times; but on balance more Chicken Little than Mother Hen.
Being right matters. Let's not allow voters to forget just how wrong conservatives have been for centuries.
September 19, 2007 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conservatism/the Republican party, who've been telling us for years is the party of ideas, is actually the party of bumpersticker ideas. (My apologies for the grammar.) The 2004 election was actually won on the theme that America could feel safe with stupidity. Markets are the right way for everything. Privatize, privatize, privatize. Nuances are for wimps who don't have moral clarity. It's the Global War on Terror, it's World War IV. We have to be tough and unrelenting; carrots just don't work. We don't need to worry about antagonizing anyone, everybody who's against us already is. Everybody wants to be free. On and on.
Meanwhile, there's a real world out there, and what we really need is to be SMART. That would fit on a bumper sticker -- not much else would.
September 19, 2007 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink