"Hole-in-the-Head" Conservatism
Conservatives David “Axis of Evil” Frum and Ross Douthat have been sounding alarms warning that the ideas embraced by the Republican presidential candidates may have gotten just a little too wacky. Frum, alluding to Mike Huckabee’s national sales tax and Ron Paul’s “self-taught monetary views,” concludes that “if it is elitist to expect politicians to be able to see through glaringly false and stupid ideas – well in that case, call me elitist.” Frum worries that the right may have become overly reliant on populism – defending “the commonsense wisdom of ordinary voters against the pretensions of know-it-alls.” Douthat agrees, while nonetheless zinging Frum for supporting Rudolph Giuliani in light of Rudy’s enthusiasm for thoroughly discredited supply-side economics. Douthat writes: “Frum's larger worry about anti-intellectualism in the contemporary Right is one I share in spades.”
But here’s the real problem for today’s conservatives: their movement’s intellectuals and experts are overwhelmingly the ones who have come up with the ideas that have largely proven to be just as bankrupt in practice as the gold standard that Paul wants to resurrect. The brains behind the enterprise don’t have any ideas left in the well to draw from that haven’t already been tried and failed. Frum says, “…politicians who want to deliver effective government and positive results have to care about more than values – and have to do more than check their guts. They need to study the problem, master the evidence, and face criticism.”
Okay, based on the evidence, here’s a criticism: movement conservatism’s lavishly funded think tanks have produced ideas leading to nothing but ineffective government and negative results.
Exhibit A is Frum’s own favored approach of “benevolent global hegemony” in foreign policy, crafted by the great minds at the Project for a New American Century and the Weekly Standard, which resulted in the Iraq disaster and yet remains the predominant philosophy of the right’s intellectuals and Republican candidates.
The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, not exactly a tabloid of the rabble, continues to argue for the virtues of tax cuts for the rich as a matter of fairness notwithstanding the self-evident ludicrousness of that claim.
The Federalist Society, compromising many of the right’s great legal minds, enthusiastically applauded a recent speech by Giuliani confident that he would be sure to continue Bush’s adherence to their “unitary executive” brainstorm that led to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and widespread incursions on the privacy of Americans.
Here are other ideas developed by the institutions of conservative elites: “smart regulation,” politicizing the government to “gain control” of civil servants, privatization of just about every governmental activity including Social Security, devolution, school vouchers, health savings accounts, and state tax and spending limits. Those ideas have all demonstrably led to one calamity after another. And yet the same institutions continue to advocate on their behalf, notwithstanding the abundant evidence against them, and the leading Republican candidates to a large extent have endorsed most if not all of those same agenda items.
The fundamental problem for the right runs much deeper than simply tension between the diverging interests of its supporters. Conservatism prospered most of all because it capitalized on public disillusionment with government. But the right’s own hostility toward government led it to adopt ideas that in one way or another would weaken the public sector (with the important exception of matters in which civil liberties are at stake). Undercutting the domestic capabilities of government was the overriding priority of the wealthy families who funded the right’s think tanks – not the “effective government and positive results” that Frum now pines for. To a large extent, the movement’s funders got what they wanted – much lower taxes, a neutered regulatory system, and a flummoxed Democratic Party.
Reorienting conservatism so that it begins to take account of actual evidence in order to produce effective government and positive results would basically mean scrapping the entire infrastructure it built with the mission of relentlessly assaulting the public sector, including previously successful initiatives. Given how successful their enterprise has been, there’s zero chance of that happening. If Frum and Douthat genuinely care about evidence, effective government, and results, they’ll have to switch sides.
Greg--
I keep meaning to buy and read your book. I love your work here at TPM Cafe, and I was hoping you could help me out with something.
I have lunch with a guy every Friday, and he loves the Fair Tax. He's read the Bortz book and has all of the standard talking points memorized. Another friend in California is constantly sending me information about Ron Paul's gold standard, the evils of the fed, etc. So I'm wondering, especially in light of the rise of the Huckster and the curiosity of the Paul-ites, is there a definitive anti-Fair Tax smackdown resource, such as a website or a book, and a similar resource to shut up the Ron paul brigade?
I figure you know. Thanks in advance.
December 19, 2007 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the compliment, JustOneGuy. This link to a piece by Bruce Bartlett, a hard core conservative who might have more credibility with your friend, lays out most of why the idea is preposterous. Basically the rate at which sales would have to be taxed to replace current revenue would be prohibitively high (much higher than the advertised 23 percent.) This technical paper by Bill Gale of the Tax Policy Center walks through it. Also, enforcing it would be nightmarish.
My book also might make for a nice Christmas present for your friend! --Greg
December 19, 2007 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but any version of libertarianism that focuses on the wacky ideas of monetarism and tax cuts doesn't get to draw on the Keynesian veneer of fiscal policy as stimulus to cover the handouts they want. Both versions share the wacky idea of deregulation, of course, so they do have common ground when it comes to battling actual (eek!!) liberals.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
December 19, 2007 8:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Right's problem is even more fundamental than you say. In fact, they owe almost their entire success over the last quarter century to anti-intellectualism. It's been demonstrated and commented on for years that their core platform of tax cuts, market fundamentalism and corporate welfare would not earn them electoral victories, so instead they promote "values" issues and a blockbuster action movie vision of foreign policy. Indeed, Frum's own "axis of evil" meme is profoundly simplistic and anti-intellectual. For twenty five years, it's been high-concept marketing masquerading as governance. How disingenuous of Frum to deride the "just folks" populism the Republican candidates have been forced to adopt to play to the base. He is among those that conditioned the base to such brain-dead messages.
December 19, 2007 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing like a Greg Anrig essay bashing conservatives to get the blood pumping. Go Greg!
I do however have a minor quibble:
No argument about the negative effects of politicizing the civil service or letting regulations disappear or worse, be actually written by industry lobbyists. And as you've written, TABOR and other draconian measures to restrict state spending have been utterly disastrous.
However, with vouchers and health savings accounts, the issue is less that these ideas have been implemented and been proven to be disastrous. Rather, the issue is that the right keeps pushing these ideas as the "silver bullet" to solve highly complex, highly intractable problems. Furthermore, no one outside the cloistered world of conservative thought agrees. For example, no serious health economist thinks that Health Savings Accounts will make a huge difference in runaway health costs or lack of access to care for people who don't have insurance. HSAs are a way to allow health plan sponsors i.e. corporations and other employers that pay for health care - and theoretically their employees - to save money by using the tax code. And yet because they are ideologically opposed to ANY government role in healthcare (aside from Medicare, which they know is politically untouchable) this is the best conservatives can come up with to address the crisis in the cost and access to healthcare.
In this case, it isn't that the ideas are inherently bankrupt, like Social Security privatization. Health Savings Accounts could save people money. It's that the ideas are a dodge - a way to sound like you care about a problem and want to address it without proposing a real solution that might violate your core ideological principles. I certainly hope that the Democratic nominee makes this point loud and clear in the general election campaign.
December 19, 2007 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Brad, I basically agree with you about school vouchers and HSAs, but I'd add a couple of things. One is that they are quite consciously intended to be diversionary tactics aimed at stalling or undercutting more progressive reforms that would involve more, rather than less, government. The second point is that while it's true that neither school vouchers nor HSAs have been nearly as damaging as the other ideas, they also both have quite clearly failed to deliver on the promises made on their behalf. Polls show that people who have HSAs, which come with high-deductible insurance, are disproportionately unhappy with their coverage. And many employers aren't offering policies in conjunction with HSAs because they are an administrative nightmare.
As for school vouchers, there's no persuasive evidence that they have meaningfully improved test scores. That's not such a big deal in its own right--lots of school reforms have failed. But the right keeps pushing the same idea nonetheless, crowding out debate over other ideas with greater promise, because of their ideological fixations and determination not to let public school reforms regain momentum.
--Greg
December 19, 2007 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
HSAs have other problems, such as inequities (in who can take advantage of the benefit) and funding not available to universal health care, with in turn further inequitites. The problems with vouchers are similar but more immediately and obviously deleterious in effect, in that a service already widely used by the poor and middle class (public schools) loses funding as well.
It'd be like starting with universal health care and then offering HSAs, with the money to be taken from existing health insurance. Moreover, instead of something like Medicare in such a system, suppose each person's existing health insurance had been a small, poorly funded local entity to start with.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
December 19, 2007 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's silly to say Paul's safe because his program is so wacky. That's, shall we say, counterintuitive. We'd just get a scary economic policy that doesn't happen to include the gold standard but would be against everything conceivable liberals hope for.
Have we reached the pathetic point that we'll support anyone who is against the war and wiretapping, however right-wing? It's disgusting.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
December 19, 2007 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
One other big difference between some of Paul's extreme economic ideas and the GOP conservative's extreme legal theories and foreign policy excesses. The former is so divorced from reality that even if Paul were elected president he would be unable to put us on the gold standard as an example, while the neocons with their equally nutty theories of foreign policy were able to convince a majority of Americans to go along.
I have a suggestion as to why this happened. And that is that the opposition (ie Democrats, especially of the Clinton flavor) sold their followers on the benefits of humanitarian war. Thus all the neocons had to do was present Iraq as a humanitarian disaster (see T Friedman 2002 - 2003 if you question this assertion) and a sizable fraction of our fellow liberals joined the front ranks of the war party.
I happen to believe that if your primary goal in the upcoming election is world peace, then a Paul presidency with a Democratic lock on the House and Senate would be the best result. The democrats would preserve the economy and Paul would, along with Democratic party and progressive republican allies, begin to dismantle the military-industrial complex. Not practical, I know, but it is a sweet dream.
December 19, 2007 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is unconvincing. You are forgetting that the public as a whole had a very strong reaction to the 9/11 attacks. The public was on a war footing from the moment the towers came down. All the administration had to do was harness that sentiment and channel it towards their goal. The fact that a few prominent liberals were convinced that there was also a humanitarian case for war was a pretty minor part of the picture. As late as 2005, a majority of the public still supported the war because they saw it as a response to the 9/11 attacks.
But it's also important to state for the record that Iraq WAS a humanitarian disaster. The liberal hawks were not hallucinating when they said that there was an opportunity to do something for the people of Iraq and remove a monstrous tyrant. The issue is not that the humanitarian case was bogus. The issue is that (a) the liberal hawks - and I include myself - let themselves be convinced that the humanitarian case trumped the case for caution and (b) they didn't foresee that the Administration would prove to be so fathomlessly corrupt, venal and incompetent. Of the two, (b) is more understandable than (a). I can't remember anyone making the case that we shouldn't go to war because the Administration would screw it up. I'm sure someone did, but it wasn't the main thrust of the anti-war arguments. However, lots of people said an Iraq without Saddam would turn chaotic pretty quickly. That's the part I personally regret the most.
December 19, 2007 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
December 19, 2007 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
So because WWI saw fewer killed than WWII, does that mean it wasn't a disaster? I'll agree that the "cure" - the Iraq War - was far worse, at every level - than the "disease" of Saddam's tyranny. But that doesn't mean Saddam wasn't a tyrant.
I don't get this part of the anti-war argument. You saw it in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 with its images of Iraqi children flying kites before the war, as if life under Saddam was a walk in the park. It's seems like there's a need to say that every single argument offered by those who supported the war was wrong, as if admitting they had any valid points at all would somehow render the anti-war arguments invalid.
Life is rarely so neat and tidy. Saddam's regime was responsible for more than 300,000 Iraqi deaths. It was responsible for two wars that killed a further million or so people. It ran the most brutal, sadistic, fear-inducing society in the Middle East, which is saying a lot. It just isn't credible to deny that such a regime was a humanitarian disaster. If Saddam's Iraq wasn't a disaster, then it would be hard to picture what would be.
Well it's not at all clear that even the most competently run occupation in Iraq would have prevented the sectarian violence. But the incompetence surely made it worse. That is why I am saying that the greater misjudgment was not about the competence issue. It was around the cost and uncertainty. We just believed the crap that the occupation wouldn't be a big deal. That is, if we thought about the occupation at all.
But if the war had yielded a reasonably stable Iraq with limited casualties, then yes, I think most would have looked back on it as justified. The trouble is, we should have seen how unlikely that was.
It is true that the US does not invade countries solely to help people, although there are examples that come close. What, for example was the "Empire" objective of the Kosovo or Somalia campaigns? However, there are many examples of wars that have large knock-on effects that are very helpful to people. The US didn't get into the Korean War specifically to help Koreans, but there can be no doubt that South Koreans are immensely better off than they would be if the US had stayed away. Empire isn't always the worst thing. Just ask the North Koreans.
December 19, 2007 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's seems like there's a need to say that every single argument offered by those who supported the war was wrong, as if admitting they had any valid points at all would somehow render the anti-war arguments invalid.
Good point, BradtheDad. I think that this attitude you describe is also partly behind "Trutherism." That is, some people feel that they cannot defend civil liberties from the Bush administration unless they can deny that Islamic terrorism is a threat to us at all.
"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"
December 20, 2007 4:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Greg, have you run into Roger Freedman? He's an astronomer and physicist at UCSB. I used to work with him on a textbook he writes, which put me on his mailing list. It started with his emailing his jokes. After Bush was elected, it got increasingly political.
Today he sent around a recommendation to look at a Web site, "Government Is Good," by Doug Arny, a politics prof at Mount Holyoke. It made me think of you, and I'm looking at it now with no opinion yet. In turn, I wrote Roger back suggesting he look at your book and recommend it to his, er, following.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
December 19, 2007 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
John, I don't know Roger, but I have exchanged e-mails with Professor Amy (it only looks like "Arny" for those of us who use reading glasses). He's a political scientist at Mount Holyoke College. People should definitely check out his Government is Good website. Thanks, Greg
December 19, 2007 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"it only looks like "Arny" for those of us who use reading glasses." Oops! Maybe that explains why I couldn't write him to suggest his resource page better include your book (although this time I doubt it). I swear I typed the skewed letters it asked for correctly, but four times in a row it told me I goofed. Oh, well. I was skewed myself because I was thinking, hmm, is he the author of an Am Govt text, and that made me think of an Arny who has written another astronomy textbook. (It's not among the top 5. Roger has the market leader, formerly by Bill Kaufmann.) Sorry: higher ed is my line of work.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
December 19, 2007 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may consider Ron Paul's stance on the gold standard wacky, but if you read the books hehas written about it, (or indeed books by any Austrian economist), you would be hard-pressed t ocall it anti-intellectual.
He is also the only candidate who doesn't talk about taxes and tax cuts as if they exist in a vacuum, or as if military spending is somehow sacrosanct when budget-cutting time comes.
"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"
December 19, 2007 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, this is all well and good, and fairly obvious to anyone who reads the newspapers, although I am stunned by Frum's chutzpah in warning of anti-intellectualism in the Republican Party, which bases its entire electoral success on the idea that people are stupid.
The question in my mind is, what are Dems going to do about it? Right now, they've trapped themselves into a pointless debate about whether the surge is working and whether we should withdraw our troops next week, next month, or next year. Instead, they should be asking, why, 4 1/2 years after the military defeat of Saddam's forces, we NEED a surge to subdue a nation that in 2003 was eager for Saddam's overthrow, and, in its wake, was waiting patiently to see what the victorious forces would do for them.
Every single thing the neocons touch turns to shit because they are ideologically, not pragmatically, driven, and woven into their inane ideology is a highly neurotic need for authoritarian control. This why at times, as when Bush, Cheney, and Rummy deliberately ignored all the best advice from their own military and State Department experts about how to handle post-invasion Iraq, their ideology seems to be based simply on the desire to piss other people off.
But the Dems have yet to point out that the many failures of this most unpopular administratin are not Bush and Cheney's alone, but the entire Party's, which is a gaggle of unaccomplished misfits, sexual deviants, thieves, hare-brained "intellectuals", and religious fanatics. The failures of the neocon administration are the failures of the entire party. The Dems should be saying the EVERY SINGLE DAY, fifty times.
December 20, 2007 2:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are absolutely right. The Dems must make this election about party and policy, not personality. And they, in addtion to your suggestions, should take Alterman's advice and point out everyday that the Republican candidates for President are vying with each other to establish which of them would be more effective/determined/resolute in continuing the Bush Adminstration's philosophy and policy, from Iraq to coddling billiuonaires and stopping scientific advances and undermining free inquiry wherever possible.
December 20, 2007 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I meant to convey that Dems need to realize that this election, like all other national elections, is about image marketing. The fact that the Dems can win by marketing the truth and the Reps can only win by marketing bullshit is an advantage, but the marketing still has to be done.
Dukakis quite famously reacted to the Willie Horton ads by saying, "Nobody will buy that; I've got a great record on law and order." He did, but it didn't matter. Only image matters.
Bush is widely discredited, dismissed, and disliked, but if the Dems assume that they can ride that horse without whipping it, they're nuts. Bush isn't running. His failures have to be turned into a flaming necklace and hung around the neck of every Republican candidate.
December 20, 2007 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
LongTom and SocialDem,
This is exactly right. At every level of office in 2008, the theme should be that the myriad government failures under Bush were a consequence of a conservative belief system that's hostile to government. Anyone who shares that same belief system and agenda, like virtually all Republican candidates do, will fail for the same reasons. The right's ideology will continue to produce incompetent government until the public recognizes that conservatives can no longer be trusted to hold the reins of power.
It's a simple, clear, easy to support, and completely accurate message. And, so far anyway, none of the leading presidential candidates has seized on the opportunity to tell that story. --Greg
December 20, 2007 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Greg, for your work and insight. Your last sentence raises a troubling question. Why is that our candidates have not begun to make this obvious argument? Is it that they are simply too absorbed in the current primary contest? This may account for some of the apparent reticence to slam anyone but Bush, Cheney, and corporations or special interests. But I suspect the problem is more deeply rooted. Perhaps they and their staffs believe they would be criticized by the MSM for being too "partisan" if they laid all these failures at the door of the Republicans and their reactionary and obscrantist allies? Or maybe they are afraid of offending Republicans or those who weakly identify as Republican when asked. Whatever the reason, it all too readily plays into the meme that Dems and Liberals are not tough manly men, won't stand up for themselves or their principles or for the country's interests and, in short, are a bunch of mealy mouthed cowards. This is the drum right wing bully boys and their imitators and allies in the MSM beat all the time, either as explicit theme or nasty subtext.
So I hope that Dem elities begin to realize that playing nice with our adversaries and trying to be above partisanship is a prescription for continued failure.
December 21, 2007 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is that our candidates have not begun to make this obvious argument? Is it that they are simply too absorbed in the current primary contest?
My suspicion is that, in at least one case, the conservative values upon which the Bush failures were built are shared by the candidate herself.
December 21, 2007 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
SocialDem, I'm not really sure why the Dems running for President haven't yet seized the opportunity to equate Bush's failures with conservatism's failures, but I have a few theories:
1. Their pollsters and consultants, and perhaps the candidates themselves in the case of Clinton and Obama, are fearful of a backlash. Lots of people identify themselves as conservative who might vote for a Democrat this year. So why alienate them? I think that concern is pretty easy to address. Use the label Bush conservatism and Bush conservatives to distinguish the modern right that needs to be crushed from the old-fashioned brand of conservatism that was simply opposed to change. Movement conservatism is actually radical and destructive of existing, successful practices and institutions. That distinction should help keep the self-identified conservatives who are worth courting from being turned off. In fact, many would welcome that clarification.
2. Old habits die hard. Democrats and their consultants are used to running certain kinds of campaigns in which they have a comfort zone--and the top three currently fit that description. Taking on conservatism head on, rather than trying to accommodate it or find middle ground or pursue a populist anti-corporate approach (whic is closer to the right idea but still missing the target), really isn't familiar territory for Democrats at this level.
3. A lot of the money is coming from sources who would be skittish about taking on the conservative movement (many of whom contribute to both sides).
I'm still semi-optimistic that the general election will create a dynamic that will lead the Democratic nominee to emphasize that any future Republican president who follows the conservative movement's playbook, as Bush did, will fail just as surely as he did. The case is simply too compelling to squander the opporunity to make it.--Greg
December 21, 2007 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's just too early for primary candidates to attack the opposite side, and lots of consultants emphasize the positive message. We'll hear about it after the conventions, I'm sure.
December 21, 2007 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republicans have been attacking liberals left and right in recent weeks.--Greg
December 22, 2007 6:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Guess they aren't buying the consultant package. Then again, aren't most polls showing them losing?
December 22, 2007 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
The decision by EPA administrator Stephen Johnson to deny California and 16 other states a waiver is a perfect example of the failure of principle. If states are the laboratory of democracy, if they are closer to problems and better suited to explore them, then on what grounds can the EPA block their attempts to limit all tailpipe emissions? Answer: emissions require a global solution, and not individual versions. And the recent legislation trumps state's versions, saith the EPA head.
Of course, the professionals at EPA all said otherwise. Ditto judges. In this case only the fortunes of business owners is at stake. Is there a single department in the Bush administration where the rank and file agree with their supervisor's practices? It's not ideology, only elitism. There never was a coherent concept at the center.
December 20, 2007 4:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Frum says, “…politicians who want to deliver effective government and positive results have to care about more than values – and have to do more than check their guts. They need to study the problem, master the evidence, and face criticism.”
I suppose this depends on which "values" one is referring to. And it would seem he has joined the ranks of "liberals" in terms of looking at facts.
What he said is just so much gobbledy-gook because he knows full well what it takes to have effective government and positive results and it has everything to do with values such as actually giving a shit instead of hanging people out to dry. But the agenda being pursued is to turn this country into a plantation economy with the common good no where in sight. Anyone who doesn't know this does not understand the nature of greed or the reasons people pursue power.
********
- We do not act rightly because we have virture, we have virtue because we act rightly.
December 20, 2007 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that Congress needs to make 'Balance The Budget' their daily mantra. Insofar as conservatism is concerned, well, a truly conservative voter group would be dead-set against the war, f'rinstance, and they'd be raising holy hell over the debt, as it represents a financial burden for all perpetuity on all citizens. You also hear the phrase 'christian values' used in conjunction with the term 'conservative', which raises even more questions, both about people's understanding of the religious values they claim to be espousing as well as their honesty. True christians believe in peace, helping the poor, and stuff like that. For my nickel, these people are money-grubbing charlatans that cleave to an ostentatious and artificial set of religious beliefs when it's politically expedient for them to do so.
I'll take the Independents, or Ron Paul or Kucinich, please.
December 21, 2007 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink