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How the GOP Could (and Should) Come Back
As the TV pundits and bloggers announce the death of the GOP, it strikes me that their analysis is more shallow than they realize. I am beginning to think that it isn't the GOP that has died but the entire era of partisanship has entered critical condition and is on the verge of dying ... it's just that almost nobody has noticed it yet.
It isn't difficult to imagine what a reinvigorated GOP might offer that could springboard a new generation of political leaders into office: an emphasis on demanding individual responsibility and accountability yet ensuring an adequate government safety net, an emphasis on patriotism without xenophobia, an emphasis on pro-family policies without anti-gay or anti-choice policy rigidity, an emphasis on a realistic foreign policy without isolationism, an emphasis on balancing economic growth with a clean environment, an emphasis on a strong military but adaptive, an emphasis on strong borders but with a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, etc., etc.
There's no reason the GOP couldn't win by taking policy stands more or less the same issues that won elections for Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, but by offering an approach that rhetorically emphasizes precisely the opposite values. In short, Republicans might offer a style of governing that emphasis different priorities than the Democrats while offering essentially the same program: more agentic rather than communal, more masculine than feminine (to use traditional terms), more Agapic (emphasizing preservation of national identity) than Erotic (emphasizing transformation of national identity). There's permanent room for two contrasting styles of governance, and both styles have a valuable role in democracy. Both types are basically permanent features of politics because both types are permanent ways that human nature expresses itself.
On my reading, what's happening in the post-2008 election era is that some of the Democrats, led by Obama, have figured out that today's politics demands a non-ideological, genuinely post-partisan approach, but fewer of the Republicans have. Overconfident Democrats are liable to misread recent events as a vindication of a particular ideology; however, what seems to have been vindicated is an approach to governance that emphasizes a particular style (more communal, more transformative) as the right response now for this time. Democrats have a leader who has put a post-partisan style into effect, and it's resonating big time.
Obama may very well signal a permanent shift, but not a permanent shift to the Democrats. It may be that America is ready for a more integral, non-ideological politics, and once they've turned to a post-partisan mindset there's no going back. Democrats can only "lock" the vote if the GOP or a third party gives them an exclusive.
It isn't difficult to imagine what a reinvigorated GOP might offer that could springboard a new generation of political leaders into office: an emphasis on demanding individual responsibility and accountability yet ensuring an adequate government safety net, an emphasis on patriotism without xenophobia, an emphasis on pro-family policies without anti-gay or anti-choice policy rigidity, an emphasis on a realistic foreign policy without isolationism, an emphasis on balancing economic growth with a clean environment, an emphasis on a strong military but adaptive, an emphasis on strong borders but with a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, etc., etc.
There's no reason the GOP couldn't win by taking policy stands more or less the same issues that won elections for Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, but by offering an approach that rhetorically emphasizes precisely the opposite values. In short, Republicans might offer a style of governing that emphasis different priorities than the Democrats while offering essentially the same program: more agentic rather than communal, more masculine than feminine (to use traditional terms), more Agapic (emphasizing preservation of national identity) than Erotic (emphasizing transformation of national identity). There's permanent room for two contrasting styles of governance, and both styles have a valuable role in democracy. Both types are basically permanent features of politics because both types are permanent ways that human nature expresses itself.
On my reading, what's happening in the post-2008 election era is that some of the Democrats, led by Obama, have figured out that today's politics demands a non-ideological, genuinely post-partisan approach, but fewer of the Republicans have. Overconfident Democrats are liable to misread recent events as a vindication of a particular ideology; however, what seems to have been vindicated is an approach to governance that emphasizes a particular style (more communal, more transformative) as the right response now for this time. Democrats have a leader who has put a post-partisan style into effect, and it's resonating big time.
Obama may very well signal a permanent shift, but not a permanent shift to the Democrats. It may be that America is ready for a more integral, non-ideological politics, and once they've turned to a post-partisan mindset there's no going back. Democrats can only "lock" the vote if the GOP or a third party gives them an exclusive.
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Oh the Repubs will PLAY with the issues. But their intent is always clear.
Keep the underdogs under. Let the top flourish. And hey, we repubs are more moral than the dems. ha
May 5, 2009 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL, this is funny. What you are saying is this: GOP could be basically Democrats but pretend that they are republicans. Nice dream but fat chance.
May 5, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most political scientists would say that that's acutally a decent description for the classic, and usually only, path to power for the "out" party after losing a realignment election, becoming the party of "yes, but . . ." It's what Eisenhower and, in his own dark, twisted way, Nixon did after FDR's realignment and its what Bill Clinton did in the context of Reagan's realignment. And viewed that way, it's interesting that both Ike and Clinton were extremely popular and, overall, rank in the "excellent" range as presidents go.
Nixon? Well, just too many Shakespeare fodder mental disorders for that to have worked out any other way.
If we are, in fact, at the beginning of another realignment, its similarly hard to imagine the modern GOP having a collective lucid spell that ed long enough for them to nominate and elect someone who could do this for them anytime soon. To say the least. Easier to imagine them engaging in mob violence against such a candidate, actually.
May 6, 2009 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the path Cameron is taking in the UK, as the new leader of the Conservatives. Looks like he'll win with it - and it's a lonnnnnng way from Maggie-style politics. But very little sign that the US Right is interested in making this move yet. I suspect they'd have to lose a few times, to really take this to heart - and to move the brutal old guard out.
May 5, 2009 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not what they spout during the campaign. It's what they do when they get elected. w had soem great rhetoric when he was running that was completely abandoned once he had the White House.
May 6, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
"had soem great rhetoric when he was running "
- I love your point about "words" during the election and "action" afterwards.
May 7, 2009 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
So they should promise to focus on education, economic security with oportunity for all. A kinder, gentler, compassionate conservativeism. And THEN screw over 99% of the populace and give all the money to the rich.
Didn't somebody already do that? But I'm sure they will try it again. And they will probably pull it off. The Republicans are the P.T.Barnum party: There's a sucker born every minute and he will surely vote for Republicans.
May 6, 2009 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I really enjoyed this post but have to agree with the comments already here. The few remaining "Republicans" are extremists apparently void of self-awareness. While you fashion an appealing argument what you are conceiving is decades in the offing. And that's assuming that a Republican who has the talent comes forward in a place/state where they can actually get elected. I seem to remember that these sorts of Republicans USED TO come from Northeastern states...
May 6, 2009 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
"There's no reason the GOP couldn't win by taking policy stands more or less the same issues that won elections for Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, but by offering an approach that rhetorically emphasizes precisely the opposite values".
If Republicans could do this, they wouldn't be Republicans. Gone are the days of the Jack Kemps of the world!
May 6, 2009 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think that its hard to predict whether the Republican Party can find its way to sensible, moderate policies. These days, they seem inescapably caught in the death grip of their angry, far-right base. The party simply can't afford to alienate it's religious right supporters, and I don't see how the party can convince it's supporters to yield religious beliefs to political necessity.
I am confident, though, that the United States will always have at least two national parties. If the Republican party continues to weaken, then at some point conservative Democrats will split from the Democratic Party and either form their own party or join the Republicans for a new coalition.
May 6, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
To comeback Republicans need to change. Change is against everything they stand for. Right now the dinosaurs have a better chance of resurrection.
May 6, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great blog, Joe, and well reasoned advice that I suspect will be the transition the GOP goes through over the next decade or so.
In contrast to the comments that say that would mean the republicans just become democrats, I think what you are really calling for is a return to the party of Lincoln and Teddy rather than Saint Ronnie and George Junior. I find it humorous that they say it turns the GOP into democrats when the democrats didn't even become their modern incarnation until they became more like old school republicans.
As you point out, no matter what the parties have called themselves over the years, the essential duopoly of American politics has remained unchanged since 1776. When we have gotten it right on one set of priorities, say the New Deal policies, we failed miserably at other things such as civil rights. When we succeeded at civil rights, we failed miserably at foreign policy. No one party has been the champion of common sense of the last 230 years.
What we really need - and think we are moving toward - is balance.
May 6, 2009 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Balance" is just another word for nothing left to do.
May 6, 2009 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, it just means we can concentrate on doing what needs to be done rather than arguing over who is best suited to do it.
May 6, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
i dont think your comments make sense.
but i will just say, in case you havnt noticed the real issue with the republicans is their racist ugly hate filled base.
you know the ahh palin type of supporter?
there is only one way to make yourself a republican that can appeal nationally,
you must denounce the base!
outside of a massive terror attack on this country that would swing the people far right, the republcans will never sort out the mess they have made by catering to the worse elements in this country and also trying to appeal to everyone else.
that can not be done.
they have moved to far to the crazies.
May 6, 2009 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look, at one time the Democratic Party was the party of racists and the Republican Party the party of civil rights. In my lifetime.
The Northeast, New England especially, was Republican territory. The educated were Republicans, outside of academia. Brooke in Massachusetts and Lindsay and Rockefeller were the moderate wing. Midwestern Republicans formed a conservative wing that was principled and civil (at least compared to today). Some things, like Republican support for business, public patriotism, and self-reliance, remain the same today.
Republicans could go back to their earlier status, but that would be tough, just as it is tough today for progressive Democrats to do well in the South. It could and should happen. But not soon.
Having won a forty year slow conquest of the South, Republicans are loath to give up those sure votes and Democrats aren't trying to out-right them. The backwards and mean part of our electorate drives a painful bargain with those politicians who seek to dominate, a bargain written in the blood of the Civil War. The Politics of Dance has become a Symphony/Sympathy for the Devil.
[/ bombast]
May 6, 2009 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This diary is stupid in so many ways it's too much bother to list them. Suffice to say that ALL successful politicians mask their partisanship with a bipartisan veneer. Obama has skillfully created a bipartisan image for himslef and backed the GOP into a well-deserved role as iconoclastic, ideological scolds and soreheads. This is because that's what most of them are.
May 6, 2009 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems that most of the comments so far have focused on a different issue than that raised by the post: whether or not the Republican party is likely to adopt a post-ideological, post-partisan, pragmatic approach. And few think that the GOP in its current incarnation will do so, and I wholeheartedly agree with that assessment. It's right that the GOP is in a wilderness; but it remains to be seen just how dark and deep the forest is, and when they will find a clearing or exit.
I think the sentiment expressed by
is really pretty shortsighted. It's true that I'm suggesting that the GOP could revive itself by taking similar policy stands as Democrats on a host of major issues facing the country, so that much is obvious. But I'm not merely suggesting GOPs become "stealth Democrats"; I'm saying that if they become more pragmatic and less rigid, then they can see how their core principles (not ideology, but core values) can be applied in fresh ways that lead to new policy opportunities and priorities.Let me give one concrete example which is dear to my heart as a staunchyly pro-same-sex marriage Democrat. Republicans could strongly embrace same-sex marriage as a pro-family issue, and simultaneously oppose laws that weaken traditional marriage (e.g., domestic partnership legislation). They could become advocates of same-sex marriage because of its conservative virtues, essentially encouraging responsibility and an end to non-marital sexual activity across the board. Then they could couple their pro-family agenda with fresh ideas about using government to discourage divorce, and make an anti-divorce campaign central to their politics. An anti-divorce politics would probably resonate with their base, perhaps even more so than an anti-gay agenda in the long-term, while perhaps winning converts from culturally conservative Democrats.
There are countless other examples, the main point being that there will continue to be an opposition party of some form to the Democrats and if the GOP is eventually going to be a viable opposition party once again then it will need to basically co-opt the Democratic agenda while reframing traditional GOP priorities in way that can win converts.
May 8, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink