The Rise of Republican Nihilism - Jonathan Chait TNR

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The Rise of Republican Nihilism - Jonathan Chait TNR

Post by Linnea » 12-21-2009 04:59 AM

What happened to all those GOP ideas?

Jonathan Chait - Senior Editor, The New Republic
December 21, 2009 | 12:00 am

Does the Republican Party have any ideas? The query may have a familiar ring. Five years ago, the question of substance was demanded incessantly of the Democrats. Indeed, in one of those intellectual fads that periodically sweep through Washington, the political class became obsessed with the notion that conservatives had unambiguously won what everybody was calling “the war of ideas.”

The notion was everywhere. The right gloated. (“Conservative thought,” boasted right-wing foundation maven James Piereson, “has seized the initiative in the world of ideas.”) Republicans scolded the opposition. (President Bush chastised Democrats in Congress: “f they have no ideas or policies except obstruction, they should step aside and let others lead.”) And Democrats internalized the accusation. (“It makes me realize,” observed labor leader Andrew Stern in 2005, “how vibrant the Republicans are in creating twenty-first-century ideas, and how sad it is that we’re defending sixty-year-old ideas.”)

We don’t need the benefit of hindsight to grasp how silly it was to claim that the Bush-era Republican Party had risen to power on the crest of policy ideas whose time had come, or that the Democratic Party lacked an agenda of its own. The taunts about Democrats’ lacking ideas was less a serious analysis than an attempt to bully the party into cooperating with Bush’s plan to gradually privatize Social Security. (Click here* to read about the history of conservatives opposing insane progressive ideas, such as women's suffrage and child labor laws.) *see article for active link.

In reality, both parties have plenty of ideas that they would like to implement if given the political power to do so. Republicans’ policy ideas primarily involve cutting marginal tax rates and regulations. The question isn’t whether the Republican Party has any ideas. The question is whether the party has any relevant ideas.

In the days following the 2008 election, some Republicans predicted that the party would retool itself in response to reality--not just political reality but the actuality of policy challenges. “Republicans,” wrote conservative Ramesh Ponnuru in Time, “will have to devise an agenda that speaks to a country where more people feel the bite of payroll taxes than income taxes, where health-care costs eat up raises even in good times, where the length of the daily commute is a bigger irritant than are earmarks.” Nothing like that rethinking has happened or will happen.

Whatever the merits of President Obama’s agenda, it is clearly a response to objectively large problems facing the country. The administration has selected three main issues as the focus of its domestic agenda: the economic crisis, climate change, and health care reform. The issues themselves offer a stark contrast with Bush’s 2005 crusade to reshape Social Security. While sold as a response to the program’s long-term deficit, the privatization campaign was actually motivated by ideological opposition to Social Security’s redistributive role. (Bush refused Democratic offers to negotiate a fix to the program’s solvency without altering its social-insurance character.) By contrast, it is impossible to dismiss the problems Obama has chosen to address. In all three areas, the Republican Party has adopted a stance of total opposition, not merely because it disagrees with aspects of Obama’s solutions, but because it cannot come to grips with the very nature of the problems of modern American politics.

Begin with the economic crisis. The root cause of the collapse, as we all know by now, is that financial firms have grown so large and interconnected that the risks they incur can bring down the rest of the economy, forcing the government to intervene. After some initial support, the Republican response has been to denounce the financial bailout, without making any case that failing to save the financial system would have prevented a far deeper disaster...

Page 1 of 5 - article continues at link:

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/the ... n-nihilism

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Post by Joolz » 12-21-2009 09:31 AM

Great read. Chait lays it all out very logically and rationally. I especially liked the list of 'apocalyptic' quotes he links to on page 5. Thanks for posting this, Linnea.
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Post by Cynthia Lynn » 12-21-2009 02:38 PM

Joolz wrote: Great read. Chait lays it all out very logically and rationally. I especially liked the list of 'apocalyptic' quotes he links to on page 5. Thanks for posting this, Linnea.


:D

Thanks, Linnea and Joolz.

I especially like these two 'apocalyptic' quotes:

“Woman suffrage would give to the wives and daughters of the poor a new opportunity to gratify their envy and mistrust of the rich. Meantime these new voters would become either the purchased or cajoled victims of plausible political manipulators, or the intimidated and helpless voting vassals of imperious employers.”

—Former President Grover Cleveland, in 1905, on why women shouldn’t be able to vote


“[T]he child will become a very dominant factor in the household and might refuse perhaps to do chores before six a.m. or after seven p.m. or to perform any labor.”

—Senator Weldon Heyburn (R-ID), in 1908, on why child labor should remain unregulated

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Post by racehorse » 12-21-2009 02:53 PM

Cynthia Lynn wrote:

I especially like

“Woman suffrage would give to the wives and daughters of the poor a new opportunity to gratify their envy and mistrust of the rich. Meantime these new voters would become either the purchased or cajoled victims of plausible political manipulators, or the intimidated and helpless voting vassals of imperious employers.”

—Former President Grover Cleveland, in 1905, on why women shouldn’t be able to vote


Interesting thoughts from this distinguished Democratic President! ;) :D
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Post by HB3 » 12-21-2009 03:18 PM

Yeah, you know, that is strange...
—Senator Weldon Heyburn (R-ID), in 1908, on why child labor should remain unregulated
How come that guy was identified as a Republican?

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Post by Cynthia Lynn » 12-21-2009 04:17 PM

Alright, you two smart guys didn't even bother to read it, did you? :rolleyes:


"Conservatives have lined up in near-unanimous opposition to any progressive legislation introduced during President Obama’s first year in office. Whether they’ve been railing against health care reform, a climate bill, or financial regulation, their ire has stemmed less from legislative specifics than from a generalized prophecy of doom: Obama’s proposals will move the country toward socialism, bankrupt entire industries and small businesses, and deny Americans their basic freedoms. These arguments, however, aren’t new. Conservatives—not just Republicans, but various politicians and groups who’ve resisted major social changes—recycled them throughout the twentieth century. They used them to oppose numerous progressive measures that Americans now take for granted, from women’s suffrage to child-labor laws to Medicare.

Here we’ve collected a few choice predictions about disaster that never came. Conservatives today might prefer they be forgotten."

http://www.tnr.com/article/womens-suffr ... apocalypse

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Post by Linnea » 12-21-2009 04:22 PM

Originally posted by racehorse
Interesting thoughts from this distinguished Democratic President! ;) :D


Oh, oh.

But he was supported by the Mugwumps...

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Post by Linnea » 12-21-2009 04:24 PM

Originally posted by Cynthia Lynn
Alright, you two smart guys didn't even bother to read it, did you? :rolleyes:


"Conservatives have lined up in near-unanimous opposition to any progressive legislation introduced during President Obama’s first year in office. Whether they’ve been railing against health care reform, a climate bill, or financial regulation, their ire has stemmed less from legislative specifics than from a generalized prophecy of doom: Obama’s proposals will move the country toward socialism, bankrupt entire industries and small businesses, and deny Americans their basic freedoms. These arguments, however, aren’t new. Conservatives—not just Republicans, but various politicians and groups who’ve resisted major social changes—recycled them throughout the twentieth century. They used them to oppose numerous progressive measures that Americans now take for granted, from women’s suffrage to child-labor laws to Medicare.

Here we’ve collected a few choice predictions about disaster that never came. Conservatives today might prefer they be forgotten."

http://www.tnr.com/article/womens-suffr ... apocalypse


Thanks, Cynthia Lynn. Precisely the quote I was looking for in the article.

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Post by racehorse » 12-21-2009 04:24 PM

Cynthia Lynn wrote: Alright, you two smart guys didn't even bother to read it, did you? :rolleyes:



Yes it says that at the linked article but not in this thread (until now); just reading it here gives the impression due to the thread title that these are Republican thoughts.
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Post by Swerdloc » 12-21-2009 04:27 PM

Grover Cleveland certainly was a Democrat, the only one to break the Republican lock on the White House from Rutherford Hayes to William Howard Taft, if I recall correctly.

I remember hearing that the Mugwumps got their name because their mug was on one side of the fence and their wump was on the other.
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Post by racehorse » 12-21-2009 04:34 PM

Swerdloc wrote: Grover Cleveland certainly was a Democrat, the only one to break the Republican lock on the White House from Rutherford Hayes to William Howard Taft, if I recall correctly.


Actually from Ulysses Grant to William Howard Taft if you count President Cleveland only once. Officially he is both the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, as he is the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms.
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Post by Swerdloc » 12-21-2009 05:03 PM

Thanks, race; I forgot about Grant. Benjamin Harrison was the President in between Cleveland's two terms.
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