What's Eating the GOP? (Part 2)

Jonah Goldberg says he doesn't necessarily disagree with a lot of what David Brooks is saying -- but you can tell it kind of annoys him. At the Corner, Goldberg registers two objections to Brooks's piece. The first is that "Brooks conflates conservatism and GOP policies," something which has apparently become a "bugaboo" to Goldberg. Now, I recognize that in theory the conservative movement is not the same thing as the Republican party. But let's face it -- the conservative movement has largely conflated itself with the GOP. That's its raison d'etre. Individual Republicans may advance policy ideas opposed by the conservative movement, but there's no question who's in the driver's seat there. For Goldberg, the "lamentable" tragedy is that "conservatism has come to mean defending Bush's policies." Well, yes. It would take a special kind of mendacity to argue that the Bush administration was not the product of nearly four decades of movement-building.

Or maybe it's just wishful thinking. Whatever it is, Goldberg's next objection perfectly illustrates exactly how complaining about compassionate conservatism has become a practice for conservatives seeking to dodge their responsibility for the disasters of the Bush era and to insist that real conservatism has not yet had its day (just as certain Marxists would tell you that there never was a real communist state):

What Brooks sees as a the base's inability to accept change is often, in reality, a burning desire for change. He mocks the clamor for Fred Thompson to run as an "Authentic Conservative" but he fails to see, or at least credit, the degree to which the call for "Authentic Conservatism" is a rebuke of Bush. Compassionate conservatism was the change. And, I would argue, that change has done lasting damage to conservatism and to the GOP. And so now many want something new. The call for authentic conservatism, fairly or not, is not a call for staying the course.

And, one should recall, David's writing contributed a lot of oxygen to the legitimacy of compassionate conservatism. It has now been rejected by substantial quarters of the GOP and the invocations of Reaganism amount to the base's way of saying the experiment failed.

There's almost a logic to this argument: it's true that Brooks argues for Republicans to confront the strategic and policy questions that compassionate conservatism was designed to address. In that respect, one could suggest that Brooksian conservatives should be tagged with the failures of the Bush administration. I'm not in the business of defending David Brooks, so I won't spend any time parsing the difference between "national greatness conservatism" (whatever that is) and the compassionate variety. But what is this "authentic conservatism?" It appears to be something that exists only in retrospect, in the mystic chords of memory. It isn't what Reagan actually did, but what conservatives like to believe Reagan did. Or does authentic conservatism consist entirely of a modest deceleration in non-defense discretionary spending, temporary cuts in marginal tax rates, and defining ketchup as a vegetable?

Ross Douthat, responding to Goldberg, sees this problem more clearly:

Reaganism ran out of steam in the late 1990s: It had succeeded on many fronts, been co-opted by the Democrats on others, and run up against a wall of pro-welfare state public opinion on still others. "Compassionate conservatism" was an attempt to address the new political landscape by promising to reform government in a conservative direction, rather than simply slashing it to the bone; it was a terrible slogan, to my mind, but the underlying idea was basically a good one.

As Douthat observes, compassionate conservatism was never meant to be anything other than a road to a kind of "authentic conservatism" -- one that took into account the fact that the American system and the American public have proved pretty strongly resistant to those authentically conservative ideas.

Douthat blames the failure of compassionate conservatism on the Bush administration's blundering, which is understandable given the obvious fact that the White House has indeed made an art form of blundering. And Douthat is invested in finding a way around that failure, since his own ideas are based in very similar considerations to those that drove compassionate conservatism. It's a battle worth fighting: as I've suggested before, somewhere in that confused conceptual stew are the ideas that will ultimately offer the most promise for conservatism going forward.

But let's take a moment, then, to reflect on just how remarkable the failure of compassionate conservatism has been. By 2002, the Republican party had utterly destroyed the liberal establishment and the Democatic party as political forces. It had the national media at its feet. Disagreement was quite openly -- and effectively -- equated with treason. Bush's public approval ratings were robust and his party was in hero-worship mode. Never -- not even during the Reagan administration -- was there a moment more favorable for an ambitious conservative policy agenda. And yet it all ended in disaster for conservatives and the GOP. You can blame that on Bush's poor communication skills, as some conservative pundits have done. But I'm inclined to believe that such a massive failure is pretty difficult to ascribe to stuttering and malapropisms alone. It seems rather likely that there was a structural problem.

The evidence, to me, suggests that it's damn near impossible for "authentic conservatism" to succeed on its own, nor is it possible to arrive at authentic conservative ends by compassionate conservative means.

I don't mean to imply that the Bush administration accomplished nothing. That's an easy mistake to make. On the contrary, it succeeded wildly in some respects. It got itself re-elected, which is the prime directive of any political machine. It was able to raid the Treasury on its allies' behalf, and reward its friends in big business by gutting the federal regulatory apparatus (though, as this article points out, it never did manage to solve the riddle of the Securities and Exchange Commission). And, of course, it got its war.

These may not have been the goals conservative intellectuals had in mind. I have no doubt that many of them -- those who aren't merely astroturfers -- have an authentic desire to remake America according to their own bright ideas, for the good of the Republic and apple pie. But the failure of their ideas left a void at the heart of their party's governing wing, into which rushed the hacks and the flacks and the money-grubbing opportunists who have for so long recognized the GOP as the party most likely to create just such opportunities. It isn't that conservatives have no principles. But so far, the evidence suggests that their principles don't work. And if this in turn means that their party tends to govern without principles, there are plenty of people ready to take advantage of that fact.

Keep your eye on this battle over the meaning of compassionate conservatism. It has a great deal of significance for the future of the conservative movement and the Republican party. In the meantime, though, as long as Republicans are in power, you might want to keep your other eye on what the party's less-principled hand is doing.

Labels: compassionate conservatism, conservatives, Jonah Goldberg, Republicans, Ross Douthat

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 6:59 AM 0 comments

  "Odd Silence" over Reagan Bio

A couple weeks ago I discussed a review of the new biography of Ronald Reagan by John Patrick Diggins - a liberal scholar who nonetheless apparently has a great deal of praise for Reagan as an idealist above all.

So this post by Jonah Goldberg at the Corner caught my eye:

According to Diggins the Gipper disagreed sharply with his neocon advisors (which seems to include all of the strong anti-Communists around him) and the neocons were wrong about just about everything. Some of it strikes me as useful and informed correction but much of it strikes me as tendentious, odd or as ill-advised attempts to find the roots of the Iraq war in the Reagan Administration. I thought to myself: I wonder what Peter Robinson or Steve Hayward or the entire constellation of folks at Commentary and The Weekly Standard have to say about all of this? And, from what I can tell the answer is: absolutely nothing. George Will, Jim Pinkerton and Rich wrote about Diggins's book and that's about it (Will loved it, oddly). Pinkerton takes a shot or two — at the neocons — but basically nobody has pushed back on Diggins' frontal assault on them.

This is maybe a telling interpretation.

Inasmuch as Reagan really believed that "that the only answer to the cold war was to call it off," as Diggins puts it, he was breaking not only with the neocons, but also, of course, with the realists. But setting that aside, and also setting aside Goldberg's own preoccupations, I would suppose that a book like this should touch off rather more discussion on the right, especially in neoconservative circles. Here's a liberal writer declaring Reagan to be one of the greatest presidents in American history - man takes a big bite out of dog - yet also inverting the narrative of how Saint Reagan won the Cold War, arguing that victory came not thanks to American bluster, but thanks to the president's newfound willingness to take risks in talking peace. You'd think all of this would spark some debate amongst conservatives. But, if Goldberg's right, it hasn't. Which is odd.

Anyway, I'll get around to reviewing the book myself, sooner or later.

Labels: Jonah Goldberg, Ronald Reagan, The Corner

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 9:56 AM 0 comments

  Eternal Victory

d. at Lawers, Guns, and Money has more on the right's - specifically, Jonah Goldberg's - increasingly shrill attachment to an abstract idea of "victory."

Proceeding from the false dichotomy that Americans are divided between those who "want the war to be a success" and those who "want the war to be over," Goldberg congratulates the preznit on his insatiable desire to win. [...] And the fact that Bush's plans gang aft agley only makes Goldberg more upset with the Democrats:

He may be deluding himself, and his plan may not work, but he at least has done the nation the courtesy of saying what his position is, despite an antagonistic political establishment and a hostile public. What is maddening is that the Democratic leadership cannot, or will not, clearly tell the American people whether they are the party of "end it" or "win it."

This is beyond pathetic. Goldberg finds such "stubborn emphasis on victory" to be courageous -- "wise," in fact -- and so Bush's desire for victory immunizes him somehow from responsibility for what happens from here onward.

Again, what is at work here looks, to me, like the rapid crystalization of the conservatives' new stab-in-the-back myth.

The fiction called "victory" in this context is something that can be defined in real, if unlikely, terms - "a secure Iraq that defends itself and is an ally in the war on terror" - but can only exist on the far end of a near-infinite regression. We have been driving at "victory" for three and a half years now, and "victory" has only gotten further away. However, as long as we continue to fight in Iraq, we can claim to be pursuing it. Again, this can go on indefinitely. It could continue for a decade, and "victory" might be no closer, but neither would it cease to exist as a concept towards which we are oriented. The right will never - never - be willing to call time, to cut the cord. The Democrats will have to do it.

And thus we have the real function of "victory" - even if the war's supporters cannot or will not admit it yet. "Victory's" primary purpose is to exonerate the right for the failure of the war. It is the war supporters' historical escape mechanism. The "victory" phantasm is a tool for shifting the blame from those who foolishly created the war, and who idiotically supported its indefinite continuation, to those who opposed the war. The Democrats will have to put a stop to the war, because the right never will. And ever after, the war party will be able to point to the still-unsullied - because un-reached, unrealized - "victory," and point out that it was the peace party who turned us away from it.

It would be nice, though perhaps it's expecting too much our our media, if there were a lot more scrutiny of this notion of "victory." In the meantime, the task for progressives is to clearly and loudly describe the formation of the Dolchstosslegende as it happens, the better to strangle it in its cradle.

Labels: Dolchstosslegende, Iraq, Jonah Goldberg, Lawyers Guns and Money

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 9:10 AM 0 comments

  More Guns, Fewer Waffles

In a funny post at Glenn Greenwald's place, Blue Texan giggles over the Republicans' presidential primary field ("So who will it be, GOP? The flip-flopper, the traitorous RINO or the pro-gay rights New Yorker?") [By the way, that should be "The Massachusetts flip-flopper"]. He also digs up a Jonah Goldberg quote I hadn't seen before, as to why so many Democrats seem to be such flip-floppers:

The pressure within the Republican Party has been to promote politicians willing to take strong conservative positions, even if they turn some people off. The pressure in the Democratic Party has been to promote candidates who can be all things to all people.

Why, Jonah, you bushy-tailed little blind squirrel, I do believe you've found a nut!

Or half a nut, anyway. It's easier to look like a flip-flopper when 1) You've served a few terms in the Senate, and 2) There's a cottage industry devoted to making you look waffle-ish. Still, there's something to what Goldberg says here. The ideological discipline imposed by conservatives on the Republican party has indeed had the side effect of maintaining a certain consistency in GOP rhetoric; that, in turn, tends to make Republican politicians look steadfast and confident (even if it's actually a sign of cravenness). By contrast, as I mentioned in the post below, the Democrats have, since the 1970s, largely been cut adrift from any bold public agenda of their own - forced to navigate according to the discursive paradigm set up by the conservatives and the contrasting demands of various constituents.

In other words, the more that progressive intellectuals and media can press forward a confident agenda of our own, the more opportunity Democratic politicians will have to stick to a certain set of guns - and thus, to look stronger.

Of course, too much rigidity can backfire completely, as the Republicans have recently learned. We have to give the Democrats some room when the perfect is the enemy of the good. Still, at least the progressive agenda, unlike the conservative one, has the virtue of actually being popular.

Labels: 2008, Glenn Greenwald, Jonah Goldberg, Presidential election, progressives, Republicans

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 3:19 PM 0 comments

  Jonah Goldberg's Brilliant New Idea for Iraq

This morning at the National Review: Jonah Goldberg figures out just what the Iraqis need: their very own Pinochet!

"Now, hold on," you say. "Didn't they already have something like that?" Patience, please: Jonah is getting there. But it's kind of a confusing column: possibly he was drunk when he wrote it. Let's go through it together, step-by-step:

I think all intelligent, patriotic, and informed people can agree: It would
be great if the U.S. could find an Iraqi Augusto Pinochet. In fact, an Iraqi
Pinochet would be even better than an Iraqi Castro.

Well, this is no good. Incoherent from word one. Let's see if it gets better:

Let’s put aside, at least for a moment, the question of which man was (or is)
“worse.”

Okay, let's.

Castro almost surely has many more bodies on his rap sheet.

I thought we were putting that... well, okay.

But there are measures beside body counts. Castro took Cuba, once among the most
prosperous nations in Latin America and destined for First World status, and
rendered it poorer than nearby Jamaica and heading Haiti-ward. The island is a
prison, and trying to leave can be a capital crime.

Castro is bad: check.

Now consider Chile. General Pinochet seized a country that was coming apart at
the seams. He too clamped down on civil liberties and the press. He too
dispatched souls.

This is cool. I think Soul Dispatcher sounds like a very nice job title.

But on the plus side,

Right, I know this: On the plus side,

income distribution became more regressive. While the upper 5% of the population received 25% of the total national income in 1972, it received 50% in 1975. Wage and salary earners got 64% of the national income in 1972 but only 38% at the beginning of 1977. Malnutrition affected half of the nation's children, and 60% of the population could not afford the minimum protein and food energy per day. Infant mortality increased sharply. Beggars flooded the streets.

The junta's economics also ruined the Chilean small business class. Decreased demand, lack of credit, and monopolies engendered by the regime pushed many small and medium size enterprises into bankruptcy. The curtailment of government expenditures created widespread white-collar and professional unemployment. The middle class began to rue its early support of the junta, but appeared reluctant to join the working class in resistance to the regime.

The junta relied on force, the oligarchy, huge foreign corporations, and foreign loans to maintain itself. Under Pinochet, funding of military and internal defence spending rose 120% from 1974 to 1979. Due to the reduction in public spending, tens of thousands of employees were fired from other state-sector jobs. [6] The oligarchy recovered most of its lost industrial and agricultural holdings, for the junta sold to private buyers most of the industries expropriated by Allende's Popular Unity government. This period saw the expansion of monopolies and widespread speculation.

Oh, wait, that wasn't Jonah. Sorry. On the plus side,

Pinochet’s abuses helped create a civil society.

Just as American civil society could not have developed without the terrible abuses of the George Washington regime.

I ask you: Which model do you think the average Iraqi would prefer? Which
model, if implemented, would result in future generations calling Iraq a
success?

Indeed. When the President talks about spreading democracy in the middle east, which bloodthirsty Latin American dictator should he seeking to emulate?

Now, you might say: “This is unfair. This is a choice between two bad options.”

True enough.

True enough.

Whoa.

But that’s all we face in Iraq: bad options.

Oh, Jonah. You used to be so bright-eyed. But anyway:

When presented with such a predicament, the wise man chooses the more moral, or
less immoral, path.

And no man is wiser than Jonah Goldberg. But why do I get the feeling that train left the station in March of 2003?

I bring all this up because in the wake of Pinochet’s death (and Jeane
Kirkpatrick’s), the old debate over conservative indulgence of Pinochet has
elicited shrieking from many on the left claiming that any toleration of
Pinochet was inherently immoral—their own tolerance of Castro
notwithstanding.

Let's see if we can spot the difference. In the case of one dictator, "tolerance" meant that our government actively brought him to power in an illegal coup, then aggressively supported him even through the most repressive phases of his regime. In the case of the other dictator, "tolerance" means some people who think that maybe our government should ease up a little bit on the sanctions. One of these "tolerances" is not like the other, wouldn't you say?

Moving on:

But these days, there’s a newfound love for precisely this sort of realpolitik.
Consider Jonathan Chait, who recently floated a Swiftian proposal that we put
Saddam Hussein back in power in Iraq because, given his track record of
maintaining stability and recognizing how terrible things could get in Iraq,
Hussein might actually represent the least-bad option. Even discounting his
sarcasm, this was morally myopic.

But I thought you just said the wise man would choose the least-bad option?

But it seems to me, if you can contemplate reinstalling a Hussein, you’d count
yourself lucky to have a Pinochet.

Damn. We've run out of column and Jonah still doesn't make any sense. Tell you what: I'll list a few options as to what the point possibly could be, and you can decide which one you like best.

1. We had to overthrow Saddam in order to foster freedom and democracy in Iraq, which can only happen if we install somebody just like Saddam - only his name can't actually be Saddam.
2. Quick: we need to find a fascist dictator for Iraq before a communist one takes over.
3. Freedom is on the march: one right-wing authoritarian strongman at a time.
4. You just can't get good client states these days.
   

(Paul)

Labels: Iraq, Jonah Goldberg, Pinochet

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 9:20 AM 0 comments