Is The Party Over For Republicans?

The Nation: In The Past Two Years, The GOP's Dream Of A Permanent Majority Has Become A Nightmare

(The Nation) 
If these analysts are right, the GOP may be in far greater trouble than even they fear, because the solution they recommend--serious measures to address the insecurity facing the working class--is unlikely to come from a party increasingly wedded to the interests of the ultra-privileged. At one point in Grand New Party, Douthat and Salam propose wage subsidies for low-income workers. It's a nice idea but not one likely to be greeted with great enthusiasm in a party that has consistently blocked efforts to raise the minimum wage while carving out tax loopholes for hedge fund managers. The same goes for broadening access to affordable healthcare, which in any serious plan would require vastly expanding the role of government, long a no-no on the right.

There is, in fact, a growing chorus of conservative critics who attribute the Bush Administration's failures not to its reckless tax cuts but to its insufficient fealty to the tenets of free-market orthodoxy. According to this camp, Bush's domestic agenda would have succeeded but for out-of-control domestic spending and the lack of zeal displayed in the drive to privatize Social Security. It's not hard to imagine how this wing of the right will respond to a major healthcare initiative in the years to come--by launching a campaign to sabotage it, as happened in 1993 when the Clinton Administration introduced such a plan.

If the drive to "slay the beast" of the federal government has begun to give even some conservatives pause, so too has the messianic foreign policy Bush and his advisers have so relentlessly pursued since 9/11. The reason, of course, is Iraq, which even the war's most avid supporters concede has done the Republican Party potentially irreparable harm. "Iraq is the great wreck and failure of this presidency, the great enduring shadow on our party," writes David Frum in Comeback, words it undoubtedly pained him to pen and that some of his comrades will surely see as coming too late. Frum is the neoconservative widely credited with having coined the phrase "axis of evil" (he actually called it the "axis of hatred"). In 2003 he wrote a National Review article titled "Unpatriotic Conservatives" in which he declared that paleoconservatives who did not support the war "have turned their backs on their country. Now we turn our backs on them." And so it is all the more striking to hear Frum announce that conservatives must "turn a new page" in foreign policy. What he means is that they should not feel ashamed to join the diplomacy-adoring appeasers on the left: "We should make clear that we as Republicans and conservatives are ready to go the extra mile on negotiation. Direct talks with Iran? Why not?"

The billions of dollars wasted and thousands of lives ruined by Bush's war may eventually recede from public consciousness; they have already faded from the headlines. But the damage to the right (to say nothing of the damage to the country) may prove lasting all the same, because the "war on terror" was not a cause embraced solely by the band of neoconservatives who brought us the war in Iraq. It was the template for a grand moral struggle that, like the fifty-year battle against the Soviet Union, was supposed to infuse conservatism with a sense of purpose and clarity not witnessed since Reagan rallied the faithful against communism. Several years ago, Joseph Bottum, an editor at First Things, wrote "The New Fusionism," an essay in which he explained why Bush's foreign policy had appealed to everyone from social conservatives obsessed with the evils of abortion to neocons preoccupied with the evils of the Taliban (who, on the matter of women's rights, would find much to admire in a journal like First Things). What brought them all together was a shared insistence that "there are truths about human life and dignity that must not be compromised."

Now that this impulse has led to disaster, many conservatives are having second thoughts. As the one in six Republicans who cast a vote for Ron Paul in the Pennsylvania primary attest, the streak of isolationism that has long existed on the right appears to be undergoing a resurgence. The skepticism of conservative realists who viewed the war in Iraq with wariness from the start has grown more vocal and pronounced. The raw fear that once persuaded large numbers of soccer moms, professionals and young people to vote for Bush has given way to widespread disgust at a party that has squandered the nation's moral credibility while ignoring equally pressing problems that future generations will have to deal with--the impending meltdown of the planet, for example. A recent poll shows that Democrats hold an eleven-point advantage over Republicans on the question of which party will do a better job on foreign policy, and a staggering 33 percent edge when it comes to restoring America's respect in the world. In the 2006 Congressional election, 18-to-29-year-olds--voters whose political consciousness was forged between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq--backed Democratic Congressional candidates by a margin of 60 to 38 percent. It is the exact opposite of the trend that took place during the Reagan era, and for conservatives it is a deeply worrisome sign: once formed, the political allegiances of such voters tend to last.

Judgments about the future of American politics often turn out to be wrong, especially when the subject is the fate of conservatism. Defenders of traditional cultural values were supposed to disappear after the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial. A quarter-century later, Lionel Trilling described liberalism as "not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition" in the United States, a view many postwar intellectuals shared, dismissing the American right as a fringe movement of xenophobic cranks enamored with the likes of Barry Goldwater, whose trouncing in the 1964 election appeared to confirm the marginality of conservative ideas. As it turns out, Goldwater's landslide defeat marked a key moment in modern conservatism's rebirth, ushering in an era of Republican dominance in the formerly Democratic South and fracturing the New Deal coalition that until then had seemed impregnable.

Four decades later, another Arizona Senator, John McCain, clearly senses that the movement Goldwater helped to inspire is in need of a makeover, at least of its image. McCain's carefully choreographed visits to places like Youngstown, Ohio; Inez, Kentucky; and the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans on his recent "It's Time for Action" tour were designed to signal that less privileged Americans will not be invisible to him, as they were to Bush. Then again, voters have witnessed this before--Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" in 2000. While McCain promises to be different, he has also suggested the government should do little to assist families engulfed by the subprime mortgage crisis. He has tried to have it both ways on foreign policy as well, assembling a team of advisers drawn equally from the realist and neoconservative camps. McCain has criticized the Bush Administration's unilateralism while slamming those who want to "cut and run" from Iraq and indicating his openness to trying regime change in neighboring Iran.

More than ever before, McCain must hope his reputation as a maverick will lead voters to forget he's actually a conservative Republican. He will undoubtedly try to overcome the baggage his party carries by framing his campaign less around issues than character: the plainspoken war hero running against an out-of-touch liberal elitist. Should his opponent be Barack Obama, we will surely be hearing plenty more about flag pins and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The strategy might succeed, but it also risks reinforcing the impression that while one party is promising change, the other is reaching into its familiar bag of tricks to disguise the fact that it is offering more of the same. "The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti-Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail," argued Gingrich in his recent article in Human Events.

It's a bit early to say whether Gingrich will be proven right, or for that matter whether the Age of Bush has brought an era to a definitive close. But at the least, it has shattered an illusion, leaving the right in need not merely of an image makeover but of structural repair, something McCain almost surely won't give it, and thus giving progressives an opportunity they have not had in a long time. As historian Rick Perlstein puts it, "Conservatives have always been able to say, 'just wait until we get control of the government--then you'll see the wonderful things we can do.' Well, the dog finally caught the car it was chasing, and most of the country thinks the result has been nothing but ruin."

[cfin5]

If Alexis De Tocqueville were to come back for an update,.....what would he say?

[cfin5]

Both parties need ideological surgery since they have neoconitis and neolib-syndrome by master physicians that have graduated with honors majoring in the Founding Fathers endorsed Constitution and Bill of Rights Institute. The ideological veins of neoconism go back to fascism, neolibism goes to communism. What''s the diff?

[neobrian-2009]

The SECT is Finished !
The " Culture Club of Corruption" led by Boy George W
will ultimately be recorded as " The Most Inept,Corrupt Era "in the U. S. history.
Students will be in awe as they read about the failures and arrogant criminal happenings of " The W Report Card " days.
As we live and learn,this valuable lesson must never be repeated.Never,under Any circumstances ,let a RepubliCon Occupy the White House. NEVER !

[neobrian-2009]

THE WHOLE TRUTH !!!!

OUTLAW RepubliCons!!!!!
IT SHOULD be Against The LAW To be a RE-CON!
They should ALL Be Jailed,Waterboarded
There Money to be used for National Health Insurance
They should be Newtered ( Spelled Correctly :)
While in prison,Forced to listen to Rove & Shrub
All their assets divvied up to maintain Arts & Music Schools
CEO`s should be forced to work at Mickey Dees
After their Parole,they`ll live in trailer courts
in weather stricken areas.
At No Time Will They EVER be Able to Hold Political Office !
These CONS Have RUINED The WORLD !!!
BAN ALL REPUBLICONS !!!!!!!!!!!!
CRIMINALS,KILLERS,THIEVES,
LIARS,..ALL RE-CONS!!!

[it_oldtimer]

@ ObservantX:

Very well said, sir.

[observantx]

This is too easy. This is shooting fish in a barrel.

We have a completely imploded presidency and a thoroughly compromised Congress that has until very recently been under total Rethugnican control.

And now we are treated to the grand spectacle of the Rethugnican party wringing their hands in desperation over the sour prospects that loom in November,

Sorry guys (Actually not one iota sorry) You reap what you sow.

This is really megachickens coming home to roost. You were large and in charge. Instead of thinking what the country needed, you focused on what who you needed to stroke and kiss to keep your plush little nest at Capital Hill.

Instead of really protecting us, you goosestepped in formation to let our government spy on us, render us to torture and deprive us of our privacy.

Instead of ensuring the prosperity of the many, you grossly enriched the favored and the few at our expense.

As far as the majority of Americans are concerned, you can all go jump off a very high building.

Do the honorable thing (for once). Do not write books or give speeches. Just collect your overly generous pension and lay low. Try to disappear.

[caldwellptr]

From The Onion
Nation''s Poorest 1% Now Controls Two-Thirds Of U.S. Soda Can Wealth
WASHINGTON%u2014The can monopoly enjoyed by the nation''s poorest one percent highlights the growing and possibly unbridgeable gap between the rich and mega-poor.

[caldwellptr]

"Only the little people worry about an end to the conservative movement." - Leona Helmsley

[magoo2u1]

"Phucking republicans! I am so ready for a Democrat to run this country."

People like you , wanting health care, food, a job , are ruining this country. You need to put your faith in the republican party. They gave us: universal default on credit cards, sucked the value out of our 401k accounts by destroying the value of the dollar, shrunk our health insurance while sending medical costs through the roof and threatened to arrest us for going to Canada for prescriptions. I only wish GB could run again I feel so good. Oh, I didn''t even mention the mortgage nightmare, housing crash , Bank bailoutwhilethepeoplesleepinthestreet mess.

[inventagod2]

There will not be another Republicon president for forty years.

[trenticus-2009]

Phucking republicans! I am so ready for a Democrat to run this country.

[mcvet]

Hopefully yes the republican party is over, but hopefully NOT for RON PAUL. Hiltlery, Obama & McCain
are all one of the same.



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Posted by tylenol6 at 03:25 PM : May 23, 2008
+ report abuse

NOT from where I sit! Social Security, Medicare, Health Care, Debt, War.... I see MAJOR differences between McSame and the other two. IF you can''t see that YOU aren''t looking!!

[mcvet]

Neocons? Paleocons?

How about future ex-cons!


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Posted by briannorwood at 02:38 PM : May 23, 2008
+ report abuse

I like it!

[mcvet]

There is LITTLE doubt that the party''s over... don''t need a poll to find it out either. The FAILURE of the Republican Party in the 6 years THEY were in control of our Government is about as complete as any in our history. They sat in their seats and rubberstamped a Corrupt and incompetent Administration that will go down in History as the WORST in our History. Who in their RIGHT MIND votes for THEM again. I''m serious... you''d have to be BRAIN DEAD or a HONEST TO GOODNESS Fascist to vote Republican.

[tylenol6]

Hopefully yes the republican party is over, but hopefully NOT for RON PAUL. Hiltlery, Obama & McCain
are all one of the same.

[jcr103]

The party is definately over for the Republican Party, at least for the foreseeable future. You can thank the incompetence of the Bush Administration for this. And, you can thank the cowardice of a majority of Republicans in Congress over the first six years of Bush''s tenure to demand better of the exectutive branch. At the very least the American people deserve some minimal level of competence and accountability from the Commander in Chief and will demand such when things progress beyond absurdity, as they have now done.

[superdem]

I used to read the projections that the Republicans would have majorities forever and ever - the last two elections have been completely devastating, depressing events. Bush''s coronations, the balls attended only by the wealthy, the blocked off access, protestors only miles away - I used to wonder, what could anyone do against this horrible fascist machine ? Little did I realize that it would destroy itself in only a few years, as a natural result of its own horrendous policies. Like a very aggressive cancer kills its own host, dooming itself. Americans need to remember the stench of the Bush years, the stench of war, corruption,and crony capitalism.

[andylance1]

Is the party over for Democrats?

The disastrous farm bill of last week is a perfect example of "Nancy in Wonderland." The Congressional Record are Diaries of a Mad Queen - taking billions of tax dollars from city dwellers and giving them to corporate tycoons of the prairies.

If that wasn''t bad enough, she is is continuing to pump billions into ethanol production, contributing to malnutrition and starvation so the whole world can be on food stamps.

[bluestardad]

Is this you Rev. Wright? NO JUST A FATHER WHOS CHILDREN HAVE HAD 6 TOURS IN THIS BUSHIT WAR!

WAR CRIMES TRIALS ACTION STARTED!

Obama Seeks Red Cross Help On War Crime Charges Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld
Posted by Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscr on Wednesday, May 21st at 11:59 AM

May 20, 2008

Obama Seeks Red Cross Help On War Crime Charges Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers (Traduccisn al Espaqol abajo)

Russian Foreign Ministry reports to President Medvedev are stating today
that US Presidential candidate Barack Obama has sent one of his top aides
named Valerie Jarrett to meet with officials from the International
Committee of the Red Cross, in Geneva, Switzerland, to what is being
described in these reports as the %u2018preliminary stage%u2019 to begin actions in
the International Court of Justice charging the present United States
President, Vice President and former US Defense Secretary with war crimes.

Secretary Rumsfeld, and other US Officials, were in violation of Articles 3
and 4 of the Geneva Convention and could be tried for Crimes Against
Humanity.





Posted by bluestardad at



Posted by wernet2 at 01:17 PM : May 23, 2008

[briannorwood]

Neocons? Paleocons?

How about future ex-cons!