Off the Shelf
What can be done to salvage the Republican Party? Even Gustav is more of a haunted reminder of Katrina than a do-over. It's presidential candidate openly scorns the party's corruption. Sarah Palin was elevated to cater to the evangelical base, but her primary asset is that she challenged the cronyism of the party's leaders in Alaska. It's leaders obsess about what they call the decline of its "brand," in itself a mark of a party invested more in marketing than in principle. Rep. Tom Davis, former head of its congressional campaign committee, concludes that, "If we were a dog food, they'd take us off the shelf."
Few will admit this in Minneapolis, of course. Gustav has helped the made-for-TV show, giving the failed president and vice-president a reason to stay out of town. 10 incumbent Republican Senators already had decided that absence was the better part of valor.
And the reality is even worse. Democrats will win stronger majorities in both House and Senate. 28 Republican legislators have taken a look at the race and decided they'd rather quit than fight. Corporate money is buying into Democrats, picking the stock hat is on the rise. Democratic registration is up nationally, while Republican registration is down over a million since 2004. The Millennium generation - larger even than the boomers - are voting Democratic in overwhelming numbers. The Republican southern strategy has created a regional, whites only party - with even that southern bastion is now being challenged. Democratic control of state houses and legislatures is on the rise. On issue after issue - from the Iraq War to Katrina, from contraception to consumer protection, from health care to fair trade - a growing majority of Americans have turned against Republican positions. The new center is progressive, not conservative.
So what can be done? In the best tradition of circular firing squads, Republicans are sniping at one another for the debacle. The fundamentalists blame the neo cons; the country clubbers deride the evangelicals; the corporate core scorns the supply-siders. And each of them is justified, for every strand of the Republican party contributed to conservative misrule. The neo-cons led us into the debacle that is Iraq, while shredding the Constitution. The evangelicals shocked America with the Schaivo grandstanding, and the efforts to enforce morality through radical right judges. The supply-siders really did practice "voodoo economics." And the corporate cronies descended into corruption and plunder shocking even by Washington standards.
How do Republicans recover? Rove's theory of imitating McKinley and ushering in a new Gilded Age exploded with the financial crisis. McCain's wistful invocation of Teddy Roosevelt is a far remove from what the modern Republican party could stomach. The bright young conservative, Ross Douthaut, suggests that Republicans imitate Democrats, and compete for the votes of workers on the basis of bread and butter issues. The old guard, like former Rep.Mickey Edwards, calls for a return to limited government and the Constitution. Grover Norquist enforces allegiance to starving government. Virtually all invoke the sainted memory of Ronald Reagan as lodestone for their recovery, without being able to agree on what Reagan represents.
This debate shouldn't be left to those who have helped drive the Republican Party to the verge of bankruptcy. Democracy requires at least two parties to thrive. If the Republican Party disintegrates, it will only have to be reinvented. So perhaps it would be good to invite the readers of the Huffington Post to join this discussion.
What can be done to save this party? How can Republicans - having failed so ignominiously at home and abroad over the past eight years - recover?
To start this discussion, let me offer my own modest suggestion - a return not to Ronald Reagan who helped start them down the road to bankruptcy, but to Ike, the Republican Party of Dwight David Eisenhower. Eisenhower reflected the common sense, country club values of a Republican Party that represented Main Street. He insisted on fiscal discipline, and was willing to raise taxes if necessary, even as he championed smaller government. To balance the budget, he put a lid on military spending, letting the services fight among themselves on how to divide the kitty. "We -- you and I, and our government," he warned, "must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
As a former commander of US forces in World War II, he was sensibly cautious about using military force abroad, preferring diplomacy to war. He brought the Korean War to a close. He scorned those who wanted a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and was skeptical of the schemes of the neo-cons of his day eager to rollback the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.
Ike understood the dangers of crony capitalism that might plunder Washington. He warned us to "guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. He reminded Americans that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
He preached balance - in government, in society, in corporations. In his day, executives sought to expand their companies, not dismember them or ship them abroad. They shared the benefits of rising productivity with their workers. They didn't not wage jihad against union organizers.
As a lifelong military man, Ike didn't loathe government. Just as he understood its limits, he understood its purposes. So he accepted the core New Deal reforms - Social Security, financial regulation, labor unions. He understood the need for a modern infrastructure, funding the interstate highways that provided a strong stimulus to a mobile America and a more efficient economy.
In public at least, Ike and Mamie Eisenhower seemed to personify the small town morality of America. The 1950s was a time of a growing middle class, moving to the suburbs, raising families. Sure it was boring, suffocating, and hypocritical, and helped spark the cultural revolution of the 1960s. But Ike's Republican Party came closer to reflecting the values it preached than today's rack and ruin Right.
No need to romanticize Eisenhower. He let McCarthy spread hate and division far longer than necessary. While he appointed Warren and Brennan and Stewart to the Supreme Court, he was complacent about segregation. And he presided over a CIA that was running covert operations across the developing world. But he was a sensible, relatively moderate conservative who provided adult supervision for the ideologues on the Right.
Still, small government, fiscal discipline, a lid on military adventure and spending, investment in vital infrastructure, acceptance of Social Security, Medicare, financial regulation - this might go a long way toward allowing today's Republicans to recover from the lacerations left by the New Right marauders, and begin once more to offer America a sensible alternative, not an extremist nightmare.
But please, join the conversation. Can this party be saved? And if so, how?
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"The fundamentalists blame the neo cons; the country clubbers deride the evangelicals; the corporate core scorns the supply-siders." I strongly, viscerally detest all the special interest groups mentioned here. In fact, I feel many of them are dangerous for America. I am glad I am not a Republican and that the Democratic party offers a more compassionate message than these groups do.
Green eyeshade Republicanism. Eject the religious rght. Return to small government fiscal conservatism with a heavy dose of social liberalism, in the form of deferring to state's rights. Stop pandering to the wealthy and pander to the median citizen.
For example, a truly conservative party would seek to level the tax burden, not tilt it toward the rich and the big corporations. They would bust the trusts, not give them a helping hand through the courts. They would level the playing field for international trade.
Government has two jobs. Job #1 is to protect the weak from the strong, with a strong military, police force, law enforcement, courts that are fast, fair and free, anti-trust and regulatory oversight so the rich cannot enslave or defraud others by virtue of size: Roles filled by the SEC and FDA and OSHA.
Job #2 is infrastructure in the form of collective action, using taxes to do those jobs that are either unprofitable (feeding the poor and housing the homeless) or common sense tells us we do not want done by a profit-seeking entity (fire inspections, licensing drivers, academic research, health care) because either a monopoly is required, or profit seeking would cause preferential service to the wealthy. In general corporations are always focused on relatively short time horizons and cannot afford to invest in a long term benefit, especially if the benefit (like a highway) accrues more to the average citizen than to their own bottom line.
The GOP can start by taking heed to the forward-thinking Barry Goldwater who decried the demise of the GOP at the hands of its party leaders who kowtow to its fundamentalist base.
I understand why the GOP loves its social conservatives. The religious right is part of the electoral puzzle that pushes the GOP over the top -- election after election. And, we all know, believing God is on your side does wonderd for morale and motivation. The religious right consist of faithful foot soldiers, even when the party only pays lip service to its goals.
But, the GOP must wane itself from this constituency because this constituency represents a reactionary fabric that has existed throughout American history ... a reationary fabric that has ultimately had to remake itself in the face of overwhelming social and cultural pressure to change. Having a political party that leverages such a constituency is just wrong and dangerous - not just for the party but for the country/world (see: denial of global warming).
Just as with the abolition of slavery and a women's right to vote, stem cell research and full civil rights for gay couples will utlimately prevail. And, as had happened on those other issues, conserative reactionary religious forces will be left to transform their beliefs or risk extinction. And since the GOP has hitched a ride on the reactionary movement, it risks going down with it. In short, the GOP must choose to change direction or drown.
I say let the GOP fall apart,they are a corrupt and arrogant party,come on,Palin is the best you can do,Sen.McCain?Karl Rove's chickens are coming home to roost and I couldn't be any happier,watching FOX News has been a hoot these past few days.
I agree.
An alternative party will emerge, just as when the Whigs went out of business 150 years ago.
In the past, the strongest Republican allies were Independents, the majority of whom are prone to Libertarianism. The current administration runs even more contrary to that which the Democrats represent. If Republicans want to regain power in the future, they need to actually do what they say they believe in: limited government, fiscal responsibility, respect for individual rights and aversion to involving the country in foreign entanglements. This will not happen overnight due to their betrayal of these issues during the Bush Administration. They are going to have to regain the trust of Independent voters one election at a time.
I agree. One caveat: when the current band of republicans talks about personal liberties, they are almost always talking about the rights and freedoms of the legally defined "corporate person" whose intrinsic drive toward market dominance always run counter to the freedoms of the average Joe. The current republican leadership and their fundamentalist allies are the single largest threat to the US form of democracy and personal freedoms that have existed in my lifetime and probably in our history.
The Republican Party in its current form cannot be saved. The neoconservatives who studied at the knees of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys have seen to that by relying on unfettered free markets that they brought to the world by force or intimidation (see Chile and Iraq for two examples). We know now that Friedman's theories have failed spectacularly, yet they continue here at home and around the word (see the Louisiana public housing demolitions and post-tsunami beach resorts for examples). Reagan continued the destruction of the party by playing on the bitterness that people have toward government (paraphrasing here: "I've always thought the nine most frightening words in the English language were 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'").
If the Republican Party wants to save its soul (if it ever had one), it needs to become more than just the party of undoing. There is nothing inherently wrong with an activist government, as long as that government has sufficient oversight and respects the Constitution, something sorely lacking from the current administration. While I don't agree with all Democratic Party principles, they at least recognize this fact. It's a shame they are currently too spineless to do anything about it.
Good riddance to the Republicans. Bring back the Whigs!
I wonder what Ike would say now when a revealing analysis of the Federal Budget shows all military related spending eats up FIFTY-FOUR PERCENT of the budget;
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
while the gov't manipulates the figures to show military spending to be only TWENTY PERCENT of the budget. We spend more on the miltary than the next 15 countries COMBINED.
How does the GOP get it's act together? They can start by not pandering to women by putting a hockey-mom/evangelical with no experience in the number two seat on their ticket this go-round. Oh wait, too late for that. After they lose the White House this November, and get cut to shreds in Congress they could start by having another convention; this time to have a major dialouge amongst their membership about creating a new more centrist platform. They can get on board with the rest of the country (and even Nancy Reagan) and at least come up with some kind of acceptance of stem-cell research; even if means endorsing the stem cells taken recently from a wisdom tooth. They can stop attacking women's rights and finally put the abortion oposition to rest. Only by abandoning extremism and moving toward the center politically can the GOP begin to rebuild. We need at least two parties in our democracy, but if Ron Paul wanted to start a new party I'd become a member.
How do you save the Republican Party?
The same way you save the Democratic Party: you remove the lobbyist industry from Washington, by law. You finance political campaigns with public money, by law.
The corrupting forces that have destroyed the Republicans are the same that are about to go to work on the Democrats once they take over the White House. There is no reason to believe that they will have less of a corrosive effect on Democrats than Republicans.
The United States can be directed by the will of the people, or the will of multi-national corporations. The first is known as democracy, the second, fascism.
Let's hope the Democrats win, and that they see fit to grow a spine. Maybe they'll last long enough to start enacting some meaningful change, back towards democracy.
We need a Truth and Reconciliation commission to get to thee bottom of the illegal activities of the Bush administration: The lying about the Iraq War; Torture, Abu Graib and Gitmo; and illegal spying. We will always be threatened by despotism unless we show the desire for democracy, and the political will to hold the transgressors accountable. So far, we have not seen the will from Congress. I am not optimistic that this government, whether the Dems or Repubs are in power, will move away from the vast consolidation of power of the Federal Government and the abrogation of 1st and 4th Amendment Rights.
I wish I believed the Republicans were in as dire straits as you say. I mean, they are for now, but if Nixon couldn't kill them and George H.W. Bush couldn't kill them, then I think the damage George W. Bush has done will also pass.
They may need to reinvent themselves, and I certainly hope they take your advice and go with something in the footprint of Eisenhower, or maybe the better aspects of T. Roosevelt (whose environmentalism I applaud even as I deplore his warmongering).
But if we want to save multiple points of view in this country, that doesn't mean we need to prop up the status quo: if the Republicans do implode (again, I don't think it's likely), then someone else will rise to take their place. With luck, it will be the Libertarians. With an awful lot of luck, it may even be the Green Party, taking the Dems on from the left (wouldn't that be grand? Not likely in America). I just hope it isn't the so-called "Constitution Party."
The republicans need to get rid of the hard core religious rights. People who put faith before intellect. They need to stand firm of their promise of fiscal conservatism. They most be more willing to lift the American people up instead of tarring their political opponents down.
As an African-American and life-long Democrat, I have no great love for the Republican party. However, I do believe that the long term health and well-being of the USA requires at least two opposing political perspectives.
If the Republican party is to recover and resume its place in the political process, then it will need to jettison its more strident and anti-democratic elements. And, it will need to rethink
We have seen what happens when one party occupies the White House and both Legislative branches at the same time, both with the Democrats and most recently with the Republicans. Greed overcomes all other intentions and the minority party is unable to exert any countervailing force to limit or stop it.
Robert Borosage is right in many respects about a return to Eisenhower-style management. The Republican party has to beginning operating from its original philosophy. Limited government is not the "No government" of Norquist. Diplomacy over military intervention is not expanding NATO to include every nation state except Russia. Family values should be left to families, not to the federal government (or any level of government).
Conservatism should be about conserving: conserving the environment, conserving employment for workers in America, conserving government finances so as to not bankrupt future generations, and conserving democracy at home while letting other nations find their own way to democracy without our military intervention.
The Republicans can rebuild their party, but it must come from the young people in the party. People who are not afraid of every political idea that didn't come from right wing think tanks and lobbyists. Rove, Cheney, and Perleman are part of the old guard that helped destroy the real Republican party (even while getting its politician's elected). They should be dismissed from positions of influence and power so that young men and women can form new ideas around the central philosophy of limited, caring government.
Well said. I have never been a solid "party person" on either side; rather looking for the candidate who best reflects my own positions. What would Jimmy Carter have been with Lyndon Johnson's political deal-making abilities? (Or would that have even been possible, given their differences in personality?)
It seems to me that Eisenhower was an atypical military man, though I was just a child during his term and not a serious student of his administration; he seems to have been as much or more interested in the betterment of the country than of himself and cronies.
"Statesmanship", like "journalism", has lost much of its meaning. We need a return to both.
1. Enforce a complete separation of religion and government.
2. Put a low limit on how much money a "religious" institution can accumulate.
3. Get corporations out of the government; break the monetary stranglehold they have on our "elected" officials.
4. Get rid of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act.
5. De-politicize the Justice Department.
6. Eliminate faith-based initiatives.
7. Get rid of school vouchers, charter schools, and No Child Left Behind.
8. Enforce our system of checks and balances, which will end the imperial presidency.
9. No more signing statements or earmarks.
10. Government regulation of the mortgage and banking industries.
11. No media monopolies; restore honesty in journalism.
12. Government-supported health care.
13. No more electronic (and therefore hackable) voting machines.
14. Pay attention to the environment and our dependence on foreign oil.
15. Stop picking on gay people.
16. Stay out of the reproductive decisions of other people.
17. Convince elected officials to actually help the people they were elected to serve instead of catering to the special interests that bribed them.
18. Prosecute the present administration for war crimes.
19. Restore the Constitution and throw out every piece of legislation instituted by the current president.
(For starters.) But I don't see how even that could be enough to restore the totally demolished reputation of the Republican party.
I think these are good principles for any party wanting credibility, and I look forward to the (unlikely) future of Instant Runoff Voting, which would enable this country to have more than two viable parties.
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