Nation-Building

The Obama-Clinton horserace on the left seems headed towards fabled "brokered convention" status which has long been the holy grail of preesidential punditry (though in practice, is hardly worth cheering for its anti-democratic nature). But in many ways the dynamic on the right is more important, since the very future of the Republican Party itself is at stake.

The main issue is whether "conservatives" are truly a movement or just another faction within the GOP coalition. Prior to Romney's dropping out of the race, the view among the party elite was that McCain's ascendancy represented raw political expediency over genuinely conservative ideals - witness this roundtable between contributors at RedState.com where despite a few voices to the contrary, the mainstream answers affirmatively he question, "did the primary process fail conservatives?". However, Josh Trevino's comments after Romney's withdrawal strikes rather deeply at the pretension implicit in the very question. Josh writes,

Beyond the breaking of trust between the social conservatives and the right-wing media — which is now, unfortunately, exposed as the largely coastal, largely urban, largely fiscally-oriented complex it is — there is the simple matter of judgment. The average Republican voter never could quite figure why we should take Romney at his word, and the average Republican voter was quite right: and so it was mystifying, for example, to see Hugh Hewitt proclaim “Romney Rising” dozens of times unto the end; and it was baffling as to just why National Review believed “he is now on our side — and we trust him to stay there.” The common sense that informs ordinary personal judgments was wholly absent in these things — why believe a man who has ignored you all his life, but is now asking you for $100 and proclaims his heartfelt friendship? Rightly or not, the impression thus generated is of a conservative media establishment that is too easily duped or bought by a wealthy candidate with sufficient charm.

The Editors at RedState - itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of that same right-wing media to which Josh refers - have been second to none in their utter disdain for McCain (they do quote a portion of Josh's essay approvingly, but tellingly, not the part I quoted above). And yet, within hours of Romney's withdrawal, the troops are exhorted to fall in line:

John McCain is the nominee and he sounded both Presidential and conservative.

Conservatives may not have gotten the whole loaf of bread they wanted, but they know where McCain stands, and he's willing to fight on grounds the Democrats would abdicate to the socialists within and terrorists without.

I find this turnaround really quite extraordinary, though other bloggers have used more colorful terms. The irony here is that McCain is indeed an authentic conservative, with a conservative voting record not all that divergent from (by way of example) that of Fred Thompson. And yet it was the latter - christened FDT in an attempt to heighten his gravitas to Roosevelt/Kennedy statesmen levels - who was hailed as the second coming of Reagan.

So if a conservative establishment Republican cannot satisfy the conservative base, then what does that say about the base, rather than the candidate? An insightful diary at RedState provides the answer:

Conservatism isn't going deeper into the abyss of Hell while McCain makes kissy face with the Democrats. In fact, if he does HALF of what he promised at CPAC, he'll only help buy we purists some time to resist the relentless reshaping of what Conservatism means over the next 4 years. If a Democrat is in the White House, that whole conversation becomes a joke...yawned at and ignored by the media who already THINK Conservatism is dead.

Conservatism is therefore not a core set of ideals, but an ongoing war, one in which self-professed purists seek to mold to their liking (and accept that other factions seek to mold to theirs). In all of this, there is no single accepted definition of what being a conservative actually means, apart from the simple argument that conservatives are everything that liberals are not (this requires a definition of liberalism, which is the only thing more elusive than a definition of conservatism, as far as the conservative purist is concerned).

Whither conservatism after 2008? Is there even a conservatism left worth fighting for?

Labels: 2008, conservatism, McCain, Republicans

Continue reading/discuss The McCain Mutiny ...

I couldn't resist highlighting this one.

John McCain will create 20 million new Democrats by jackbenimble

The damage to conservatism of a McCain win will be irreversible.

We can't just keep importing poor, ignorant people from the third world and expecting them to vote anything but Democrats and socialism. Poor ignoarnat people ALWAYS vote for socialism.

Prior to the Reagan Amnesty California had voted Republican in 9 out of the 10 prior elections. The Reagan Amensty turned California irreversibly blue and the McCain Amnesty will be 6 to 10 times larger. We can't lose anymore Red States and expect conservatism to ever win again.

A win by John McCain would be a tactical victory and a strategic loss that would doom conservatism. I'd rather have a tactical loss and have conservatism survice to fight another day.

What do rich "ignoarnat" people ALWAYS vote for, then?

Labels: Republicans

Continue reading/discuss nutpicking ...

The TNR has a lengthy article on Ron Paul, looking beyond the short horizon of his campaign and at the years of newsletters he has written over the years with his political screeds, and concludes he is "angry".

Ron Paul is not going to be president. But, as his campaign has gathered steam, he has found himself increasingly permitted inside the boundaries of respectable debate. He sat for an extensive interview with Tim Russert recently. He has raised almost $20 million in just three months, much of it online. And he received nearly three times as many votes as erstwhile front-runner Rudy Giuliani in last week's Iowa caucus. All the while he has generally been portrayed by the media as principled and serious, while garnering praise for being a "straight-talker."

From his newsletters, however, a different picture of Paul emerges--that of someone who is either himself deeply embittered or, for a long time, allowed others to write bitterly on his behalf. His adversaries are often described in harsh terms: Barbara Jordan is called "Barbara Morondon," Eleanor Holmes Norton is a "black pinko," Donna Shalala is a "short lesbian," Ron Brown is a "racial victimologist," and Roberta Achtenberg, the first openly gay public official confirmed by the United States Senate, is a "far-left, normal-hating lesbian activist." Maybe such outbursts mean Ron Paul really is a straight-talker. Or maybe they just mean he is a man filled with hate.

What the essay completely misses is that Ron Paul's views and his hate towards minorities and gays is actually well within the mainstream of the GOP, a party that has exploited divisions in its cultural war (one that promises to be waged anew should Huckabee take the nomination). The essay describes Paul as an iconoclast within the GOP, but other than his view on Iraq, he isn't really beyond the party orthodoxy (and even is Iraq views have a solid grounding in the paleocon school, who are out of favor at present but clearly remain a part of the base).

Paul's candidacy is one that has exposed the fault lines within the GOP, but within the GOP he remains. It isn't that Paul is an angry man. It's that he's an angry party man, however much the party today tries to deny it.

Labels: Republicans, RonPaul

Continue reading/discuss angry man for an angry party ...

Eteraz provides a nice summary of the muslim problem afflicting the GOP:

One of Giuliani’s people complains about “the difficult problem” that is “the rise of the Muslims” and wants “to chase them back to their caves.” [Link]. He further refuses to distinguish between good and bad Muslims. After all, “they are all Muslims.” Here is the video of him at the Guardian. Here is Talking Points Memo’s review of it all. The staffer has been fired, but there’s a bigger problem.

The GOP’s severe lack of awareness — I was going to use the word “ignorance” but I’m being nice — vis a vis Islam and Muslims is really hurting it. Just the other day Romney said he could not accept a Muslim in the cabinet. This comes on the heels of the 2004 survey by Cornell which I discussed in my piece at Jewcy Magazine where 40% of Republicans wanted American-Muslims to register their whereabouts (why not just implant gps devices in all Muslims?). There was, of course, Tancredo’s asinine bomb Mecca suggestion. There was Huckabee’s staff member arguing that the War on Terror is a theological war (youtube). Plus Huckster’s comparison of Muslims to dogs. Then there was McCain’s comment to the NyTimes implying that Muslims were not qualified to run for President (leading him to have to explain later).

It should be noted that all of this postdates the Bush Administration's ascent - ironically so, given that the Bush margin of victory in Michigan in 2000 was on the strength of his appeal to the socially conservative muslim vote. What was a natural GOP constituency has become an almost unified pro-Democrat bloc.

This doesn't mean that the Democrats deserve the muslim bloc vote, however. In fact the Democrats are as guilty of xenophobic rhetoric for political gain as any Republican. More importantly, the Democrats have no policy that directly addresses muslim-American political concerns, in part because Muslim-Americans have not yet organized themselves sufficiently to be able to articulate those concerns within a purely Muslim-American context. The political immaturity of the Muslim American community means that "muslim issues" are nothing more than recycled foreign policy ones, usually tainted with the Israel obsession.

Once such a view is articulated (a task I am also trying to pursue at City of Brass), then we will see which side of the aisle best rises to it. I am not convinced that the Democrats will maintain their lock, nor am I convinced that the GOP's muslim problem will outlive the Bush Administration or the Iraq War.

Labels: Purple, Republicans

Continue reading/discuss the GOP war on muslims ...

August 19th, op-ed in the New York Times by seven soldiers of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne serving in Iraq:

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are -- an army of occupation -- and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

September 12th: NYT reports that two of those soldiers have made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation.

September 26: from the broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: There's a lot more than that that they don't understand. They can't even -- if -- the next guy that calls here, I'm gonna ask him: Why should we pull -- what is the imperative for pulling out? What's in it for the United States to pull out? They can't -- I don't think they have an answer for that other than, "Well, we just gotta bring the troops home."

CALLER 2: Yeah, and, you know what --

LIMBAUGH: "Save the -- keep the troops safe" or whatever. I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

audio of Limbaugh's comments here.

Labels: Iraq, Republicans

Continue reading/discuss phony soldiers: a timeline ...