Ron Paul and the Republican Schism
In one of the final episodes of "The West Wing," Alan Alda's Republican candidate character says to one of his aides that "in Europe, the Republican party would be two parties." I think is an important enough point to bear some consideration.
As I see it, the Republican party is the result of a strange and unhappy sythesis between two entirely differing schools of political thought. On the one hand, there is the old-school libertarian Republican worldview, with its strong belief in small government, the power of the unregulated and unrestrained free market, and traditional isolationist realism in foreign policy. This is arguably the oldest American political tradition, and its famous proponents need hardly be listed here.
The second school of thought does have old American roots, but they are based in American idealist and exceptionalism; the belief that America is special and has a special (usually God-given) destiny. These are the modern neoconservatives, the Religious Right, the Angry White Man which came to power with Reagan and again in the 1994 Republican Revolution and which have more or less dominated American politics for the last quarter-century.
What is particularly interesting is just how mutually exclusive so many of the ideas of these two groups are. The neoconservatives have built the biggest, most intrusive government in United States history and presided over some of the biggest economic blunders since Herbert Hoover. They seem to not only believe that the government can and should be in people's business, but also in their bedrooms and their uteruses. They have racked up a mind-boggling national deficit, budget deficit, and trade deficit and refuse to participate in any of the international regimes which are designed to foster trade.
And yet here on the other hand are the libertarian conservatives, always concerned about the possible tyranny of the majority, always ready in the traditional European-conservative sense to protect the well-being of the few against the transitory demands and whims of the many.
So it's become a strange balance. One group tends to be against foreign entanglements and is all for peace and stability above all, because that is good for business and the rule of law. The other group seems to think the United States can and should impose its will by force on any other country in the world. One side believes foreign internal politics are no business of anyone but the people in the country in question, the other side believes in regime change. One side is cautious, careful, and believes in long-term risk evaluation, the other is genuinely convinced Armageddon is at hand. One side, essentially, is swayed by reason and logic and statistics; the other is swayed by fears and emotions and language of "freedom".
Intriguingly enough, I see two current Republican presidential candidates who perfectly embody the two opposing viewpoints. The other eleven or so are essentially toeing the same all-rhetoric, no-policy, appeal-to-the-widest-base-possible sort of Washington game we all know and loathe so well. But I've marked these two as my dark horses for the race, and they're the ones I'll be keeping an eye and my money on.
The first is Ron Paul, 10th-term Congressman from Texas. He's known as "Dr. No" on the Hill for his constant stance on voting against anything not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. He voted against the PATRIOT Act, against the Iraq War (the only Republican candidate to do so), has never voted to raise taxes or congressional pay, and has been saying pretty much the same thing for twenty years. I read two polls after the first Republican debate that showed him winning by a landslide--he took thirty to forty percent in both polls, whereas the next highest (Giuliani both times) pulled about nine percent. His policies are a bit looney--for instance, he claims in his first week in office he would abolish income tax. That kind of thing.
Of course, the media has ignored him entirely, possibly because he's somewhat notorious for not playing their game. He still (apparently) gets web traffic than any of the other leading candidates, and I think the media will come around when and if the Big Three destroy themselves and one another.
The other guy is Mike Huckabee, who I saw announce his candidacy on Meet the Press some months ago and who I immediately thought would be the next president, if he didn't have such a goofy name. He's a former preacher, a governor of Arkansas, and genuinely believes that God created the world in a week about six thousand years ago--that is, three thousand years after the Babylonians invented beer. I saw that guy, and I tell you, I have never seen frothing fanatacism stated in such a calm, clear, rational, sincere way. Here is a guy who I think honest-to-God believes the madness that comes out of his mouth, and he knows how to work a crowd. He's good in an interview, even when he's shovelling pure shit, and I think the hundred-million strong evangelical Christian Right will love him far more than Giuliani-the-often-married-big-city-quasi-liberal, Romney-the-Mormon-cultist, or McCain-who-may-have-a-black-baby.
Also, this may not be the height of my abilities in political analysis, but I think Huckabee totally looks like Richard Nixon, and Ron Paul looks like the dad on "Frasier." I'm just saying.
Anyway, I'm more and more of the opinion lately that the Big Three on each side will not survive the primary process. They'll savage each other too much and they just have too much time in the media spotlight, where every misstep and verbal gaffe becomes a constant weekly story. I think people will be tired of them, and I think they'll either self-destruct or destroy each other. I think that second tier is where the candidates are going to come from, at least on the Republican side (I have no doubt that the Democrats are fully capable of running a battle-scarred, media-tarnished liability...since that's what they almost always do) but it's got to be someone these two schizophrenic halves of the party can agree on. Maybe they'll pick one extreme as President and the other as VP, I dunno. Honestly, I'd kind of like to see Paul as president, but with a Democratic Congress, to keep him from doing any lunatic things. I think it'd be interesting, but after four years, I think the hard libertarian view would be so discredited that we wouldn't have to deal with it again for at least a couple decades. Sorry, Len.
Whatever the case, I think the Republican party is in crisis right now, and I think it's a crucial opportunity for the Democrats, who of course will blunder on right past it. The 2006 elections showed that the worst possible thing that can happen to the neoconservatives is to have success, because their ideas and policies are stupid and don't actually work. I think the old-school Republicans are tired of these frothing religious zealots hijacking their party and running it, America's standing on the world stage, and the economy into the ground. I think they mortgaged themselves to these zealots in a sort of exchange whereby they gave up prestige and privacy and freedom for short-term financial gain, and I think they just might be starting to consider jumping ship. I think they recognize that if anything, they got off damn easy in 2006, and if Iraq keeps getting worse for another two years (and it will) and if scandals keep piling on scandals in Congressional hearings (and they will), then 2008 could crush the Republican party and their own chances for power for decades.
Now consider for a moment the Democrats, if you have the stomach for it. They are a party without policy, without identity, without message, and without vision. Their best attempt at connecting to the American people is to try to out-Republican the Republicans, which of course does nothing but further alienate their already-disgusted base. Should they choose to redefine themselves, they have nothing to write over...they are policy-wise a blank slate. They exist only in negation, they stand for only half-hearted disagreement with the current Administration.
So I tell you what I would do if I were in charge of the Democratic party. I would compose a synthesis of what few ideological principles still remain to the left and a libertarian worldview. I would say to the libertarians that yes, I agree, government should stay out of people's business. Yes, I agree, small government is good government and the biggest threat to freedom and privacy is government. Yes, I agree we should reduce our military committments abroad and adopt a foreign policy we can afford and balance the budget and reduce our trade deficit before the Chinese decide to call in our $2.7 trillion tab. We certainly should reduce our $9 trillion public debt. We know we have a reputation for being tax-and-spend liberals, but look, we're all for fiscal responsibility before things get out of hand. Obviously the current Republican leadership has no intention of doing that, so we're going to take up the standard. We are now the small government, fiscal responsibility party.
Yes, we want to have social programs, but we want them to be part of the overall market. We want them to be competitive, and to increase competition among free enterprise firms offering the same services--after all, you say yourself that more competition is better for the consumer. We aren't going to put anyone out of business, all we're really going to do is get capitalism working right again, by weeding out the fat, corrupt, complacent corporations which are coasting by and don't have to actually engage in fair, competitive business practices.
There is a place for you in our party, I would say to them. We are willing to compromise and when you help us get in power, there will be seats for you at the table--and this is more than your own party is offering you.
In fact, tell you what. Once we've been in power for a while and these lunatics are well and discredited, there's no reason you can't pick up the reigns of the Republican party and rebuild it in your own image. But these guys are a threat to both of us, and as realists you understand that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
So in other words, I would do my damndest to split the Republican party right in half, the way it would be in Europe. I would frame and shape every issue and every debate along the lines of contention I've outlined above, and would constantly be on the attack, pitting one half of the Republican party against the other. If nothing else, it would aid in the process of them eating each other, something Democrats have always been better at than Republicans.
Course, that's only one of many steps in what would have to be a much larger, more orchestrated realignment and rehabilitation of the left and wholesale destruction of the right, and the Democrats are not nearly capable of that. So in the meantime, all we can do is watch the sad, sordid little drama of American politics play out, run nice betting pools on our favorite dark horse candidates, brace for an enternity of wealthy-white-middle-of-the-road leadership, and work very hard to live permanently in Europe.
As I see it, the Republican party is the result of a strange and unhappy sythesis between two entirely differing schools of political thought. On the one hand, there is the old-school libertarian Republican worldview, with its strong belief in small government, the power of the unregulated and unrestrained free market, and traditional isolationist realism in foreign policy. This is arguably the oldest American political tradition, and its famous proponents need hardly be listed here.
The second school of thought does have old American roots, but they are based in American idealist and exceptionalism; the belief that America is special and has a special (usually God-given) destiny. These are the modern neoconservatives, the Religious Right, the Angry White Man which came to power with Reagan and again in the 1994 Republican Revolution and which have more or less dominated American politics for the last quarter-century.
What is particularly interesting is just how mutually exclusive so many of the ideas of these two groups are. The neoconservatives have built the biggest, most intrusive government in United States history and presided over some of the biggest economic blunders since Herbert Hoover. They seem to not only believe that the government can and should be in people's business, but also in their bedrooms and their uteruses. They have racked up a mind-boggling national deficit, budget deficit, and trade deficit and refuse to participate in any of the international regimes which are designed to foster trade.
And yet here on the other hand are the libertarian conservatives, always concerned about the possible tyranny of the majority, always ready in the traditional European-conservative sense to protect the well-being of the few against the transitory demands and whims of the many.
So it's become a strange balance. One group tends to be against foreign entanglements and is all for peace and stability above all, because that is good for business and the rule of law. The other group seems to think the United States can and should impose its will by force on any other country in the world. One side believes foreign internal politics are no business of anyone but the people in the country in question, the other side believes in regime change. One side is cautious, careful, and believes in long-term risk evaluation, the other is genuinely convinced Armageddon is at hand. One side, essentially, is swayed by reason and logic and statistics; the other is swayed by fears and emotions and language of "freedom".
Intriguingly enough, I see two current Republican presidential candidates who perfectly embody the two opposing viewpoints. The other eleven or so are essentially toeing the same all-rhetoric, no-policy, appeal-to-the-widest-base-possible sort of Washington game we all know and loathe so well. But I've marked these two as my dark horses for the race, and they're the ones I'll be keeping an eye and my money on.
The first is Ron Paul, 10th-term Congressman from Texas. He's known as "Dr. No" on the Hill for his constant stance on voting against anything not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. He voted against the PATRIOT Act, against the Iraq War (the only Republican candidate to do so), has never voted to raise taxes or congressional pay, and has been saying pretty much the same thing for twenty years. I read two polls after the first Republican debate that showed him winning by a landslide--he took thirty to forty percent in both polls, whereas the next highest (Giuliani both times) pulled about nine percent. His policies are a bit looney--for instance, he claims in his first week in office he would abolish income tax. That kind of thing.
Of course, the media has ignored him entirely, possibly because he's somewhat notorious for not playing their game. He still (apparently) gets web traffic than any of the other leading candidates, and I think the media will come around when and if the Big Three destroy themselves and one another.
The other guy is Mike Huckabee, who I saw announce his candidacy on Meet the Press some months ago and who I immediately thought would be the next president, if he didn't have such a goofy name. He's a former preacher, a governor of Arkansas, and genuinely believes that God created the world in a week about six thousand years ago--that is, three thousand years after the Babylonians invented beer. I saw that guy, and I tell you, I have never seen frothing fanatacism stated in such a calm, clear, rational, sincere way. Here is a guy who I think honest-to-God believes the madness that comes out of his mouth, and he knows how to work a crowd. He's good in an interview, even when he's shovelling pure shit, and I think the hundred-million strong evangelical Christian Right will love him far more than Giuliani-the-often-married-big-city-quasi-liberal, Romney-the-Mormon-cultist, or McCain-who-may-have-a-black-baby.
Also, this may not be the height of my abilities in political analysis, but I think Huckabee totally looks like Richard Nixon, and Ron Paul looks like the dad on "Frasier." I'm just saying.
Anyway, I'm more and more of the opinion lately that the Big Three on each side will not survive the primary process. They'll savage each other too much and they just have too much time in the media spotlight, where every misstep and verbal gaffe becomes a constant weekly story. I think people will be tired of them, and I think they'll either self-destruct or destroy each other. I think that second tier is where the candidates are going to come from, at least on the Republican side (I have no doubt that the Democrats are fully capable of running a battle-scarred, media-tarnished liability...since that's what they almost always do) but it's got to be someone these two schizophrenic halves of the party can agree on. Maybe they'll pick one extreme as President and the other as VP, I dunno. Honestly, I'd kind of like to see Paul as president, but with a Democratic Congress, to keep him from doing any lunatic things. I think it'd be interesting, but after four years, I think the hard libertarian view would be so discredited that we wouldn't have to deal with it again for at least a couple decades. Sorry, Len.
Whatever the case, I think the Republican party is in crisis right now, and I think it's a crucial opportunity for the Democrats, who of course will blunder on right past it. The 2006 elections showed that the worst possible thing that can happen to the neoconservatives is to have success, because their ideas and policies are stupid and don't actually work. I think the old-school Republicans are tired of these frothing religious zealots hijacking their party and running it, America's standing on the world stage, and the economy into the ground. I think they mortgaged themselves to these zealots in a sort of exchange whereby they gave up prestige and privacy and freedom for short-term financial gain, and I think they just might be starting to consider jumping ship. I think they recognize that if anything, they got off damn easy in 2006, and if Iraq keeps getting worse for another two years (and it will) and if scandals keep piling on scandals in Congressional hearings (and they will), then 2008 could crush the Republican party and their own chances for power for decades.
Now consider for a moment the Democrats, if you have the stomach for it. They are a party without policy, without identity, without message, and without vision. Their best attempt at connecting to the American people is to try to out-Republican the Republicans, which of course does nothing but further alienate their already-disgusted base. Should they choose to redefine themselves, they have nothing to write over...they are policy-wise a blank slate. They exist only in negation, they stand for only half-hearted disagreement with the current Administration.
So I tell you what I would do if I were in charge of the Democratic party. I would compose a synthesis of what few ideological principles still remain to the left and a libertarian worldview. I would say to the libertarians that yes, I agree, government should stay out of people's business. Yes, I agree, small government is good government and the biggest threat to freedom and privacy is government. Yes, I agree we should reduce our military committments abroad and adopt a foreign policy we can afford and balance the budget and reduce our trade deficit before the Chinese decide to call in our $2.7 trillion tab. We certainly should reduce our $9 trillion public debt. We know we have a reputation for being tax-and-spend liberals, but look, we're all for fiscal responsibility before things get out of hand. Obviously the current Republican leadership has no intention of doing that, so we're going to take up the standard. We are now the small government, fiscal responsibility party.
Yes, we want to have social programs, but we want them to be part of the overall market. We want them to be competitive, and to increase competition among free enterprise firms offering the same services--after all, you say yourself that more competition is better for the consumer. We aren't going to put anyone out of business, all we're really going to do is get capitalism working right again, by weeding out the fat, corrupt, complacent corporations which are coasting by and don't have to actually engage in fair, competitive business practices.
There is a place for you in our party, I would say to them. We are willing to compromise and when you help us get in power, there will be seats for you at the table--and this is more than your own party is offering you.
In fact, tell you what. Once we've been in power for a while and these lunatics are well and discredited, there's no reason you can't pick up the reigns of the Republican party and rebuild it in your own image. But these guys are a threat to both of us, and as realists you understand that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
So in other words, I would do my damndest to split the Republican party right in half, the way it would be in Europe. I would frame and shape every issue and every debate along the lines of contention I've outlined above, and would constantly be on the attack, pitting one half of the Republican party against the other. If nothing else, it would aid in the process of them eating each other, something Democrats have always been better at than Republicans.
Course, that's only one of many steps in what would have to be a much larger, more orchestrated realignment and rehabilitation of the left and wholesale destruction of the right, and the Democrats are not nearly capable of that. So in the meantime, all we can do is watch the sad, sordid little drama of American politics play out, run nice betting pools on our favorite dark horse candidates, brace for an enternity of wealthy-white-middle-of-the-road leadership, and work very hard to live permanently in Europe.
posted by Eccarius at 9:16 AM
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