Liberals got made when this question was asked about them four years ago. But I'll admit it--in my opinion, the conservatarian coalition is basically out of ammo. A basic commitment to free markets was enough to hold the coalition together through communism and into the current decade. But "tax cuts are awesome" is not the universal solution to every problem, and moreover, they're totally unaffordable thanks to entitlements. (Obama's plans are totally unaffordable too, for the same reason, but that's a rant for another day).
There is, however, a nascent optimism in the conservative and libertarian policy worlds. The last five years have been pretty demoralizing. Now I'm seeing more and more people who are actually looking forward to going into the wilderness for a little while, where they can get their heads together without having to worry about the intellectual compromises of actual politics. There's disgust at certain policies that they can't stop, like the revolting farm bill. But people are kind of excited about figuring out what the next big thing is.
Nor are they particularly worried that they will be kept out of the promised land for forty years. After all, four years ago we were talking about a permanent Republican majority.
God I hope the GOP finds a new soul as the party of technocratic and competent financial management, committed to free trade, and moderate to liberal on social issues. Sort of like a mainstream Libertarian party, I imagine. I would vote for that version of the GOP.
However, I think there are still a number of battles to be won before that happens. First, the GOP has to find a way to divorce itself from the culture warriors and neocons. These people are fighting a losing battle and are toxic to young voters.
Second, GOP economic polciies have to be based on real economics - not wishful thinking and crank bullshit. Think more Chicago and less Austria.
Finally, the GOP needs to reconcile itself with a country in which white people are no longer the majority. This will happen eventually anyway, and the Tom Tancredos of the world just continue to send a loud and clear message that the GOP is not interested in Latino people. Well, guess who they're going to vote for then?
I don't know if this will happen, my guess is probably not. It is what I want to happen, but entrenched interests rarely just give up in favor of a more sustainable path. Further, since it is what I want to have happen, I'm very aware that I could be overprojecting the popularity of such an agenda.
Still, I can dream, right?
Conservatives aren't so much out of ideas as out of the moral standing to present them. Even if many Democratic initiatives are passed in the next few years, there is no reason that conservatives couldn't have a positive impact by pushing some level of skepticism of big programs and respect for the market.
But consider the disasters the current government has brought us - not so much the first line disasters such as Iraq, but the relentless politicization of everything in sight, pervasive corruption in places like the Department of Justice, overwhelming levels of dishonesty and fear mongering. After all that, nobody will take them seriously, nor should they until conservative politicians regain some level of integrity.
"Liberals got made?" I know, I know, it's a typo...but when I saw it, I immediately wondered if you meant that they'd been taken to bed by someone...or if they were now "friends of ours" in "this thing of ours."
Or maybe I spend too much time watching Sopranos DVDs...
I mostly agree with szr. Although I don't think any Austrian would claim the GOP holds their philosophy (with the exception of Ron Paul).
Just replace "conservatives" with "moderate libertarians" and you get a brand new happy GOP. The "big government" conservatives can form their own party and be marginalized like the LP is now.
Fair point Nelson, given the choice between Austrian economics and "big government" conservatism, well, that's a pretty easy choice for me too. Vienna here I come!
Big government conservatism essentially marginalizes economics to political power. Rather link Leninism, actually. I've always remembered an encounter with a group of movement conservatives at a party while I was in grad school in DC - they spent most of the night talking about how insightful Lenin was. At the time I thought it was just surreal banter, but I've since realized it was Lenin's concept of elevating political power above all else that really caused them to jizm in their pants.
I'm not sure conservatives are out of ideas, but Republicans sure are. I remember feeling invigorated at the new ideas and optimism coming out of the GOP in '94. After Bush's election in 2000, we had the welfare state on the ropes ... and we went to war, instead. Whether Iraq was right or wrong, it came at the expense of shrinking the government and other domestic reforms.
The agenda of Congressional Republicans since then has been mushy and indistinct. Say what you will about Gingrich and Armey, at least you knew what they were about.
That said, the Democrats don't seem to have any good ideas on offer, either.
The National Republican Party is just following the trajectory of the California Republican Party. With the exception of Schwarzenegger, California Republicans have won very few statewide offices in the last twenty years. Arnie is a moderate, who won a recall election, and who couldn't get nominated in a normal primary because of the party's 'Culture Warrior' litmus test. But he still doesn't control much and there hasn't been a Republican legislative majority in the memory of mankind. The Reps have run the party off of the political cliff, they can't win a majority no matter what they do. So the Dems have run the State off of the metaphoric financial cliff. Quelle surprise?
Now, the national party is headed off of that selfsame cliff. They are big deficit spenders. They never saw a piece of pork they didn't like. They pander to the mob with give-aways. They don't respect the separation of powers or any state's rights. They are definitely headed for the political wilderness. They don't want to vote for McCain because what, he might win? So where is Moses when we need him?
Er... isn't the whole point of being a conservative to recycle the same good ideas over and over, rather than implementing a never-ending stream of new ones?
Since when is standing up for free markets and liberty "out of ideas"? It's just standing up for the time-tested ideas that counts. Dont' need any new stinkin' librul ideas.
@MikeEarl: That's why I normally don't say "conservative" or "liberal." They're both often inaccurate. When rightists want to change something (like social security or welfare) and leftists want to leave it exactly how it's been since it was created, which one is really conserving an old idea?
Bush was elected (albeit with a minority of the popular vote) on a platform of "compassionate conservatism." His honeymoon initiative was NCLB, where he worked with Ted Kennedy to greatly expand the role of the federal government in education. He never claimed to be a libertarian, never campaigned as such, and never governed as such.
It is fair to say that libertarians have shown themselves to be politically powerless and unreliable as allies, so I expect the Republicans to junk that part of their coalition, and re-form along Webb/Huckabee lines: populist, religious, and socially conservative. (Sort of like the prophets, if you care to read them.) A libertarian's nightmare.
You know, if Libertarians would start talking to liberals (as opposed to talking down to us), they might find that we have quite a few things in common. They might even discover that there are quite a lot of liberals out there who don't think that raising taxes and creating entitlements are always (or even often) great ideas.
It's depressing to see that whenever libertarians need to make a choice, they seem to prefer to jump to the right rather than the left, which is why a lot of liberals think that libertarians are just conservatives who like pot.
I think that libertarians need to realize that a large segement of the conservative community does not, in fact, share their ideological convictions. To be sure, it's easier to find economic allies, but you can't divorce that from all the elements of social conservatism that stand in direct opposition to libertarian principles, nor are you going to be able to expunge those elements from the conservative movement.
I'm not going to suggest that an alliance with liberals will be a perfect match, either, but I will posit that it's no less natural nor invariably more antithetical than what you've been dealing with on the right, and I really do think that the difference in economic stance aren't nearly as unbridgable as a lot of libertarians seem to think. There really are quite a lot of us in the liberal world who just aren't ideological die hards when it comes to economic matters.
With all due deference, as I wrote on my own blog, I can’t think of anything more contrary to the spirit of Burkean conservatism than a seach for the “next big thing.” Indeed, I argue that a large part of the problem with modern conservatism is that Bush and the K Street Gand were more concerned with finding something big to do than with standing athwart history shouting stop.
Megan:
I don't think the conservative movement is "out of ideas", for reasons including those that Mr. Bainbridge states.
I think that most of the objectives of the conservative-libertarian coalition have been acheived. Communism is not a serious world alternative. Globalization continues at a roaring pace. Americans have a default suspicion and cynicism towards government that was absent during the implementation of the New Deal and the Great Society. The US military occupies a place of prestige and respect unique to all branches of government.
By and large, we (conservatives) have won on all those issues. The new challenges - asymmetric warfare by non-state actors, the environmental question, energy policy, immigration - requires a new set of responses.
The right may be exiled to the wilderness for a while, but I don't think there is any conservative who would trade our current political situation in 2008 for the one we had in 1978. What we have now is small potatoes. Unsustainable social welfare programs are a big problem, but not compared to global Communist hegemony.
Alliances may or may not be necessary to achieving important libertarian agenda items. Jimmy Carter deregulated airlines and increased defense spending, Nixon pursued detente and Clinton enacted welfare reform. All these things were possible because of a swing or centrist block and a few leaders willing to cross ideological lines.
While Republicans and Democrats remain at loggerheads about a variety of social (non-)issues and impractically large new entitlements, positioning libertarians as a swing vote that enables action on more modest limited government-pursuing, entitlement-reforming, and, hopefully, blue-nose isolating agendas could be just the ticket.
One can dream, anyway.
Andrew Lias wrote:
Andrew,
I agree that Libertarians (the authentic type) and liberals do have a lot of positions in common, but they arrive at those positions in completely different ways and through the application of vastly differing principles. However, the last part of your quote is, unfortunately, quite wrong. I find dishearteningly few liberals that are not enamored with higher taxes, more entitlements, and more government regulations. I wish there were a way to bridge this divide for it would form a powerful political union, but I just don't see it happening, which is unfortunate for Libertarians since are so few of us.
Many Republicans like to pretend to be libertarians. How's that working out?
You know, if Libertarians would start talking to liberals (as opposed to talking down to us), they might find that we have quite a few things in common. They might even discover that there are quite a lot of liberals out there who don't think that raising taxes and creating entitlements are always (or even often) great ideas.
I suspect that very few 'liberals' hold with these ideas, and that in point of fact few 'liberals' are actually liberal - at this point, that label is just a tag that conservatives like to apply to those who don't agree with them. Just like those who were against the invasion of Iraq were 'agains America' or 'for the Terrorists.'
That is why many people see libertarianism as hopelessly corrupt and wrong-headed. Back in the day, before libertarianism was co-opted by corporatism, they used to stand for personal autonomy. They thought dope-smoking and prostitution should be legalized, yes (I'm for the former and against the latter), but they also were against government-enforced mores, against the influence of religon on government, against intrusive government surveillance.
Nowadays, to judge by what they focus on, they've thrown those old standards aside. No money in it, I guess. Whereas there's plenty of money to be made defending and expanding the rights of corporations and the wealthy. I've asked for historical explanations as to why this came to be and have never received a satisfactory reply. But I'm guessing it's just the same old, same old.
If Republicans had made even a token attempt at being fiscally conservative, they wouldn't have this problem. They did nothing for me. I am just returning the favor.
You know, if Libertarians would start talking to liberals (as opposed to talking down to us), they might find that we have quite a few things in common. They might even discover that there are quite a lot of liberals out there who don't think that raising taxes and creating entitlements are always (or even often) great ideas.
It's amazing how oblivious you are to your own appeals.
You accuse libertarians of talking down to liberals, but then you immediately do the same right back to libertarians. It's surreal. You even throw in ridiculous accusations of corruption and improprietry as bonus. Wow.
Megan:
I'm sorry, but I can't take anyone who willfully is going to vote for a rabid statist and shmoozy fraud like Barack Obama seriously. No matter what sort of "Libertarian" they claim to be.
After Bush's election in 2000, we had the welfare state on the ropes ... and we went to war, instead. Whether Iraq was right or wrong, it came at the expense of shrinking the government and other domestic reforms.
Um, when the Bush/Rove domestic strategy's first big move was to create a new Medicare drug entitlement that immediately added a $7 trillion present value liabilty to the gov't, and adds $400 billion more each year, (double by itself last year's official budget deficit), I think it is fair say that shrinking the government was never on its agenda.
What Jim Glass said. But let me add that libertarians don't speak up against SCHIP or the farm bill, which points up how stupid a Republican would be to depend on them for help.
Jim Glass has it right. Bush ran as a "compassionate" conservative, not a small government conservative. Bush's "Sister Souljah" moment during the 2000 campaign was not to criticize the religious right (that was McCain's), but to criticize Congressional Republicans who were trying to hold the line on spending for "trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor."
But "tax cuts are awesome" is not the universal solution to every problem, and moreover, they're totally unaffordable thanks to entitlements.
CBO just released new projections of how much income taxes will have to go up to stay with entitlements and the results are not pretty -- a 50% income tax hike by 2030 for starters, and up from there. I've compared this with historical tax hikes and the scope of a "split the difference" (half tax increase, half benefit cut) budget-gap closing strategy for perspective.
The impression I get is, to paraphrase Butch and Sundance, nobody need worry about the 75-year projections to 2082, because the 2030s are going to kill us.
Now, if the Repubs had any capacity for playing a "long game" they'd have played the fiscal responsibility card ("We'll be happy to give the Dems their drug benefit when they propose the $400 billion annual tax increase needed to pay for it on a actuarially sound basis") and every time a Dem said "There's no problem with Social Security until 2045, etc. etc." they'd have videotaped it and put it in a vault. Then when the huge tax increases and benefit cuts start arriving about 10 years from now -- just 10 years, not such a long game -- they could have pulled a reverse-Roosevelt with the Dems' credibility destroyed for a generation.
But we know how that turned out. For them a long game was until next Tuesday. They're politicians.
(Obama's plans are totally unaffordable too, for the same reason, but that's a rant for another day).
Oh, but that could be the Repubs' lucky saving grace. They at least recognize their massive unfunded spending promises as hypocrisy, the Dems see theirs as virtue. If Obama and the Dems pursue their promised course, the Repubs as the out-of-power party with no spending power pound the fiscal responsibility issue (since it costs them nothing), and the Dems ignore them as they will have every short-term incentive to do (they're politicians too) they could set themselves up to self-immolate anyhow when the crunch arrives in a dozen years. The public has a short memory and always blames whoever is in power. Ask unfortunate Mr. Hoover. A party can be lucky to be "out" at the right time. They'd just better hope they don't seize power again just before the crunch arrives.
Hmmmm.
The problem is that conservatives have been working to advance the Republican agenda in the hopes that this would result in positives for conservatism.
This has been proven to be utterly false.
The key for the future of conservatism is for conservatives to concentrate on advancing the conservative agenda and ideals without regard to the Republican party.
Why?
Because the last 30 years have shown that establishment Republicans want conservatives around only during elections and otherwise view conservatives as problems. This has result in very few conservatives being groomed over the years for positions. Instead conservatives have been persuaded, mostly by conservative pundits more interested in continued access and perks than in conservatism, to support the party line.
Moderate Libertarians as the core of the GOP? I'm not sure 3-5% of the electorate is a happy target for any party wanting to maintain national viability, but I'm sure they'll be happy to take the advice and file it away somewhere.
The same holds true to the logic that the GOP establishment, whatever that mysterious animal is, is trying to marginalize conservatives. It would have been nice if that would have been tested with an actual presidential run by a real viable conservative. Romney is a johnny-come-lately to the conservative cause, having previously sought the social-liberal avenue to GOP success. He just forgot that he was in a NE state, the only place where such dreams are possible.
Thompson was the closest thing to a credentialed serious conservative and he ran his race with all the urgency of a Canadian outpatient clinic.
Here's a thought, though I realize it will disturb all the wishful thinking of revisionist Libertarians and frustrated masses of conservative political hackery: Conservatives haven't run out of ideas. They've simply not garnered the political capital to maintain the vision that the '95 Congress put in place.
It certainly doesn't help that several ethically suspect congressmen (certainly not all true-blue conservatives) have managed to creep their way to Capitol Hill. However, the simple problem is that it's far harder to maintain principles in action in government than it is to introduce them. People like the new, that's why Obama is riding the superficial roller-coaster of "change" (at least until people realize that Obama's idea of change is a time machine back to the Carter Administration.)
Conservatives also need to understand that there is a difference between political pragmatism (such as supporting McCain to keep the far worse Obama and Clinton out of office) and political cynicism (such as pouring Congressional Campaign funds into the service of the Lincoln Chafees of the world). They need to continue to pressure the GOP where it will do the most good.
And they need to realize that it's early in the 2008 game yet. The Democrats in Congress have massive gas and food prices, a bloated boondoggle of a farm bill, and dogmatic resistance to every gain in Iraq to answer for. That and the adventure of America getting to know the mysterious Senator Obama much better than he's counting on means that the race is still there to be won... if people will give up ridiculously romantic notions that the answers lie in some future wonderland where new and sexy ideas arise to replace the current plane of human political conflict. We live in an age of potential radical political and social change. Those who want to sit out might as well plan on being Rip Van Winkle, returning to a very different world in the future, one whose changes they slept through.
Oh, and good luck starting any "Conservative" party at the expense of the GOP. That will be the equivalent of the Reform Party (albeit with different ideals), splitting the population with other common interests on the basis of a limited conflict and handing control of the country to the Democrats for the forseeable future. Better to create your coalition in the party rather than pretend that you can kiss and make up later. That might work in a parliamentary political system (but ask Canadian conservatives about the limitations there), but it will definitely not work in the US one.
As far as grooming conservatives for power, perhaps conservatives should invest directly in serious, committed political hopefuls rather than the GOP coffers. That's one way to get directly to the individuals you want to support and to show the GOP where the base is. It's certainly more practical than promoting a party split that will leave conservatism in a long-term wilderness of their own making.
Liberals believe that the highest good is to direct other people's individual lives for the common good, as their primary goal. This means that the most energetic liberals go into politics. Conservatives believe that the highest good is for the individual to use his/her talents to the utmost, and that the common good comes about as a result. This means that the most energetic conservatives go into business.
Do you see the problem here? The most energetic conservatives are not going to bother with politics as a career. Conservatives (and I am one) tend to see most politicians as lazy, weak and corrupt in an existential sense -- losers who couldn't manage themselves and so must try to manage others. (I can't be the only one to notice that even though individual Americans may approve of their own Congressmen and Senators, Americans of all stripes hate "Congress", which earned a measly 18% approval rating in last week's Gallup poll.)
So, if conservatives are sending their farm league players up against liberal All-Stars, how will they ever score a point, let alone win a game?
One part of the answer is the citizen-politician. The most successful conservative politicians (and some notable liberal ones, too) had careers outside of politics and law before they ran for office. If we want electable conservative politicians, it's not enough to expect the GOP hierarchs to groom them -- we have to become them, or at the very least, find them and support them at the local level.
To this end, I am planning to "suck it up" and seek a seat on my local neighborhood council this fall. (I tell you, if you ever want to see officious, nosy busybodies in action, the place to look is your homeowners' association, neighborhood council, PTA, church vestry... where the stakes are smallest, the politics are worst. But that's where it begins, folks.) I have no intention of entering politics as a full-time career -- as an engineer, I have a *respectable* job, thank you very much. I'm not looking to be groomed. However, I expect to meet others who might have political potential, and on the flip side, I will probably meet one or more real scum-suckers in larval form, such encounters providing useful information for future elections in case they grow up to run for Congress.
Anyone else want to "take one for the team" with me? Because that's what we're going to have to do, or stay marginalized forever. Conservative ideas have to be argued for, defended, and implemented at the lowest levels if they are ever to rise higher as a permanent feature of our government.
Yancy Ward: I agree that Libertarians (the authentic type) and liberals do have a lot of positions in common, but they arrive at those positions in completely different ways and through the application of vastly differing principles.
Which is why liberals and libertarians shouldn't be confused. I don't think that this means that we can't ally with one another where our interests match regardless of whether or not the philosophical underpinnings of those interests diverge.
However, the last part of your quote is, unfortunately, quite wrong. I find dishearteningly few liberals that are not enamored with higher taxes, more entitlements, and more government regulations.
I've traveled in both libertarian and liberal circles (hell, I used to be a card carrying Libertarian once upon a time) and I really do think that you'd be surprised at how many of us liberals aren't actually enamored of those things. I'm not claiming that this is a false stereotype -- a lot of liberals are just as enamored as you claim -- but I am claiming that the number of us who aren't might be a lot higher than you think. Again, I really believe that it would be helpful to have an actual dialog between the two groups.
I wish there were a way to bridge this divide for it would form a powerful political union, but I just don't see it happening, which is unfortunate for Libertarians since are so few of us.
If the goal is 100% agreement then of course there's no way to build that bridge. I am not going to suggest that liberals and libertarians are the same thing. They aren't and there are fundamental differences (just as there are between conservatives and libertarians). I don't think that this negates the fact that we have common interests and that it would, IMO, be profitable to both groups to explore those commonalities.
GloriousYou accuse libertarians of talking down to liberals, but then you immediately do the same right back to libertarians. It's surreal. You even throw in ridiculous accusations of corruption and improprietry as bonus. Wow.
I'm sorry but... what?
There is absolutely nothing that I wrote that accuses libertarians of corruption or impropriety (which would be rather odd to do since I don't believe that libertarians are any more susceptable to those failings that any other part of the political spectrum, and probably less than most). How you arrived at this... impression rather boggles me. It's rather like your replying to something that was written in a parallel dimension.
As for talking down to you, I sincerely do not see where I did that. The only thing I can see that might even remotely be construed that way is where I write
They might even discover that there are quite a lot of liberals out there who don't think that raising taxes and creating entitlements are always (or even often) great ideas
Am I incorrect in my presumption that it is the case, indeed, that libertarians typically think that liberals are largely in favor of raising taxes and creating entitlements? In point of fact, as a liberal, I would be the first to agree that there are quite a lot of liberals that do favor tax increases and entitlements and I don't think that it's at all odd that libertarians would have that impression.
My point is that even though this is an accurate description of many liberals, there are, never the less, many liberals who do NOT automatically favor such and that, consequently, many libertarians might be surprised to find that they have more natural allies on the left than they seem to think.
I'm sorry if you feel that I was talking down to you but, frankly, I can't make any sense of your reaction to what I posted.
If you want to know why conservatism is dead intellectually and what can be done to restore the ideas of individual rights, limited government, and laissez-faire capitalism, I would recommend that you read this essay on "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism," which just about says it all:
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-fall/decline-fall-american-conservatism.asp
If you want to know why conservatism is dead intellectually and what can be done to restore the ideas of individual rights, limited government, and laissez-faire capitalism, I would recommend that you read this essay on "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism," which just about says it all:
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-fall/decline-fall-american-conservatism.asp