This makes a fair amount of sense. Good analysis.
Gene Lyons and Joe Conason provided a more succinct read in The Hunting of the President. It goes a little something like this: Goldwater's loss to LBJ revealed that fiscal conservatives had no electability so Lee Atwater took over republican electoral strategy and went visceral. To be fair, the Democrats beat them there: So the party of lower taxes became the party of God, and then the party of God became the party of conservative social values, and then the party of conservative social values became the party of fuck everything progressive. The problem is the longer you run away from the children, the smaller your base becomes. Gay marriage is now legal in Ireland. I was voting back when Sinead O'Connor became literally the worst person in the world for implying that the Pope wasn't a nice guy. Marijuana is legal or de-facto legal in half a dozen states and a giant government stimulus program saved the economy again, which pretty much put to rest all those fuckers that insisted the New Deal was a bad idea. Meanwhile we kind of sort of have healthcare, there's a black President and our primary international concern is "oh shit terrorists in the Middle East might try and shoot some people or something" instead of "holy fuck we're half an hour from armageddon AT ALL TIMES." You can only get so spun up. Bruce Jenner is gone and Caitlin Jenner is on the cover of Vogue and all the Republican strategists cut their teeth back when it was rumored Arthur Ashe died of AIDS which confused the hell out of everyone because he wasn't gay. Yet that's what they lead with. An old boss of mine made the observation that the Democratic party of the 2000s was a little to the right of the Republican party of the '60s. Know who created the EPA? Same bleeding heart mutherfucker that thawed relations with China, that old Lefty Nixon. The Right doesn't win because as both parties move right the outlier gets less share. Plain and simple. If the conservatives had any goddamn sense they'd pile money into Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader. It worked in 2000.
All those social issues seem to have left conservatives out in the cold, but the other side of the coin is that along with social progress we've also seen deregulation of all sorts of industries (airline, telecommunications, banking, etc.), huge expansion of free trade, and erosion of collective bargaining power. Thus, there have been wins for both camps. It's informative to take a bird's eye view, because either side can claim history is marching in their favor. We would just as soon see a democrat argue that one shouldn't be able to own one's own phone as we would a republican call for a return to Jim Crow. Both are dead issues, and rightly so. I would like to think that we've become more enlightened over time, but it's difficult to think so in the age of 24 hour news, 24 month campaigns, and infinite social media updates.
Counterpoint: The Right does win. A lot. There's that big elusive goal of the Presidency, of course, but Republicans are in control of both houses of Congress, which is inarguably the more important of the two. I don't see them winning the Presidency in 2016 because who the hell would they even put forward that has any chance of beating Hilary? I will say that if Trump gets the nomination that I am considering voting for him. Not because he is qualified, or a good leader, or anything positive whatsoever, but simply to punish the Republicans. His Presidency would be an abject failure of logic and leadership, would set back the Republican party for decades, alienate the entire party from most voters who aren't brain damaged, and possibly destroy the Republican party altogether. Actually, the best thing a Democrat could do for the Democratic party would be to vote for Trump because it would ensure Democratic victories for years to come.
My feeling is some of the big Republican donors have given up on the presidency to focus more on smaller races. Instead of spending $1 billion on selecting a president, they can spend $10 million on a hundred different state level legislature and governor races and control state level politics.The Right does win. A lot. There's that big elusive goal of the Presidency, of course
I feel like they get a lot more for their money. The Presidency has never been a more expensive race, and yet the powers and responsibilities haven't changed. Aside from making executive branch level changes like asking the DOJ to pursue one case over another, and ATF responsibilities there's not a lot that the President does exclusive of Congress. He can 'declare war' but not really, and Congress seems willing to rubber stamp that anyway. If you're a defense lobbyist spending your money trying to get preferential contracts I could see why you'd be more interested in Congress than the Executive branch anyway. I guess I just don't know who's paying for the Presidency. What benefit do they even get?
They own most of the statehouses and Governorships as well.Counterpoint: The Right does win. A lot. There's that big elusive goal of the Presidency, of course, but Republicans are in control of both houses of Congress, which is inarguably the more important of the two. I don't see them winning the Presidency in 2016 because who the hell would they even put forward that has any chance of beating Hilary?
Does it? Examine every major issue upon which the right and left squared off in, say, 1968. Now advance the calendar to present and have a look at those issues. Republicans are winning, or at least still in the thick of things. Conservatives of the sort who comprise the editorial staff of the AC ... different story.
I find it heartening that this sort of discussion is happening in conservative magazines, around conservative kitchen tables. I don't agree with many of the right's policies (for one, I am generally considered a freak and possibly a criminal by their policy makers), but I know the importance of having a well supported opposition to the left. As an example, "Leftist" parties in Canada have a tendency of spending out of control - and we need "Rightist" parties, or fiscally conservative parties, to hold them to account, to cut the bloat and fat out of investments etc.
We often joke up here that Obama would make a good Canadian Conservative - and they're as far right as we go nationally (save for the Christian Heritage Party, but they don't have a huge base)
It's so fucked up here. I watched most of the Republican debates for entertainment value and they're just shredding Obama for being too liberal and leading our nation in the wrong direction when any reasonable person sees him as a pragmatic center leftist who's got unemployment down about as low as it goes and the stock market is at record levels. But the base just eats this shit up. The debates are like watching a parallel universe where America is on the brink of collapsing into Balkanized anarchy. Except maybe Marco Rubio, all the top GOP polling candidates are so far right they're sidling up next to Mussolini. If I worked in IT or something else economically valuable I would move to Europe.
The economy is too complex to blame on the President. The public likes to relate the two, and for sure, there is some connection, but Obama is no more responsible for the recovery than Bush was for the crash. While linked, conflating politics and the economy can also be a mistake, just like falling for populists and demagogues. As much as either party would deny it, they aren't too far apart economically. Even Sander's proposals do little to the underlying base of the economy, and if he is elected, the economy will keep on doing pretty much what it wants—by itself, apart from politics. There's a huge gulf from anyone to Mussolini's corporatist structure. Plus, it's still before the primaries, and each side is focusing on highly salient issues with their base of primary voters. Once the first primaries take place and candidates start dropping out, the real issues of the election will come to the forefront.
Thank you for saying that. It is a pet peeve of mine when people blame the President of any party for any major economic activity. The Fed operates outside of both executive and legislative government specifically for this reason. It's akin to blaming the President for high gas prices.
Eh... a conservative magazine, but not a Republican one. The articles in it are too long for modern Republicans (or Democrats) to read. This is, in short, a magazine whose audience barely exists now and will not exist at all in a few decades. The relatively sane old guard of the GOP, as demonstrated in the article, is dying out. The party of Burke.
If the Republicans were serious libertarians they wouldn't be so enthusiastic about restricting sexual minorities, or regulating women's reproductive health. They've adopted libertarian iconography and rhetoric, but only because it sells better outside of their dwindling base than religious nuttery, dogwhistle racism and stodgy old paternalism.