Following up this post from Monday on the future (or lack thereof) of the conservative coalition, and yesterday’s post on The Tanking of the President— Kevin Drum has some thoughts I’d like to discuss–

The basic thesis of Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson’s Off Center is that the Republican party has been taken over by its ultraconservative activist base, and this in turn has pulled the party far away from the center of the American electorate. Normally this would spell doom for a political party, but a variety of institutional controls have converged that are likely to keep Republicans in power for a long time despite their increasing distance from the mainstream. …

…the activist base of the Republican party is pretty far distant from the middle of American politics, and George Bush recognized this in his first term, mostly steering a center-right course. However, in his second term it’s all falling apart, just the way conventional political science suggests it should. The more that Bush panders to the Republican base (Social Security, Terri Schiavo), the more he loses the support of Middle America. At the same time, the more he tries to tack to the center (Katrina, Harriet Miers), the angrier his base gets. Centripetal forces are tearing the Republican coalition apart, and suddenly Beltway buzz suggests that Republicans might actually lose Congress in 2006.

This suggests two possibilities to me. The first is that conventional political science still has it right. It took a few years, but the radicalism of the Republican base is finally putting a stake through the heart of the party, just as you’d expect. The second possibility is that we wouldn’t even be talking about this if it weren’t for 9/11: Bush would have long ago lost control of his coalition and would have gotten clobbered in 2004. What we’re seeing today really is a special case, not a permanent realignment.

Then Kevin poses a question–is Bush going through a second-term slump that could blow over, or is the normal order of things finally reasserting itself?

First off, I think you have to separate Bush from the Republican Party and from the coalition. Both the party and the coalition have been forces in national politics long before Little Georgie decided to get into the family business. And they’ll still be around even if Little Georgie were to be abducted by space aliens and never seen again. It’s true they’ve been married to him for a while, but now they’re squabbling and heading for a nasty breakup. Even if they decide to stay married for the sake of politics, the marriage will never be what it was, and I doubt the Right will continue to rubber stamp Georgie’s every whim. I sincerely believe the Bush Era is over.

Now, what of the ultraconservative activist base? You might recall that, back in the 1970s, the Democratic Party for a brief time (notably the 1972 Democratic National Convention) was hijacked by what might be called an ultraliberal activist base. But the leftie activists never had any real power, and I can’t recall any of them being elected to Congress, never mind setting the agenda for the nation. The ultraconservatives have managed somehow to not only take over Congress and the White House, they press forward with their agenda as if a majority of Americans backed their agenda. Which, as was argued here, they don’t.

The ultrarighties have been able to do this because they have something the ultralefties did not–backing by a behind-the-scenes elite with considerable wealth and power. And with the backing of wealth and power the ultraconservatives have turned much of mass media into their own private echo chamber. Mass media genuflects to the ultraright agenda and treats it as if it were mainstream, whereas the ultraleft agenda has ever been greeted with jeers and scorn.

This, and the fact that most Americans, most of the time, do not pay much attention to what’s going on in Washington, enable the ultraright to treat Washington as its private playground. As long as the bulk of middle-class Americans are feeling secure and complacent, news from Washington is just so much elevator music.

However–and this is where we crank up the seeds-of-their-own-destruction theme–the ultraright agenda is a horrible blueprint for governing, and sooner or later the damage done will cause most middle-class Americans to feel a whole lot less secure and a whole lot less complacent. I believe that’s about where we are now.

It is possible, barring further scandals or disaster, the Bush-GOP-ultraright axis will hold together and keep Dems shut out of power, and with the help of mass media continue to bamboozle the American public. However, even if they get remarkably lucky, and Iraq becomes pacified, and the price of gas goes down, and Patrick Fitzgerald issues no indictments, the lives of ordinary Americans will continue to get harder and harder. Income will remain stagnant, jobs with decent wages and benefits will be increasingly scarce, states will continue to cut needed services, etc. That can’t change as long as the righties are in charge, because such are the fruits of rightie policy.

And, frankly, I don’t think they’re going to get that lucky.

Prediction: If the crunch comes the first thing the Right will do to save itself is throw George W. Bush overboard. We on the Left need to realize that the Right could survive a Bush denouement and maintain its grip on political power. In other words, we could utterly defeat the Bush-Cheney administration, even force them out of office, and still lose the war with the Right. We lefties need to be careful about that.

If Bush goes down the Right would have to find a new figurehead real fast, though, and it’s not clear to me who that might be. And if enough of their leadership (e.g., Frist, DeLay) is compromised and/or under investigation or indictment, it’s going to be very difficult for the Right to remain cohesive.

Unfortunately, the Right’s biggest asset through all this could be the inside-the-beltway Democrats, whom we can pretty much count on to fumble the opportunity. And the moneyed, powerful elite backing the Right and controlling mass media ain’t goin’ away anytime soon.

One more thought: We’d all love to see Bush and Cheney impeached and tossed out of office, but for a moment let’s be contrarian and consider if keeping a seriously lame duck Republican in office where citizens can see him and reflect on what a loser the once mighty Bush turned out to be could work to our advantage in the long run. And giving the GOP an opportunity to build new leadership in the White House before 2008 might work to their advantage. Just a thought.

Anyway, given our leadership vaccuum on the Left, it’s not clear to me how the Right’s crises will fall out. Feel free to make predictions in the comments.