David Edwards and Andrew McLemore write at Raw Story:
The Republican brand is still alive and well, Rep. Mike Pence said on Fox News Sunday.
When asked by Chris Wallace what “conservative solutions” the GOP would bring to their current minority-party status, Pence said social issues like “the sanctity of marriage” will remain the backbone of the Republican platform.
“You build those conservative solutions, Chris, on the same time-honored principles of limited government, a belief in free markets, in the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage,” Pence said.
Conservatives need to think long and hard about the inherent contradiction in “limited government” and “the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage.” Making government the “morality police” is not “limited government.”
Of course, the truth is that conservatives really don’t want limited government. They want to limit the scope of government to carry out programs they don’t like, of course, but they are always in favor of expanding the scope of government to carry out programs they do like. They want little government when it comes to, say, Medicare, but BIG GOVERNMENT when it comes to warrantless surveillance. They want little government to enforce equal rights protections, but BIG GOVERNMENT to enforce immigration laws. They want little government to rebuild New Orleans, but BIG GOVERNMENT to wage war against whichever foreign dictator has pissed them off.
So, truth be told, they aren’t against BIG GOVERNMENT. They are just against government doing anything that might smack of progressivism. And whatever government is doing, whether they approve or not, they don’t want to pay for it. Tax revenues are supposed to fall out of the sky, somehow.
But let’s take baby steps, shall we? The truth is, even some righties are beginning to realize the Reagan coalition needs an overhaul. In a much-discussed article, David Frum argues (in effect) that the Republican base is shrinking, and if the GOP doesn’t adjust to demographic realities it will go the way of the dodo.
The base is almost entirely white, almost entirely resident in the middle of the country, moderately affluent, middle-aged and older, more male than female, with some college education but not a college degree. Think of Joe the Plumber and you see the core of the Republican party.
Meatheads?
Joe has not changed much over the past two decades or so. But the country has. The Hispanic population of the United States has almost doubled since 1990. The proportion of white Americans with a college degree has jumped from 22% in 1990 to almost 28 ½% .
I feel compelled to point out that shipping manufacturing jobs overseas didn’t do much to grow the number of “Joes” in America.
College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats – but that their values are under threat from Republicans. And there are more and more of these college-educated Americans all the time.
So the question for the GOP is: Will it pursue them? To do so will involve painful change, on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. And it will involve potentially even more painful changes of style and tone: toward a future that is less overtly religious, less negligent with policy, and less polarizing on social issues. That’s a future that leaves little room for Sarah Palin – but the only hope for a Republican recovery.
As I see it, Republicans wedge-issued themselves into a corner. A large majority of Americans want to keep abortion legal, at least in some circumstances. Hard attitudes against homosexuality are softening, especially among young people.
In another much-discussed article, P.J. O’Rourke wrote,
Take just one example of our unconserved tendency to poke our noses into other people’s business: abortion. Democracy–be it howsoever conservative–is a manifestation of the will of the people. We may argue with the people as a man may argue with his wife, but in the end we must submit to the fact of being married. Get a pro-life friend drunk to the truth-telling stage and ask him what happens if his 14-year-old gets knocked up. What if it’s rape? Some people truly have the courage of their convictions. I don’t know if I’m one of them. I might kill the baby. I will kill the boy. …
… If the citizenry insists that abortion remain legal–and, in a passive and conflicted way, the citizenry seems to be doing so–then give the issue a rest. …The law cannot be made identical with morality. Scan the list of the Ten Commandments and see how many could be enforced even by Rudy Giuliani.
Both Frum and O’Rourke say a lot of things I think are idiocy, but at least they are facing up to the reality of social conservatism — that on a national level it hurts the Republican brand more than it helps. I’ve already explained why the anti-abortion movement is now a clear liability to Republicans. Being against same-sex marriage may not be a clear liability yet, but demography — younger people are much more accepting of homosexuality than older — says it will become so in the future.
The question should be how many of the Ten Commandments can be kept by Giuliani, not enforced. Giuliani has no problem unleashing the dregs of New York’s finest to sodomize Haitians with plunger handles, or brutalizing squeegee men, or even allowing his brown shirts in blue to have target practice on blacks. Giuliani has no difficulty in keeping up appearances, or the perceptions of being morally upstanding, but in reality he’s an absolute goat.
It really irks me that anybody could even hint that Giuliani could be held up in any regard as a moral being, or the arbiter of morality. It’s the epitome of fallacy. He’s an incestuous lecher who’s saturated to the soul of his being with hypocrisy..
Jeez. This is like American Government for Dummies. Anyone who uses the word “sanctity” in connection with the government gets an automatic failing grade.
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. The U.S. Constitution is perfectly clear: government cannot define or defend the “sanctity” of life, marriage, or anything else. That is the role of churches. Government’s role is to define and defend what is legal under the Constitution.
In spite of what the Fetus People or the homophobes want us to believe, religions disagree as to when life begins, and who may marry whom. When the Fetus People and the homophobes force their own religious definitions on the rest of us via government (and I would argue this includes referenda and constitutional amendments, because these are also law), then the Fetus People and homophobes are acting as an American Taliban, and are, in fact, enemies of the Constitution and of freedom.
It really is that simple. It always has been; we’ve just been lied to a lot, for a long time, by people who shriek really loudly.
Sorry to go OT once again (I think I sprained my rant on that last comment), but I just had to share this link. It’s like there’s this fascinating new miniseries just started on Masterpiece Theatre, called Endless Schadenfreude:*
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/10/17327/385/277/658741
* Somebody needs to come up with an easy-to-spell English word for that. Maybe “gloatgasm”? Also, does anyone know how it’s pronounced? I’m guessing “shoddenfroyda”?
Maha,
Great post, I really like the BIG font! Funny thing is I had this conversation with one of my conservative coworkers today over lunch. We haven’t been to lunch with each other for the past month or so because we are both a little too partisan. He agreed to go today when I promised I would not make too much fun of Sarah (he loves her and thinks she the future yea, go team!!!). Anyway I really tried to convey to him that the reason they lost was not only the economy but that the electorate is changing (the country is in the center, not center right), people are seeing through the culture war, they see that it is a bunch of bullshit, designed to divide and dumb down the nation, used by hate radio and cable news pundits to sell everything from coffee cups to all out racial and religious hatred. He agreed and retreated to the old argument that Conservatism is about “limited government†and “traditional valuesâ€. After dislodging the Vienna beef hotdog that I was choking on, I again tried to explain: wrong. Your limited government means limited for the little guy, your traditional values mean traditional for two parent Christian families, until you realize that others want to be included, your party is over. We had to end our conversation at this point, my co-worker gets a little squirrelly when discussing “values†with a nonbeliever. I assured him that Obama is not the left wing zealot that Sarah made him out to be, and he agreed to give a chance.
Oh wait; Doesn’t Mike Pence know he is now from the people’s republic of INDIANA. I like how he is vying for wingnut leader one week after his reliable redstate flipped blue! How about them Hoosiers!
for joanr16:
shah-den-froy-duh, accent on shah.
Hi joanr16.
It’s pronounced shaddenfroyde. “A” as in apple, not ah, as in “ah shucks”.
And speaking of pronunciation, I found out this weekend that I’ve been pronouncing your president-elect’s name wrong. This weekend, I met a Canadian ex-pat living in S. Carolina who explained that it’s Obahma and not Obama (a as in apple).
I have noticed recently that a lot of words with an “a” that I pronounce a as in apple, are pronounced with a broader a in the States. Fair enough, I’ll now say Obahma. And I now understand why Oprah says ahhnt (aunt) while I say ant. But don’t ask me to enjoy saying Suzahnne (the CNN reporter) Malveaux. If you speak French, as I do, that’s a gross mispronunciation.
Linguistic rant is over.
Is it wrong that I don’t want to help the wingnuts see the light? I know that we should be kind towards the stupider amongst us, but I feel that the party still has a long way down before it gets its shit together and the lesson finally sinks in. As long as there’s talk of Palin, they still haven’t learned. So by pushing them farther down the well, we’re helping them in the long run, you see…
Palin 2012!
Do it for the lolz!
Pluky, danke!
There is the fable of using a glass jug to catch a monkey. A few bright trinkets are put in the jug. The jug on the ground is tied to a tree; the neck of the jug is just wide enough for the monkey to reach in, but once he takes the trinket in his hand & makes a fist, he is caught. The neck of the bttle is too small for him to withdraw a fist. The only way to escape is to release the prize.
There is a ‘base’ GOP constituancy whose universe is anti-gay, anit-abortion. There is another faction who is anti-UN, anti-diplomacy, they believe in using the baddest army in the world to impose American values. Those 2 groups make up (imo) the bulk of the 46% that McCain got.
The GOP can’t release the planks those groups demand. And the GOP is trapped. Because by building the party around those factions, they marginalize the majority who wants abortion to be safe & legal, and the majority who want us out of Iraq.
The GOP could build a viable party if they started with a blank sheet of paper. But hey will pander to a ‘base’ and try to find wedge issues & narrow knee-jerk issues to peel away slivers ov groups. at teh moment the only threat the Democrats have is – themselves.
Who would have thought, just 4 short years ago, with GWB actually winning the popular vote and Republicans making gains in both the House and the Senate, that the party of the ‘permanent majority’ would be in the quandary that we now see them in? It’s pretty fascinating to watch, this party whose leaders worked so hard to create this frankenstein of an electorate by stitching together the most base and ill-informed among us, now having to deal with a monster who’s now, more and more, asserting it’s own control, independent of the master. The Brooks and Noonans and Kristols and Frums and all the other mandarins of the party can bleat all they want about rebuilding, the beast only knows that the master has betrayed it and it’s simple brain is bent only on one thing; enacting a terrible and destructive revenge.
Conservativism by its very nature is rife with contradictions. Their vaunted small government – even if they were serious about it – means that cuthroat global capitalism will rein, and will destroy their vanted sanctity of the family, as anyone can see in the year 2008. This is but one example of many.
All we progressives have to do is continually point out the contradictions in their so-called “philosophy” and watch them twist their tiny minds into a knot.
And besides, all this social conservativism is just a distraction for the ignorant masses, the rubes, the foot soldiers. The moneyed elites, the aristocrats in other words, those who like the current setup just the way it is, the ones who really own and run this country, could care less about things like “sanctity of the family”. That’s just red meat to keep their base engaged. Why waste time with it?
Sometimes the guitar sounds better than, it all. Sounds better than it all.
http://www.uncledad.org/uploads/keith.mp3
Canadian Reader, you’ll get the hang of the new U.S. president’s name soon enough. I’m still trying to get used to his ability to speak in complete sentences that actually mean something! A wonderful problem to have.
Joanr16,
I am a simultaneous interpreter (oops, now everyone in Canada will know who I am since there are only 200 or so of us here) and boy, do I appreciate people who actually finish their sentences!!
The other day, listening to Obama, I had the same thought as you: Wow! this guy just finished a long, complicated sentence. He knew where he was going when he started out and ended up just where he needed to be at the end. Amazing!
My job entails listening to people massacre their mother tongue and trying to make a silk (linguistic) purse out of a sow’s ear so that people who don’t understand the language being spoken can participate in the discussion. Obama is an A-1 speaker: clear, unrushed (Hillary, on the other hand, speaks a 1,000 words a minute–NOT good), grammatically correct–a true joy to listen to and to interpret.
Now, people may not care about the travails of my job, but I think Obama’s speaking style says an awful lot about his intellect and that’s something that we ALL care about, no matter where we live or what language we speak.
This is a link to an article in the American Conservative by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.. It’s not what you would expect.
“In similar fashion, the Bush administration corrupted conservatives’ longstanding support for law and order. After that federal growth opportunity called 9/11, the central government exploited this feeling, and soon conservatives began celebrating the right of the Bush administration to arrest and jail people without trial, to disappear and torture people abroad, to wiretap and otherwise spy on citizens, to use federal power to intimidate any and all political dissidents. How the defense of local law enforcement against centralization turned into a full-scale celebration of the police state is an ugly tale of a bit of truth turning to madness. ”
People, this is from an article in American Conservative! A few folks on the Right have a handle on Conservative philosophy, and do not see it linked with social conservatism or fascist abuses of human rights. Fortunately for the Left, this group is pretty far removed from Palin, Romney or Guiliani.
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/nov/17/00019/
‘The sanctity of marriage”….oh my, I gotta make a comment here…Really.. how come no one brings this up? Gay folks getting married is not a threat to the “sanctity of marriage” but I can sure the hell tell you what is. The number one threat to the “sanctity of marriage” is DIVORCE you idiots! DUH! So IF all this bullshit about protecting the “sanctity of marriage” is anything more than lip service and a punk ass excuse to *wink wink nod nod* keep a group of people from having the same damn rights as you than by Gawd get out there and end the real killer of marriage:DIVORCE.
It seems to me(someone going thru a divorce herself after 24 years) that religion is selective to suit the cause. If pence and his nut job rightie pals even suggested ending the ability to divorce along with banning gays from being allowed to marry the shit would hit the friggin fan!Ask righties then how they felt about “preserving the sanctity of marriage” and you would see the “anti gay marriage” crowd drop like flies if it meant they couldn’t divorce also.
You cannot any longer, righties, give me anymore BS about the sanctity of marriage. Put up or shut up…Wedge that! I demand equal protection for the “sanctity of marriage” NOW. Ask yourself why the head of the christian coalition is not screaming to protect marriage in this way right along with not allowing gays to marry.It is the unspoken pink elephant in the room.Why have we allowed it.We have our own wedge here.Insist these moral high and mighty’s REALLY protect marriage by putting on the ballot a blanket of protection for so so precious marriage that says no gays can marry and no hetros may divorce…like a great big safe condom for marriage.No joke.
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