In GOP Base: A Rebellion Brewing
Politico has a fascinating analysis up about a rebellion that is brewing in the Republican Party. To cut a long story short: the party’s elites – lawmakers and governors especially – are reasonably moderate, while ‘the base’ is becoming increasingly conservative. Activists (and bloggers and blogreaders) are fed up with Republican politicians, because they believe they have sold out. The elites, on the other hand, fear that the conservatism of the base – which consists out of simplified mottos – is a bad ideology to base one’s philosophy of governance on and are unwilling to give the base what it wants when they are in a position of power.
Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction.
There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense.
“There is a sense of rebellion brewing,” said Katon Dawson, the outgoing South Carolina Republican Party chairman, who cited unexpectedly high attendance at anti-tax “tea parties” last week.
The authors of the piece, Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith note:
In one sense, Republican leaders face the same challenge their Democratic counterparts did during the Bush years: how to effectively channel the deep emotion of the base while tamping down its excesses.
Both men are correct. The base’s kind of conservatism is unintellectual – it is rooted in emotions, intuition. That is not a problem for these individuals are the ones who come out in droves during elections and who do everything in their power to get Republican politicians elected.
It becomes a problem, however, at the moment ‘the base’ wants to force its simplified conservatism on politicians and conservative intellectuals. This is an incredibly dangerous development, both for these politicians and the movement at large.
On the other hand, dismissing the base out of hand is counterproductive. Intellectuals and politicians have to learn to use the anger and mottos of the base (to energize it), while at the same time adhering to a more intelligent, effective and complex conservatism themselves.
The success of the Republican Party – both in elections and after them – depends on how well these elites succeed in carrying this out.
I disagree strongly with that sentence, and so would several of the the intellectual forefathers of the base’s “kind” of conservatism: Goldwater, Reagan, Hayek, von Mises, Lincoln, Burke, and Buckley.
The roots of the modern consercative movement (which is, like it or not, what the base is supporting) were anything but emotional and intuitive. I think you have that confused with the political ideology that was fully summed up in two words during a certain recent Presidential campaign.
The type of conservatism that is preached by the extremes of the base is not intellectual in nature. It truly is reactive and emotional. If you look at the laundry list of priorities that the conservative base has come out most strongly for, it is pretty clear that these are emotionally charged issues that have nothing to do with the intellectual forefathers of the conservative base. The culturally conservative aspects of the party in particular are relatively new to the conservative cause and entirely charged with emotion. The reactionary anti-immigration and anti-homosexual impulses of the conservative base in particular are highly charged emotional issues.
Even the fiscally conservative side of the base is more emotionally reactionary than it is intellectual. The Republicans used to be the leader in ideas in the mid 90’s. Now they instead of pushing coherent proposals they are only able to take up positions that basically can be summed up as “whatever Obama says, don’t do that”. The “Tea Parties” were not pushing a Republican solution to the fiscal woes of the US. They were just venting anger at the policy of the democrats. They were a strong emotional “No!” devoid of any coherent counter argument.
The Republican party is very much lost these days. I personally weep for the demise of the Republican party and have nothing but dread for where they are headed. I like a healthy opposition party led by intelligent intellectual leaders. Sadly, that Republican party died in 2000. They have replaced the intellectual giants like Newt Gingrich with brain dead folksy anti-intellectual morons like Bush and Palin. Personally, I fear that the crushing blows the Republicans have received is pushing the party deeper down the path of anti-intellectualism away from the Gingrichs and towards the Palins.
“intellectual giants like Newt Gingrich”
If you say so…
Michael;
I would disagree with such terms as “unintellectual”, “rooted in emotions”, “simplified conservatism”. Such terms will only further divide. If a Christian conservative has a strong viewpoint on gay marriage and his/her Christian beliefs are mentioned at all in the justification for said belief many will claim that belief is “unintellectual”. I believe these fissures in the party cut many ways and not necessarily moderate vs conservative. I have no clue how they will be reconciled. The “Sophie’s choice” is between energerized voters/campaign workers vs general election victories.
Clearly, part of the process is to establish common values that all of the “factions” can agree to. My sense is that many in the party think we should downplay anything that “smells of religion”. I think that’s a mistake.
Reading the “thoughts” of the hard-core conservatives is scary. I think we are really talking about the bottom-dwellars of society. There is no reasoning with these people, they are blinded by the right. Hate, anger, and ignorance are the dominent impressions. If this is the “base” they must appeal to they will be wandering in the wilderness for a long time.
Whenever I read these kinds of bigoted comments from one side of the ideological spectrum against the other, I wonder whether the real “hate, anger, and ignorance” lies with the author of the comments rather that the usually-misrepresented object of their ire.
In other words, look in a frickin’ mirror.
Hard-core conservatives, people who call themselves hard-core conservatives or those who are presented as such by people hostile to conservatives/what they perceive conservatism is – these are all three very different and distinguishable groupings.
At the heart of it lies a contradiction between the principles of Liberty and the moral agenda of the so-called cultural conservatives. This contradiction is the cause of the anti-intellectual bent of the base, because the conservative movement will not survive its examination. The only resolution I see is a split in the movement, which is already happening. I’ve not yet changed my party affiliation from Republican to Libertarian, but I’ve given it a lot of thought.
I think Michael’s point is not that there are no intellectual conservatives at the base, but that its current message is not rooted in intellectualism but emotion, and has been for a while. Surely, people like Jindal, Romney, et al. are highly intellectual. So says their schooling, anyway.
By the way, you could also argue that this is also true of the Democratic base. Despite the Republican’s portrayal of all of them as elitists, I’d say the fervent anti-Bushism from the Dem base over the past eight years is a non-intellectual and highly emotional message.
man o man, okay – before you go too far down on that – it’s not intellectual bit Jonny – you may want to research what the Tea Parties were about.
Anti-Democrat is not one of the items
The cure for the GOP doledrums is 4 years of Democratic rule.
Trust me.