Republicans all at sea

This new column for the FT gauges the depths to which the Republicans could sink:

One thinks of the British Labour party's reaction to Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979. Labour lost because it had not been socialist enough, was the party's diagnosis: it needed to be truer to itself. Having forgotten how you win elections - namely, by occupying the middle ground - the party then lost its desire to win them. Better to be true to your principles and out of power than to compromise. True to its principles, it was out of power for nearly 20 years, and the Thatcher revolution transformed the country.

The Republicans' emulation of this proven model of political failure takes on an even more farcical aspect when you consider the conservative ideas to which party purists say they want to return. Labour under Michael Foot at least had an alternative programme of policy and a leader - almost any is better than none - to enunciate it. Republicans have neither. Their platform, if you can call it that, is a compendium of slogans and prejudices, bound together by disgust at the Obama administration. With the economy in its present state, this is no time to be saying "government is the problem" - especially if you have nothing further to add and the economy's troubles are universally understood to be the legacy of a Republican president.

The party needs to frame practical, coherent, and above all centrist alternatives to what Mr Obama and his congressional allies are doing. Instead, it wants to shore up its base, chant its slogans and purge its moderates. You have to laugh. Yet this gleeful suicidal tendency is sad as well as funny. There is plenty of scope for calm, centrist criticism of Mr Obama's bold progressive agenda. The country needs exactly this.

The rest of the article is here.

Comments

Michael May 4, 2009 6:45 PM

Nate Silver said 'the McCain campaign vastly overestimated the need to appeal to the Republican base.' The Specter affair shows the problem of not appealing to the base, but a corollary to the latter and the 'mistake' of the McCain campaign is possibly yet another, this time subtle, indictment of the Bush presidency. The Republican party had become a (small) congressional party.

AlanK May 5, 2009 12:20 PM

All true, but even in theory what is the sensible conservative option the GOP can offer? A strong military? Sure, but the Dems are using the GOP's own Secretary of War and the GOP has done their best to destroy the military. A balanced budget? Who would believe it from them? Lower taxes? Fine, always nice, but what are you going to give up to make your budget balance (see above)? Smaller, more effective government? Yeah, right. Moral purity? Please.

The only honest position they have is one of low taxes, low services, power and taxing devolving to the states and cities, smaller but effective defensive armed forces, some sensible positions on immigration and protectionism (pick one, any one, that differs from the Dems and won't start a depression), some sensible position on public morality (pick one, any one, that differs from the Dems but is not invasive), presented by attractive and sentient human beings.

Unfortunately for them, this perfectly reasonable and traditionally GOP position is not what Americans want. To hide this they must resort to name calling, and then nobody sane takes them seriously.

It doesn't help that they don't seem to be very bright or very tolerant of others' opinions or very motivated to getting the country out of the ditch they drove it into. Their reaction to Obama's financial plan is insane. Mr Obama's plan surely has flaws, has been attacked from both sides which will likely make it better, and is based on sensible financial models. It probably won't work as well as he would like it to, but it certainly will help somewhat and has already had important psychological consequences. What is the GOP's plan? To stop the Obama plan. This is not governing; this is a suicide pact.

So, two problems:
1. The GOP is not really interested in governing
2. There is not a legitimate GOP position that can win a fair election

We are left with the question of why the GOP wants so desperately to run the country when they have no plan with which to run it.

Tony Comstock May 5, 2009 4:24 PM

No, no Clive. Didn't you read Brooks? The problem with the GOP isn't that they don't have any ideas for how we can get out of the mess they made. The problem with the GOP is that they are the party of too much freedom and too much choice!