May 18, 2004
ONE-SIDED FIGHT:
For Conservatives, Mission Accomplished (JOHN MICKLETHWAIT and ADRIAN WOOLDRIDGE, 5/18/04, NY Times)
To consider the ground that liberals have ceded, one must look back at the [American Conservative Union's founding in a cramped living-room in 1964, a few days after Lyndon B. Johnson had thrashed the first fully paid-up conservative presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater. Back then, the self-styled "Mr. Conservative" seemed to come from another planet. "When in all our history," asked the political theorist Richard Hofstadter, "has anyone with ideas so bizarre, so archaic, so self-confounding, so remote from the basic American consensus got so far?"Fast forward to today. A Republican Party that is more conservative than Mr. Goldwater could have imagined controls the White House, Congress, many governors' mansions and a majority of seats in state legislatures. Back in 1964, John Kenneth Galbraith smugly proclaimed: "These, without doubt, are the years of the liberal. Almost everyone now so describes himself." Today, a Gallup poll tells us, twice as many Americans (41 percent) describe themselves as "conservative" than as "liberal" (19 percent).
Democrats have come up with all sorts of excuses, from the evils of Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" to the "stolen" election of 2000. They usually ignore the fact that the right has simply been far better at producing agenda-setting ideas. From welfare reform in Wisconsin to policing in New York City, from the tax-cutting Proposition 13 in California to regime change in Baghdad, the intellectual impetus has, for better or worse, come from the right. As President Bush bragged at last week's party, the right is "the dominant intellectual force in American politics."
Yet many Democrats insist this will change once Mr. Bush is ejected from the White House. This shows how little they have learned. First, the right has a history of advancing its agenda under Democratic executives (welfare reform came about under Bill Clinton). More important, it has organized itself for a much longer battle. Whenever it has been forced into retreat — as after Watergate — the flame has burned eternal at places like Heritage, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, and at their smaller cousins in virtually every state.
Brains are nothing without political brawn. That's why the American Conservative Union disciplines Congressional Republicans by rating them according to their purity (the average rating for House Republicans has risen from 63 percent in 1972 to 91 percent in 2002). Yes, liberal environmental and abortion rights groups rate members of Congress too, but those figures are more effective as fodder for conservative attack ads than as a way to keep Democrats in line.
There are other battalions of foot soldiers, too. Americans for Tax Reform, which had a table at the dinner, rigidly enforces the party's pledge not to raise taxes. Focus on the Family (which has a campus in Colorado Springs so big that it has its own ZIP code) concentrates on promoting family values. Sometimes these groups feud — Cato libertarians have plenty of differences with Focus on the Family's social conservatives — but as all the back-slapping at the party showed, they share a sense of movement.
In theory, liberals have more than enough brain and brawn to match conservative America. The great liberal universities and foundations have infinitely more resources than the American Enterprise Institute and its allies. But the conservatives have always been more dogged. The Ford Foundation is as liberal as Heritage is conservative, but there is no doubt which is the more ruthless in its cause.
Democrats seems to have settled on this "ruthlessness" theme to explain away the reversion of the Republic back to a more conservative posture. But that ignores the complete intellectual failure of liberalism (in its American not classical sense). Ask yourself a simple question: what is the last significant idea for governing America to be proposed by the Left? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 18, 2004 8:46 AM
The Republican response to the gay marriage debate is to offer civil unions. I dare say that's somewhat to the left of Senator Goldwater's 1964 platform.
Posted by: David Cohen at May 18, 2004 9:29 AMGoldwater would have been pro-marriage. He was libertarian, not conservative.
Posted by: oj at May 18, 2004 9:41 AMIf Henry Ford got a look at what his foundation was up to these days, he'd burn the place down.
Posted by: mike earl at May 18, 2004 9:53 AMIt wasn't proposed by the left but it was quickly endorsed as "fairer" and "more democratic". Ross Perots Half-a***d and small minded proposal to do away with the electoral college. Hillary Clinton and the rest loved it. Don't you agree that the entire federal gov't SHOULD be run by NYC, LA, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia...? Fair is fair.
Posted by: Tom Corcoran at May 18, 2004 10:20 AMAsk yourself a simple question: what is the last significant idea for governing America to be proposed by the Left?
Open borders.
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 18, 2004 10:38 AMTom:
Significant. There's no way small states would surrender national elections to CA.
Posted by: oj at May 18, 2004 10:44 AMoj-
Obviously. Again, the framers new exactly what they were doing.
Posted by: Tom Corcoran at May 18, 2004 10:59 AMVery funny. But actually the current immigration madness traces to the 1960s, so you're right: it has been a long time.
The only way the Left advances its ideas anymore is by transferring them to the Right.
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 18, 2004 10:59 AMPaul:
None of our ancestors had green cards, we just adopted the system to keep Catholics and Jews out.
Posted by: oj at May 18, 2004 11:11 AMSpeak for yourself, big guy. That you despise your ancestors is no reason for me to despise mine; and no grounds for policy today.
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 18, 2004 11:15 AMAsk yourself a simple question: what is the last significant idea for governing America to be proposed by the Left?
Exporting democracy at the point of a gun. Of course, the fact that many supporting this idea mislabel themselves "conservatives" clouds the issue, but there it is: a profoundly leftist conceit.
Banning smoking in bars?
Posted by: Brit at May 18, 2004 11:55 AM...what is the last significant idea for governing America to be proposed by the Left?
Civil Rights act of 1964.
Posted by: Brandon at May 18, 2004 12:02 PMDerek:
The Mexican War
The Civil War
Indian Wars
Spanish-American War
WWI
WWII
Korea
Vietnam
We do little else but impose democracy at gun point.
Sorry, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was preceeded by the much broader scope of the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments to the Constitution encated almost one hundred years earlier by the Republican Party. Of course, the Republican Party attempted to enforce them during Reconstruction and only surrendered when they began to lose elections because there was no reliable post war political concensus supporing "Negro" suffrage.
Furthermore, it's historically contemptable to regard the Democrats as anything other than gross
reactionaries on Civil Rights for "Negroes" before, during (Copperheads) and after the Civil War. Finally, as a proportion of each of the two parties in Congress in 1964 more Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than did Democrats.
Head Start?
Posted by: Tom Corcoran at May 18, 2004 12:29 PMThe Left uses the court system to advance their agenda and subvert democracy at the same time. A Two-Fer!
Posted by: Jeff Brokaw at May 18, 2004 12:32 PMHead Start is both a small-policy idea and a failure, so it's hard to call it "significant".
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 18, 2004 12:40 PMWith the exception of the disastrous First World War, which was a gross error, none of these wars were about spreading democracy. They were, first and foremost, about securing national interests or were wars of imperial acquisition.
Posted by: Derek Copold at May 18, 2004 12:49 PMWhat Jeff said is definitely true, and we ignore it at our own peril. The Left's constituencies know it very well, and that is why extremists like Kennedy, Leahy, Levin, Schummer, etc. are essential to their cause. They will not compromise at anything that would allow them to cede ground in the courts; ironically (cynically?) even if they help them usurp powers best left to legislators.
Posted by: MG at May 18, 2004 12:52 PMJudicial activism started with the anticonstitutional Marbury v. Madison.
Posted by: oj at May 18, 2004 1:05 PMSorry, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was preceeded by the much broader scope of the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments to the Constitution encated almost one hundred years earlier by the Republican Party.
That's too clever by half, Ray. What happened in the 1860's is not really relevant to what happened in the 1960's. It's not really fair to compare the political dynamics of two such different eras.
Posted by: Brandon at May 18, 2004 1:26 PMNot quite on the subject, but not just Henry Ford M.E.
All part of the plan from the late thirties ... still unfolding. Got to hand it to them.
Posted by: genecis at May 18, 2004 1:30 PM...the last significant idea for governing America..? Foreign policy mistakes are one thing while Democratic initiatives regarding "governing" have been rather small ideas, usually consisting of proposals which promise much and deliver little in terms of benefits vs costs. I was kidding when I said 'Head Start' but it is typical all the same.
Posted by: Tom Corcoran at May 18, 2004 2:43 PM...Democrats don't wish to 'govern' the country as is. They dislike the country and wish to change it into something else. Their foreign policy blunders might hint at what that change might be.
Posted by: Tom Corcoran at May 18, 2004 2:51 PM* Unilateral Disarmament
* Universal Health-Care
* Needle Exchange
* Greenhouse Gas Emissions Quotas (Kyoto Protocol)
* Gun Control
* Windfall Profits Tax
* Alternate Minimum Tax
* Federalize Education
* Make US more likable
* Be nice to dictators
* Transfer of sovereignty to trans-national institutions (UN)
* Anti-growth environmentalism
* Wealth redistribution via tax code
* Reverse Discrimination/ Racial Quotas/Neo-segregation
* "Law of the Sea" and related treaties
* School Busing
* "Americans With Disabilities Act"
* "Title IX" (College Athletics)
Derek:
The Korean War was about imperial acquisition? Did you attend Harvard?
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 19, 2004 11:54 AM"Yes, liberal environmental and abortion rights groups rate members of Congress too, but those figures are more effective as fodder for conservative attack ads than as a way to keep Democrats in line."
Could that have anything to do with the fact that:
"Today, a Gallup poll tells us, twice as many Americans (41 percent) describe themselves as "conservative" than as "liberal" (19 percent)."
It's not that the liberals are worse organized or have worse institutions (Harvard, anyone?) or are even "less dogged." Their problem is that a lot of voters don't like their ideas.
Posted by: ralph phelan at May 19, 2004 10:58 PM