I've written and rewritten this post several times over the years. I think the first time was in 2002, when the original Daily Weasel was kicking ass and taking names (this having to work for a living is hard on a blogger who makes no money with his blog.), and it is still true. The GOP is largely dead. If it seems as if it's taking a long time for the current incarnation of the GOP to die, look in the mirror, folks. If not for the political incompetence of progressives, we could have shut the door on the GOP far right in 2004 at the latest. Really, if we had any political chops at all, we could have gotten Carter a second term and never had to deal with them in power at all.
I'm not sure many progressives understand what's actually happening with the Republican Party these days. Progressives love to whine and complain about what they call "Blue Dogs," and their seemingly poor fit in the Democratic Party, but the fact of the matter is, we can't do anything about them until we get rid of the current Republican leadership. What you don't understand is that Blue Dogs are a sign that there is only one viable party for reasonable people these days. With this version of this column, I hope to begin to tell you how to make the current incarnation of the Republican Party go away for good, and save this country from the extremists who control so much of the debate.
The first step is to stop calling these people "conservative."
Ben Nelson is a conservative. Orrin Hatch is a conservative. Idiots like Paul Ryan, Jason Chaffetz, Michele Bachmann and Caribou Barbie (Sarah Palin) are certainly NOT conservative. They are wingnuts, and should always be labeled as such. If you don't like "wingnuts," call them "right wingers." But we have to stop referring to these idiots as "conservative.
First, it insults actual conservatives, with whom we disagree, but with whom we can negotiate in good faith. There is no middle ground with a wingnut. Wingnuts are convinced they're absolutely correct about everything, and everyone else is wrong. Their idea of "compromise" is to declare what they want and to shut down the entire government if they have to, just to get their way.
The current political ideology (or "movement," as they laughingly call it) that dictates to the Republican Party is actually anything but conservative. In fact, it may be closer to the opposite of conservative than even the left wing is. It was built largely upon lies and deceit, largely because the Republican Party needed a reliable "base" upon which to rebuild after Goldwater was soundly trounced by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Johnson (and Kennedy, for that matter) was a true conservative who saw the writing on the wall and adopted the inevitability of civil rights for blacks, and the need for the government to do something about the rampant poverty that continued to thrive in pockets all over the country, mostly in the South.. For that, he was inaccurately labeled "liberal," and the neocon deception was under way.
The Goldwater defeat motivated Republicans to regroup and attempt a different strategy; one in which they held the same beliefs as before, but couched them in more "acceptable" language, so as to hide their true intent. In addition, they also adopted very subtle but very strong racist overtones that they hid behind "code words." Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was a blatant attempt to exploit the racism in those who objected to the federal government's actions regarding the civil rights of blacks. The "Southern Strategy" (a phrase coined by Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips -- yes, THAT Kevin Phillips -- see how far right the GOP has moved?) used the code "states' rights" to secure the Southern states as a stronghold for the Republican Party. The entire "Southern Strategy" was basically dishonest, because it was a wink and a smile to Southern racist elements, in language that couched its true intent, which would never have been found acceptable to most reasonable people.
Essentially, the entire "movement" was based on a wink and a nod to extremists, and before long, these people became the Republican Party's "base" of support. Prior to Goldwater's numbing defeat, most of these extremists had been relegated to the fringes of the both parties. In the GOP, they were derided as the "Taft Wing." The Taft Wing wasn't generally racist, just pro-corporation and anti-poor.
In the pre-1964 Democratic Party, the right wing fringe were considered to be reliable voters because they considered the "Party of Lincoln" to be race traitors for freeing slaves, although they never trusted them with the keys to the party. That's why Democrat Strom Thurmond had to ran on a third party "segregationist" ticket in 1948; the Democratic establishment thought he was a loon, and while you might let a loon wash your car, you rarely let him drive it. Before 1964, the loons were split between the two parties, and their influence was severely limited. Non-racist loons were kept on the fringe of the GOP, while racist loons were kept in check inside the Democratic Party.
But when the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed, led by a southern Democrat, the racist elements of the Democratic Party felt like they had been betrayed. So, when the GOP enticed them to come in and join with the Taft Wing, in the hopes of winning more elections, Southern Democrats jumped at the chance. In this new incarnation of the "Party of Lincoln," all wingnuts had found a home. Within a decade, two largely ignored fringe groups had been fused together and basically gave the Republican Party new life.
The new neocon-influenced Republican Party's strategy became one of lies, half-truths and euphemism, so as to appeal to the average voter without giving away their actual intent. This strategy had long been practiced by racists in the Jim Crow South, and it became the key to the Republican Party's resurgence.
Think about some of the terminology these people use. To the average wingnut in this day and age, the terms "states' rights" and "federalism" are synonymous, although the way they mean "states rights" makes them polar opposites. "Federalism" is all about a strong central government, after all; hence the root word "federal." The Federalist Society is a strongly neocon organization dedicated to taking power away from the federal government, but it uses Alexander Hamilton as as its figurehead. This, despite the fact that it preaches the exact opposite of Hamilton's vision of a strong, centralized federal government.
Neocons also love to toss around phrases like "fiscal responsibility" as they shrug at enormous budget deficits (only when they're in charge, of course) and throw billions of dollars in tax cuts at the rich and huge corporate donors. They talk about "personal responsibility," but don't enforce it when one of their own does something wrong. They use the word "quotas" when discussing affirmative action, despite the fact that quotas were outlawed by the Bakke case in 1978. When they discuss "welfare," they invariably invoke an image of a lazy, fat black woman living in a tenement with a dozen kids, and they scoff at anyone who mentions that far more "welfare" goes to the rich and large corporations, in the form of legislative subsidies.
In other words, the current neocon movement was built on lies and deceit, and it has only achieved its current success through more lies and more deceit. And you have a problem when you build a political "movement" on something that doesn't match your true intentions. At some point, if your message is appealing enough, you'll find electoral success, as the Republican Party did quite a bit over the last 30 years. the problem is, at some point you have to perform.
That's why the GOP finds itself in its current predicament. They created a governmental model that is completely incompetent and unable to function in a public service capacity. Their ideology is all about winning and gaining power, with no thought as to what to do once they got what they wanted. Their entire political training regimen came from people like Frank Luntz and Newt Gingrich, who specialized in crafting language designed to manipulate public opinion. If only they'd spent more time, energy and money learning to govern, and less crafting schemes to win elections and then plodding through governance like blind men looking for a meal.
Forty years ago, it would have seemed inconceivable that a popular political movement in the United States could be led by the vile group of miscreants that leads the current incarnation of the Republican Party. And frankly, their near-complete incompetence has led most of the "brains" behind the GOP's rise to bail in the last few years. That has left the current GOP to the dumbest group of imbeciles to ever lead a major political group. As a result, fewer than a quarter of Americans self-identify as Republicans, and that number looks to be dropping further.
Go through the Rogues Gallery of Republican leaders, and you find no one who can be taken seriously on any level. Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity are court jesters. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are walking affronts to all women. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are jokes; an orange man who always looks like he just finished a highball and is about to be hit by a bus, and a weaselly, turtle-looking man who can't speak in anything but pointless platitudes. And both of them are being led around by the nose by childish reprobates who call themselves "teabaggers" (well, they did until they found out what it meant); people who have no concept of how government is supposed to work, and think being a Congressperson means getting their way or whining and crying like petulant children. Whereas adult election victors realize they represent the people in their districts, teabaggers seem to see the winning of an election, even by the narrowest of margins, as license to dictate to their constituents, and tell them what they will put up with.
For years, "real conservatives" in the Republican Party were held hostage by a bunch of zealots who would say and do anything they felt they had to in order to obtain power, and by now, most of them have become independents or Democrats. The reason there seem to be so many "Blue Dogs" is because conservatives who would have naturally gravitated to the GOP before - those who want to serve their constituents rather than be coerced into toeing the neocon party line - no longer feel welcome in a GOP that calls them RINOs and threatens them on a regular basis. The number of registered Democrats has dropped over the last 20 years, but the number of registered Republicans has dropped even farther.
The Republican Party is essentially dead. There is only one thing keeping them alive in the political arena, progressives, so listen up.
In the words of Pogo:
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Yes, folks. We progressives are keeping them alive. Neocons and hard core conservatives make up about a quarter of the electorate. Most polls put their number at about 22-24%. But they will vote for the rightest-leaning person, no matter what. They are a solid base, meaning they vote most of the time, and they only don't vote when they intend to send a message. Liberals and progressives usually make up about 18-21% of the electorate, which is pretty close to the size of the right wing. But though we think of ourselves as the "Democratic base," reality is a mixed bag. Blacks represent a solid voting bloc, and definitely make up a core of the Democratic base. Liberal union members are also a solid Democratic voting bloc, but you may have heard; their numbers are shrinking. But the sad part is, statistics show that white, middle and upper class progressives can NOT be counted upon to function as any sort of "base." In other words, the white, puffy liberals and progressives who have the biggest mouths and make the most demands of Democrats, are NOT part of the Democratic base, and haven't been for about 40 years..
And it's not just because these progressives can't be counted upon to vote. There's a lot more to it than that.
You see, folks, the right wing is negative on purpose. Their base loves red meat, of course, but there's another reason for the negativity. Because the Republican Party is the minority, one of their main strategies is to depress turnout among the voters in the center. You see, most voters who are not on either the far left or the far right want to hear positive things. They don't mind hearing that things are wrong, but they want to vote for politicians who can tell them how they can be fixed, and then to do it. When the overall atmosphere is negative, they stay away in droves.
Al Gore and John Kerry lost (and yes, I know there was cheating going on, but really; it shouldn't have been close either time.) not because Ralph Nader ran for president and got 3 million votes. Gore lost because the Republicans' overall message was "Gore sucks," and the message from the left was largely "Gore sucks," as well. Therefore, the overall message to moderates was "Gore sucks." Since no one was bothering to point out that "Bush sucked," moderate voters who didn't stay away from the polls figured it was a safe bet.
Kerry lost for much the same reason; a complete lack of enthusiasm, combined with an incredible negativity. I could go on, as Dukakis, Mondale and Carter all lost for exactly the same reason. Only three times in the last 30 years has a the more progressive candidate won an election, and in two of those, Democrats were ably assisted by Ross Perot. Only twice in 30 years has the good side of the election won by a healthy margin. In 2006, after the Republicans showed themselves as royal screw-ups for six years, and 2008.
Look at 2008, folks. Senator Barack Obama decided to run for president. Progressives loved him, even though he ran as a moderate, and he won by a mile. There was no question he would win from the moment he came out of the primary fight with the most delegates, because he was seen in a positive light by everyone, including progressives. Again; the guy ran as a MODERATE.
Progressives couldn't wait until he took office. But once he got into office, the whining started. Why? Because he turned out to be a MODERATE. I'd say it started when he didn't close Gitmo after a month. Within a couple of months, when it was clear that the 40 Republican Senators were going to block every progressive, or even moderate measure that e down the pike, the whining from progressives got, well, progressively worse.
Seriously libs, what the hell did you expect? Did you expect "Black Jesus" Obama would just walk into the White House, wave a magic wand and the entire country would become progressive in one month? Or even one year? Hell, if you expected him to change everything in one TERM, you're dreaming.
The man was handed the worst shitstorm any president has had to handle since FDR. But there were a lot of differences;. When FDR took office, the Republican Party didn't have enough seats to give him a hard time. When FDR took office, the economy had already crashed and burned, and had been in the shitter for about 3 1/2 years. And even then, if you think FDR did everything he had to do within his first two years, then hit the history books, because you FAIL. The Depression didn't end until FDR was into his THIRD term, and we were into World War II. It wasn't until then that FDR saw an unemployment rate under 12%. And that was a much smaller, less complex economy.
Immediately after Obama was elected, progressives turned negative. He got shit for hiring Geithner and Summers, because they were "Wall Street types." Well, no shit Sherlock! Let's see; even if you hate plumbers, when your pipes burst, don't you hire one anyway? I mean, who better to fix a problem than the people who understand the problem in the first place? Do YOU understand derivatives and credit default swaps?
Obama still gets shit for not doing something to the banks, although I'm not sure what progressives expected him to do. He lent them money and he made them pay it back. They were forbidden from giving themselves huge bonuses until they paid the money back. What else was he supposed to do? Congress passed one of the strongest reforms in about 80 years and he signed it. No one could even consider breaking up the banks until they were stable, anyway. So there was no way he could have even considered it until late last year. But here's an interesting question; on what legal basis do you presume the government can simply step in and break up a bank in the first place? The law would have to change, and that would have to come from Congress, because Congress has the power to regulate commerce. Actually scratch that; they have a duty to regulate commerce.
Progressives have been riding Obama and the Democrats from day one, and we have acted much like the right wing, politically speaking. And as a result, we a few elections. Losing Ted Kennedy's seat should have served as a wake-up call. Instead, progressives whined about it.
I'm going to write about this sort of thing a lot between now and 2012. President Obama is the best president we've had for a long time, because he understands something that many liberals and progressives don't seem to get; he's there to do the job we elected him to do; it is OUR JOB to take care of the politics. He said many times during the campaign;
"WE are the ones we've been waiting for!"
In other words, folks, politics is a team effort. Our job is to SUPPORT him. If you wanted single payer or a public option, you should have worked for it. It's not HIS job to get you single payer or a public option; it's OUR job to sell it to the public so that HE can sell it to Congress. If WE could have convinced the public that a public option was the greatest thing since sliced bread, he could have championed it and won. Instead, we demanded it, even though few progressives could even define what they meant by it.
Look at what's happening in Wisconsin for a clue. In the space of a few months, the Republican Party is on the ropes. Not because some individual knight in shining armor did it, but because the people are doing it. We live in a democracy, and politicians are elected by getting the most votes. But the election isn't the end of the fight; it's the beginning. Once the election is over, politicians who want to do the right thing need our support. You know why Anthony Weiner says such great things? It's because he has the support of the people in his district. Trust me; if Anthony Weiner represented the people of Nebraska, his politics would be like Ben Nelson's. If we want to create a progressive country, we have to sell progressive policies to the public at large. Politicians are as brave as their constituents' support allows them to be. It's that simple.
Progressives love to cite the film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" as the ideal movie about one man against a system. But look at it closely. Jeff Smith didn't win because he did it himself; he was brave because he had the support of the people in his state. It wasn't until he received the support of the people that he was able to do the right thing.
We can build a progressive country. But we can't do it if a significant number of liberals and progressives are expecting someone else to do it for them. And we also have to realize that dismantling 30 years of neocon damage will take time, and a lot of work. It will also entail following a logical progression to get to that point.
First, we have to get rid of the neocons. We have to put aside our claimed "principles" and push their ideology back to the fringes where it belongs. At this point in the electoral system, we don't have right and left, only right and wrong, and we have to get rid of the wrong before we can move the country left.
Once we bury the neocons, then we can start realigning the electorate based on liberal and conservative again, the way it used to be. But we have to do it in concert with moderates and conservatives, and stop acting as if we and we alone know all the answers to everything. Most of the loudest progressives in this country are white, they've never been poor, and they're self-righteous as hell. And let me assure you; left wingers can be just as irritating as any right winger. Having earned a liberal arts degree doesn't mean you know better than black and brown people what it's like to be black or brown. Just because you studied "social sciences" at Harvard doesn't mean you know what it's like to be poor. And can we please establish that what progressives have been doing for the last 40 years isn't working, and try a different approach? How long do progressives have to sit on the sidelines before we figure out that we've been sitting on the sidelines a long goddamn time, and try to get into the game. If you want to change policy, you have to win elections. When are you going to figure that out? Dennis Kucinich will never be president; you're not adhering to any sort of "principle" by sending him money and voting for him; in fact, you're undermining any principles you claim to have. Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader can say any goddamn thing they want, because they know they'll never have to actually put any of it into action.
And we have to stop being so negative all of the time. It's really bad politics. No one wants to hear that crap. No one is impressed with your promises of gloom and doom due to global warming, or climate change, or whatever we're calling it this week, anymore than declarations of the end of the world that come from the idiot right impress anyone. What the vast majority of voters in the real world want to know is what can they look forward to if they vote for you. Being negative depresses turnout and plays into the right wing's hands. There are too many progressive Chicken Littles running around, and they take far too much delight when people suffer.
This approach requires a major sea change for a lot of progressives. There's a reason people can't stand liberals, and it's not because the right made it into a dirty word. It's our fault. People don't like us because the loudest contingent of liberals is always whining about something. Stop it. If you want a progressive society, you have to work for that, and you have to work to transform the system. Stay tuned to this blog, and I will show you how to do that. But for now, remember three things. I'll expand upon them later, but keep them in mind in the meantime.
1. President Obama has been the most progressive president we could hope for over the last two years, and he has moved the country forward in ways that I would have thought impossible after eight years of Bush. We need a guy like this in the White House during a transition. Fully transformative presidents can come later, if we play politics the way it should be played, and not the way we've been playing it for the last 40 years.
2. Stop engaging right wingers. It's okay to make fun of them, but don't engage them. We spend far too much time arguing with stupidity, and it's a waste of time. One of the reasons right wing propaganda works so well is because we act as its megaphone. When Caribou Barbie says something outrageous, she's counting on us to repeat the message and carry it far and wide. Instead, we should disregard the right wing altogether, disregard the message, and craft our own message; one that effectively counters theirs. If you follow my Twitter feed, you'll see me doing this; instead of re-quoting what Glenn Beck says, and giving it credibility, I simply make a statement that makes Beck wrong. It works. Even on this blog, you'll note that I attack what they say and dismiss the speaker pretty much altogether. Compare that to the rest of the progressive blogosphere. Progressives spend way too much time hand-wringing and "warning" people of dangers that only exist because we keep the right wing in business.
3. Know that protests and marches do NOT change hearts and minds, but solutions to problems do. Making an issue feel personal works very well, but it requires us to listen, not tell. The reason gays are so close to getting marriage rights is because gay rights groups appealed to people's hearts. Look closely; reaction to Proposition 8 in California was to demand rights, of course, but the campaigns that have put them over the top are the ones that showed people that gay people are part of their reality; that they're in our neighborhoods, our churches, and even our families. "Give us what we want or else" is not an argument that sways many voters, and yet that's the approach many progressives take.
There is a lot more, but these will be a good start.
We CAN get rid of this ideology. We just have to play it smart.
The Republian Party is dead. Let's stop propping it up.
