According to the always sagacious (trans: douchebag) Jacob Weisberg, there exists "a struggle for the soul of the Republican Party." Well, I guess you gotta be in it to win it. What you'd do with it, I cannot imagine.
One way to understand the divisions in the Republican Party is as a clash of regional philosophies. Northeastern conservatism is moderate, accepts the modern welfare state, and dislikes mixing religion with politics. Western conservatism is hawkish, hates government, and embraces individual freedom. Southern conservatism is populist, draws on evangelical Christianity, and plays upon racial resentments. The big drama of the GOP over the past several decades has been the Northeastern view giving way to the Southern one. To see this transformation in a single family, witness the shift from George H.W. Bush to George W. Bush.
This is true as far as it goes, but it's also a very polite way of saying "the GOP is becoming more racist and stupid."
Yet since the second Bush left the White House, something different appears to be happening in Republicanland: a shift away from Southern-style conservatism to more of a Western variety. You see this in the figures who have dominated the GOP since Barack Obama's election 19 months ago: Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rand Paul. You see it in the right's overarching theme: opposition to any expanded role for government, whether in promoting economic recovery, extending health care coverage, or regulating financial markets. You see it most strongly in the Tea Party movement that in recent months has captured the party's imagination and driven its agenda.
Bullshit. Weisberg just made this Western/Southern shit up. "The GOP is becoming more racist and stupid" remains the essential point.
On many issues, such as guns, taxes, and immigration, Southern and Western conservatives come out in the same place. They get there, however, by different means. The fundamental distinction is between a politics based on social and cultural issues and one based on economics. Southern conservatives care about government's moral stance but don't mind when it spends freely on behalf of their constituents. Western conservatives, by contrast, are soft-libertarians who want government out of people's way on principle. Southern Republicans are guided by the Bible. Western Republicans read the Constitution. Seen in historical terms, it's the difference between a movement descended from George Wallace and one that harks back to Barry Goldwater.
In a sense, sure. But one might also remark that the Republican party is becoming more racist and stupid.
Tea Party darling Rand Paul's objection the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is clearly Goldwater's, not Wallace's. Wallace and his followers resisted civil rights because they wanted to maintain segregation. Goldwater favored integration but thought the civil rights bill infringed upon private property rights and free association. In a similar way, the Palin-Beck opposition to universal health insurance is based on their intrinsic dislike of activist government, rather than on a Southern Strategy argument that federal benefits will help poor blacks and not working-class whites. Many reporters have gone to Tea Party rallies looking for expressions of bigotry. What they have tended to find instead is a constitutional fundamentalism that argues that Washington has no right to tell individuals or states what to do.
Interesting. However, the "racist and stupid" hypothesis retains superior analytic power. "Certain signs at certain protests not existing is evidence of a regional philosophical slash ideological position held by a demographic base I never bothered to research" is, well, stupid.
The new Western conservatism is not simply a reincarnation of the old Goldwater version. Lacking anti-communism as an organizing principle, it has been forced to invent a collectivistic demon, depicting Obama's centrist liberalism as socialism with American face. Where the old Western conservatives had serious thinkers lurking in the background—Harry Jaffa, the Straussian political philosopher, wrote Goldwater's famous convention speech—the new wave is authentically anti-intellectual. At the same time, Western conservatism has become more inclusive. The embodiment of its frontier spirit is now a woman who proclaims, "There's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals—right next to the mashed potatoes."
This certainly weighs more to the "stupid" side, granted.
Palin and Beck are terrific entertainers and the Tea Party is a great show, all of which has made the conservative movement fun to watch lately. But cowboy-style constitutional fundamentalism is unlikely to prove a winning philosophy for Republicans beyond 2010. For that, they need a conservatism that hasn't been in evidence lately—a version that's not Western or Southern, but instead tolerant, moderate, and mainstream.
Jacob Weisberg is an absolute fucking tool: this might be another lesson to be drawn here. "I like the stupid racism so far, what fun, but maybe later on if it doesn't work out so good, then it might be a problem."