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(Welcome in the comments author Greg Anrig, author of The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing, and today's moderator Digby - jh)
A few years back a very smart friend of mine mused over coffee, "I wonder what it's like to be William F. Buckley today? He got everything he ever wanted." He sure did. All those years of philosophizing and writing and proselytizing and building a political movement certainly came to full fruition in the Bush years, didn't it? They had it all --- global economic and military dominance, total political control of the US government, domestic prosperity, a budget surplus, a friendly media and a cowed and paralyzed opposition party. There has never been a more fertile time for any political movement to solidify its gains and create a long lasting political consensus.
How profoundly disoriented old Buckley must be today. They had it all --- and in the course of 6 short years they managed to completely discredit their philosophy and prove their total ineptitude at running government. How could they have possibly failed so miserably?
Greg Anrig, TPM blogger and VP of programs at The Century Foundation, has written an entertaining and illuminating book explaining step-by-step just how and why it happened. The overarching answer, of course, is that any philosophy that doesn't believe in government would naturally not be very good at running one. (Indeed, one of the inescapable conclusions is that in many ways they consciously seek to run it badly in order to prove their thesis that government can't do anything right!)
And yet for years, the Republicans have portrayed themselves as "the grown-ups" the "serious" people who knew how to "get things done." The beltway Village continues to see these people as deeply mature and responsible despite their record of abject failure. (It's a triumph of public relations and social marketing that they manage keep these people drinking the poison long after the effects are known.)
For those of us who have been following this story for years, Anrig's book is a deeply satisfying deconstruction of the conservative program. We know what they've done, but it's still somewhat stunning to see it all in one place. For those who haven't been following it, it will be a revelation. From making America safer to shrinking government to their insistence on radical privatization, Anrig reveals the methods to their madness and shows just how thorough their failures have been --- even on their own terms.
Anrig concludes with this twist on Reagan's famous dictum: "conservatism is not the solution to our problem, conservatism is the problem." But he warns that despite their failure, the conservatives aren't finished and will continue to promote their program with relentless focus. After all, with the exception of destroying the opposition and the constitution, it's the only thing they really do well. Democrats have their work cut out for them.
Please welcome Greg Anrig to today's book salon.
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Welcome, Greg!
Hi Digby!
Hi everyone! Thanks to Jane for having me. And thanks to Digby for suggesting that we do this salon–and for writing such a wonderful introduction. I’m all strapped in, ready to go, and very much looking forward to this discussion.
Welcome Greg, and thank you for that fine introduction Digby. Since it’s book salon please stick to the topic, and if you want to go OT feel free to do so here.
Welcome! Any thoughts on what we can do to counter their continuing fact-free BS (other than what we’re already doing)? I continue to find the continued life of ideas like “tax cuts always increase revenue” and “the private sector can do anything better and cheaper than government” pretty amazing, when they started out as patently ludicrous and there’s now extensive proof of how wrong they are.
Greg how do you think conservatives move forward? We’ve seen them abandon the Bush/Rove attempts to enfranchise Hispanics in order to play the furious bigot card, but how else?
Greg - I sometimes feel that the Conservatives see this as war - do we need to take on the position as The Resistance?
Welcome to the Lake both Digby and Greg!
Greg, I am currently reading The Conservatives Have No Clothes and thank you for pulling all the info together.
My first question is how can the Left counter the Heritage Foundations and Cato Institutes when the supposedly Left leaning “think tanks” like Brookings have people like Micahel Hanlon writing tripe that supports the admin and the Heritage folks on the Iraq occupation?
Redshift @ 5
Redshift, One of the main arguments of my book is that progressives need to relentlessly equate conservatism with government failure. Just as the right quite effectively, over the course of many years, made the label “liberal” toxic for politicians to use, we have far greater justification for making the label conservative even more toxic. The failures of Bush are the failures of right-wing ideology, not merely the incompetence of individuals. My book tries to systematically show how that is so.
welcome greg and digby….
Welcome, Greg. I look forward to reading your book. It is one of my frustrations that the failure of conservatism as a political philosophy is rarely being discussed in electoral politics. Do you think it should be and what recommendations do you have for how it that conversation can be jump-started?
Jane Hamsher @ 6
Jane, I’ve been struck at how the leading presidential candidates, while distancing themselves from Bush, have nonetheless embraced pretty much his exact same agenda. They are all touting more tax cuts for the rich. They are all saber rattling with respect to Iran, as though the lesson of Iraq is that we need to be even more belligerent. They are all trying to one-up each other on the importance of executive power and the use of torture. So it seems like full speed ahead.
That really ought to make it easier for the Dems to say: they are saying they’ll follow Bush’s game plan, and so they will get the same failed results.
How does conservatism define itself these days? Is it just to follow Bush over the cliff? I think they have gotten away from any practical definition.
Oh, I see others have asked similar questions; sorry to be repetitive.
Greg Anrig @ 12
I wish I thought this was true — the Democrats campaigned in 06 on “everything will be different with us,” and then little was.
I worry that Repubilicans will be able to use this to good effect in the upcoming elections.
Isn’t it amazing how impervious to the failure of conservatism the congressional dems are? Sometimes it is almost like they are trying to preserve it themselves.
dakine01 @ 8
Dakine, Journalists remain utterly, utterly clueless about the fact that the “think tanks” created by the right are fundamentally different from places like Brookings. They have always been institutions that are primarily in the business of selling a product, whether the product is Social Security privatization, tax cuts, program cuts, or war. Traditional think tanks are more like research institutions and universities in whch the people working there mainly advocate policies based on actual research. O’hanlon I’m not going to defend. But Brookings still has lots of people who do good research and have good ideas. The media is the real problem. They don’t understand the difference between institutions in the sales business and institutions in the research business.
Hi Greg. It’s great to have you here. I very much enjoyed your book. They are all stark naked — and it isn’t pretty!
One of the most challenging things that popped out to me while reading this book is how to deal with the fact that so many of these discredited ideas have been deeply internalized by the body politic after years of relentless marketing.
It almost seems to me that the Republicans have decided to assume power for short bursts, make a lot of money, run up the debt (thereby restricting the Democrats’ ability to try new things) and then get out of Dodge to count their ill-gotten gains and leave the clean-up to the earnest Democrats. All the blather about philosophy and ideology sometimes looks to be just an cover for the Big Money Boyz to make a killing. (That’s a bit simplistic, but it’s hard to deny that it seems to be the way things ultimately turn out.)
In the book you have some ideas about how the Democrats might deal with changing this pattern. Care to discuss that a little bit?
Mr Anrig: what do you have to say about faux-dems such as Fienstein, Liberman, and all the others who cave to the Conservatives? What are they thinking, what is their real goal?
Maggie @ 16
Maggie, Yes, I have been very discouraged about things like the Dems squishiness and capitulations re things like the war, the bankruptcy bill, taxing hedge fund managers, domestic surveillance, and now waterboarding. You would think they would have learned that their one moment of success and clarity was opposing SS privatization. That helped to clarify for the public what they believe in and what they are willing to stand up for. These other issues make if very difficult to discern how they are fundamentally different from conservatives.
I am so glad you’re talking about this. I think it is so important to recognize that it’s not just Bush - it’s conservatism itself that is at fault for the destruction of our democracy. I believe that conservatism, followed to its logical conclusion, is anti-democratic. Do you think we can get people to call themselves ‘liberal’ again? It was made into a pejorative by conservatives, and, frankly, I’d like to see us get that word back and be proud about it.
Liberalism has brought us every human rights advance we’ve made as a democracy. Do you see taking liberalism back as something that’s doable?
NYBri asks a very good question.
Thanks for joining us, Greg.
In the course of creating their argument about conservatism, conservatives had to tell many lies about liberals and liberalism.
Can you comment on the major narratives and themes conservatives have used to distort the national conversation by, shall we say, defining liberalism down?
Thanks again.
Did Buckley believe that him and his fellow blue blood Yalemen future Oligarchs were philosopher kings?
Did he believe that putting the intrests of the privledged over the masses and humoring them that Democracy is the best form of government was a good idea.
How would undercutting both Democracy and our society make things better?
How does a Yaleie sq Bill’s economy and the Dows performance with Bush’s in his own mind. When Bush has listened to him as much or more than Regean did.
Or is he just ignoring/lying about the data?
Thanks Greg.
Is there any way we can shake up TradMed and get them to report on how Conservatives have to mask their true intention using Orwellian framing and wordsmithing - “No child Left Behind” Clean Skies Act” etc?
Welcome, Greg, I am so interested in your comments and look forward to reading your book. Assuming a Dem is elected prez, how soon do you think Americans will forget what a mess the conservative ideas were?
In your research, Greg, I’m just curious about how much you think conservatives, esp. southern conservatives, hate government simply because they’re chaffing against their perception of “authority figures.”
Personally, I think that is a big part of it.
Isn’t media de-consolidation a critical part of getting the right-wing thoroughly discredited? It seems to me that the right’s failed prescriptions for society will be resurrected over and over again by the media titans, since they share a class with the ruling overlords.
Oh, and welcome, Greg! Thanks for hosting this, Digby!
Welcome Greg — and thanks, Digby, for the great intro. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Out Of Africa: “When God wants to punish you, he gives you what you ask for.” Buckley sure got that in spades, didn’t he? And is consistently disrespected by today’s “conservative” mouthpieces, his hard work to get them to this point all but trampled into the dust of yesteryear.
Digby @ 18
Yes, I was relieved when the publisher didn’t come up with a cover showing Cheney’s ass or whatever. The first thing I think progressives need to do is get on the offensive rather than continuing to be reactive. In the presidential debate in Philly last week, no Dem even mention the word “conservative” or “conservatism.” (Edwards did connect Hillary briefly to neocons, but I’m talking about attacking the right head on rather than one of our own.) Clarifying what we are opposed to is essential to clarifying what we are for and what we want to do.
Then, I think the basic theme we should emphasize is that progressives want to strengthen security and opportunity for Americans by building on past successes (like SS, environmental and public health and safety protections, etc. that have been decimated in line with the right’s ageda). In contrast to repeating the same failed ideas of conservatism–which ignores what happens in the real world– we want to do things like universal health coverage (drawing from the strengths of more successful systems in other countries).
Greg Anrig @ 9
Great! We have done that, Bush and Republicans = Bad News
But the other side of that coin is that Progressives need to have a vision for the future.
What is it other than ‘we hate conservatives’. Smart democrats and liberals should be planning their own form of shock doctrine to deal with the next disaster that speaks loudly, clearly and resoundingly to solving problems with organized progressive values at work.
The beltway Village continues to see these people as deeply mature and responsible despite their record of abject failure. (It’s a triumph of public relations and social marketing that they manage keep these people drinking the poison long after the effects are known.)
I know these are Digby’s words but they sum up a major problem…(and I’m sorry I haven’t read the book), but do you discuss any ideas of how to get the facts out to the masses against the tidal wave of the enabling Villagers that continue to not only act as megaphones for conservative’s narratives, but even at times assist in the creation of conservative friendly narratives.
NYBri @ 13
Great question. Conservatism used to mean opposing change. Goldwater defined it as “social, economic, and political practices based on the successes of the past.” But movement conservatism is really the opposite. On the domestic front, it is all about weakening and underming government’s capabilities. That most especially includes realms in which government has been successful (like SS and Clitnon’s FEMA, which was viewed as a model agency). So it’s actually quite a radical philosophy as it has evolved. I wish progressive politicians would emphasze more the radicalism of the right, because a lot of people who think of themselves as conservative are using the old and outdated definition of adhering to past successes and resisting change.
Greg, Digby,
Would y’all please, please, stop referring to the Bushniks as “conservatives?” They aren’t, and I continue to be frustrated that the MSM and too many smart bloggers continue to impart the ‘conservative’ label to a movement that is radical and has very little to do with traditional conservatism.
I don’t think this is an inconsequential issue of semantics; we empower the radical right and concede mainstream respectability to them every time we let them masquerade as conservatives.
Greg and Jane at 12 — The GOP candidates have been pretty much cookie cutter Bush-bots on every issue down the pike. I’ve been struck by how much most of them have been trying to style themselves as Bush-Plus. Giuiliani is Bush-plus-more crazy-assed foreign policy/security. McCain is Bush-plus-more military everywhere. Huckabee is Bush-plus-more hallalujah.
You’d think given where things are with a LOT of conservatives that I know who are so disgusted they may not even bother voting at all this year, they’d be skewing back toward sanity. But instead, they are still chasing the dream of that crazy 15 percent back down the loopy rabbit hole.
What has come to bother me is the idea that ‘liberal’ is the antithesis of ‘conservative’. The earliest Liberal movement I have run across (though I haven’t gone digging) was in Sweden, and they were opposed by the Absolutists; called it the ‘caps vs. hats’ campaign. This ought to feel familiar, because what we have is their situation all over again: power of the people (that is, the notion on which our country was founded) as opposed to power of an absolute ruler (a ‘Decider’, in present-day parlance).
This is the question: do The People have liberty? Or not?
Christy Hardin Smith @ 35
Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of them are counting on the fact that once they have the nomination, they can stop out-crazying each other to chase the base, and the media won’t remind anyone that they ever did it.
Trying to run toward Bush in the primary and away in the general should be a problem for them. But as long as our political press considers playing to the conservative base to be “of course he has to do that, but he doesn’t really mean it” and playing (however slightly) to the liberal base to be “pandering,” it probably won’t be.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 35
Christy,
I saw a headline over at HuffPo where Rudy was bragging about his PD having used “advanced interrogation techniques” while he was mayor.
I’d guess Abner Louima could speak to that.
dakine at 38 — That is appalling. And could subject some police officers to internal investigation while Rudy keeps on strutting. But hey, if it gets a torture-loving cheeto eater out to vote…
Pachacutec @ 22
The right has been so immensely successful as a marketing enterprise becuase it sticks to a few tried and true tactics that liberals don’t generally use, for good reason. One is that they redefine whatever the actual policy problem might be in a way so that the only logical conclusion as a response would be to weaken government. So SS is going bankrupt, environmental and health and safety regulations are killing the economy and jobs, all public schools are a disaster (not just urban ones, etc..) And they hammer home those themes relentlessly, to the point where they become conventional wisdom in the media.
The other thing they always do is latch onto scapegoats for those purported problems. The lazy civil servants, the teacher’s unions,the education bureaucrats, the UN, whatever. Those strategies are good at firing up people. But they make it impossible to solve the actual problems. That’s why I think our side needs to say the biggest problem facing this country is conservatism. And the only group that stands in the way of solving our problems is the conservative movement. We take of that and them, we have proven in the past that we can accomplish amazing things.
global yokel @ 34
Actually, at the heart of the conservative movement — old and new — is an agenda to preserve aristocracy. I honestly don’t have much use for that whether it’s wrapped in Burke or Gingrich. So, I have no problem repudiating the notion of conservatism in general.
Having said that, I do think there’s utility in making a distinction between the “traditional conservatives” and the modern “radical conservatives,” if only because the oxymoronic nature of that phrase so accurately reflects the dissonance of their movement.
Redshift @ 37
Proof, then, that they have forgotten macaca. Not sure these fellahs are ready for the new primetime.
NYBri @ 13
Cliff
Christy Hardin Smith @ 39
My mistake intensive questioning from an interview with Al Hunt for Bloomberg
Sounds like a great book!!
My view is that those at the top of the Administration are fundamentally facist, and those at the bottom are confused, old-timey Goldwater-type Repubs. Sort of “trickle down facism”, and the actual Republicans are standing around wondering how the hell that happened…JMHO
Greg:
Why has the media been cowed? Why do guys like my nakesake worry about what their Republican/conservative brethern think of them? When a guy like Klein will get called a liberal by the Faux Noise types no matter what. I guess what I am asking is: Why, or how, did the Democrats and others let themselves get bullied by the Republicans/conservatives? have they still not caught on that they’ll get attacked by the Rove/Faux Noise Machine no matter what they do? It’s like they think the Tip O’Neill days still are in effect. Bipartisanship rarely exists anymore. They need to figure that out and soon.
dakine01 @ 38
That…is exactly what happened.
global yokel @ 34
This is a very important point, because so many on the right are now trying to distance themselves from Bush by saying he’s not a genuine conservative. But that word has provided a shield to the right because no one really knows what it means anymore. I think it’s absolutely essential that we use that very word, rather than allow the right to hide behind it, because the movement is what is dominating debates and its ideas are the ones that are failing. Tax cuts, “benevolent hegemoney,” the unitary executive, school vouchers, politicizing the government–these are all ideas advocated by the conservative movement that have failed over and over. Yes, they are radical ideas, which is one of the reason they have failed. But getting caught up in the semantical games that the right is doing is playing the game their way. Conservatism is failing as a philosophy for governing. Period end.
I’m a mom of three, ages 22, 20 and 18. We aren’t the best or the brightest but I’m doing my best to give them all a college education. We have had many discussions about what a rotten deal their generation is going to inherit, no health care, endless and costly war, and the phony SS is broken scare to steal our SS surplus. So, my kids are country shopping to look for a better deal. If my kids can figure this out how are we going to keep the best and brightest here?
Fear, Greed a hypocrites use of morality to justify taking from the poor to give to the rich, a pathetic need not to examine their lives, second guess themselves, admit wrong. A need to both belong to a group and have an enemy outgroup USSR, welfare moms, immigrants etc they can use as scapegoats, go to war with.
Sorry my question is what conditions produce William F Buckleys, Bushies and Cheneys?
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 46
Joe Klein’s Conscience (I love your posts on other sites as well, by the way). Klein himself was highly enamored with Bill Clinton’s Third Way politics, which was obviously quite effective and smart back in 1992 but now has a lot to do with why the Dems are desperately in search of an identity. In any case, the right was very effective at labelling their ideas as “new” and “fresh.” Which indeed they were. They were also stupid to begin with–not grounded in any research about how the real world works. But their newness is what attacted journalists, including people like Klein. Raising the cap on the payroll tax is dull–who wants to write about that? Privatizing the system, though, particularly when people got caught up in the whole “new economy” stuff, was exciting. Ditto vouchers. Ditto invading other countries to create a democratic Middle East — see Tom Friedman to feel the excitement. Again–radicalism sold by people who called themselves conservatives
One of the things Greg mentioned that I think is worth telegraphing is the notion that the Democrats really need to start running explicitly against not only Republican policies, but conservatism in general. I find myself a little bit depressed that the candidates aren’t hammering Bush and Cheney (for red meat reaction, if nothing else) the way the Republicans are going after Hillary. It’s allowing them to disappear him and their failures.
And it’s immensely frustrating to me that Democratic candidates believe the gasbags’ admonitions that they’ll be punished for “going negative” when it’s absolutely essential that they make their case in opposition to the Republicans. People make political decisions through contrast. If you don’t point out where the other guy went wrong, they can’t see why you are right.
It’s not immoral to take on your opponents — particularly when they have governed like Tony Soprano. Nobody likes Bush or the Republican congress. But the Village Elders have issued a decree that Democrats may not go negative and so they aren’t — even in the face of the most spectacular failure of governance since Hoover.
There are a lot of sensible critiques out there on the left.. from Lakoff to Greg… so how do we get the rain makers in the dem party to do their homework? They seem pretty immune to some of these good ideas and very susceptible to the influence of money.
Bad on them
Joe Klein’s conscience — Sometimes I wonder if it is a matter of being cowed, or simply a matter of buying into the narrative because it is easier than trying to buck the trend. (Sad, but having seen the herd mentality up close and personal a few times now with folks who want to be media personalities rather than journalists…)
I’m an ex-conservative and as such, it has often seemed to me that the conservatism of today, and indeed the last 20 years, isn’t the conservatism I was brought up with, which was fundamentally Burkean, thought that change should generally be slow and incremental and that tradition and precedent mattered greatly.
When I look at the US what I see is that the Republicans are fundamentally reactionary - they want to undo not just the New Deal (policies that are over 60 years old) but the Progressive Era as well.
The conservatives in the picture are the Democrats, who want to basically keep the New Deal around, but aren’t all that interested in new liberal or progressive programs or legislation.
Modern conservatives don’t believe in government because they don’t believe in large chunks of what the government does (except using force, in the military and the police). Since they don’t believe in it, they don’t run it well.
And ultimately, I suppose, I’m being a fogey. What I think of as conservative isn’t. Maybe it once was, but that was a long time ago, if ever. Today, conservatives are the Bushniks. And if they want to reclaim the word, they need to clean house and make it mean something worthy of respect.
As, in some ways, the old word “conservative”, long dead, once was.
Digby @ 41
The big financiers of movement conservatism–families with the names Scaife, Olin, Koch, Bradley, etc. — were motivated entirely by a deep hostility toward government. They particularly despised taxes and regulations. But when they began funding places like Heritage in 1973, they recognized that it would be a political non-starter to just advocate cutting taxes on the rich and rolling back environmental, health, safety, and anti-discrimination regulations. So they created these institutions to come up with politically sell-able ways of accomplishing the same goals. They were successful beyond their wildest dreams.
Digby @ 52
A coupla times, I’ve heard John Edwards refer to President Cheney and quickly correct himself. This always gets the audience riled up — and telegraphs a worldview very quickly. We need more of these shorthand devices, particularly in the new lightning round debate format favored by MSGOP.
Sorry I’m late, I’ve read Greg responses. I believe in fighting back and going after the people who are PUSHING the ideas who constantly are on the tv and radio making their radical ideas seem normal. These people are the think tank “experts” and talk radio hosts and cable tv presenters
But one thing that I don’t have an answer for that must be addressed is funding. We have some brilliant people who could help knock down these “experts” but they are competing with a huge well funded group of people whose sole product is radical ideas. They don’t profit from selling their ideas but they make six figures a year. The companies and wealthy individual who fund them get ROI from it so they keep funding them.
Those people are the drivers of the ideas but the people who could be and should be fighting them are holding virtual paypal bake sales to keep themselves afloat.
How can this be addressed?
Ian at 55 — I was just thinking the other day that Burke must be rolling in his grave at what has been wrought in his name…
SanderO @ 53
We have some very bad framemakers and extremelt hesitant public speakers at the head of both legislative branches right now, in my view. Reid and Pelosi seem quite unable to speak angrily and with conviction about this President’s lawbreaking and the conservatives’ radicalism.
Part of the problem with the Dems is that they are wearing blinders…just look at the history of this Administration…it doesn’t take rocket science. Envision the worst possible justification for everything they’ve done so far, and then take a good look at it…all of it.
The Dems say, oh they couldn’t possibly be that bad, you’re exaggerating, they’re too incompetent, etc., oh yeah? Lay it all out there, and there it is, in plain sight.
Digby @ 52
This has to be done with care, I think. For example, I saw today that Obama described Cheney as “the crazy uncle in the attack.” That’s a good laugh line but with no payoff. In a way, it actually plays into the hands of the right. What he should be saying is that Cheney is the face of movement conservatism. They used to love, love, love Cheney at Heritage lunches. And the current crop of Republican candidates have the exact same right-wing policy agenda as Bush and Cheney. THAT’S what should scare people. Cheney going to be gone in a year anyway. Having someone like him in charge for another four years is what we want people to get worried about.
Greg, I wonder if you’d comment on the differences between reason and force and the appeal each has, and to whom, as a means for protecting us from danger and for getting things done, whether in the world or at home. While I’d like to debate stuff, and think things through, and get all mealy mouthed, it just seems to me there’s such urgency and such danger that the only people who seem to “get it” are people often called conservatives, who know the importance of not messing around. They are successful in making fun of liberals because of this. Who wants to be laughed at? I mean, what’s wrong with being tough? Isn’t that what’s needed these days? Instead of hand-wringing? You’ve seen the bumper sticker, right, that says something like “My 12 year old can beat up your honor student.” To me that says it all. What do you say to that person, who has that bumper sticker?
Americans may not be old style conservatives or even this new style, but they hardly seem progressive. Americans seem to want comfort in their lives. How do you organize people who listen to music all day, watch sports, look at porn on the internet and watch the boob tube? We’ve become a nation of idiots.
Something else kinda awful going on is that a lot of progressives, especially young people, get insight and “newsiness” from Jon Stewart, Colbert, etc., well now they are just going to be in re-run mode due to the writers’ strike…that is not good. While I support the strike if they need it, the timing could not be worse. What about Olbermann…I wonder if his shows will just be sanitized re-runs??
spocko @ 58
I personally think money isn’t that much of a problem any more–the Center for American Progress has plenty of it, for example. I really think at this stage, now that conservative ideas have been implemented to disastrous effect, it’s really a strategic issue. We have to start doing to them what they did to liberals. Pound away at their failures rather than babbling in squishy academic jargon. These guys are very very poor at defending themselves. They are classic bullies who love to throw wild punches all the time, but when you hit them back once they scurry away.
I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know if you have addressed this or not. What we keep labeling “failure” on the part of the conservatives is in fact pretty much what they set out to do. It’s not just that they cannot govern well. They have set out to make it harder - if not flat-out impossible - for anyone to govern well. No matter the will, there simply will not be a way — or a treasury.
What happened in New Orleans, for example, was a stunning success. For 25 years (at least), the “conservatives” have been laboring to put in place a government that addresses the needs of its people precisely as ours did two years ago — that is, not at all.
To my untutored eye, the fact that this nation has been so profoundly hurt by success is much more damning than having our problems rooted in failure.
I don’t see the conservatives as having failed. Although they talk a lot about reducing government, for example, that is not their real aim. The philosophizing was never about the ideas themselves, but rather about the propaganda value of those ideas.
In the 1950s, the question was, how can we get rid of the New Deal, and how can we convince Americans that it was a bad idea.
The conservatives have not failed, they’ve succeeded beyond their wildest hopes.
The best evidence is the amazing Bush/Cheney Junta. It began when the right-wing convinced Americans that counting the votes was wrong. It continues to this week when a president whose every major move has had bad results can still bully the putative opposition into submission.
The progressive forces in the United States are like the Confederates after Antietam, or the Germans after Stalingrad. They can still manage a tactical victory, but the war is over. The good guys lost. The corporate ruling class now runs everything with no restraint or countervailing powers.
Unless and until the people of the United States undergo a revolutionary transformation, there will be no change.
“There has never been a more fertile time for any political movement to solidify its gains and create a long lasting political consensus.”
The conservatives have built a powerful political consensus. The one on the left?
It’s also my belief:
Social Conservatives fear the future, looking and wishing for the mythical golden era of the past.
Liberals & progressives look toward the unknown future, in order to better the past.
Ian Welsh @ 55
Ian, As I was writing my book, I had in mind every step of the way my father-in-law, who is an old-style Eisenhower Republican. He was a businessman who is annoyingly hostile to labor unions, for example, but also believes in good government. I wanted to make a case like a prosecuter who would convince someone like my father-in-law that the conservative movement, by way of the Republican Party, had done enormous damage to the government and the country in the process. So there’s a lot of detail conveyed to really try to build case after case about the damage done, so that people like him would get it. Because, you and Jane are right, movement conservatism is the inverse of what Burke wrote about, and more people need to understand that.
Greg Anrig @ 66
Greg, I agree with your last point: hit them back once (smash ‘em hard) and then, after they back up and off a little
Act like respectable adults.
Don’t act like Rove.
Expose Rove.
Don’t act like Rove.
Find ways to expose them.
Use the full extent of the law to prosecute them.
And be respectable adults who use government to help their country.
Greg Anrig @ 56
It had it’s roots in The Powell Memorandum and another other paper that’s escaping my memory, but, yes, this whole ideology has been shaped and perfected over decades, and the Beltway Dems seem not to be averse to going to the same corporate trough.
I just wonder how we get through to them? And how to get them to understand that liberalism is what this country is founded on? Which is what will save the middle class from these neo-econo-parasitic-robber-barons
On a treo, hards to tell if this has already been asked: Do you think California’s Prop 13 is an example of con governance gone bad? What approach will fix it, if anything?
I’m enjoying the book, you are a very engaging writer.
Roddy McCorley @ 67
Yes indeed. Two weeks after Katrina, both David Brooks and the Cato Institute’s David Boaz wrote pieces saying in effect, “See, we told you that big government can’t do anything right.” That was actually the catalyst for my writing the book. Because FEMA, which had been a turkey farm under Reagan and Bush I, became a model agency after James Lee Witt did things like cut back on the number of political appointees and elevate to management civil servants with lots of experience in disaster response. Then Allbaugh came in, politicized the agency again, and followed the right’s agenda of privatizing, devolving and cutting. That’s why FEMA unravelled–not because government is inherently flawed.
Greg,
One of the areas in your book that was most illuminating to me was your chapter on “sophisticated sabotage,” which essentially showed that the executive branch has pretty much systematically, and very cleverly, found ways to fundamentally alter the way we calculate the efficiency of government, (among other dangerous “reforms”)
How hard do you think it’s going to be to roll that stuff back if a Democrat wins the presidency? It seems to me that the Republicans in congress are likely to stage ongoing hissy fits if they try, projecting madly that the Democrats are trying to rig the system, and I’ve seen no evidence that Democrats have an adequate response — particularly since they aren’t (so far) running for a mandate to roll back the radical changes that took place during the Bush years.
Wanting to use taxes to manage society efficently is what defines us and Bush opposes.
There has been another free market is more efficent meat recall today. Which I’m sure will convince a few people to try being vegans.
Bush’s mismanaged war for oil is helping convince people to buy hybrid cars. Plus Merille Lynch and Citibank have both lost their CEOs due to losses steming from the Bush/Greenspan subprime mess. I thought the GOP was good for business.
Conservative philosophy seems to be destroying itself at this moment in history is it and or is Bush just inheirntly self destructive?
Greg:
Thanks. Funny thing is, since Swampland went to a sign up format, I think they banned me there(but I just changed my name there to JK’s guilty conscience). One other question I have is: What can we do to counter the Heritage Foundation or AEI? Why can’t progressives have things like that? Is it because Conservatives/Republicans are more of a group think type group? Is it because progressives aren’t interested in being part of a top-down group?
mommybrain @ 73