Politics

OK here we go: some preliminary thoughts about the upcoming elections. First and foremost they will be post-Bush. I know that sounds wildly optimistic, but I mean it. Bush has so stained his compassionate conservative label that everyone will have to abandon the idea. Which presents a problem for the Republicans. So the pressure will be on someone to emerge from the Republican ranks with a new vision of conservatism. This inevitably means putting distance between Bush and themselves. But what will this new conservatism be?

The older version was built around fiscal and social stringency. It was a throwback to the 1920’s when government knew its place and didn’t interfere in things like retirement and health care. Conservatives of this ilk are still out there. They really don’t think that society has a role to play in helping the poor, the sick, or the elderly. Hey, that’s fine with me. At least I can identify it as a political or ideological viewpoint. And it is clear enough that it can be presented to the voters: it’s a “Little America” policy, analogous to the “Little England” policies of the Victorian and Edwardian Conservatives in England. It’s also very quaint. It won’t win an election because the notion that the richest nation in the world’s history shouldn’t help out its own folks doesn’t play well now that we’ve all seen the benefits, warts and all, of those New Deal social policies.

Compassionate conservatism was supposed to overcome this electoral disability by softening the edges of the old vision. Its core message was: “hey we tried those social programs, and it’s time we admitted we can’t afford them … whoops sorry!” It was a message aimed at the tired and listless middle class who were having a tough time making ends meet in the face of global pressures. Those pressures were eroding the privileged advantages the U.S. had had since World War II. In effect the post war years were unreal because there was no competition for the American economy and so the lifestyles developed and, more importantly, expected on the basis on that post war dominance were similarly unreal. Hence the disillusioned tenor in the electorate during the past 30 years and its willing embrace of the meaner, harsher message spelt out by the Republicans. Life is tougher than expected so someone has to pay. We need to re-ignite the flames of American dominance by removing the “soft” and “wasteful” dead hand of government. We can get back to glory if only we let that good old American ingenuity flourish once again. These were the kinds of thoughts that swept Reagan to power. Yet inside the Reagan message was always the implication that “they” were to blame for our travails. The middle class was absolved of blame. It was “them” who had ruined America, not “us”. And above all it was not the inherent contradictions of the romanticized almost mystical vision of what I call”July 4th America” where rugged Founding Fathers, Huddled Masses, Frontierism, and Hollywood all roll into one complacent consumerist culture.

Then of course there was always the post Vietnam paranoia over any hint of American weakness. So this newer version of conservatism tied together a veiled throwback message [conservatives are always nostalgic, dare I say almost romantic, in their desire to return to the halcyon days they read about in the history books], with a not so veiled militarist revivalism. This militarism led directly, and more recently, to the neo-cons who hyped a war from nothing, and is redolent with a kind of intellectual jingoism the stench of which pervaded Edwardian England and enabled the slide into the disaster of World War I. Unthinking patriotism is a pathetic and fatal policy plank but the Republicans have latched onto it. Republicanism became conflated with patriotism and hard work, while Democrats have wallowed around whining about soft issues like feminism, racism, various other “isms” none of which resonate with the heartland.

The problem with compassionate conservatism, for the Republicans, was that it got Bill Clinton elected. He was the ultimate centrist. He was the inevitable heir to Reagan. Once the Cold War was won attention could be re-focused on domestic issues and Clinton was the inevitable result. He sold America an even more veiled set of compassionate-yet-pragmatic policies. Which is why the Republican party faithful hated him so much, and why the die-hard left wingers despised him as well. America loves pragmatism. It loves centrism. It likes the middle of the road becasue it has a historical trajectory that has never needed an ideological make-over. America has always been about business and making money while avoiding making strong political choices. It’s worked. Or at least it looked as if worked.

The Republican problem has been that, beneath this pragmatism, the center of gravity showed a steady leftward drift away from the good old days of misty-eyed hardy self sufficiency toward July 4th’ism: that soft and self-indulgent period that all great powers go through before the rot sets in. Republicans still longed for the rough and tumble of the frontier. So the party faithful were slowly drawn into starting the culture war that has now engulfed American politics. They wanted to stop the rot. But to do that they needed to get elected. So George Bush positioned himself as a compassionate conservative: he promised to be a Republican version of Bill Clinton, while all the time he wanted to be a radical reformist social conservative. His subsequent performance, particularly his spectacular incompetence, have torn away and buried the compassionate conservative label. Inadvertently he has set back the social reformist agenda more than any Democratic attack could possibly have done. [Had there been a credible Democratic attack that is!] Yes I know he has rigged the Supreme Court, but in everything else his legacy is one that needs to be cleaned up by both parties, not just Democrats.

It is inconceivable that anyone will run as a “continuation of George Bush”: which policy would they want to continue? War? Wiretapping? Failed disaster response? Corruption? Incompetence? Fiscal irresponsibility? Unlikely all.

So what will the new Republicanism be? A more radical social reform based upon a religious revivalist foundation? America has periodically been swept up by religious hysteria, it seems ripe once again. So look for a “faith based” candidate. Or perhaps the pragmatist wing will re-assert itself, no doubt abetted by big business whose long term interest is not at all aligned with fundamentalist strictures against profit and greed: the prospect of years of weakness in the dollar, rising interest rates and even the return to “stagflation”, all of which is entirely possible given the disastrous fiscal management under Bush, may induce the pragmatists to support a more moderate but fiscally conservative candidate. Then there’s the flag waving red meat militarists: they have never seen a defense budget adequate enough to restore the luster of the armed forces. Where will they fall in the electoral jockeying?

Yes. The more I think about it, the more the real interest in the upcoming elections will be in the Republicans. As we slide into the post-Bush era will the unlikely coalition of the various forms of conservatism hold up? Or will it, like all such coalitions start to crumble as each coalition partner seeks to take the glory for past success and stake out the lead for the future?

These upcoming elections will be fun. Can’t wait. Oh … and who will count the vote?