On The Party of No
In what is merely the latest vindication of the movement to liberate him, Ross Douthat offers a sharp post on The Conservative Mind, Circa 2010 (emphasis added):
Even if you don’t venture into the wilder parts of the blogosphere and just stick with National Review, The Weekly Standard, National Affairs (which has made a big difference on this front) and a few other outlets, you’ll find a pretty lively debate about everything from financial reform to health care to taxes, with plenty of room for diversity and disagreement and heterodoxy. I’m not going to argue that this is a golden age of conservative domestic policy, exactly, but I do think that the end of the Bush administration has opened up space for a lot of interesting conversations, and allowed some impressive younger thinkers come to fore. Jim Manzi, Yuval Levin, James Capretta, Nicole Gelinas, Brad Wilcox, Luigi Zingales, Ramesh Ponnuru, my former co-author … maybe it isn’t the lost early-1970s world of Commentary and The Public Interest, but it certainly isn’t an intellectual wasteland.
The problem, as I’ve argued before, is that with rare exceptions (a Mitch Daniels, a Paul Ryan), there aren’t many Republican politicians who seem interested in taking up the best right-of-center policy ideas and fighting for them. This was true during the stimulus debate, it was true during the health care debate, it’s been largely true during the financial-reform debate, and I’m worried that it will be true once we start debating the deficit in earnest as well…
What you don’t hear enough from the pundits and intellectuals, I think, are complaints about this state of affairs. Conservative domestic policy would be in better shape if conservative magazines and conservative columnists were more willing to call out Republican politicians (and, to a lesser extent, conservative entertainers) for offering bromides instead of substance, and for pandering instead of grappling with real policy questions.
In National Review, Jonah Goldberg says that Mr. Douthat is “basically right” in his take (though he reserves the right to revise and extend his remarks). I hope he’ll weigh in again, because I’m a bit confused. In another recent post on epistemic closure in conservatism, Mr. Goldberg wrote, “It seems to me that when liberals control all of the policy-making apparatus, being the party of no is a perfectly rational stance that has less to do with a poverty of good ideas than an empirical appreciation for political reality. Lord knows the Democrats did not ride back to power on the backs of nimble and novel public policy prescriptions.”
This seems somewhat contradictory.
In his post, Mr. Douthat asserts that conservative magazines and columnists should call out GOP politicians for offering bromides instead of substance. If that is basically right, then isn’t Mr. Goldberg’s writing in defense of “The Party of No” a small example of the way conservative intellectuals are complicit in the dearth of “nuanced right-of-center discussion”?
Some of Mr. Goldberg’s critics assume that he is never critical of the right, a charge that I find unfair, but whereas Mr. Douthat thinks, for example, that “there aren’t many Republican politicians who seem interested in taking up the best right-of-center policy ideas and fighting for them” during the health care debate, Mr. Goldberg believes the GOP “did succeed in undermining the Democrats’ central talking point: that the Republican party has no ideas on health care. It may have been dull enough to force Osama bin Laden from his cave, but the Republicans patiently telegraphed an inconvenient truth: They do care about health-care reform; they just loathe Democrats’ version of it (and, yes, have much to gain by blocking it).”
Mr. Douthat made the same complaint about the way the GOP handled the stimulus debate, whereas Mr. Goldberg seems to have endorsed the approach. In another column on the same subject, he wrote:
If the stimulus bill is good policy, let Democrats take the credit for it and Republicans the blame for opposing it. If it’s a disaster, let all praise and honor go to the GOP and let Democrats pay the price.
Democracy is about disagreement; let the parties have their disagreement.
I’m not saying Mr. Goldberg is wrong on the merits here — I am skeptical of the stimulus myself — but I just don’t think that his approach to the issue, or his writing on the health care debate, or his approach to punditry generally, is compatible with believing that Mr. Douthat has things basically right. Or again, in his post, Mr. Douthat says this about the unwillingness of conservative intellectuals to call out Republican politicians:
This is part of why David Frum attracts so much attention, positive and negative: Not because his policy preferences are so far outside the conservative mainstream, but because he’s made it his business to hold various prominent right-wingers and Republicans accountable for being vacuous or inflammatory, instead of just training all his fire on liberals. I don’t always agree with the targets he picks and way he goes about it, but conservatism needs more of that kind of internal criticism, not less.
Here is Mr. Goldberg on David Frum. Suffice it to say that his analysis is much different. I’m left wondering what exactly Mr. Douthat and Mr. Goldberg agree on, beyond the fact that the right’s foreign policy debate is largely closed to anyone who disagrees with the aggressively hawkish consensus.
If I might pivot to a related point, Mr. Douthat says the right would be better off if its intellectuals would “call out Republican politicians (and, to a lesser extent, conservative entertainers) for offering bromides instead of substance, and for pandering instead of grappling with real policy questions.” I agree, but I’d go a step farther: National Review and The Weekly Standard should rethink the kinds of politicians they get behind, whether its the former throwing its support behind a dubiously qualified Texas governor during the 1999 GOP primaries, or the latter leading the charge to imbue former Governor Sarah Palin with a coherent political philosophy that she most certainly doesn’t possess. What incentives can there be for rising politicians on the right to embrace substance when smart young writers like Matthew Continetti at publications like The Weekly Standard join talk radio and Fox News in lavishing their attention on perhaps the least substantive GOP politician in America today?
I am curious to see whether these problems persist or abate as the GOP field shapes up in advance of the 2012 primaries — and if going forward Mr. Goldberg endeavors “to call out Republican politicians (and, to a lesser extent, conservative entertainers) for offering bromides instead of substance, and for pandering instead of grappling with real policy questions.”
Dude, it IS an intellectual wasteland.
Even Manzi. the best you have, has got NOTHING to offer but recylcled supply-side economics and vouchers.
Get a grip.
The most deeply disturbing aspect of your current denialism is that you and Manzi and Reihan all seem to feel that Breitbart and the teatards are somehow entitled to lie and bend reality because they are outnumbered and outclassed.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 08:52 PM · #
Matoko,
As I’ve said, you’re no longer welcome to comment on my posts, and I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from doing so.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 19, 10:13 PM · #
Admit I’m right and I’ll go away Conor.
— matoko_chan · Apr 19, 11:28 PM · #
okfine.
I’ll just lay it out for you and then go.
For example Manzi is writing a book on “Preserving America’s Edge”.
What does he offer? Supply-side economics, deregulation, and school vouchers….all known fails, and the same useless anti-empirical strategies Team Conservative has been offering in my known memory at least.
The conservative movement is intellectually dead….moribund.
The main reason for this is that there are no Third Culture intellectuals that are conservative. (that i can name at least)
“The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.
In the past few years, the playing field of American intellectual life has shifted, and the traditional intellectual has become increasingly marginalized. A 1950s education in Freud, Marx, and modernism is not a sufficient qualification for a thinking person in the 1990s. Indeed, the traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time. Their culture, which dismisses science, is often nonempirical. It uses its own jargon and washes its own laundry. It is chiefly characterized by comment on comments, the swelling spiral of commentary eventually reaching the point where the real world gets lost.”
One possible reason for the non-existance of third culture intellectuals on the right side of the aisle is that only 6% of American scientists are republicans….but I think the traditional convolution of christianity with conservatism is also to blame. Highly religious individuals tend to reject facts and data that conflict with their world view. The religiousity index of conservatives is much higher than that of liberals….nearly every one in the conservative movement is some stripe of christian, and the outliers keep their heads down.
I think we can all acknowledge that.
There is a reason NRO doesn’t have comments, isn’t there Conor?
The conservative movement gulags intellectual dissidents and your philosophic substrate is all ATLEAST half a century old.
There are no Richard Dawkins, Jonah Lehners or Sean Carrolls on your side.
Conservatism is an intellectual wasteland.
Last one out turn off the lights.
— matoko_chan · Apr 20, 12:41 AM · #
It would serve a better purpose if Douthat, Frum and others would specify which policies they support and why they should be supported by Republicans — perhaps they can convince independents and change the minds of some conservatives — rather than repeatedly, ad nauseum, make these distinctions between moderates and movement conservatives based on nothing but some vague enthusiam for legislative compromise. It’s beginning to sound less like a call for intellectual vigor and more like a call for superficial engagement for political purposes. Frum called for Republican engagement in crafting healthcare reform, but to what end, (plus, he admitted it would likely be futile) a few conservative crums that would’ve been marginalized — just to look like they are engaged? The public opposed to the healthcare reforms would’ve seen through the facade and turned more against the Republicans. A large part of the public is asking the Republicans to say no to these grand power grabs. It’s true that consrvatives need to do a better job of articulating their opposition and justifying “no”, but the moderates aren’t contributing anything, either, except criticism of the base. What I would like to see is all Republicans articulate a much different vision, then take a principled stand.
— mike farmer · Apr 20, 02:56 AM · #
Mike Farmer,
I am so tired of this argument.
Ross Douthat co-wrote a whole book on the policies that he advocates. A whole book! And David Frum, also a book author, has written all sorts of policy arguments endorsing specific things.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 20, 03:55 AM · #
I haven’t read the books, just their article after article criticizing the conservative base — I’ll check ‘em out — can you name a couple and save me some time?
Do they say which policies proposed by the Democrats that Republicans should be compomising on? That’s the question.
— mike farmer · Apr 20, 04:18 AM · #
Conor,
Look, I understand what they’re saying, but is it realistic that with Democrat conrol and the pent-up desire the Democrats have for passing radical legislation, that the Republicsns can naively jump in and say “Let us help, we have some good ideas, too!” The Democrats are going full speed and they don’t want Republicans watering down their plans — Republicans would be useful idiots and spineless to not resist the Democrats. Douthat and Frum are disingenuous at this point and taking advantage of the situation to gain moderate control of the Republican Party, mainly because they can’t stand Palin, Limbaugh and other base conservatives who they consider ignorant and incapable of leading the party. I get it, but what specific Democrat plans, especially the radical changes, do they suggest doing anything with except trying to stop? They mighthave come up with policy recommendation before, but what do they propose should have been done differently with healthcare than what the Republicans did?
Moderates like Frum are trying their best to divide the Republicans, turn independents against the base, and push their own limited agenda. That’s fine, but don’t pretend it’s some intellectual pursuit of grand ideas. It’s an internal political war for control of the party. If they are concerned with ideas, then they would be using their writing space promoting these ideas and refining them.
— mike farmer · Apr 20, 04:36 AM · #
“makota_chan” is a commenter who goes by the handle “Nishi” at Protein Wisdom, a site whose comments section she has virtually destroyed with her rambling, stream-of-consciousness, off-topic posts.
You would be wise to just ban her now, because otherwise I can already tell you: It’s not going to stop. No amount of cajoling, tough love, firm warnings, etc., will do the trick. The nuttiness will go on, and on, and on, and indeed will become a widely known hallmark of The American Scene comments threads.
— Thomas · Apr 20, 06:04 AM · #
Sorry, I suppose I should at least spell the pseudonym right if I’m going to criticize the poster: matoko_chan
— Thomas · Apr 20, 12:07 PM · #
“The Democrats are going full speed and they don’t want Republicans watering down their plans”
Yeah. That’s why Democrats spent a year desperately trying to get Republican cooperation on health care reform, up to and including putting scores of GOP ideas and proposals in the legislation.
Good grief.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 20, 02:55 PM · #
Mike – carry on, brother.
I’m going to take my own advice and remove myself from this never-ending argument and try to stick with the critique of ideas, and write about what I think needs to be done. Although some think the left is either perfect or good enough to deal with, I think the directon in which we’re headed is disastrous. I say — NO NO NO — we need a new direction.
— mike farmer · Apr 20, 04:49 PM · #
Another great example of epistemic closure.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 20, 05:29 PM · #
“…widely known hallmark of The American Scene comments threads.”
Oh this is a comments thread!? I thought it was the “parallel universe” blog (to the The American Scene) called “The Amatako Scene”?
— c3 · Apr 20, 08:48 PM · #
Yes, Mike, after careful thought, I’m afraid, in my mind at least, the case is closed. I’ve considered what the left has to offer, and I’ve rejected it. As a matter of fact, I was on the left until 1984 — I was left of Rennie Davis. But, no more. No. Carry on.
— mike farmer · Apr 20, 09:23 PM · #
I think the greatest issue at the moment is the ability to actually recognize a problem.
Health care, for example. It has been a problem for such a long time. Out of power, the Republicans agreed it was a problem and offered several conservative solutions (which have now mostly been adopted). But in power, the only thing done was a large, unfunded entitlement, while donations were collected from insurance companies and their executives who were raking it in. Once the Dems are back in power, Rs do nothing to fix the problem and instead simply lobby for the status quo.
With a broader view, entitlements are also a problem. The problem is that boomers retire, expenditures will go above entitlement tax receipts. But the Rs did not address that problem. They talked about private social security accounts (which makes the gap between expenditures and receipts larger), and Medicare D (large increase in entitlement gap). In the HCR debates, they tried to be the party to defend Medicare; preserver status quo; do nothing to address expenditure gap.
Global warming: they deny it even exists. The average R seems to even deny that externalities can exist in a free market and it is properly the role of the government to price externalties (since the free market can’t).
Financial Reform: they blame Jimmy Carter instead of recognizing the structural imbalances that reward firms that sell large volumes of bad securites and the dangers (and perverse incentives) created by derivatives and CDOs.
I think that may be the more salient point regarding epistemic closure; this refusal to see what the problem actually is.
It’s like the Tea Parties who want no deficit, increased defense spending, and absolutly no change to any entitlement/social insurance payments. You can’t have all of those. Frankly, you can really only pick one.
It has been going on for a long time. I mean, let’s look at the Prime example: Iraq. We had been targeted by a small, militant organization based in Afghanistan. Instead of squelching them and flooding Afghanistan with men and resources, we downsized our footprint and blundered into Iraq. The invasion sure played well on TV and helped in the 2004 election. But it was not a problem that the US needed to throw a trillion dollars and 3000+ lives at. A total failure to diagnose a problem that the US government should solve.
— agorabum · Apr 21, 02:47 AM · #
Re: A large part of the public is asking the Republicans to say no to these grand power grabs.
And do nothing instead? Sorry, but the status quo is not an option— not in healthcare, not on entitlements, not on the deficit. If some large part of the public thinks we can just drift merrily down the river ignoring the cataracts ahead those people need to be told in no uncertain terms that inaction is going to ruin us and that they need to be willing to make some changes in their lives too for the sake of our future. Pandering to fools may win some elections but it will doom the country.
— JonF · Apr 21, 10:39 AM · #
JonF,
Is the public calling for the protection of the status quo? I haven’t heard that. But do you think what needs to be done might be more important than just doing?
— mike farmer · Apr 21, 12:58 PM · #
JonF,
I wrote a post at Bonzai on something related— I’ll be adding two more posts on the subject in the next two days.
http://bonzai.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/21/china-love.html
— mike farmer · Apr 21, 01:12 PM · #
“gulags intellectual dissidents and your philosophic substrate” – did your brain throw up?
— emile · Apr 22, 04:49 PM · #