The New Republic

Because they have no ideas and no principles. Pure demagoguery, 24/7. The former "idea" was expedient then, it isn't now. Simple.

- roidubouloi

February 20, 2010 at 12:49am

Correct. It is so simple. Nevertheless, it is not clear that Galston, Chait, and Cohn understand it. Obama and Congressional Blue Dogs certainly don't -- maybe even 90% of Democratic Senators and Representatives don't get it. As reviled as Neville Chamberlain is today, even he got the message that you cannot negotiate with intransigent opposition intent on your destruction quicker than Obama and many elected Democrats. The situation is somewhere between discouraging and appalling.

- gdbittner

February 20, 2010 at 6:32am

gd, your analogy to Chamberlain is apt. What is going on now in the Democratic party is appeasement of an implacable enemy, and its prospects are as doomed as were Chamberlain's at Münich. What is particularly extraordinary is that Hitler at least took the trouble to dissemble about his intentions. The Republicans don't bother. They are quite brazen in declaring what they are doing and why, that they have no objective other than preventing the Obama administration from achieving anything at all without regard to the welfare of the country. Yet, even when the Republicans proceed to execute their scorched-earth strategy in plain sight, the Democrats still refuse to accept their malign intentions. I would say the situation is not "somewhere between discouraging and appalling," just appalling.

- roidubouloi

February 20, 2010 at 9:08am

Worth remembering also that every major element of the Democratic healthcare reform bills, including a form of the "public option," was originally proposed by Republicans in the 1990s. Simply put, if any elected Republican speaks words other than "tax cut," he is lying. But this traces back to the fundamental problem that conservatism is an ideology. Ideological movements are necessarily incompatible with democratic self-government. As long as one of our major political parties is controlled by an ideological movement, that party will be incapable of acting responsibly or honestly within the framework of a constitutional republic.

- rhubarbs

February 20, 2010 at 9:24am

Quite so, rhubarbs. But what is the solution? I advocate a clear recognition by the Democrats of the character of and agenda the Republican party and the single-minded pursuit by the Democrats of political and public relations victory at every step of the way, by any legal means, even if effective policy thereby takes longer -- because without defeating the Republicans decisively in the court of public opinion it is and will remain almost impossible to govern effecting. (I should add here that failing to pass health care reform at this juncture would be a political and public relations debacle; a clear-sighted Democratic party would recognize that having gone so far down this road, retreat is political suicide.) Even so, I am not at all certain that a mere political party can ever summon the tools and discipline to defeat an ideological movement that is more than marginal. I don't want to be understood as claiming that the Republican party is the equivalent of Nazism, but at its orgin the Nazi party was not the Nazi party we think of today. I find myself very disturbed by the parallels between American politics today and the politics of Germany and Italy at the time that fascist parties emerged and then overwhelmed democratic systems. What I find particularly chilling is the willingness of the Republicans to tell the most brazen and preposterous lies and then to gain rather than lose support because of it. How do we cope with this?

- roidubouloi

February 20, 2010 at 10:08am

I too am disturbed by the idea that we have become a nation in which a significant part of the population would rather live in a fantasy world (in which there are no real challenges facing our society other than too-high taxation) than deal even in a limited common-sense way with reality. A political party that has decided to feed that fantasy rather than lead intelligently and be a loyal opposition is more like a contemptuous populist-racist party or a radical revolutionary party in a fragile state than a conservative party in a robust democracy. Parallels with the NSDAP or the communists in Weimar seem unavoidable, to some extent. Indeed, the most disturbing thing of all is the projection of death panels and internment camps onto Obama, when it's clearly the teabaggers who are most in love with extreme images.

- ironyroad

February 20, 2010 at 12:49pm

Whoa Galston, while I agree about the takedown of the Republicans (especially the ones the co-sponsored the bill) this was way overboard. Democrats assembled 63% of their majority, while Republicans 39% of their own to support this bill. Lopsided, yes, but what about the Democrats who voted no? How about an equal opportunity hammering of them? If, in fact, it is called for. Beyond this, how about the Senate do its job and not defer their own responsibilities to any commission? I can get how this can work with base closings (to give cover to politicians in areas where bases will close, and to remove any favoritism in the process) but this is one of the core reasons we even have Congress, so instead of implying that everyone who voted against the bill is in favor of America falling apart, how about separating the wheat from the chaff and discover the reasons beyond every no vote, especially the Democrats who voted no. In short, do some reporting and leave the ranting to us. As to the ranting, come on irony, roid, rhub, I am surprised this wasn't mentioned by any of you (the Democrats who voted no). I expect more than knee jerk responses from all of you.

- blackton

February 20, 2010 at 3:07pm

It's about time that the Democrats realize that the current Republican party has ceased to be a honest negotiating partner.

- zardoz67

February 20, 2010 at 3:43pm

Frankly, blackton, I wasn't commenting on the particular fate of the Conrad-Gregg bill that is merely another political stunt, as are all such commissions. What is necessary to balance the Federal budget is perfectly obvious -- restoring progessivity to the tax-structure and eliminating non-means-tested benefits, treating such benefits as "social insurance" rather than entitlements. The rest is lost in the commas. I was commenting on the hypocrisy and fecklessness of the Republican party that runs up phenomenal structural deficits (due not to entitlements that are as yet over-funded but to the Republican refusal to fund core government) all the while complaining about deficits and standing in the way of ANY effort to do something about them. The particular votes on this bill are of no particular interest to me.

- roidubouloi

February 20, 2010 at 3:59pm

fair enough roid, it is just that it doesn't work with this topic, if you view it as a political stunt, you should have at least qualified your statement is all. As far as I can see neither party has much in the way of deficit reduction, single payer would go a long way towards making our economy more efficient, etc. but that isn't on the table. The rest is demographics. We are in for a rough patch with the baby boomers retiring.

- blackton

February 20, 2010 at 6:10pm

blackton, I don't deny that there are serious political questions tied in with Democrats who voted no on the Conrad-Gregg proposal. But my point was that in more general terms it's the GOP that is behaving as a party in thrall to an irrational right-wing populist constituency that lives in conspiracyland -- and that's more ominous in many ways.

- ironyroad

February 21, 2010 at 12:40am

Didn't intend to mislead you, blackton. It's just that it was a different aspect of Galston's piece that caught my attention. I don't think that baby-boomer retirements need to be a big problem. Or, to put it differently, the problem such as it is would be the same regardless of how we had been financing government up until now. Whoever owns what assets, the year's output will still have to be consumed by the people who live here. When the ratio of retirees to workers shifts, there will be fewer workers to support more people. But that would be so even if everyone had "saved" a ton for their retirement. It is the workers who still have to generate the output. Their wages will be bid up to whatever real level is necessary for them to get their share, and the real value of the financial savings of the retirees would fall. That's the deep reason why we have a pay as you go system -- there really is nothing else because there is no place to save in the aggregate. You can do it by investing in productive assets, but, as a practical matter, no one is going to invest in additional productive assets today if there is no current demand for the output. So, either way the problem is that as the ratio of mouths to workers increases, workers will have to be more productive. That pretty much only happens through more capital per worker (whether in the form of equipment, training, or organization). We will have fewer workers, their wages will go up -- a good thing -- and the incentives will be there to invest to increase their productivity. I think we will be able to carry it. The financial structure for pensions is another matter. It is certainly a bit of a mess. But if we can restore significant progressivity to the tax system and means-test entitlements, we should be able to raise sufficient revenues. Think of it this way -- we are far wealthier in terms of real per capita income than we were 50 years ago. We are short of revenues not because we are short of output, but because our government has trashed the tax system which is still festooned with favors and is regressive. If we had a progressive system, then at least the increasing concentration of wealth should raise more revenues by pushing income into higher brackets. The fact that it doesn't is the clearest indication of how porous and regressive our tax system has become. We can't raise money because we refuse to tax the people who have an increasing share of national income, the wealthy.

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 1:20am

"We can't raise money because we refuse to tax the people who have an increasing share of national income, the wealthy." The wealthy pay most of the taxes in this country. So naturally the non-wealthy keep voting themselves more and more benefits. But sooner or later the golden goose can't produce any more eggs. She gets squeezed dry. Obama understands this, so he is threatening to raise taxes on the middle class. The end result of that policy would be to privilege the lazy, the stupid, and the incompetent over the hard working, the intelligent and the capable. The outcome would be the end of western civilization, but I suppose that to "liberals" that's a feature, not a bug.

- bulbman1066

February 21, 2010 at 2:34am

Bulb, the wealthy goose isn't close to dry. The upper half of earners pays 97% of income taxes, but that's because it has 87% of national income. That is barely progressive. Plus, the bottom half pays payroll taxes. The net result is that average rates are near 20% for everyone, rich and poor. The notion that the rich are taxed anywhere near the limit is preposterous. If the upper half paid 100% of the taxes, including an additional trillion to balance the budget and ALL of the payroll taxes, it would still have more than three times the disposable income of the bottom half. Who are you kidding. You think half of working Americans are lazy, stupid, and incompetent? Why do you hate America so much?

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 3:12am

I should have pointed out that the top 10% of the population has half of national income. That means that the next 40% has 40% as the bottom half has 10%. Right now, the Federal government share of output is 25%, including entitlement spending. If we allocated 80% of the burden to the top tier, its average tax rate would be 40%. If the next tier paid the rest of the taxes, its average tax rate would be 12.5%. The bottom half, with a whopping 10% of national income, would then pay no taxes, income or payroll. That alone would be a great stimulus for employment. The disposable income shares would then be 40% for the top 10% of the population, 47% for the middle 40%, and 13% for the bottom half. And no budget deficit! The per capita income of the top tier would still be 15 times that of the bottom rather than the 20-25 times that it is now. That hardly seems tragic. Why exactly should this be regarded as an offense against nature or "soaking the rich?" Like Willy Sutton said: He robbed banks because that's where the money is. You have to levy taxes on those who have the income and wealth because that's where the money is. That's what we don't do. Hence, the wealthiest nation on the planet, wealthier than it has ever been in history, appears broke. It is all a scam by the rich, class warfare being prosecuted by the wealthy and their Republican stooges against the middle class and the poor.

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 10:02am

Roid - Interesting take on tax data. I looked at the IRS website and indeed your claim that “the top 10% has half the national income” is about correct. According to the data I looked at, 12.6% has 53.4%. The problem is I can’t get from there to your claim that “this is all a scam by the rich, class warfare being prosecuted by the wealthy and their Republican stooges against the middle class and the poor.” The fact is the top 12.6% includes everybody above $100K. The next break is at $200K, which is only 3.2% of the population. I think you will have a hard time convincing 10% of the population (those making between 100K and 200K) that they are wealthy and are somehow part of a vast class warfare conspiracy and Republican stooges to boot. Can they afford to pay more taxes, sure. I agree. Are they evil, wealthy, nazi, Republican scumbags? I wouldn’t go quite that far.

- nacnud1

February 21, 2010 at 1:01pm

roid, "But that would be so even if everyone had "saved" a ton for their retirement." I think what you are talking about way above can work in a closed system, but literally more than half of my net value is tied up in other countries, I am not relying on American worker output for my retirement. I think the greatest flaw in the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is that the wealthy need not invest in the US but instead are free to go to areas of the greatest return. Great for China and its workers, and great for investors like myself not so much for American workers. "Whoever owns what assets, the year's output will still have to be consumed by the people who live here." is not true, and since we are a large importing nation, we are consuming the output of others without the corresponding benefit of producing enough output ourselves. As to 1960, I disagree. Nowadays both husband and wife need to work to maintain a decent standard of living. In a lot of ways, that time was a golden age (provided you were a white male, but that is another story)

- blackton

February 21, 2010 at 1:22pm

nacnud, One must distinguish between elected leaders and the leadership of the anti-tax-mania movement and the larger number of well-to-do who just drink the Kool-aid and like the taste because the message is that the more of their pre-tax income they keep, the more virtuous they are, because the better off the country is. It is a lie, but one that is very congenial to those at the upper end. This "movement" is not merely spontaneous. It is deliberate, destructive, and waged by the well-to-do against everyone else, through corruption of the political system, both the electoral system and the government itself, and through media access and control. One guy, you-know-who, built a TV-network to put out their message. Not everyone is in a position to do that. Sure, there are plenty of people just standing around enjoying the fruits of this class war, maybe giving it their vote and their contributions, maybe not. But the fact that many are not "in uniform" doesn't mean that it isn't a war. Blackton, you are correct that investment abroad represents bona fide savings. But it is not a realistic way to finance the entire retirement system of the US. Yes, we can consume not only our own output, but the output of others as long as the continue to accept our credit. My point was that, whether people pay for their consumption with savings or are allocated a share of output is, at the macro level, not very important. The economy has a capacity to produce y with the available labor. The output will be divvied up in some manner between those who work and those who don't. Even if everyone "saved" a ton, with a relatively declining labor pool, those who don't are not going to be able to command a share of output that beggars workers. The savings is not really savings at all, it is lending. And if someone lends, someone borrows. "Investment" is real savings, but there is not an unlimited capacity to absorb investment as it is tied to current consumption, not future consumption. Thus, however you cut it, fewer workers must support more mouths. If the pie is big enough, through higher productivity, there is enough to go around. If the pie is not big enough, there isn't, no matter what the structure of the pension system. (See above, in the event of a shortage of output, prices go up, wages go up, the "savings" of pensioners decline in real value. No matter what they do, pensioners can only consume what is left over after they have "paid" the working population for its labor and the investor class has taken its share of output for investment, as it is always in a position to do. The non-working, in the aggregate, can only get the residual.) I don't know that 1960 was a golden age (watch Mad Men). But we were certainly not as wealthy as we are today yet experienced ourselves as much wealthier because we had a much more level income distribution and were investing in our economy, looking forward to growth, rather than over-consuming and feeling poorer for it. If we had less means per capita, we would have a real as opposed to a self-created problem. But we do have the means, greater means. Hence, the problems are self-imposed.

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 2:38pm

"those who don't work are not going to be able to command a share that beggars workers"

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 2:40pm

Sorry Roid, I am just not buying the whole class warfare thing. I guess we just see the world differently. For what it’s worth, I know real poverty. I have lived and worked in some of the worse places on earth including Africa, SE Asia, India, South America and the former Soviet Union. As part of that, I am also very familiar with how Governments treat their citizens in such countries, the gap between the haves and the have nots, and what real corruption looks like. When it comes to corruption, when you have worked in Nigeria, you have worked with best. For most Americans, they experience such poverty through the filter of Television or the movies. When I see a movie or TV program that shows people living in these places you know what I remember? The smells. There is nothing like the smell of real poverty. I am not saying that we don’t have people in the US who fit your description or that as a society we couldn’t do better. But I will not, as you have, place such a harsh label of my fellow citizens who happen to have more money than me.

- nacnud1

February 21, 2010 at 4:05pm

I don't see the particular relevance of poverty and corruption in Nigeria. If indeed you think Nigeria, rather than say the OECD, is the relevant peer comparison for the US, you can reach pretty much any conclusion you like. We are the richest society in the world, yet the income of wage-earners has been standing still as the upper tier has garnered an ever larger share of national income. You describe this as thought it is mere happenstance and remark wistfully that "we can do better." What political universe are you living in? You have not noticed the direction of tax policy since Reagan? You have not noticed that other industrialized societies manage to provide healthcare to all their citizens at a lower cost with medical outcomes as good as ours? Globalization and the wholesale shipment of US jobs to cheaper locations, with resultant downward pressure on wages? This is all just happenstance with a prayer that we "do better?" Your fellow citizens, in the form of the Republican party, agitate ceaselessly for even more upper income tax cuts and resist ferociously any effort to bring US practice on medical care in line with other advanced societies. Apparently you see no self-interested motivation there. Just keeping up with the Nigerians, I suppose. Try re-reading what you just wrote, nacnud. It doesn't say much that is good about your fellow citizens of the upper income variety. You appear to be a harsher critic than I am, just unaware of same.

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 4:53pm

nacnud, when capital gains taxes are taxed at an equal rate with income taxes, then we can talk fairness. Our system is not built towards productive use of capital, with an insane bubble economy built during the Bush years with no accountability towards the idiots who brought it about, instead they got paid off and want to right back to doing it again. I agree with roid that these people are ratbastards. By the way, it ain't the smell that gets me or obviously you have never driven down the NJ turnpike, what gets me is the shoddiness, the sense that everything looks broken. But one thing I will say, in many poor areas, middle class (even what is well off) and poor live side by side. It was true in China (not so much anymore) and is true in rural Mexico and Central America. I like this more than segregated America. roid, you are dead wrong, the other industrialized societies provide health care at a lower cost with BETTER outcomes. The US ranks down at about 38 on life expectancy (yes, I know there are a lot of factors at play, but the US paying anywhere from 50 to 75% and more for worse outcomes, meanwhile creating a competitive disadvantage for US business, just don't cut it)

- blackton

February 21, 2010 at 5:12pm

I was just trying not to over-claim, blackton. But I agree that the evidence is that some other countries achieve better medical outcomes on average while serving a broader population at a lower total cost. You don't have to convince me on this score.

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 5:38pm

What political universe do I live in? Generally one free of paranoia, hate and anger which you seem to have an abundance of.

- nacnud1

February 21, 2010 at 6:40pm

tsk, tsk. If you haven't noticed the astonishing outpouring of anger and hatred emitted by the right in a continuous, venomous stream over the past 30 years, rising to new heights daily, then you are indeed living in some alternate universe. You think it is paranoia to notice the way in which the fantasies of the right have trashed the American economy and political system over that period of time? Well, stands to reason you would. The world in which you dwell appears to be a place pleasantly detached from reality in which the depredations of the right are merely happenstance or the failure "to do better as a society." The "failure" is because we are harried at every turn by a right-wing that is suffused with greed and self-interest and cares nothing for the welfare of the nation. It also appears that you approve of the behavior of the right. Thus, it stands to reason that you would by upset that some us are appalled, prepared to say so, and think it past time to meet the disgraces of the right with vigorous resistance. Petty name-calling is hardly going to get in the way of that agenda, nacnud. Enough is enough.

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 8:55pm

roid, the question you raise makes me very pessimistic. I am not aware of any examples in which the takeover of a governing political party by an ideological movement did not destroy the republic in which it occurred. Depending on how one plays with definitions, one can point to a couple of postwar European states in which parties that sort of came to be controlled by quasi-Marxists were permanently marginalized, but those are all a stretch. All other examples I can think of have ended either in the collapse of the republican form of government, or in warfare - or as in the case of the pro-slavery ideological takeover of the Democratic Party in the 1850s, both. (In that instance, a rump of the collapsed republic triumphed and restored the government, making the American Civil War history's best-case scenario for the ideological takeover of a governing faction within a republic.) I had high hopes that the manifest failure of conservative government in the period 1981-2009 might lead the body politic to begin rejecting movement conservatism. It would seem that I underestimated both the resilience of the movement and the degree to which so-called conservatives take seriously the values they claim to uphold. For a generation now, when Democrats have governed they have produced fiscal responsibility, less crime, fewer abortions, more prosperity, and better military success abroad. Conservatives have produced larger and growing deficits, higher crime, increased abortions, economic stagnation, and military stalemates and defeats. Not to mention that Democrats have delivered less expansion of government than conservatives, less expansion of welfare programs, and less rent-seeking behavior. All the goods conservatives claim to pursue, Democrats actually produce, and conservative government not only fails to deliver but actually produces opposing results. Which means that one must conclude either that conservatives are simply incorrigibly stupid, and not just on average but literally each and every one of them has a mental capacity below that of a learning-disabled kindergartner, or that conservatism is a non-falsifiable belief system. Now, I will be the first to admit that conservatism is more like a mental defect than like a political program, but it is not true that all conservatives are very stupid. Most are not. (Conservatism can coexist with any two of the three virtues of intelligence, honesty, and patriotism, not all three, and very many conservatives are quite intelligent.) The existence of a large number of very smart conservatives indicates that conservatism is a non-falsifiable belief system. That is, it is a religion. It is, as Tillich would describe, an object of ultimate concern for its adherents: a form of idolatry. (Which is tautological; to say that it is a form of idolatry is simply to restate the claim that it is an ideology.) That is hugely problematic, and it points to why past instances of the ideological takeover of a governing faction within a republic have previously been insurmountable. One can no more expect the adherents of conservatism to abandon their ideology even when it is proven to have failed than one can expect the adherents of any religion to abandon their faith when historical or prophetic claims are disproved. Wahabi Islam, and fundamentalist Mormonism, for example, manifestly do not work, and yet neither is seen to be shedding masses of adherents who realize one morning that the claims of their religion are contradicted by the observable realities of the world. I am particularly pessimistic because public opinion polls suggest that radical conservative ideologues comprise at least as large a share of the politically active population today as did advocates of independence from the British crown in 1775. Anyway, I honestly have no idea how a normal political party - one chiefly motivated by the merely personal interests of citizens and by a sense of nationalism, rather than by an ideology that overrides either of the normal political motivations - solves the problem of a committedly ideological opposition. It's a problem that to the best of my knowledge has never been solved.

- rhubarbs

February 21, 2010 at 11:05pm

rhubarbs, Thanks for your erudition. Your characterization of conservatism as a non-falsifiable belief system, be it ideology or religion, seems spot on in light of recent history and your own well-informed discussion of the dissonance between conservative claims and conservative reality. But your pessimism only increases my own. I am afraid, to the point where I have been for some time now organizing my life so that I can leave the country if necessary. I can only wish the Democratic party understood how high the stakes are and the urgent necessity of seizing and holding the center stage by actions that are popular and reassure the public. I want good policy as much as the next guy, but even more than that I think we need the Democrats to hold onto power long enough for things to stabilize and for the crazies to be marginalized. The problem may never have been solved before, but holding onto power for a significant period of time would seem to me to be the sine qua non. I wonder what the Editors think about this problem. Do they see it as a problem as you and I do? They are very good at popping the right's fantasy bubbles, but only for a TNR audience that is already not of that faith. I periodically send stuff to a cousin of mine who is one of the right-wing wackos and he invariably responds that anything that contradicts the non-falsifiable belief system is simply a pack of lies produced by the left.

- roidubouloi

February 21, 2010 at 11:29pm

roid, I should perhaps mention that while I find the content of conservative ideology contemptible, I do not believe that the moral quality of an ideological movement matters with regard to the threat that it poses to the functioning of a republic. Conservatism could be puppies and sunshine and I'd worry just as much about it. Ideology as such is a threat, because a republic can only function when both leaders and citizens behave primarily as opportunists and pragmatists. Any rigid ideology will break the republic's ability to function. The problem is numbers and access to power. And neither do I condemn the existence of ideological movements as such within the intellectual foment of a republic. There's nothing wrong with having a few Birches and Wobblies and agrarian primitivists and gun nuts. Ideologues often introduce important ideas, programs, or values into the body politic. Sometimes you get the forty-hour workweek; sometimes you get Prohibition. But ideology is not an unhealthy thing so long as no single ideological movement comes to control a governing party. The great problem, it seems to me, is that loyalty to the Republican Party has become a fixed component of the conservative belief system, such that the manifest failure of Republican government to produce the goods conservatives claim to desire, and the manifest record of Democratic government producing those goods, does not reduce conservative devotion to the Republican Party. If only conservatives formed large minorities in both parties, as opposed to the operating majority in a single party, all would be well. Conservative ideas then would have to compete in the marketplace of ideas, rather than acting as a monopolist in the GOP.

- rhubarbs

February 22, 2010 at 9:12am

roid, You are correct, the “do better as a society” line was a pretty stupid cliché. I clearly left myself open to ridicule on that one. Not sure I can ever match your ability with words, but I will try to do better. As to name calling? In a series of posts you lump together conservatives, Republicans and the wealthy (whom you define as those making more than $100K per year) and describe them in the following ways: Having no ideas or principles. Comparable to Nazis (although you try to say your not doing that as you do it.) Brazen and preposterous liars. A scam by the rich, class warfare being prosecuted by the wealthy and their Republican stooges against the middle class and the poor. Well-to-do who just drink the Kool-aid. Deliberate and destructive class warfare waged by the well-to-do against everyone else. People standing around enjoying the fruits of the class war. You could change a few words, Republican to Democrat and conservative to liberal, and I could have been listening to that right wing radio host. When I suggest that this is perhaps a bit over the top, you accuse me a living in la-la land and engaging in name calling while making assumptions about who I am and what I believe. Whatever. As you say, enough is enough. I am done with this.

- nacnud1

February 22, 2010 at 11:43am

Boy, those two posts together express a fairly remarkable disconnect. rhubarbs is rightly concerned about the co-optation of one of our two major political parties by an ideological movement and nacnud wonders that I lump together conservatives, Republicans and the wealthy. The conservative "movement" has taken over the Republican party, nacnud, as rhubarbs observes. It is an ideological movement with a non-falsifiable set of beliefs that, as far as I can tell, have very little contact with the real world. They are extremists. As is usually the case, lurking behind almost all such movements once they start aspiring to power are a set of interests that happen to be advanced by the implementation of the ideology. In this case, they are the interests of the wealthy. In the case of right-wing ideological movements, that is pretty typical. At the top you get a weird symbiotic relationship between true believers, those who actually believe all the weird stuff in the catechism, pure cynics who are themselves, or are completely aligned with the interests of, the wealthy and believe they can ride the believers to power and successfully keep them under control, and a lot of hucksters and opportunists -- public office holders, lobbyists, media buffoons such as Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, Supreme Court justices -- who, in a different time and place, would just as easily be on the opposite side, spouting the opposite nonsense, if that were the route to prosperity and prestige and a seat in the great hall at the feet of the powerful. This is as an apt description of the early communist party, as it is of the early Fascists and Nazis, as of the Republican party. The organized party, the ideologues ("conservatives" in this case), and the self-interested (the wealthy) are lumped together by me because they are in it together. Need I say, the Bushs, et alia, were from the as yet still in control wealthy interest group wing. And it should be perfectly apparent that they implemented the tax cut, de-regulation script of that wealthy interest group to a T, with predictably disastrous results. However, as rhubarbs correctly notes, the fact that the implementation of their ideology has produced nothing but disaster, doesn't slow these people down a bit. They were "stabbed in the back" (if you get the historical analogy), by RINOs who just weren't willing to be extreme enough for the whole thing to work as the ideology claims it would. At this stage of development, the party organization has largely succumbed to the ideologues and the interest group, the wealthy, still figure they can control the whole thing to their own advantage. The emergence of the Tea Party movement is on early sign that they may be wrong, as German industrialists were wrong in the '30s. What the arc will be, no one can know for sure. How depraved this particular group of ideologues would be if they ever got all of the levers of power in their hands, no one can say. Francisco's Spain and Mussolini's Italy were never in the same league in that regard as Lenin and Stalin's Russia or, god knows, Hitler's Germany. I don't think anyone knows what particular personal and social conditions set the limits on how far the will go. In the case of Hitler's Germany, there were no limits. That was the ultimate depravity. It is for this reason that I have said on several occasions that even the Nazis weren't at first the Nazis as they came to be. Do I see profoundly disturbing parallels between the current Republican party and the early Nazi and Fascist parties? I certainly do. I think that for everyone who know some history, they are readily apparent. That is not the same thing as saying that the current Republicans are tantamount to the mature Nazis, or that that is their aspiration. I don't think the Nazis in the 20s envisioned what they would become and most would have been horrified. That we are not at some end stage is no reason not to be afraid of the stage we are in. In all these cases that you want to think of as merely anger, hatred, and paranoia, I am speaking about the organized party and its activists. The motivations and opinions of the rank and file are quite a separate matter. As with most such movements, motivating them is generally a matter of scaring the crap out of them that they are in danger of being polluted, morally and sexually, and enslaved by vicious and implacable enemies - "the liberals," "progressives," "socialists," "communists," "blacks," "gays," " Moslems," "feminists," "elitists." You don't have to look hard to find all of the standard right-wing extremist tropes on display, and the enemies list contains many of the usual suspects. Do I think that rank and file Republicans are dedicated servants of the wealthy? No. That's not how this is done. Do I think the wealthy are, for the time being, in control of the Republican party and riding the movement beast for all it is worth with potentially disastrous consequences? I certainly do. You may think that is paranoid. I think it is merely honestly observant. You are correct in noting that at times my rhetoric is the mirror image of that of the wacko right. That is deliberate. In part I am making a point that sometimes the movement sympathizers around here understand about the company they are keeping. In part I am ridiculing them and their rhetoric. In part I am turning up the dial because I think the agitation is one means of alerting people's reason to the danger. If you find my left-rhetoric offensive, maybe you will pay a different sort of attention to the extremism around you. I don't think that the crazy right should be allowed to monopolize angry, cartoonish rhetoric because that monopoly is a danger in and of itself. There are posters here who are extremists, including far to often Martin Peretz. There are others who will dabble in such rhetoric from the right when it suits them, such as some of our Israeli friends, without being quite extremists. There are others who will go there when they get frustrated and don't feel that they and their ideology are being accorded the respect they deserve. There are others, such as rhubarbs from the left, who never lose their composure or demeanor. I figure I have my own job to do.

- roidubouloi

February 22, 2010 at 1:11pm

"Francisco Franco's Spain"

- roidubouloi

February 22, 2010 at 1:13pm

roid, your use of the word "catechism" is apt. I'm going to steal it. And anyone who wants to see conservative non-falsifiability at work has only to find a conservative pro-lifer and talk about abortion rates. "Only one president has reduced the abortion rate every year of his presidency, reducing it in total by one-third, which amounts to 4 million babies not aborted. Can you name that president?" The pro-lifer will not be able to do so, because the president in question is Bill Clinton. The abortion rate rose under Reagan, under Bush the Greater, and in the first three years of Bush the Lesser more than half of the gains of the Clinton years were lost. That's 1.5 million extra abortions under Dubya in just three years. At that point, Bush's administration stopped publishing new abortion data for several years. Not only are these facts unknown to most pro-lifers, one finds if one raises them in conversation that conservatives simply refuse to acknowledge their existence. They don't care about actual abortions being performed or not performed; they don't care about actual babies being brought to term and born rather than being aborted. They care only that one party promises to outlaw abortion and the other does not (and never mind that the GOP never actually delivers on its promise to outlaw abortion). And so because of devotion to the catechism, so-called pro-life voters consistently vote for the politicians whose policies produce more abortions and against the politicians whose policies produce fewer abortions. And yet despite being the only people in America who consistently and deliberately vote to increase the number of abortions, they identify themselves as opponents of abortion. It's simply perverse, but this is the typical behavior of any ideologue. Even the best-intentioned ideologue will find his beliefs contradicted by experience and reality; as soon as he chooses to maintain his beliefs, his actions will become perversely ironic, as in the case of the "pro-lifer" who votes for more abortions or the "populist" who calls for screwing the common man.

- rhubarbs

February 22, 2010 at 3:27pm

Have at it, rhubarbs. The pleasure is mine.

- roidubouloi

February 22, 2010 at 4:27pm