David Brooks' dreamscape

In his latest, David Brooks' speculative thesis is that since the GOP's politicking-while-blind-drunk pileup on Nov. 6 the party "has experienced an epidemic of open-mindedness." There is, online, "a vibrant and increasingly influential center-right conversation" (none of that stale, "conventional" stuff we heard from "Republican candidates this year"). It is from this robustness--delivered by a diverse intellectual cadre of what Brooks calls Paleoconservatives, Lower-Middle Reformists, Soft Libertarians and Burkean Revivalists--that the "party may evolve quickly."

A few problems.

First, what Brooks describes is merely more fragmentation and incompatibility. What a Burkean Revivalist would be doing in bed with a Soft Libertarian is (beyond the more obvious reason) beyond me, as it would be to these traditionally battling Bickersons. The National Review's Bill Buckley and Frank Meyer's fusionism of the late 1950s and early 1960s and then Goldwaterism and finally the New Right movement heaved them into partnership for purely pragmatic electoral reasons; but such cold, arranged marriages kept together for the children's sake (a broader base) are generally destined to fail. (Consider the open enmity of late between the Santorum and Romney camps.)

Second, Brooks simply assumes that this younger conservative intelligentsia will be more "influential" within the party than were its predecessors of, say, Andrew Sullivan and David Frum. Why? I mean, I know why Brooks assumes it: he must. The question is rather why will it be more influential? Brooks doesn't say. And that's because he doesn't know either the why or the how, any more than the Sullivans and Frums ever fully understood why "the conservative party" so foolishly ignored their jeremiads of years past.

As something of an aside, the above is scarcely anything new under the sun. Intellectuals from Plato to English Fabians to the New Deal's leftist critics have rarely understood why the pols and the people don't just shut up and listen. The political intelligentsia is as old as the oldest profession, and in time their functions are essentially indistinguishable--whoring for real money becomes preferable to whoring for two-penny tabloids.

Last, does Brooks genuinely believe that Louie Gohmert and Virginia Foxx and Jim DeMint and James Inhofe give a right-wing rat's ass that "Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago published an influential book ... that took aim at crony capitalism," or that "Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review has argued for family-friendly tax credits"? For starters they'd have to ask Newt Gingrich to read it to them; then they'd have to ask David Brooks to explain it to them; and then at any rate they'd rush out and spew the selfsame, pseudoconservative gibberish and holy-rolling thumperism that they've been spewing for lo these many years, which infinitely pleases the only people who matter: the Republican base, which keeps the Gohmerts and Inhofes in office and on the government's payroll.

Comments

[Catfish]

Follow the money.

The culture warriors are only worth their votes, infinitely gullible and therefore infitely manipulateable.

Income tax rates are but one means of calculating the actual taxes paid by people with really, really good accountants and tax attorneys. So, that is negotiable - work a battle or two but negotiable.

No,the real bottom line issue for those truly in control of GOP politics is socialism. That is how one minimizes taxes paid for least benefit to that class. American socialism works. Social security is a 75 year success story. medicare has been effective for 45 years.

Both are paid for by the very regressive payroll tax. One would think that the GOP powers that be would therefore not be much troubled by them. what bothers them is that they work and are popular. They provide security which makes it harder to scare working people into subservience. That makes these programs gateway drugs for more socialism - and horrors - unions and such.

So look for power to be asserted through the deficit hawks. The deficits were promulgated by Reagan and others as a stated strategy for forcing the elimination of these programs through bankruptcy.

This has always been the plan. They even told everyone this was the plan.

Identify the most forceful deficit hawks and you will have identified the real powers of the GOP.

Who gives a shit what Brooks thinks? this is Power Ball.

[Susan Zoon]

If it is so that the Republicans are only playing to their base, then they will have to eventually deal with the fact that their base is going the way of the dodo. Doah!
I'm not certain there are many young Republicans to play to. The young GOP seem to be going down the Libertarian path. So... will the Republican establishment just go full-on Paulist? Rand Paul has said, just today, that he is interested in 2016.

[Peter G]

If Mr Brooks actually bothered to lift the stone and look at the debate thereunder he might be a little disturbed about the chances of a Republican renaissance. As near as I can tell from examining various screeds and blog commentary the real debate is about who needs to be purged from the party in order to restore the ideological purity, social or fiscal, or both and thus pruning the party to electoral majorities. If they can cut down their tree to shrub size they are sure their going to win.

[caribbeanobserver]

Goodness me, PM. I admire your courage. Why do you even bother to direct your energies on these 'I am so over them' pundits/journalists and their lack/hack and psuedo- intellectualism on what they know in their heart is a stretch!
Promise me one thing though, that you are not going to fill your blog pages on a daily dose of these repugs and their doings/non-doings/thoughts etc. That would indeed be detrimental to the upliftment I so require from you.

[Jorge]

I have been reading many of the bloggers listed in Brooks's column, especially Larison (courtesy of Andrew Sullivan's linking to him) for years. The idea that any of these folks will seriously influence the future of the Republican party is pure fantasy on Brooks's part -- Larison will influence the Republican party over Sheldon Adelson's dead body. But are these Brooksian fantasies anything new? Of course not. After all, according to Brooks, Romney's election would make House Republicans more rational. As if.

[Jorge]

Also, Brooks is too kind to Megan McArdle when he says that she starts from "broadly libertarian premises" but doesn't "apply them in a doctrinaire way." More like she doesn't apply them in a coherent way. Concern trolling dressed up as "non-doctrinaire" libertarianism. I gave up.