George Will's thundering denial

George Will's latest, "A reformed Republican party," is a brief study in broad misdirection. A more felicitous title would have come in question form, absent the modifier: "A Republican party?" I say this not because Will's party took such a dreadful pounding last week, but because its postmortems, especially Will's, are acknowledging little to no pathology, which augurs ill for its future. To wit:

Liberals have an inherent but not insuperable advantage: As enthusiasts of government, to which many of them are related as employees or clients, they are more motivated for political activity than are conservatives, who prefer private spaces. Never mind. Conservatives have a commensurate advantage: Americans still find congenial conservatism’s vocabulary of skepticism about statism. And events — ongoing economic anemia; the regulatory state’s metabolic urge to bully — will deepen this vocabulary’s resonance.

That's an astounding passage, except this is George Will we're talking about, who's always triumphantly right, even when proven magnificently wrong. The sheer, blind snideness of Will's miscomprehension is breathtaking. Liberals are liberals, you see, because they benefit personally from government; it's not that they're concerned about everyone's environment or greater access to healthcare or a more peaceful global existence. No, they're just takers.

And conservatives? Their "vocabulary," given just a little immigration and civil-libertarian makeover, is as useful as ever; and what's more, when liberalism's brutal totalitarian statism finally arrives--about which conservatives have warned annually since at least 1933 and before that the passage of the taxing 16th Amendment--innocently suckered Americans will finally appreciate that vocabulary's even deeper "resonance."

Meanwhile, though, it's mostly just a matter of getting the virtuous Word out more effectively, according to Will. "The advocacy infrastructure being developed by both sides in the post-Citizens United world will, over time, favor the most plausible side, which conservatives know is theirs"; Republicans only need "emulate Democrats’ tactics for locating and energizing their voters."

Thus the answer to the problem of a dead message to a dying base is essentially more of it: more disinformative Fox News, more demented talk radio, more intellectually corrupted think tanks, more filthy Rovian bucks--all of it topped, though, by a spiffier voter-turnout operation.

With the strategic likes of George Will on its side, the Republican Party doesn't need Democrats as enemies.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

Too much emphasis has been placed on post-mortem demographics of the voting patter, even though this is important. Too little has been placed on the death rattle of neo-Reaganomics.

Increasing the progressivity of of income taxes has huge majority support, including a great deal of support among Republicans. Romney was pretty clear bout his position on this issues, as was Obama.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid remain hugely popular in their present configuration. There is widespread support to fix these programs as needed to maintain there sustainability. There is little to no support to radically change the nature of these programs. Romney was adamant in standing behind this principle - even if he was lying through his teeth.

The only question about these issues was who would do a better job of achieving these goals - even for white men, including old white men.

Reaganism, as a romantic notion, remains alive in many quarters. Neo-Reaganism is dead.

[Peter G]

More succinctly, Will's argument is that we, the Republcans, need to tell more effective lies. This might seem like an exaggeration but I assure you that very argument without Will's polish is being advocated to general approbation on right wing websites. The party of Lincoln now feels that it needs to fool more people more of the time to be successful.

[Charlieford]

Oh, but wait! Next time it'll be Rubio! That'll light a fire under all those ethnics and single women!

[Robert Lipscomb]

Speaking of Rubio, I was surprised to read that Obama received 48% of the Cuban-American vote.

[Janicket]

A lot of that 48 percent no doubt came from the younger generation of Cuban-Americans, those who were born and grew up here, and have no horrors-of-the-revolution memories to drive them rightward. They're not as locked into the GOP's embrace as their parents and grandparents.

[Robert Swartz]

Robert, Janicket,

That was intriguing. And further proof that Latinos aren't the "single issue" voters the GOP would like them to be.

The one disappointment to me is how little consequence the House GOP caucus paid for passing the Ryan budget twice. Yes, re-districting, but still. Big opportunity and focus for 2014, especially since I suspect they won't be able to help themselves moving forward.

[Janicket]

"Yes, redistricting, but still" -- don't dismiss out of hand the effects of that. My understanding is that nationwide Democratic candidates got 500,000 or so more votes than Republicans, yet the GOP held the House. That there's some powerful argument for gerrymandering having locked in (at least for the short term) Republican House control.

[samcdc]

I posted the comment that follows over at The People's View blog in response to Rush's suggestion that those of us who back President Obama are just people who want Santa to come every day, or something to that effect:

The irony is that the states that go for the gop are the "takers". The blue states are the providers. But isn't that typical of the thugs, er republicans? Take your worst traits and assign them rhetorically to the dems. So Robme's 47% speech was made to whom? The robber barons -- the thieves who take from the rest of us thereby making us beholden to the government for survival or, at the very minimum, being able to live a minimally tolerable life. Yeah, I get a Social Security check every month. I gladly use Medicare to help fund my increasingly necessary medical treatments. I have had to get unemployment checks from time to time in the past to be able to keep a roof over my head and buy food. I got an FHA loan for my first house (which I bought at age 45 or so).

I will never forget the time, I believe it was at the beginning of Bush I, when I read that the bastards, oops republicans, had set up a task force to determine how to shift the tax burden down onto the middle and lower classes. I was stunned. Here were a bunch of filthy rich people who were able to afford any and everything their heartless greed desired, regardless of its utility in their lives, looking for more ways to take my hard earned cash. It was bad enough that I was underpaid for my very intense labor, that I was constantly being pressed to do more for less on the job, that raises were few and far between though inflation was eating into my take home pay like a ravenous lion, that quality was being sacrificed on the altar of rampant profit, etc., etc. But now I was going to be far worse off because the people who could afford any and everything were going to take more from me!!!! Who are the takers? Not I. And probably not most of you who happen by here to read this.

So from my point of view, I am very much in the corner of those who advocate for a redistribution of wealth. I'd like to take ALL their damned money and give it to the people who did the work that made it possible for them to accumulate it. The sooner the better.