Is the Age of Ideology about over?

Chait:

[Republicans are] not arguing that low taxes take precedent over lower spending. They just keep falsely insisting over and over that Obama refuses to accept spending cuts.... It’s genuinely weird.

Yet understandable. Because even weirder is the validity of the argument--or so I'd argue--that the Republican Party has not only outlived its political utility, but is as ideological useful as a modern belief in feudalism or mercantilism. Framed another way, the party isn't so much in morbid decline because unhinged fanatics are in charge of it, as unhinged fanatics are in charge of it because the party is in morbid decline.

And for good reason. The party espouses untenable hogwash and the electorate is catching on. Whether it's the GOP reflexive devotion to ever-lower taxes which merely bankrupt the necessary government we have, or the GOP's prattling about infinitely vague "lower spending," the party's rhetoric is approaching that critical mass of absolute emptiness. It essentially means nothing, and its purveyors are simply going through these rhetorical motions because they quite literally have nothing else to say.

What, they're going to gut Social Security? Medicare? The Defense Department? Spending on education and child nutrition and meals on wheels for the elderly--and survive politically to crow about it? No way, and they know it. So they keep to the infinitely vague and the politically meaningless. They oppose everything and stand for nothing. This isn't a party. It's a carcass.

Yet nothing has been lost, because the GOP has also become superfluous. Democrats co-opted genuine conservatism years ago--Republicans' whipping boy of the "far left" in reality represents slow, incremental progress and respect for now-traditional social institutions such as Medicare, which is to say, conservatism--leaving the GOP without a distinguishing ideological core. All that's left is for the Democratic Party to engulf actual Republicans, thereby opening second- and third-party opportunities for more aggressively eager progressives and Goldwater libertarians and Santorum social conservatives.

Otherwise, the age of violently contentious ideologies is finally coming to a tormented close, I'd argue--at least for a while.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

Interesting.

Are you suggesting an equivalent to the 18th Century Republican Party with Federalists dying on one side and Whigs emerging on the other?

Or, are you suggesting a 1940's - 1960's scenaro of extensive overlap of political philosophies between the two parties?

Or, as I suspect, something different?

The coming "Grand Bargain" will by necessity create a consensus for what Americans want their government to do - and the size and shapes of the elements.

The big ticket is healthcare comprised of Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare and Vetrans/Federal Employees healthcare.

The second is Social Security which requires only minor tweaking.

Then comes defense. The resulting budgets will dictate foreign policy and vice versa. More specifically, what kind of empire will we have for the first half of the 21st Century?

Then comes everything else. While they are relatively small, the choices will have significant impacts: the size of the EPA, farm susidies and so on.

Then comes tax fairness.

Whatever the outcome of the bargain, it will present the consensus vision for the future of the middle 80%.

[AnneJ]

I'm curious to know when that morbid decline began.

[dr.e]

If it does come, it won't be before January 2015.

[Peter G]

If I might offer a significant correction Robert to the popular idea that SS has no real problems and requires only minor tweaking. As a stand alone institution this is true. But it does not stand alone. The trust fund is, by law, invested in special Treasury bonds that pay a substantial return by today's standards. But these sums represent a significant amount of money the Treasury need not borrow on the open market. When SS no longer is in surplus the Treasury will not only be required to redeem bonds to maintain SS's ability to meet its' obligations they will have to borrow significantly more on the open market. What happens when yields go higher as they inevitably must with upward pressure on borrowing and as the world economy recovers. SS doesn't have a problem. The US treasury has the problem.

[Chucklenuts]

For those with critcal thinking as an option in their psyche, this posts make sense. But for many, and I know plenty of people who fall into this category, the well orchestrated noise machine on the right along with the ever loving "both sides do it" media, this posts would seen slanderous. I am pretty sure that no matter what the right does, there are people who will never vote for a dirty fucking hippie liberal, even if it was in their best interest. So the way I see it, most of the R's in congress are safe and continue to do whatever they want, no consequences

[Turgidson]

On a philosophical level I couldn't agree more with this post. On a practical level, the GOP seems likely to remain viable as, more or less, a giant con on the American people, for a while yet.

The overarching goal of a big chunk of the party's active members, if not its rank and file, is the dismantling of the safety net so that its revenue and wealth can be extracted by the plutocrats. Some of the real believes (Paul Ryan may be one, though I'm not always sure) think this is good policy for everyone. Welfare breeds laziness, Welfare Queens are stealing YOUR MONEY, and all that BS. Bootstraps! Use them! Etc.

They know they can't just come out and SAY they want to destroy the bedrock social insurance programs, so they quietly nibble around the edges. They are also utterly determined to get Obama or other Democrats to offer significant cuts for them. And they might succeed. They will then run against those cuts, try to retake unfettered power, and either go for the home run Ryan plan-type gambit, or do what they can to undermine the programs quietly.

I just don't see the money-grubbers giving up on this con so soon. I mean, they ran a soulless rich fuck for President and a Granny-Starver for VP and still got 47% of the vote. They aren't giving up on this grift anytime soon, and the GOP will be their vehicle for pursuing it.

I thought the GOP would be forced to retool itself after 2008. I'd like for it to be true this time, but not holding my breath. They'll figure out some new way to BS their way to electoral victories, yet.

[priscianus jr]

Here, read this. It's about how and why the GOP is going down the tubes. It was posted exactly one year ago. If it was true then, and I believe it was, it is even more true today.
http://blog.genegessert.com/?p=91

[shsavage]

"Because even weirder is the validity of the argument--or so I'd argue--that the Republican Party has not only outlived its political utility, but is as ideological useful as a modern belief in feudalism or mercantilism."

I would suggest that feudalism is exactly what these folks have always believed in, and their ultimate goal. Shrinking government to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub would simply create anarchy. But the folks behind the modern GOP have two characteristics that make this appear to be a good thing: 1) no understanding of history; 2) overweening hubris.

History shows us, time and again, that when central authority breaks down it is replaced by anarchy, and then, quickly, by a despotism run by whomever emerges the strongest from the chaos. If GOPers realize this, which many don't, I think, then they are naive enough to believe that in such a chaotic situation they would come out on top. That's where the hubris comes into the equation. To which I can only respond, "you're gonna need more ammo."

[Robert Lipscomb]

@PeterG: It's that kind of nuiance in your thinking that will forever keep you out of political office.

[Robert Lipscomb]

As I understand it liberalism was created to promote individual liberties in opposition to the power of church and state. Conservatism was soon created in response to the excesses of liberalism, to conserve the best of established institutions.

So, there is a ying and a yang.

If the Democratic Party is now the conservator of social safety nets as national risk management plans, what is the yang to that?

[Janicket]

@priscianus jr -- Hey, just read that link and it is strikingly prescient.

[Grung_e_Gene]

Republican ideology is Neo-Feudalism with CEOs as Nobility, Corporations as baronial estates and 99% as serfs toiling away in Wage Slavery.

[JayJay]

These folks are like cockroaches. Predict their decline all you want, but they ain't going no where. They're now gearing up to gerrymander the electoral votes. I often find that while we talk, they do. God help us if they succeed in this.