Even though I have been an unapologetic supporter of President Obama and essential elements of his 21st-century agenda for our more challenging times, I had been a life-long moderate Republican. I have always been an unequivocal advocate of an open, robust market economy, intelligently regulated, and of necessary and appropriate government social support programs, especially universal public education, health care, and support of the poor, infirm, and aged. I could be that and also be a moderate Republican. But that was before George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and the narrow, polarizing politics of the extreme ideological and religious Right, the new "base." And as the credibility of the case for global warming has become continually stronger, and the need for immigration reform, including legalizing millions of productively employed illegal immigrants, has become increasingly clear, the Republicans remain absent from an informed dialogue and the development of intelligent political responses. As a result, by conviction and a lack of meaningful choices, I now find myself an Independent who must most often vote Democratic.
So, I have an earnest interest in a credible, responsible, inclusive Republican party of competitive ideas. For it took an intolerable situation among the Republicans for me to recognize more credibility and responsibility in the perpetually undisciplined and uncoordinated voices of the Democratic party, and its rather consistent inability to lead. And while it has left me without clear political identity, I'm getting used to it, and now prefer it.
In an earlier post I assailed the regrettable content and tone of the Right's undereducated, strident public voices, the unintelligible and irresponsible blather of the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and Rove. I concluded with these thoughts:
The reason I make these points is that Americans need to hear the Republican-Democratic debates carried on by the best educated, trained and experienced exponents of each point of view. Both parties represent important ideas and claims that are historical and complementary parts of American life, economics and values. If Americans are to be well informed citizens and voters, we need the most able explanations and defenses of each party's current policy prescriptions for our country. It's that simple. And if that's what the current Republican Party believes we have been offered, then we cannot be surprised that they don't understand why so many have fled them for Independent status or the Democratic Party, why a recent poll found only 21% of American voters now willing to admit being Republicans.
But that is the state of things. Speaking for the Republican Party today are three undereducated radio and TV personalities, an undereducated former political campaign operative and master of misinformation, the discredited Dick Cheney, the Religious Right, and the legacy of George W. Bush. [And I didn't even address Sarah Palin.] This could be the sad obituary of the GOP. But it doesn't have to be. America still needs to hear credible voices from a modern, inclusive, socially adaptive and politically evolving Republican Party. But there are no such voices being heard.
This newspaper supported [Mr. Obama] in 2008 and backed his disappointing-but-necessary health-care plan. But he has done little to fix the deficit [but Fed Chairman Bernanke has made clear the risks of moving too fast on this], shown a zeal for big government and all too often given the impression that capitalism is something unpleasant he found on the sole of his sneaker [but Wall Street, banking, and BP irresponsibility might place that in perspective]. America desperately needs a strong opposition. So it is sad to report that the American right is in a mess: fratricidal, increasingly extreme on many issues and woefully short of ideas, let alone solutions.
This matters far beyond America's shores. For most of the past half-century, conservative America has been a wellspring of new ideas—especially about slimming government. At a time when redesigning the state is a priority around the world, the right's dysfunctionality is especially unfortunate.
The Republicans at the moment are less a party than an ongoing civil war (with, from a centrist point of view, the wrong side usually winning). There is a dwindling band of moderate Republicans who understand that they have to work with the Democrats in the interests of America. There is the old intolerant, gun-toting, immigrant-bashing, mainly southern right which sees any form of co-operation as treachery, even blasphemy. And muddying the whole picture is the tea-party movement, a tax revolt whose activists (some clever, some dotty, all angry) seem to loathe Bush-era free-spending Republicans as much as they hate Democrats. Egged on by a hysterical blogosphere and the ravings of Fox News blowhards, the Republican Party has turned upon itself (see article)...
As for ideas, the Republicans seem to be reducing themselves into exactly what the Democrats say they are: the nasty party of No. They may well lambast Mr Obama for expanding the federal deficit; but it is less impressive when they are unable to suggest alternatives. Paul Ryan, a bright young congressman from Wisconsin, has a plan to restore the budget to balance; it has sunk without a trace. During the row over health care, the right demanded smaller deficits but refused to countenance any cuts in medical spending on the elderly. Cutting back military spending is denounced as surrender to the enemy. Tax rises of any kind (even allowing the unaffordable Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled) are evil.
This lack of coherence extends beyond the deficit. Do Republicans favour state bail-outs for banks or not? If they are against them, as they protest, why are they doing everything they can to sabotage a financial-reform bill that will make them less likely? Is the party of "drill, baby, drill" in favour of tighter regulation of oil companies or not? If not, why is it berating Mr Obama for events a mile beneath the ocean? Many of America's most prominent business leaders are privately as disappointed by the right as they are by the statist Mr Obama.
Out of power, a party can get away with such negative ambiguity. The real problem for the political right may well come if it wins in November. Just as the party found after it seized Congress in 1994, voters expect solutions, not just rage. The electorate jumped back into Bill Clinton's arms in 1996. Business conservatives are scouting desperately for an efficient centrist governor (or perhaps general) to run against Mr Obama in 2012. But tea-party-driven success in the mid-terms could foster the illusion that the Republicans lost the White House because Mr McCain was insufficiently close to their base. That logic is more likely to lead to Palin-Huckabee in 2012 than, say, Petraeus-Daniels.
Britain's Conservatives, cast out of power after 18 years in 1997, made that mistake, trying a succession of right-wingers. Only with the accession of the centrist David Cameron in 2005 did the party begin to recover as he set about changing its rhetoric. There may be a lesson in that for the Republicans—and it is not too late to take it.
Amen. So, how about a more robust marketplace of competitive political ideas, economically and socially responsive ideas, responsible and supportable ideas? And competitive, effective leadership, responsible leadership, yes, that too. I know, not in my lifetime.
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