The Iron Binary and Reagan’s Succession Crisis
In the grand discussion of where should Conservative leaders lead and where do they go, it’s important to get a good lay of the land, a solid bearing of where Republicans and Conservatives are, and an accurate reading of where the competition is. Building off of Mark’s exploration of the relationship between the base and wonks and E.D. taking that ball and running with it, I hope to add another piece to the puzzle.
In talks about conservative dissidents, conservative wonks, what we really need to talk about are conservative elites, of which some of the former are included. Elites are, leaders, columnists, idea-mongers, and purveyors of vision.
In that sense, Rush Limbaugh, reviled though he may be, is certainly an elite but not a dissident nor wonk. What he does do, is project an image of what conservatism is and just as importantly what is not. Some elites are dissidents, quite a few are wonks but they are – for better and for worse- leaders of conservatism.
The conservative base and its elite leaders are fractured unlike their competition, Democrats, progressives, and/aka liberals. The very strong alignment between the liberal base and liberal elites forms an iron binary, a group whose fundamental agreement on issues joins them inviolably. Their broad agreement on social and economic issues allows them to work – more or less – in harmony. By contrast, the right has a fairly sizeable disconnect between both. For example with the bank bailout and gay marriage there are sizeable chunks of the conservative elite who either support them or simply don’t care at the same time that the huge chunks of the base have been positively apoplectic over them. There’s a reason you see one of the most prominent conservative lawyers in America working for marriage equality but zero liberal lawyers seeking to overturn Roe.
Another contrast between the two, effective signaling between elites and the base allows liberal elites to organize for health care and channel the energy of a strong base into focused issues of consensus whereas tea parties and town halls reflected a base only enough organized enough to be a disorganized mess.
We saw this contrast as early the 2008 presidential primary. The Democratic candidates came in all regions, genders, and colors but basically agreed on 90%-95% on their policy. The Democratic contest was a contest of packaging not direction or political identity.
The Republicans were the exact opposite. They were all wealthy, white, men but their ideas couldn’t have been more heterodox. Giuliani, Thompson, Huckabee, Romney all presented very different visions of the future of the Republican Party and consequently conservatism’s role within the party. The only candidate whose selection and platform amounted to tinkering around the edges rather than changing directions was also the one least offensive to the most number of people, John McCain. This is also why he suffered from an enthusiasm gap until he picked Palin.
October 29, 2009 26 Comments
two thoughts on sarah palin
I don’t mind that she is a politician and thus engages in all those politician-like behaviors, such as a bit of exaggeration, perhaps an “odd” lie or two, some self-aggrandizement, and so forth. I don’t buy for a second that she faked a pregnancy, or believe that women with children shouldn’t be in politics. That’s their own damn prerogative. I didn’t much like her tone or the nature of some of her rallies during the election. I thought they were over the top – but then again, much of the vitriol directed her way was also over the top.
No, what bothers me about Sarah Palin are two things:
First, that she doesn’t seem to actually know what it is she stands for; that she may have entered the last campaign with something of a blank slate and then sort of soaked up a lot of the conservative orthodoxy that was required of her. Maybe that’s not true, but something about her inability to really express or to fully grasp what it is that these conservative policies mean leads me to this conclusion, and to the next point: [Read more →]
July 7, 2009 61 Comments
The Great Debate – Redux
June 15, 2009 28 Comments
