The Permanent Republican Minority
Mar 26th, 2007 at 2:54 pm by Susie
Remember how the 2004 election was supposed to have demonstrated, once and for all, that conservatism was the future of American politics? I do: early in 2005, some colleagues in the news media urged me, in effect, to give up. “The election settled some things,” I was told.
But at this point 2004 looks like an aberration, an election won with fear-and-smear tactics that have passed their sell-by date. Republicans no longer have a perceived edge over Democrats on national security — and without that edge, they stand revealed as ideologues out of step with an increasingly liberal American public.
Right now the talk of the political chattering classes is a report from the Pew Research Center showing a precipitous decline in Republican support. In 2002 equal numbers of Americans identified themselves as Republicans and Democrats, but since then the Democrats have opened up a 15-point advantage.
Part of the Republican collapse surely reflects public disgust with the Bush administration. The gap between the parties will probably get even wider when — not if — more and worse tales of corruption and abuse of power emerge.
But polling data on the issues, from Pew and elsewhere, suggest that the G.O.P.’s problems lie as much with its ideology as with one man’s disastrous reign.
For the conservatives who run today’s Republican Party are devoted, above all, to the proposition that government is always the problem, never the solution. For a while the American people seemed to agree; but lately they’ve concluded that sometimes government is the solution, after all, and they’d like to see more of it.
Consider, for example, the question of whether the government should provide fewer services in order to cut spending, or provide more services even if this requires higher spending. According to the American National Election Studies, in 1994, the year the Republicans began their 12-year control of Congress, those who favored smaller government had the edge, by 36 to 27. By 2004, however, those in favor of bigger government had a 43-to-20 lead.
And public opinion seems to have taken a particularly strong turn in favor of universal health care. Gallup reports that 69 percent of the public believes that “it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have health care coverage,” up from 59 percent in 2000.
The main force driving this shift to the left is probably rising income inequality. According to Pew, there has recently been a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans who agree with the statement that “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.” Interestingly, the big increase in disgruntlement over rising inequality has come among the relatively well off — those making more than $75,000 a year.
Indeed, even the relatively well off have good reason to feel left behind in today’s economy, because the big income gains have been going to a tiny, super-rich minority. It’s not surprising, under those circumstances, that most people favor a stronger safety net — which they might need — even at the expense of higher taxes, much of which could be paid by the ever-richer elite.
And in the case of health care, there’s also the fact that the traditional system of employer-based coverage is gradually disintegrating. It’s no wonder, then, that a bit of socialized medicine is looking good to most Americans.
So what does this say about the political outlook? It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. But at this point it looks as if we’re seeing an emerging Republican minority.
After all, Democratic priorities — in particular, on health care, where John Edwards has set the standard for all the candidates with a specific proposal to finance universal coverage with higher taxes on the rich — seem to be more or less in line with what the public wants.
Republicans, on the other hand, are still wallowing in nostalgia — nostalgia for the days when people thought they were heroic terrorism-fighters, nostalgia for the days when lots of Americans hated Big Government.
Many Republicans still imagine that what their party needs is a return to the conservative legacy of Ronald Reagan. It will probably take quite a while in the political wilderness before they take on board the message of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comeback in California — which is that what they really need is a return to the moderate legacy of Dwight Eisenhower.
Krugman is awesome.
What explains the failure of the mainstream media to cover the purge scandal for so long, and so many other scandals? Do you think somebody just set up newspaper editors to cheat on their wives, and threatened to tell if the editors wouldn’t play ball when they come back some day and ask for something?
It wouldn’t be that hard to do, when you think about it. People wouldn’t talk about it.
Hey, thanks for the linkie-poo, hun. Always appreciated.
Many Conservatives are unhappy with the Republican party because they didn’t deliver. They didn’t deliver on winning the war. Instead, they were so worried about criticism from the left that they went in with too few troops wanting to leave as small a footprint as possible. If they fought the war as a real war, instead of allowing Al-Queda leaders to attend a funeral unmolested and instead of allowing arms to be stored in Mosques because they didn’t want to offend anyone, they could have been done by now.
Another issue that is a sore spot is Bush’s insane policy (or non-policy) concerning illegal immigration. What is that all about?
The Republicans don’t have a charismatic leader like Reagan in this race. However, I believe that if Fred Thompson is offered up, you will see the conservatives come out of the woodwork to vote for him and the slim control that the liberals have will evaporate.
The real problem with the Republican Party is that their priorities are more about serving themselves or their friends instead of the American people. They focus more on the failed war in Iraq instead of the issues Americans face everyday (education, health care, jobs, crime, environment, etc.). And their insistence that this country ought to be a “neo-Christian USA” has turned off more people like all of us who read this blog.
Will the Republicans realize the error of their ways? Probably when there are only 100 of them in the House and 30 in the Senate. But until then, they just don’t seem to get it, while the Democrats do.
“Instead, they were so worried about criticism from the left that they went in with too few troops wanting to leave as small a footprint as possible.”
HAHAHAHA.
I didn’t realize how Rumsfeld’s experiment with light forces became “appeasing the left that never wanted to go to war in the first place.”
Please dude, you’re not in stupidville over here.
“the slim control that the liberals have will evaporate.”
Uh yeah, whatever. you guys have the war saddled on YOUR necks, and 21 seats in play. the democrats have 5. the country’s trending Democratic.
You think the war’s going to be over in another 1.5 years? you think the GOP blocking the supplemental in the senate, keeping the troops (that the majority of the county wants to come home) in Iraq indefinitely is going to redound to the their benefit?
Gimme some of what you’re smoking pal.
If testifying to Congress means self-incrimination, that says there’s something to be incriminated about.
+++++++
Former DNC Financial Chairman Takes Fifth on Congressional Subpoena
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0102/26/bn.03.html
traveling guy needs to go take Military History 101. This war was never winnable and if you knew anything about history you could keep yourself away from The Stupid.
traveling guy also needs to stop spoofing my name at comment number 7, especially when his spoof has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Nor does it disprove anything I said.
Hey Traveling Guy - isn’t Thompson the one who starred in those conspiracy wacko tv programs X-Files and Dark Skies a few years ago? You know, the ones about illegal aliens.