The Economist: Republicans in Big, Big Trouble

After a long six and a half years of watching almost helplessly as the Republican Party loots, rapes and pillages everything from the Constitution to the middle class to non-threatening countries overseas, it's always satisfying to see rats call a spade a spade and jump off the pirate ship known as the modern GOP.

But rarely has the sense of schadenfreude been more poignant to me than when reading the latest Economist article today about the woes of the Republican Party and American conservative movement in general.

Today's article, titled The American Right Under the Weather, is but one piece in the new overall issue covering the leftward shift of American politics in recent months. As anyone who has read the magazine knows, the editorial staff of The Economist is certainly no friend to Democrats, favoring a decidedly corporatist agenda valuing "free trade over "fair trade" and a foreign policy usually at odds with progressive values. As a result, however, they find themselves increasingly at odds with the social conservatives who have all but taken over the Republican party's activist base: in fact, they say so directly in the cover article:

The Economist has never made any secret of its preference for the Republican Party's individualistic “western” wing rather than the moralistic “southern” one that Mr Bush has come to typify. It is hard to imagine Ronald Reagan sponsoring a federal amendment banning gay marriage or limiting federal funding for stem-cell research. Yet Mr Bush's departure hardly guarantees a move back to the centre. Social liberals like Mr Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger are in a minority on the right. On the one issue where Mr Bush fought the intolerant wing of his party, immigration, the nativists won—and perhaps lost the Latino vote for a generation.

As a result, The Economist's temporary post-mortem on the enthusiasm and dynamism of the American right is a strange mix of joy and tears: it contains equal doses of worried regret, tempered with palpable glee at the overreaching failures of the social conservatives whom they blame for much of popular rejection of Republican ideology. But it's nothing if not utterly brutal--and well worth the read.

The sheer numbers are staggering. Some key statistical points from the article include:

• 40% of Republicans think that Democrats will win the next presidential election, compared with only 12% of Democrats who think the reverse
• Q2 money to the Democratic presidential contenders nearly doubled that given to the Republican contenders
• As has been frequently mentioned by Markos, the DSCC and D-Trip are vastly outraising the NRSC and NRCC
• 61% of Democrats are happy with our choices of candidates, while only 36% of Republicans can say the same
• Young voters and Hispanic voters are trending overwhelmingly Democratic
• Registered Democrats and Democratic-leaners are now 50% of the population, while registered Republicans and Republican-leaners only comprise 35%--a strong swing from an equal 43%-43% tie in 2002.

And the list goes on and on. Things are so bleak for the pirates on Capitol Hill right now that many prominent Republicans are simply manning the lifeboats and looking for the best way to weather the storm. This little bit about former RNC chairman and self-hating closet-dweller Ken Mehlman is really poignant:

No wonder Ken Mehlman, a former Republican Party chairman who oversaw George Bush's 2004 victory, is now advising hedge funds on how to deal with a Democratic-leaning America.

Most intriguing, however, is the article's nearly ferocious rejection of the idea that GOP woes are entirely the fault of Bush, the occupation of Iraq, or the corruption of specific Republican party officials. Instead, the Economist is unafraid to lay the blame squarely where it belongs: the embrace of a hyper-conservative agenda of social moralizing, beyond-the-pale cronyism, an unhealthy dose of nativism and racism, corruption so blatant it has become institutionalized, a borrow-and-spend budgetary philosophy, and redistribution of wealth to the very rich that has appalled all but the Christianist right and some very wealthy allies:

In fact, the Republican Party in Congress is just as responsible as Mr Bush for most of the recent troubles. The Republican majority routinely appropriated more spending than the president asked for. It also larded spending bills with as much extra pork as possible. The number of congressional “earmarks” for projects in members' districts increased from 1,300 in 1994, when the Republicans took over Congress, to 14,000 in 2005.

The Republican majority also cheered Mr Bush all the way to Baghdad. Add to this the corruption of congressmen like Tom DeLay, a conservative hero, and the semi-corrupt institutional relationship that the Republicans formed with lobbyists, and you see that Mr Bush was only part of a much bigger problem.

Nor can conservatives claim that Mr Bush is a country-club Republican like his father. He has devoted his energies to giving “the movement” what it wants: the invasion of Iraq for the neoconservatives (who had championed it long before September 11th); tax cuts for business and the small-government conservatives; restricting federal funding for stem-cell research for the social conservatives; and conservative judges to please every faction.

This desire to pander to the conservative movement is partly to blame for the administration's practical incompetence. Mr Bush outdid previous Republican presidents in recruiting his personnel from the conservative counter-establishment. But this often meant choosing people for their ideological purity rather than their competence or intelligence. Some 150 Bush administration officials were graduates of Pat Robertson's Regent University, including Monica Goodling, who put on such a lamentable performance before a House inquiry into the firing of nine US attorneys. A more pragmatic president would surely have sacked many of the neoconservative ideologues who have made a hash of American foreign policy.

And as the editors astutely observe, the Republicans are now locked in a civil war for supremacy between their corporatist paymasters, the closely allied NeoCons, the Christianist base that actually mobilizes the votes, and the few die-hard libertarians who used to make up the bedrock of American conservatism and are the GOP's only hope of holding onto the rapidly changing West. Whoever prevails in that fight, however, two things are certain: the party will be weaker than it was before, andthe fight will be very, very ugly and very, very public. After all, there is no honor amongst thieves.

In the end, though, The Economist makes the excellent point that Democrats have yet to convince the American public that we are anything more than the lesser of two evils. Certainly, failing to stand up for progressive values such as we saw recently the with FISA capitulation won't do much to help that. Further, Republicans have always been more at home and more comfortable as a minority party than they have been in the position of actual governance. Like the moral and intellectual children they are, it's far easier to complain and snipe at those attempting to actually govern, than to attempt to put a failing ideology in place that gets the job done. Still, I would rather be in our shoes than in theirs. As the article correctly points out:

But even when you enter all the qualifications the right's situation is dire. It is a sign of weakness that the conservatives are retreating to their old posture as insurgents, and need a bogeywoman like Mrs Clinton to hold them together.

The Republicans have failed the most important test of any political movement—wielding power successfully. They have botched a war. They have splurged on spending. And they have alienated a huge section of the population. It is now the Democrats' game to win or lose.

Indeed. Things are looking extremely bleak for the GOP pirates, and it's fun watching the rats jump off the ship. Now all we have to do is stand for what we believe in and do the difficult work of holding ourselves accountable, standing in the way of Mr. 23% for the remainder of his term, and passing legislation that will benefit the American People for a change, rather than GOP monied interests.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Why Not Privatize the Police and Firefighters?

It is the year 70 BCE. You have worked your entire life as a hotelier with a small establishment near the Circus Maximus, offering room and board to those who come from far and wide to see the chariot races. It's not a great living, but it keeps you in bread and circuses without the need for government handouts. One night, to your horror, a fire breaks out in your hotel--who started it or how you don't know, but that doesn't matter now: you do your best to extinguish the blaze with pails of water and dirt. Unfortunately, the blaze is too much: your feeble efforts are in vain.

Suddenly, out of nowhere comes your salvation: the Fire Brigade arrives. Except that this is no ordinary fire brigade financed by the Senate and People of Rome--for no such entity exists. The very concept is a novel one to you and your fellow citizens. No, this particular Fire Brigade is run by one Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Rome's richest and most powerful men and eventual member of the Triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Pompey. Crassus' firefighters are his personal slaves; they're not only the best at what they do--they're the only ones who do it.

Crassus steps down from his chariot, looking his usual glorious self, and asks you if you wouldn't mind filling out a bit of papyrus-work while his men prepare to fight the fire. No problem, you say--except that then you see the terms: "I hereby sell my hotel to Marcus Licinius Crassus for 5,000 sesterces (less than 1/5th its market value)." At first you scoff--"these terms are outrageous!" you say. "It's extortion!" Crassus sighs and says, "ok, have it your way" and calls his slaves off to go back home. Suddenly turning back as yet another room bursts into flames, your spirit breaks--and you call for Crassus to return with his men. And in one fateful moment, you sign away your life's work to a man with no scruples.

This is not legend: the history is all there in Plutarch's Lives and elsewhere in the record of Roman historians. This scene played itself out time and time again in the waning years of the Roman Republic, as Crassus made of himself Rome's principal landlord through the use of this private fire department. It is even alleged that Crassus also had his own arson brigade, which he utilized judiciously when nature itself was too slow in starting the desired conflagrations.

It is a scene that played on a continuing feedback loop in my mind as I watched Michael Moore's brilliant film Sicko the other night. Throughout the film, the barbaric extortion practiced by the United States healthcare system on those in desperate straits seemed as foreign and as repulsive to the citizens of Canada, France and Great Britain as Crassus' "fire brigade" seems to us. Why, they feel, must one hand over one's life savings for a service that is properly in the public domain? Why should one be forced to pay when one is least able or prepared to do so? If we have public police and firefighters, why not a public healthcare system?

I am not the first to raise this point, of course. Moore himself raises it in the context of the boogeyman that is "socialized medicine": in the film, he points out that we already have a number of "socialized" services, ranging from the police to the firefighters to the armed forces to the post office. The poignancy of this issue as it relates to the military is even the subject of a panel for YearlyKos '07. And certainly, the applicability of the model of such needed social services to the common good that is public health has been stressed by many a Democratic politician.

It is too easy, however, for conservatives to dismiss such a comparison. They point out, in proper conservative fashion, that police and fire have always been taxpayer-funded services in America, and medicine always private. They say that, unlike police or fire, healthcare is a purchaseable commodity--and as such, best handled with the famed efficiency of the "free market." They claim especially that the costs of making public such a system would be significantly greater to the average citizen than those of keeping the system private. Of course, these latter two claims are utterly spurious: the "free market" in healthcare is anything but free, while guaranteed health coverage costs less in the long run. Nevertheless, conservatives are able to kick just enough sand in the face of the public and muddy the waters just enough with these and other arguments to keep Americans in the Crassus-era of extortionary health coverage. The fact that conservatives are always on the wrong side of history--they're still calling the New Deal Unamerican to this day--troubles them not a whit: back in Ancient Rome, they'd be defending Crassus' fire department if there was money in it for them.

There is a clever reverse argument, however, that can be extremely effective and is grossly underused by proponents of guaranteed health coverage: If the free market is so effective and cost-efficient in providing critical social services, why not privatize the police force and the fire department?

This line of argument is particularly effective because it forces conservatives to explain when and why privatization is a bad thing, rather than arguing the drawbacks of making such systems public. I have used this argument many times against conservatives, and the results have never failed to be absolutely devastating. Responses to this argument tend to run along the following five lines:

1) "Because it's always been that way!" This is not a terribly clever argument, of course, nor would any major political figure use it. Nevertheless, Crassus' fire brigade is an effective couter-attack.

2) "Because health care is so much more expensive than police and fire departments!" Also a not-too-intelligent argument, the easy counter is that public healthcare saves more long run, just as public police and fire departments do.

3) "Because doctors don't make enough money under public healthcare!" This argument is simply a bold-faced lie. What actually happens is that disparities between the incomes of various types of doctors decrease--those earning the most do end up earning less.

4) "Because I don't want to pay more taxes!" To which one simply asks if they would be willing to accept a tax cut that got rid of the fire department. If no, why not? Rinse and repeat...

5) "Because I want to be able to choose private insurance!" Of course, this choice is never removed from them under a guaranteed system, just as one can always supplement the police with a private security force.

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The truth of the matter, of course, is that none of the above arguments are the real reason a conservative doesn't support the privatization of the police or firefighters. The real reason is that if such large systems so essential to the public good were privatized, the private companies would find that it was only worth their while to secure the lives and property of the very rich--or to extort everyone else. Just as the salaries of private contractors in Iraq dwarf those of publicly funded soldiers at great cost to the American Public, the only people who benefit from such privatization are the privateers themselves and those bought off by them. In other words, in the absence of a State Fire Department, the only private fire departments tend to act like Crassus' noble enterprise.

Every American understands this principle on a fundamental level, whether they can articulate it or not--but rarely are Americans allowed to tap into this commonsense understanding when it comes to healthcare.

In my experience, the best way to get even conservative Americans to understand the necessity of a public healthcare system is to make them confront their own distaste for a private fire and police system--and to force them to attempt to articulate their reasons for that distaste. It's a simple process from there to applying the same reasoning to public health.

Because in the end, only the most hardened sociopath can defend the Crassus way of running a healthcare system.

More Proof of Media Bias: The Terrible Scourge of "Leftism"

It has been nearly impossible to surf the web in the wake of Sarkozy's recent victory in the French elections without coming across one of the most overlooked framing atrocities in all of politics: the use of the inherently negative word "leftist" to describe progressives and liberals here around the world and here in the United States.

This condescendingly destructive word is used with reckless abandon in the U.S. and international press with nary a peep from our side nor usage of its equivalent to describe the other side. Moreover, the word is used to conflate violent anarchists and protesters like those who rioted in the wake of the French election, with more mainstream progressives like those at Daily Kos.

Now, before you turn away and say "no big deal", consider the following: while framing is certainly not enough to win a debate on its own merits, consistent and pervasive use of negative words and constructs can take a draining toll on one's ability to fight one's ideoligical opponents. Indeed, when one is confronted with a framing issue that is transparently one-sided, it behooves the activist to take steps to correct those usages and constructs in one's own discourse, and hopefully from there in that of the traditional media.

And this issue is very one-sided. If we examine the comparative instances of the words "leftist" vs. "rightist" in a Google search we come across the following:

GOOGLE SEARCH:
Leftist: 7,340,000
Rightist: 991,000

That's a ratio of 7.5:1. Now, why does this matter? It matters because almost ANY word ending in -ism or -ist connotes doctrinaire, ideologically driven extremism lacking in the virtues of pragmatism, open-mindedness or tolerance. If you doubt it, consider a handy list of -isms at Wikipedia: they include such niceties as communism, socialism, imperalism, zionism, authoritarianism, fascism, darwinism, creationism, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and many more. Regardless of your agreement with and openness to the idea in question, the mere attachment of the suffix "ism" or "ist" to the word makes it inherently uncomfortable. Indeed, anyone with serious background in framing, social linguistics and/or rhetoric understands this as a matter of course.

Let's take a few examples:
1. All it takes is a simple "ism/ist" to turn a religion like Islam into a violent extremist (get that word "extremist"?) movement like "Islamism".

2. Say the word "capitalist" out loud. Now say the words "free market". Which one gave you a happier, sunnier feeling? Now say the words "socialist" and "common good". See what I mean?

3. Try the words "progressivism" or "liberalism". Those being honest with themselves will admit that these words sound negative--even if they are progressives and liberals.

In fact, all you need do is read Dan McLaughlin at RedState.com whine about the use of the word "rightist" to describe Nicolas Sarkozy to see that the other side certainly understands the importance of these kinds of usages.

Let us return now to that 7.5:1 ratio of "leftism" to "rightism". But first, it is important to note that dictionary entries for leftism and for rightism reflect the fact that "leftism" is no more extreme a reference than is "rightism", nor is "leftism" more relevant on the world stage than "rightism" in today's corporate-centric world. Nevertheless, if we examine some simple searches on traditional media news sites, we see the following astounding numbers:

Associated Press search:
Leftist: 8,720
Rightist: 2

That's right. Just TWO uses of the word "rightist", while word "leftist" is used to denote everyone from anti-nuclear activists in India to violent Colombian drug-trafficking rebels to Canadian environmentalists to Venezuelan populist dictators to mainstream French Socialists to Cuban communists to mainstream Progressives in Mexico to immigration activists in Turkey.

And that's not all. Other "traditional" media also egregiously oversample the word "leftist". Consider these:

Reuters search:
Leftist: 926
Rightist: 121
RATIO: 7.6:1

CNN search:
Leftist: 1,358
Rightist: 267
RATIO: 5.1:1

ABC News search:
Leftist: 153 pages
Rightist: 7 pages
RATIO: 21.9:1

CNN search:
Leftist: 1,358
Rightist: 267

Then, of course, there's the Fox, the gold standard of right wing propaganda:

Fox News search:
Leftist: 1,090
Rightist: 29
RATIO: 37.6:1

The most even usage of the two words comes from the New York Times, a search of whose pages still reflects a hefty slant:

New York Times:
Leftist: 9,886
Rightist: 2983
RATIO: 3.3:1

What this means is that in a huge number of news articles, we are forced to believe that there is a debate in any given area between "leftists" and "conservatives"--with the conservatives getting a head start on semantics alone. Imagine if that debate were instead between "Progressives" and "Rightists"--how many more minds might be change just on the basis of altering two words alone?
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It is time to bring balance back to the traditional media in this area as well with a few simple steps:

1. Eschew the use of the word "leftist" in your vocabulary, if you haven't already.

2. Use the word "Rightist" as often as you can to refer to conservative doctrinaire positions.

3. Write emails and letters to your newspapers, cable channels, and internet news outlets in protest whenever you see the word "leftist" without equivalent use of the word "rightist" to denote their opponents.

It's about time we Progressives fought back against the Rightist Press on semantics as well as their actual biased coverage of events.

By the way, clammyc and I will be spending about 25 minutes discussing this and other issues related to leftism and rightism on our radio show at our Political Nexus radio blog 3pm PST today, Monday May 7th. The recorded show won't be on the site for a few hours, but you can listen live here.

Conservatism is Dead, and it's Not Coming Back

There is a certain audacity in declaring the near-permanent death of a political ideology, so allow me to be perfectly clear in my meaning: Republicanism is not dead--far from it--but "conservatism" as we have come to know it is. Kiss it goodbye; it's gone, and it's not coming back.

To be completely truthful, conservatism properly understood has actually been near total demise ever since the election of Ronald Reagan. Nearly every ideological facet of what used to be known as American conservatism has been abandoned largely abandoned by both political parties--or is slowly being taken over in its most benign and idealistic form by the Democratic party as a secondary plank.

Gone is the Old Right--those Paleoconservatives who believe in the venerated American tradition of non-interventionism abroad and rural-values agrarian populism at home.

Gone is the Rockefeller Republican--the pro-business conservative who welcomes government investment in social programs but simply wants to run them more efficiently. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are two the very last of a dying breed--outcasts in both of America's political moieties.

Gone is the Small Government Conservative. As even the Wall Street Journal staff have admitted, "The the era of small government is over. Sept. 11 challenged it. Katrina killed it." The Republican Party is the Party of Big Government Conservatism now (whatever that means), as the Cato Institute has lamented at length.

Gone, also are the old Burkeian and Hamiltonian conservatives whose preference for aristocracy and Republic over mob rule and Democracy has given way to the pseudo-populism of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and the unilateral attempt to ostensibly spread direct democracy across the globe.

And gone too are the old Ayn Rand conservatives: those who view selfishness as the highest good, absent all communal forces to the contrary--including not only government but organized religion as well.

All of these proud descendants of the Burkeian conservative tradition have been utterly marginalized in today's American political discourse. And there's a very good reason for that: conservatism as we know it has ceased to provide any meaningful answers for the problems that confronted by the nation and the world. Instead, we are at a crossroads of epic proportions that will determine nothing less than the future of the free world in ways that most of us probably fail to fully grasp.

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In the place of traditional conservatism--as Thomas Frank and hundreds of others have pointed out time and again--is an alliance between what Markos and Jerome call the "Corporate Cons" and the "TheoCons". I would also add the "NeoCons"--though many would simply say that they are a subset of the Corporate Cons.

The problem with this categorization, however, is the obvious difficulty that two of the above are not conservative at all, while the third is ONLY conservative of religious tradition and nothing else. The old rhetorical adage "What Are Conservatives Conserving, Exactly?" is perfectly applicable for these people--none of whom are true Conservatives at all.

Indeed, there is absolutely nothing "conservative" about either a Corporate Con or a NeoCon. In fact, their economic policies are called Neoliberal in academic circles, and their speeches in defense of the militaristic enforcement of global democracy and "freedom" are in the liberal tradition of Wilson, Roosevelt and Kennedy.

Corporate Cons, TheoCons and NeoCons all shun balanced budgets. They shun George Washington's warnings against foreign entanglements. They shun the notion of small government. They shun the notion of aristocracy understood as such by the public (not that they don't attempt to enforce it de facto by other means, of course). They shun responsible stewardship of the environment. They shun the notion of investment in social programs. They shun traditional conservative pessimism about the ability of governments to enforce their traditions and beliefs onto others. And their rhetoric about the benign consequences of allowing people utter freedom to do whatever they will economically is almost Emersonian, shunning every conservative, Humeian conservative tradition.

They aren't conservatives at all, in fact. They're simply an evil version of Liberalism.

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But why did this happen? It happened because, quite simply, traditional conservatism has completely outlived its usefulness in the modern world.

Every single problem that we face nationally and globally is completely beyond the scope of simplistic, old-school conservatism to address. Nearly every problem requires the mobilization of large-scale structures to resolve. Consider them:

Nuclear proliferation.
Global warming.
Environmental degradation of other kinds.
Peak Oil.
Stateless Terrorism.
Overpopulation.
The threat of catastropic "Andromeda Strain" viruses.
The worldwide drug trade.
Worldwide water shortages.
Genocides.
The "double-income" trap--with concomitant "latchkey kid" syndrome.
Moral degeneration (yes, it exists, as anyone who has witnessed the decline from Glenn Miller to Britney Spears, from MLK Jr. to P-Diddy, from Doogie Howser to MTV's Real World, can easily attest.)

And the list goes on and on.

Ayn Rand has no answers for these. Neither does Burke. Nor Rockefeller. Nor even the PaleoCons, for the most part.

These problems are enormous. Daunting. Intimidating. At times, they seem utterly intractable. So much so that one school of political thought has totally withered in the face of their unrelenting pressure, while the other stands at an historic crossroads that will define its future for generations.

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One way or another, you see, the era of squabbling, self-serving independent nation-states each seeking gain at the expense of the other is drawing to a close. Permanently.

To Progressives, that era will be replaced with citizens in each nation working together to improve the lives of their fellow countrymen, while the nations themselves work in increasing harmony to resolve the world's great crises.

To Corporate Cons and NeoCons--best exemplified by utter fool Thomas Friedman--that era will be replaced with the Corporate Triumphalism of McDonald's Diplomacy. The rights and prerogatives of nation-states will be subsumed under the invisible aristocracy of multi-national corporations and their largest shareholders, and the health and safety of the world's population will depend on the continued growth (read, unfettered and increasing exploitation) of financial markets worldwide under the guise of democracy and "free trade".

To TheoCons, to whom both of the above are anathema, the problems are so insurmountable and so inconsistent with their fundamental belief in God's benevolence, omniscience and omnipotence--and so impossible to resolve by turning to simple human free will or "agency"--that an increasing number simply figure that God will take care of it and wrap it all up, with a a Darbyesque bowtie of rapture and Left Behind insanity.

The only exceptions to this rule are fringe far-right and far-left groups (often virtually indistinguishable), both of which also assume that the problems are insurmountable and actually look forward to global economic and environmental collapse in order to usher in a new age of simplicity/rusticity. But these secular millennarians are thankfully few and far between.

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Conservatism, then, is dead. It isn't coming back. In its place we are left with three fundamental choices that will determine the future of Liberalism and the future of the free world:

1) A Progressive Liberal vision of partnership, long-term thinking and respect for the common good that disregards race, religion, language and even national boundaries;

2) A Corporate Liberal vision of unfettered economic neoliberalism that exploits people with a view toward quarterly profits and respect for shareholders only that also disregards race, religion, language and even national boundaries;

3) A devil-may-care pessimistic vision of big-government control with no vision that simply expects Jehovah to resolve everything.

May we choose wisely. The fate of the world itself depends on it.