Conservatism in the United States faces a series of extremely knotty problems at the moment. How do you restrain the welfare state at a time when the entitlements we have are broadly popular, and yet their design puts them on a glide path to insolvency? How do you respond to the socioeconomic trends - wage stagnation, social immobility, rising health care costs, family breakdown, and so forth - that are slowly undermining support for the Reaganite model of low-tax capitalism? How do you sell socially-conservative ideas to a moderate middle that often perceives social conservatism as intolerant? How do you transform an increasingly white party with a history of benefiting from racially-charged issues into a party that can win majorities in an increasingly multiracial America? etc.
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I haven't been following the "future of conservativism" debate as well as I should have. But I thought this was a pretty interesting, and more importantly, self-aware piece of writing by Ross. I'm interested in where these guys end up:
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Not to be a jerk, but I'm interest in it too.
It's not that complicated, really. You propose a better alternative, and you make your party more inclusive. The GOP has shown no efforts to do either for well over a decade. That's why they're losing.
The cultural warfare can only get you a hold on power when the body politic doesn't have more pressing and immediate concerns that fall lower on Maslow's hierarchy than cultural-political identity.
This is a truly vital debate. The U.S. needs an opposition party that is a "safe pair of hands," and is actually prepared to take over without wrecking the shop. While, given my politics, I'd like to see this opposition party emerge on the Left, in the U.S. context, it's waaaay more likely to emerge on the Right.
In it's current formulation, however, the Republican party is NOT a "safe pair of hands." In fact, I think it's starting to look safe, rather than freakishly paranoid, to argue that the Republican party is increasingly looking like it's not a small-d democratic party at all; a lot of the rhetoric denies the legitimacy of anything to its left, and we're hearing Republican talk-show types talking about how legislatures should start picking electors again.
While a lot of this is just loose talk from a party that's losing an election, it's pretty scary loose talk. The sense of grievance and entitlement being expressed by some fairly prominent people will provide fertile breeding ground for real fascism/fascists. If he moderate Republicans don't get their act together and take back control of the party, it's going to drift into quasi-fascist territory. Upton Sinclair was probably right in his remarks about American fascism ("wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross"), just a bit premature.
"How do you restrain the welfare state at a time when the entitlements we have are broadly popular, and yet their design puts them on a glide path to insolvency?"
well, first you have to come clean about your own position.
if you really want to kill the safety nets (a.k.a. "restrain the welfare state"), then you don't really give a damn about insolvency. the fact that the programs are underfunded won't look like a bug to you, but a feature.
sure, you may moan and rail about insolvency on talk-radio, but it's all just concern-trolling.
on the other hand, if you are really concerned about insolvency, then you do what liberals think needs to be done: fund the programs in such a way that they are solvent, and will remain solvent.
and then give up on the scare tactics about "crisis!" and "bankruptcy!" and "just pieces of paper!" that we heard during the 2005 attempt to kill social security.
but don't tell us that you are worried about it being insolvent, when what you really want is for it to be non-existent.
continuing the dishonesty does not represent a new future for conservativism.
Short method: Take everyone who was driven from the Republican party for their support of Obama and/or belief that Palin is unqualified to be president. Get them together to hammer out what a strong Conservative Party would look like. If the theocrats and know-nothings maintain a death grip on the party once known as Republicans, start a new one. (My original idea was to reverse this and keep the Republican party, without neocons and nutters. But Palin seems to be becoming the purity test in exactly the opposite to the way I would do it. Note to base: Palin does not attract independents. She drives them away.)
Considering the types that currently run the GOP, the things that need be done won't get done. They pushed out and continue to push out, those who would make the party more attractive giving further control those very elements that make the party less attractive.
I have seen variations of an Einstein quote about not being able to solve a problem with the same minds that created it. That applies to the current incarnation of the GOP. Until those that have bailed on the GOP run the GOP, the party will continue to look as bad as it does. Until the inheritors of the Dixicrat mentality who are still hardwired into the GOP network are marginalized, the GOP will continue to suffer. Of course that would require the GOP to honest with itself (if only in private) and frankly right now, I think that is beyond them. Like an alcoholic that first has to admit it has a problem before being able to really deal with their drinking, the GOP has to admit it has a fundamental problem that needs to be fixed with more than just a little PR airbrushing.
Deborah, that's probably the way to come up with a party that's not crazy...but splits the rightwing vote with the rump Republicans in the red areas. This will split the rightwing vote, and allow the Democrats to come up the middle in a lot of red areas (this is pretty much how Canadian elections work btw - lots of tactical voting in 3-way races). My guess is that after a couple of election cycles the new rightwing party would get fed up with losing and would either disintegrate or merge back with the Republicans.
To answer anyone of Ross's many many questions about the republican party that were probably meant to be rhetorical: You Can't Get There From Here. Vote Obama.
A party of social libertarianism (read: it's not the Federal Government's job to get involved in social policy one way or the other), fiscal conservatism and old fashioned foreign policy realism. In other words; a version of the better half of the old Republican Party of Rockefeller and Eisenhower.
gracchus, just a correction;
the "wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross" quote is from Sinclair Lewis' "It Couldn't Happen Here". Which is a great book, still relevant over 70 years later.
Self aware to some extent. I would characterize myself as a craving Moderate Republican. It still therefore amazes me that people like Ross still think that the Bush presidency just didn't make the right decisions to give us a fiscally responsive Republicanism. They made very concientious decisions on spending money including to pander heavily to the social conservative side of the party. What Im saying is that Bush didn't just execute a plan badly, he executed his intended plan well and it was a disaster. Lets not act as though fiscal conservatism was tested and failed. What failed was a hijacked form of conservatism that was compassionate only to those friends of the blinded hawks and the all or nothing cultural conservatives.
McCain is obviously BSing us in the same manner (i.e. just look at the Plain nomination).
The Republican party needs to realize that it needs to shed the uncompromising right wing and regroup to pick up independent condervatives such as me. If it does not and keeps on the "Palin is the direction" path, only a thoroughly unorganized and faultering (or just plane spend happy) democratic party can stop its downward decent. And if that happens we are all in a boatload of trouble (unless a third party becomes possible).
Joel, argh. I'm, unfortunately, not the first person to confuse those (actually very different) writers because of their names.
The Republican Party will ultimately do the smart thing and become more moderate, just as the Democrats did under Clinton. It's like evolution. Ultimately you make the necessary adaptations to survive. Especially if you have enough financial support and diehards to ensure that you never quite die out.
don't feel bad, gracchus.
i always get ford madox ford confused with ford madox brown.
and i bet even you have trouble telling tiberius from gaius.
TNC -- I'm delighted you have the audacity to ask for responses to Ross's musings.
Mine is to suggest an attitude change; it typically works wonders when you've got a chip on your shoulder:
This dogma has been cause of the charges of racism and class warfare, and perhaps the root of the racism and class warfare in the Republican Party for a long time. It's time the party started considering the notion that there's a return to be had from investing in people, just like there's a return to be had from investing in markets. Sure there's a risk, too. But the return's a return on our future. And it's time Republicans started embracing it and supporting it and not just expecting family and church to support individuals.
I just watched part of a Bloggingheads with Douthat and Jonah Goldberg and came away pretty much disgusted with these guys. They're not particularly bright in any meaningful sense and they aren't in touch with much that's truthful. I don't care about this guy's concerns because he's some combination of wilfully ignorant and dishonest:
Ex -
"How do you respond to the socioeconomic trends - wage stagnation, social immobility, rising health care costs, family breakdown, and so forth - that are slowly undermining support for the Reaganite model of low-tax capitalism?"
The "Reaganite model" has contributed negatively to most of those trends. So there's no answer to the question posed that can satisfy someone as wrongheaded as Ross or any of his comrades who put their faith in the "Reaganite model."
Anyone who talks about the "Reaganite model of low-tax capitalism" needs to deal with the fact that under every President since WWII (when national debt as a % of GDP was very high due to the double whammy of depression and war for a decade and a half) the percentage of debt relative to Gross Domestic Product declined - and declined at a fairly steep rate - EXCEPT under Reagan and the two Bushes when debt rose precipitously. Those were the two GOP regimes that promoted an ideology of tax cuts as the solution to economic problems - and they were the most fiscally IRRESPONSIBLE. So the entire premise that he clings to - like some old Communist Party member clinging to Marxism - is false. There are complex economic problems facing us - but these guys either are constitutionally incapable of understanding what they are or they are pushing bromides that are certain to make those problems worse.
As for "How do you sell socially-conservative ideas to a moderate middle that often perceives social conservatism as intolerant? How do you transform an increasingly white party with a history of benefiting from racially-charged issues into a party that can win majorities in an increasingly multiracial America? " You don't. And thank God. The solution is to go away and leave decent people alone. (Nothing personal.)
Ross has his head up his ass. He's "smart" but not intelligent and, frankly, not the kind of person I have even minimal interest in hearing from. Let these guys inhabit their idiotic, reactionary echo chamber. This crap makes no sense.
kid bitzer makes most of the point i wanted to make: the very first thing "conservatives" need to do is banish lying right-wing tropes from their vocabulary.
when i read someone lumping together two completely different problems - social security (at worst, a minute funding problem) and "medicare" (a market failure problem that requires government action that even hayek approved of in response) - as a generic "unaffordable entitlements" problem, i know that i don't have to pay any further attention (which, btw, is my general take on douhat, but i digress), the writer is fundamentally dishonest.
i no longer care whether the writer is dishonest due to laziness, stupidity, or an innate affection for propaganda: the point is, real "conservatism" (which i'd love to see revived in america) isn't going to get anywhere by basing its entire political worldview on lies.
right-wingers, on the other hand, are very comfortable in that domain.
but if i had to pick the place where i'd like to see honest conservatives make their stand, it would be on the 4th ammendment (that is, the obvious "conservative" place to start is the embedding of wiretapping within our society and how wrong that is), accompanied by tax simplification (the single best action of the reagan administration was trading higher tax rates for a simpler, less bauble-laden tax system), renewed attention to the problems of the military-industrial complex (first discussed, after all, by that noted commie, dwight eisenhower), and an historically conservative understanding that no matter what grandiose dreams the right wing wants to sell about remaking other nations, we are not the world's policeman....
lemme know when douhat has thoughts along those lines and i'll try him again.
As someone who used to vote Republican but who can no longer even imagine a future in which I vote Republican again, I believe I can answer.
Stop promising to fix the national budget, reneging, and cutting taxes for people who don't need it. Once you stop looking like hypocritical failures to all the fiscal conservatives out there, you'll be better positioned to make arguments about trade offs between entitlements and spending. Since we all know the real trade off you care about is between entitlements and tax cuts for capital gains and estates, there's no point in listening to you. That's just a choice between which brand of bread and circus we wish to fund.
The second one is easy. Come up with an alternative to Reaganite low-tax capitalism. Obviously government is going to be involved in the economy, anyone who knows anything about economics knows that. The question is how. By advocating a complete separation of the government and they economy, you've rendered yourselves marginal amongst those who know what they're talking about.
Stop actually being socially intolerant. Many conservative principles are very, very widely held. For example, the nuclear family- everyone loves it! But we never hear about that because you're too busy shooting your mouths off about gays. Stop that. And if you're the sort of conservative who thinks the media misrepresents your social views by focusing on your opinions about gay people, stop thinking that. Its all you. Nobody is doing this to you, except maybe members of your own party.
There's a lot of potential for social conservatism to sell very well to minority voters. Lets see, nuclear families, father figures for young kids, taking responsibility for your children... sounds like a sermon at a black church. Its just that minority voters don't like Republicans because every time Republicans open their mouths on racial issues they dis minorities. So, stop that. And when conservatives talk about conservative values in the same sentence as anything related to minorities or the inner city, they're usually just making an argument for why "There's just no helping those people and we should stop trying." So, stop that too. And instead of trying to oppose get out the vote efforts in the inner city, why not make the centerpiece of your inner city political strategy, I dunno, convincing black voters to vote for you?
"How do you sell socially-conservative ideas to a moderate middle that often perceives social conservatism as intolerant?"
Hmmm. Let's see. Here's an idea, Ross.
How about not writing essays containing gross factual errors equating pornography with adultery?
Pornography -- how it's made, how it's distributed, what it looks like -- offers numerous starting points for lucid conservative critique of the liberal excesses with regard to culture and sexuality. Sadly, your essay explored none of them, and is instead, is a cheap stunt that trades in misinformation and false equivalency. The only thing that's going to sell is newsstand copies of the Atlantic.
howard - the truth is that "honest conservatives" like Eisenhower are now known as moderate Democrats. Eisenhower, given the tax rates that existed under his administration, would be read out of the GOP as somewhere to the "left" of Fidel Castro, given the absurd "Socialist" rhetoric amped up against Obama for wanting to raise top rates a few points. Richard Nixon, on his domestic policies, would be considered some kind on the same terrain as Pol Pot, in the Palin-Joe the Plumber rhetorical canon.
We're going to have to hash out fical policies within the "left-right" spectrum of the Democrats. Considering that allows for voices as diverse as Robert Rubin and Dennis Kucinich, I'm comfortable with that. On civil liberties, I don't think there's room left in the actually-existing GOP for sanity. Considering how totally debased the Republicans have become, I look forward to the GOP spending several decades in the wilderness. Any major party whose candidates haul out some ignorant, attention-grabbing fraud like "Joe the Plumber" as a credible surrogate on the campaign trail has defaulted from "wrong on the issues" to "dangerously demagogic and disreputable." The contemporary GOP deserves nothing more or less than to disappear as an effective political formation. If something rises from the ashes, it's likely to be even worse than what we've been treated to under the Bush/Rove iteration. Sad and scary, but true.
Wow. This is one of the best comments thread ever.
I agree especially with howard that Step 1 to any sort of conservative revival is to get back in touch with reality and rediscover honesty and objectivity as moral and political virtues. The right wing media echo chamber has completely distorted a whole group's view of basic reality, and via Fox News, Limbaugh and the rest, they have become frighteningly comfortable with lies, distortions, and 2+2=5 loyalty tests, to the point that even the "smart" ones like Ross do not even recognize the unreality of their own hypothetical questions.
Bush hasn't just debased the policies of the Republican party, he's debased the basic culture. They should be purging themselves of the liars and blowhards, not the ones willing to confront reality. Unfortunately for the country, they're currently doing the opposite.
Ross' piece sounds like a marketing brief for tobacco products. How do we sell something that will kill most consumers? The GOP doesn't need better marketing, it needs better ideas that are good for the majority of the country - not just for the uber rich and the christianist right.
I agree that we need a healthy political balance (personally I'd prefer a more parliamentary system). But when the GOP made a deal with the devil (as it were) with christian right while having a lab of 8 years to play with and having a huge negative impact on the country, they don't deserve to govern. I hope they're in the wilderness for a good long time and come out a better party devoid of the nutty neocon/christian right elements and positions. I can respect them on foreign policy and fiscal conservatism, but the social and religious crap is a deal breaker for me.
After reading Patrick, I want to clarify that my disdain for what someone like Douthat touts as "social conservatism" is based on stuff like anti-gay marriage initiatives and anti-choice Supremos. The Obama-Cosby-MyWife-"EvenAlSharpton" nexus of black folk who adhere to common sense about family responsibility don't qualify as "Social Conservatives" in the current lexicon. They're just normal people with normal concerns who also happen not to be bigots.
On the third party stuff:
Okay, maybe it looks like this. The Republicans in 2012 are in some weird "purge the unbelievers" state still and try to run on everything moderates dislike in Palin. Obama, completing a competent and successful first term, asks "Is the country better off than it was 4 years ago? Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" and wins a strong mandate for his second term. Obama having fully picked up the mantle of Reagan, the remnants of the GOP finally stop trying to resurrect Reagan's corpse, send the extremists to the wings, and start to rethink a conservative GOP that lets Kmiek and Powell and Weld and the rest back in.
How do you sell socially-conservative ideas to a moderate middle that often perceives social conservatism as intolerant?
Ross's use of the word "sell" reveals a lot about what's wrong with the conservative movement. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Republicans are supposed to be for small government, yet year after year they continue to add social agenda items to their list of things they want to legislate. And how do they sell these ideas? By making us feel morally corrupt if we don't believe what they believe. By using a religious platform that has no place in our politics. By fear. I have an idea for the conservatives: Drop the fucking social agenda, and get back to talking about small government.
Zic:"It's time the party started considering the notion that there's a return to be had from investing in people, just like there's a return to be had from investing in markets."
Markets are just a bunch of people. Joe the Plumber, to borrow the cliche, is a person.
What you really want is for the party to start considering the notion that there is a return to be had from transferring money from some people to others.
So the question is, why do you think the people you want to transfer money to are a better investment than Joe and similar people?
@Howard
What are you talking about? Social security and medicare are lumped together because they face the same intractable demographic problems. The Economist recently endorsed Obama, but one of their points of concern was that "social security, medicare and medicaid will be starting to bankrupt the country" by the end of Obama's second term. I guess we shouldn't worry about such "minute funding problems" though? I think the laziness is on your end.
Douthat's piece is interesting.
I agree with his conclusion that if "Republicanism" was going to be put into practice, 2000 - 2006 was the time to do it. Not only did it fail to create an appealing country to live in, it lurched horribly in the other direction.
No matter what the GOP does to alter it's policies, image and inclusiveness, it will take some time to get over the simple sense among the electorate that "They say they're for a small, efficient, competent government, but when it's show time, they have no idea how to actually do it."
I hope the Dems can show some competence and get some things done, or else we're out of options. For the last decades it seems like no one in D.C. is up a challenge the size of entitlement reform, or climate initiatives.
ninja zombie--
i'm not convinced that you are asking these questions in good faith, but i'll pretend you are.
the question is not whether joe can do more with $1000 bucks than susie can with $1000 bucks.
the question is whether society as a whole gets more when joe has $300,000. and susie has $0, or when joe has $250,000 and susie has $50,000.
and the answer is that joe can probably do a bit more with 300k than with 250k. but susie is severely disabled from becoming a producing member of society if she is utterly destitute. especially if susie is 4 years old.
and the same would be true if susie were the well-off upper-middle class person, and joe were the destitute person, esp. the destitute child. it's got nothing to do with who they are, or what color they are, or where they're from. poverty ruins lives. and those lives blight society.
we believe in investing in children. we also believe in investing in education and health care.
it's not a judgment against joe; when he falls on hard times he deserves a safety net, too.
but the current system where the ken lays earn hundreds of millions each year while hundreds of thousands languish in need--that system is not healthy for society, or the economy.
MikeF-
The supposed gaps in funding for social security are the right's favorite bugaboo, but it's just not the case. Even the Congressional Budget Office doesn't anticipate a social security shortfall until at least 2050. There are some long term demographic issues, but far from an overhaul, what's needed is an adjustment. Unfortunately the media has bought wholesale into the whole "social security in crisis" narrative, which has sunk the debate into false terms.
So really, the supposed "unsustainability" of social security is a good litmus test for who is being honest on the right. Not many, as it turns out.
I'd like to see them actually put some of their values into practice. They preach fiscal responsibility but have been shockingly spendthrift. They demonize single moms who've actually chosen life. Principles don't matter if you ignore them.
Lets be honest with ourselves, for a moment.
There are a few facts about the Electorate that the Republican Party has lost sight of in its overwhelming urge to play identity politics. First I believe that the overwhelming majority of the people in this country are socially conservative in the libertarian sense. We fundamentally believe that this is our country and we are free to succeed or fail by our own efforts. In a nutshell as people we are free to do whatever the hell we want as long as our actions do not infringe upon the life, liberty or property of other people. This idea of being able to do or be whatever you want does not square with the identity politics that have been played by the Republican Party since the advent of the Christian Coalition. Identity politics does not win elections unless either there is a significant majority of people who feel threatened by the changing social mores of a society or if identity politics is somehow successfully harnessed to some larger issue.
No offense to Ross, but the Abortion and Gay-Marriage social conservative movemement was not the deciding factor in any of the elections from 1980 on. In general Americans elect presidents in order to correct the flaws of the previous guy in office. As a group we are re-active, and the success or failure of a candidate hinges not on his ability to play identity politics but on how sucessfully the candidate is able to harness the national mood. In every election most people respond more like jilted lovers just out of a divorce than they do as rational calm individuals who seek their own self interest.
Lets back-track in 2004 Bush won the election because he was able to express the fears of the American Electorate by painting himself as the consistant, decisive, man-of action, in charge on 9/11. In short Bush won in 2004 because the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. Fast forward we've had a total of 8 years of failed consitant policy. Most americans believe its time for a change in how we do business because "news-flash" it isn't bloody working. Obama understands this. McCain Doesn't. Ultimately for this reason, Obama will win the election and McCain won't it's that simple. No amount of identity politicking will ever defeat a candidate who sucessfully captures the overall mood of the American People. Really that is what this election has been all about.
The conservative movement has some very deep thinking to do right now. It failed in this election because it has failed to capture our mood as people. My generation is the first generation in the history of this country that will according to predictions live worse than its parents. Since its founding or at least since Winthrop's City on a hill speech the basic idea of this country has been that if you work hard your income will rise. Well for the foreseeable future that isn't going to happen, and instead of adressing how government can be used to serve the interests of the public the Republican Party is off in some sort of la-la land where all that matters is race, gender, abortion, and the other ends of identity politics. How exactly do any of these issues help a father put his son through college?
The conservative mandate needs to be re-invented. Hopefully defeat in this election will help the Republican Party do that.
mikef--
the other half of what howard and nathan are saying is this:
medicaid and medicare are rising. but that's simply because all spending on health-care is rising. they are not rising any faster than the private spending is.
so the medical bills are going to be paid one way or another, if we keep on getting all the care we ask for, or the rationing will happen one way or another, if we don't.
medical spending may bankrupt the country. but it will happen whether it is in private or public channels.
matter of fact, the public channels promise much better cost-savings. that's why the veterans' administration has the best and cheapest health-care in america. not that this has stopped the bush regime from trying to destroy it, too.
It's time the party started considering the notion that there's a return to be had from investing in people, just like there's a return to be had from investing in markets. Sure there's a risk, too. But the return's a return on our future. And it's time Republicans started embracing it and supporting it and not just expecting family and church to support individuals.
This is another place where the Republicans need to decide if they're the Party of Business or the Party of Nineteenth-Century Morality. One would think that the Party of Business, for example, would look at job training programs and the need for innovation and decide a good investment in education is a necessary component of a strong society. The Party of Nineteenth-Century Morality, on the other hand, thinks those kids should pull themselves up by their bootstraps already.
here's another one, persia:
the right has to decide whether it's the party of personal responsibility, or the party of lotteries, casinos, and gambling 24/7.
fifty years ago, republicans would have been appalled by the spread of legalized gambling. it teaches the *worst* habits, it undermines thrift and self-reliance, and it contributes to a culture of instant gratification leading to its own impoverishment. it's the closest thing to crack you can do without a pipe.
but then a convergence of low-tax ideology, plus libertarian rhetoric, plus *huge* amounts of bribery from the casino lobbies, all conspired to turn pro-gambling into the republican orthodoxy.
it did not hurt that such republican luminaries as bill bennett and john mccain themselves were serious gamblers who took thousands, if not millions, of free bennies from the gambling interests.
once again, the republicans had a chance to show whether they were the party of actual hard work, industry, and self-reliance, or the party of k-street lobbyists and multi-millionaires.
and we know how they chose.
plus, this was a way of funding government without raising taxes on the rich--instead, you create an effective tax on the most desperate segments of society, lottery players.
but the 'anti-tax' bullshit was mostly a cover for the gambling interests.
how did the party of eisenhower wind up in bed with the casinos?
And by the way, Ta-Nehisi, I wouldn't go as far as you did in characterizing Ross's post as a "self-aware piece of writing".
Ross is aware of his surroundings, to be sure, but where's the acknolwedgement of failures? I'm not going to go listen to an hour long bloggingheads when he could have taken a few moments to discuss this in more detail in the post. I especially love the lamenting on Palin, which casts a giant shadow over his mea culpa. It seems Ross really just wants to spend more time talking about how depressed he is that he's going to have to wait many more years to have the opportunity to promote the conservative agenda again, instead of focusing on why that agenda failed, and what that failure says about the direction our country *really* wants to go.
This was my e-mailed response to Ross, as he just can't bear to, you know, make his blog actually a blog and turn comments on.
As you don't have comments enabled, I figured I'd drop you an e-mail in response to your question - "How do you sell socially-conservative ideas to a moderate middle that often perceives social conservatism as intolerant?"
Your question answers itself. Social conservatism isn't "perceived" as intolerant, it is intolerant, at least as currently practiced. It's governmental intervention in the most private spheres of daily life, governmental enforcement of religious morality and governmental discrimination against minority groups. You're trying to sell intolerance to the American people - a people who have a long and grand tradition of seeking out and embracing the better angels of our nature.
It doesn't take a Ph.D in American history to look at equality rights movements and see a pattern: more-or-less constant progress toward social liberalization. Does it move in fits and starts? Sure. But 150 years on from the Civil War, I don't see a mass movement to reinstate slavery. 90 years since the 19th Amendment, and I don't hear anyone clamoring to revoke women's suffrage. 50 years since the Civil Rights Movement, and nobody's introducing bills to reimpose Jim Crow. The fight to keep gays and lesbians in the closet (or in prison) is going to end the same way - with defeat for the forces of inequality and intolerance.
If social conservatism meant finding ways to help keep families together, building support structures such as child care and health care so that mothers can avoid abortion, creating healthy, thriving, peaceful communities and strengthening moral and social bonds in our society... those are "ideas." Those are starting points for a discussion and a debate. Nobody wants more abortions. Many people will agree that America's sense of community is weakening. Broken families hurt everyone. I bet there's some conservative ideas about how to deal with those issues.
But right now, to a growing number of Americans (and particularly young Americans such as myself), social conservatism is synonymous with bashing the homos, legislating the womb and pretending that if we don't tell kids about condoms, they won't have sex. Those aren't "ideas." They're thinly-disguised ignorance, intolerance and incompetence. And the longer Republicans try to sell them as if they're some grand solution to our nation's problems, the more you'll wander in the wilderness.
"This is another place where the Republicans need to decide if they're the Party of Business or the Party of Nineteenth-Century Morality."
Yep.
I'm a gun owners, small business owner, property owner, and regularly engage in hate speech. I just sent our 13 four-figure check to the IRS. Yet somehow I still manage to see myself as a liberal, and mostly vote for Democrats, because for the past 30 years I've feared the excess of the GOP more than the excesses of the Democrats. These last 8 years have proved that my instincts were correct.
Tomorrow I'll be voting for Barrack Obama. But there's plenty on this page http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/ that I either think is silly, trivial, or just bad policy. The tyranny and incompetance of the last eight years, combined with McCain's baffling campaign leaves me no choice.
But we need a viable minority party to make sure that Obama and a democratic controlled legislature from indulging in the worst of it's populist and anti-commerce instincts. Right now it looks like the Pubs are gonna double down on their worst instincts, and put themselves in an even worse position to provide a counter-balance to a Democratic majority.
One more thing I want to add is that Republicans are going to have to confront the fact that 2008 was not just a failure of George W. Bush. They are going to want to hang this millstone around his neck, and undoubtedly he bears most of the responsibility, but they're going to have to own up to the fact that the the current failure of Republicanism is far more pervasive and deep-seated than just Bush. They allowed George W. Bush to happen. They aided and abetted and supported all of the crimes and policies that are so disastrous. A responsible party would have never allowed it to happen, but there was a massive, widespread, institutional failure.
And McCain's divisive, disastrous campaign is as much a product of today's Republican party as it is a reflection of a shaky character. If you hear the NRO and Fox News tell it, McCain's problem was that he didn't take the current conservative insanity far enough.
I imagine 2012 will be the true wakeup call, when they run a True Believer and get destroyed. Then they might wake up to the fact that Bush wasn't the problem, but rather Republicanism-as-we-know-it is the problem. They're headed for 1964 all over again, and I wonder if they'll wake up in time. Obviously a lot can change between now and then, which is why the conservative post-mortems are going to make for some fascinating reading in the coming months.
@kid b
Right, I'm not saying that there's some simple magic bullet that will solve the rising cost of entitlement programs. But it's glib to dismiss the social security crisis as a "minute funding problem at worst", as howard said, and suggest that anyone who talks about the perils of upward-spiraling spending is being dishonest.
Yes, Nathan nails it. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Where's the mea culpa? Ross asks a lot of questions, but he doesn't answer many.
Modern conservatism is a lie, has been a lie, and will continue to be a lie. It is driven by the necessity of keeping power and resources out of the hands of African Americans, and all those who become allied with African Americans, and all those institutions that might represent African American power. It is a series of theoretical elaborations to justify political positions that have a purpose in group power.
Take, for example, the issue of gay marriage. Conservatives oppose gay marriage because homosexuality is a biblical no-no, and conservatives believe in the inerrant Bible. But no Christian believed in an inerrant bible until American Protestant churches split over slavery before the Civil War. After all, if Bible condoned slavery, and that judgement was to be normative to 19th century believers, then the bible had to be inerrant.
Once that principle was established as a conservative theological doctrine, then other positions must be supported. You have to be against evolution, too. Just to protect the inerrant bible.
Conservatism will never recover until conservatives dig down and confront the roots of all their theories in racial power politics. And it they do, what will be left? Nothing that makes a coherent ideology: just pragmatism, and interest group compromise in a democratic state.
mikeF--
i appreciate the reply, but i think we may still be disagreeing.
the phrase 'entitlement programs' is a lot like the phrase "weapons of mass destruction"; it joins together some things that are very different, and need to be thought about differently.
health-care spending is definitely rising, and some fairly radical action is needed to improve the situation. i think a single-payer would be best, something along the canadian or english model, though that may not be politically feasible. still: action is needed.
social security is not in anything like this shape. no action is needed. there is no action needed now, nor in the foreseeable future. it will spend more in the future, obviously, but it will also have more people paying into it. there is no structural flaw in the system.
there is no social security crisis.
just as bush used the threat of nukes to get us to invade a country that had a few rusting barrels of mustard gas left over from 1989, some republicans want to use the real problem of rising health-care costs as a rationale for destroying social security.
they are entirely different issues.
and just as you can generally tell that someone is not willing to be serious about iraq if they say "but we found the weapons of mass destruction!", so too you can generally tell that someone is not giving you an accurate picture if they say "but entitlement programs are in crisis!"
I think Ross's next essay should be on how to make a bucket hold water through the process of drilling holes in the bucket. He could start a weight loss program through the diet where you eat nothing but deep fried twinkies at the state fair. That should go at least as well as selling social conservatism to an electorate that isn't especially bigoted or reducing the debt by taking in less revenues. Here's my advice. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where George changes his life around (for an episode) by doing the exact opposite of whatever his insincts tell him. Do that. And have a happy Festivus.
Really, look at where the right is at. The know they have put themselves in the minority and the far right is talking about shunning Frum, Brooks, Sullivan et al for telling them that they were shooting themselves in the foot. That is a great way to learn from mistakes. Find the people who wouldn't have made them and warned you that you were making them. Then don't listen to them. I don't think Ross in particular is making this last mistake but the movement that he wants to comeback certainly is. Ugh.
But it's glib to dismiss the social security crisis as a "minute funding problem at worst"
He was talking about putting SS, Medicare and Medicaid all in the same boat, instead of talking about their problems separately. The problems that SS faces, and the solutions to it are far different than those of Medicare.
The conservatives are stuck in a civil war between the social Darwinist elites and identity politics of the white man's diminishment militias. The latter are a symptom of the worst in humanity, and exists all over the world. Turf wars, animal behavior. Hobbes. The former are sold on basic myths:
1. That the US government the biggest, baddest, mostest will ever be small by any measuring stick on earth. Ronald Reagan initiated the by God biggest government boondoggle in planetary history--aka Star Wars--for a starter.
2. That there ever was a free market economy, when in fact it has always been a front for K-Street corporatocracy.
3. That we could pay for all that by giving those that made out like bandits a pass--the sawbuck for you fool, Fort Knox for the fat cats bait and switch.
A conservative Hotel made of cards on Boardwalk, while everyone else in so much debt just to make it to their next paycheck that one strong wind in New Orleans or Galveston Texas is liable to bring the whole thing down.
Conservatives talk responsible, but walk, stagger around in the most spaced out pipe dreams, my goodness. And what's worse, they think they alone hold the secret keys to the capitalist system, when time after time those liberals have to come in when the muck is up to our necks and get them out of it.
@kid b,
You said that "[SS] will spend more in the future, obviously, but it will also have more people paying into it. there is no structural flaw in the system."
This is incorrect. If your assertion were true, then SS would stay in the black indefinitely and everything would be great. The reality - caused by changing demographics, namely the aging of the boomers - is this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Medicare_%26_Social_Security_Deficits_Chart.png
If it were just social security that faced this, then fine - we could increase the payroll tax, increase the SS Trust Fund, etc. But any discussion of the future of SS is tied to a discussion of the other entitlement programs, because they ALL face the same demographic-driven crisis that is pushing SS into deficit.
mikef--
"If it were just social security that faced this, then fine - we could increase the payroll tax, increase the SS Trust Fund, etc. "
so is this the argument for lumping them all together as 'entitlement programs': the fact that they all have to be paid from the same pot, and that they are all going to rise in the future?
because if that's right, then i think you'll have to include defense spending as an 'entitlement program', too. every tax dollar spent on missile defense is a tax-dollar not put into the trust fund etc.
i mean--look at that chart. it's fairly alarmist, and in 2035 or so, it still only predicts a shortfall of 700 billion dollars.
700 billion dollars. does that number ring any bells?
that's the amount that republicans were happy to give to secretary paulson for disbursal to his friends on wall street.
look: when the republicans say we need to spend one trillion dollars on the iraq war, no one blinks an eye. we just pay it.
when the republicans say we need to spend one trillion dollars propping up wall street, we just pay it.
it's only when democrats say that we may need to spend more on social security and health-care in the future that the media and the elites start running around screaming "crisis! crisis! crisis!"
hell, when it comes to spending on business and war, the same elites tell us there will be a crisis if we *don't* pay.
this is a mug's game. no one ever screams that the defense department is going to run out of money at some future date. we pay for it year by year, and costs go up year by year. yeah, we can argue about whether we pay too much. but nobody screams "crisis!".
the only thing needed to keep social security in the black for ever and ever is political will.
and better discourse. don't buy the distortions.
The biggest problem is a leadership vacuum.
They need a real leader who can synthesize the neocon (proactive defense), theocon (values-driven government), moneycon (globalization and deregulation), libertarian (low taxes, balanced budget) messages into a more palatable center-right Republicanism. John McCain did not have the rhetorical skills and integrity to do this properly. No one listens to him. If McCain wins, they will do nothing.
Besides that they generally just need to Grow Up!
1. Some regulation saves you from yourself. Just because you moved out of mommy and daddy's house it does not mean that none of their rules apply. Businesses need to be regulated to prevent them from destroying what they don't own i.e. the economy - a public good.
2. Regular maintenance saves money. Consistent enforcement of laws prevent large expensive problems.
3. Don't burn bridges. Diplomacy is cheaper and more effective than bullying.
4. Don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash. Stop talking tough, if you aren't willing to raise taxes. Wars are messy and expensive. Putting them on a credit card makes them even more messy and expensive.
5. The Chocolate Cake diet does not work. You are not going to lose 20 pounds by eating only chocolate cake. Similarly, cutting taxes does not raise revenue. The Laffer curve is a bad joke.
The supposed gaps in funding for social security are the right's favorite bugaboo, but it's just not the case. Even the Congressional Budget Office doesn't anticipate a social security shortfall until at least 2050.
The problem is that after 2017 or so, Social Security is going to have to draw down on the so-called "Trust Fund." The term "Trust Fund" is misleading, because it implies that there are some indpendent source of resouces out there to pay it off. In reality, the "Trust Fund" was invested in U.S. Savings Bonds, meaning that to pay out anything from the "Trust Fund," we have to take it from the General Fund.
In other words, the so-called existence of the "Trust Fund" does not actually solve anything once Social Security starts paying out more than it takes in, because for every dollar we take out, we have to put a dollar in - we are in the same position as we would be in if Social Security were just considered part of the overall budget.
mike f, to return to the discussion: social security has no meaningful problem at all.
the reason is simple: it has a dedicated tax (despite the bush administration's best efforts to treat that tax as fungible).
what the law requires is that there be a balance: currently, we are in a prefunding mode which has been loaned to the general fund. the general fund will repay the trust fund. by the end of that repayment, we'll have worked through the demographic bulge of the baby boomers.
at that point, it is possible that we will be able to pay currently projected benefits and it is possible that we will note: that moment of danger has generally been receding about as long as the right-wing has made it an issue.
so when i say social security has a minute funding problem, i mean it quite precisely: the problem that social security may (or may not: there are, of course different scenarios that the trust fund analyzes each year, and some of those scenarios never show a problem) have would require, at worst, lowering benefits.
the notion that there is a "demographic" problem as such causing problems for social security is just total blather.
the medical side, as kid bitzer in particular has explained, is a different matter: the market place does not do a good job allocating health-care resources. as i noted, even hayek himself accepted the value, in an affluent society, of a government role in delivery of health services, in part because it improved the mobility of labor.
glaivester, it's amazing how often we have to go through this, but still:
the supreme court has actually ruled on special purposes taxes (in this case, the highway trust fund). they are not fungible. they must be used for the purpose congress intended.
and the point is that working people have already paid their regressive social security tax share, which was used to "fund" upper-income-slanted tax cuts.
when it's time for the money to be paid back, the upper-income will, though the progressive tax system, have to pay back what they've borrowed from working people.
they got the deal on very advantageous terms and they took full advantage of it. they should stop squealing and stfu.
regardless, this is not a social security problem: it's an irresponsible governance problem manifested in the general fund and the failure of modern right-wing ideology.
@kid b,
Just a couple points. First, I think you're too hung up on semantics. "Entitlement program" simply means a program where the government is agreeing to hand out money to a segment of the population for a specific reason (age, infirmity, etc.). I am lumping SS, medicare and medicaid together (they're not the only entitlement programs) because they face the same impending crisis of demography.
Second, you're making some false analogies. The bailout did not add $700b to the national debt; that money was allocated to buy up troubled assets. Some of those assets will fail; many others will be profitable. And of course, the bailout will not be a yearly phenomenon. By contrast, all of the money that is paid down to the SS Trust Fund instantly gets added to the national debt, and the annual debt will grow every year.
As for the Iraq War, I agree it was a disaster and a terrible waste of resources, not to mention life and well-being. But how does that invalidate the argument that we will have trouble paying for our entitlement programs in the coming decades?
I have read several commentors mention the low level of taxation under Reagan in a negative tone. However, on his site, Obama brags about having a lower level of federal taxation than existed under Reagan. From his site:
Obama’s plan will cut taxes overall, reducing revenues to below the levels that prevailed under Ronald Reagan (less than 18.2 percent of GDP).
So we will continue as a lightly taxed capitalist society if Obama sticks to his word. If it is bad under Reagan, why is it good under Obama?
I don't have much of a clue as to where the conservative movement will move. I can see two possible scenarios involving the religious side. One is that the rest of the party blames them for the loss because Palin was their girl and they lose some power. However, it is equally possible that the religous right gains if their percentage of the party's total increases if there are significant defections.
My hope is that the party becomes more isolationist (though not protectionist), more libertarian (though not corporatist) and more tolerant. I am not going to bet on any of the above happening.
Political predictions tend to make people look foolish, most are what the predicter wants to happen as opposed to a sober view of things. After Clinton won easily in 1992, the idea of a Speaker Gingrich was laughable.
mikef, let me add something: the chart you point to? you do realize that it doesn't illustrate either a demographic problem or a problem with entitlements?
insofar as social security had a demographic problem, it was the baby boom bulge, and that problem was addressed through prefunding (never again, but i digress). the 2017 date is the potential date when the general fund has to start paying back the money it borrowed from the trust fund, but so what? i've already addressed that to glaivester, and i'll note - again - that that issue, such as it is, has nothing to do with demographics.
meanwhile, you understand, don't you, that there are no taxes dedicated to defense spending? that defense spending needs to be funded every year? that there is no funding of defense spending outside of the general fund which has plenty of claimants? which is to say if i drew a similar chart for defense spending between now and 2040, it would look even more disastrous.
to your way of thinking, i suppose this means we can't afford defense spending. there must be a pacifist joke in here somewhere....
Howard,
The problem is that the government already spent the SS surplus. It's not as if there's some fat, untouched General Fund just waiting to start raining money onto the elderly - all of those payments after 2017 are going to come in the form of added federal debt. Now, I agree that we have to honor those IOUs, and I'm certainly not going to argue in favor of defaulting on the Trust Fund - but that doesn't mean that adding over 4 trillion of debt during the 25-year reckoning is not problematic.
Again, if it were just Social Security that faced this challenge of demography (and it is a demographic problem; the baby boom forced major adjustments on the structure of SS) then I would not be terribly worried. We could raise taxes moderately and be done with it. But the problems of an aging population are going to hit medicare and medicaid at the same exact time, and I worry about our ability to absorb that sort of hit on all of our entitlement programs at the same time.
Now, I agree that we have to honor those IOUs, and I'm certainly not going to argue in favor of defaulting on the Trust Fund - but that doesn't mean that adding over 4 trillion of debt during the 25-year reckoning is not problematic.
4 trillion? That's it?
Whew, I thought you were talking about real money. I was worried there.
mikef, i truly do not understand your argument.
there was a demographic bulge relative to social security. a plan was set in place nearly three decades ago to address that bulge and it involved building up a social security surplus and using that surplus to pay down the national debt so that we had plenty of borrowing capacity to handle the bulge in a responsible (rather than entirely pay-as-you-go) way.
if an irresponsible bush administration and an irresposible republican congress "spent" that surplus, it's going to have to be replaced. c'est la vie: they should have thought of that in the first place. it's why bush ran on the lockbox in 2000: he was still pretending to be responsible, even though his numbers didn't add up.
but that's not a demographic problem and it's certainly not an entitlement problem, except insofar as the entire tax philosophy that undergirded this generational attempted theft is a problem of the entitlement of the upper income: that's a general fund problem and can be solved in many ways.
lumping that it in with an entirely different problem - the government's role in the health-care system - is a dishonest argument. as i say, we may as well note that we have a defense spending problem, and a quite serious one, since there are plenty of dollars committed to be spent and no dollars committed to fund.
this is why we have representative governments: to balance out competing needs and interests. but claiming that "entitlements" are the source of budgetary problems is just not an honest assessment of the issues.
You have to remember, Ross favors a means test for entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, etc. If you make six figures, do you really need to use Medicare? Or take in Social Security? Granted, it's only 5-10% of the population, but any savings would be beneficial.
I like what kid bitzer said about the financial elements of the Republican program.
Wrong as I think they are, we'd be far better off with a conservative party that was upfront and consistent about its economic positions, which in turn, would help those of us who are progressives force the Democratic party to do so as well.
I think the right faces a similar problem, but even more complex on religion.
One of the biggest "not coming clean with themselves" battles among conservatives is about the church. Palin stands for a significant Evangelical rump party that *really would* like to vastly increase the role of government in regulating private life based on cultural and religious grounds.
To name only a few issues, they want to see:
* a return to government regulation of reproduction, in both abortion and birth control. Thanks to advances in medical technology since the 1970s, that regulation if reintroduced would likely be *far more* invasive then before Roe v Wade.
* in publicly funded schooling and scientific research, science would need to bend whenever a conflict with religion is perceived.
* allow local jurisdictions where there are Evangelical strongholds to roll back the fairly big libertarian gains for sexual privacy that allow people to mostly quietly have sex with or make marital arrangements with the people they prefer.
And that's not even dealing with the role the true Evangelical hardcore thinks they should have in foreign affairs and national security, which includes a wide range of rather scary positions drawing on theocons' interpretation of reality in the Middle East, Russia and Asia.
It seems that even a moderate conservative like Douhat is convinced that these are sellable positions, since they represent something like the status quo of mad Men era/1960 America.
I just think he's way off on that. Around two thirds of the populace have no interest in living according to the religious culture that one third feels obligated to try to impose on others. Not sure how they're going to rebrand that.
The question they should really be asking themselves is "Why do we think that the government should enforce our particular moral values, and how is the desire to do so 'conservative'?"
Seriously, the GOP is going to have to break with the social conservatives just like the Democrats had to break with the segregationists. They might have to go through something similar where the far-right Christianists put up their own George Wallace, but they're going to have to drop that plank from the party platform eventually.
The conservative ideas of lower taxes and smaller government still have a place and an audience, but they just don't jive with the social conservatives' moralizing. As long as they try to cater to the theocratic portion of the electorate, they're going to be in trouble.
kid-b, re: your gambling point. First, I'm not willing to concede that the gambling industry is all powerful and responsible for our current low taxes, bad services regime. It's not difficult to sell the American people on the belief that they don't actually have to PAY for the services they receive (Most people actually are only keen on small government for services THEY don't need, but that's another issue.)
That said, gambling IS a bane and has become much more widely available in part because it provides governments with a kind of voluntary stupdity tax. The trad conservative/reformist answer would be to ban gambling. However, this has been widely tried before and tends to enrich organized crime and reduce respect for the law. A more measured and effective response would be a regulatory one aimed and reducing the amount of gambling and its impact while minimizing the impact on individual liberty.
I don't know what this would look like, exactly. Off the top of my head: limiting high-stakes gambling to a few locations in the country. Allowing low-stakes casinos, possibly operated directly by charities, elsewhere. A moratorium on new casinos on Indian reserves, and perhaps a gradual buyout of some of their licenses. An end to instant lottery tickets: weekly or biweekly lotteries should keep the numbers rackets at bay without encouraging too much addictive spending. I'd also consider having the FCC ban televising poker tournaments, but this obviously raises free-speech issues.
Still, this is an issue, like gun control, that's almost dead. Only a few theocons really care about this issue, and the "solutions" they're peddling will be worse than the cure...On the other hand, the moneycons will want to peddle their faux-libertarian nonsense on this issue, because casinos are big business.....
John Henry -- beautiful points. I might suggest the leadership vacuum came from electing leaders with vacuums between their ears; but the real problem was an electorate that found it choose leaders who's word and actions didn't match up. And in conservative circles, in the McCain campaign, that practice remains in vogue.
It's do what I say, not what I do. And it's politics without honor.
I much prefer to lead by example. To follow leaders who inspire by example.
Kid bitzer: "the question is whether society as a whole gets more when joe has $300,000. and susie has $0, or when joe has $250,000 and susie has $50,000."
No, that isn't the question. The question is whether society as a whole gets more if you *take* $50,000 from joe and *give* to susie, or not.
If you don't give to susie, she may go out and get a job. In that case, joe has $300,000 and susie has $50,000, and society has gained the value of Joe and Susie's full productive output.
On the other hand, taking from Joe may induce him to work less. "Screw this, uncle sam is keeping 40%. I'm not working past 6." His income may go down to $275k, of which he keeps $240k and susie keeps $35k of joe's money. Susie also decides not to get a job. "Screw waking up early, I get $35k now, why work for $40k? In this case, society loses the benefit of all of susie's labor and some of joe's.
To show that robbing joe to pay susie is beneficial to society, you need to argue that side effects such as those I've described do not occur.
That's very different than comparing two arbitrarily chosen hypothetical worlds.
"especially if susie is 4 years old."
Very few people oppose programs to assist poor children (programs that work, at least).
Incidentally, virtually no one is utterly destitute anymore. Even the poor are basically middle class, and have a house, sufficient food, medical care, everything a person needs.
Read this report, which describes the goods and services the poor have access to: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm
Howard,
I see it as a demographic problem because SS was originally designed to be self-sustaining; it clearly isn't anymore, and that's because we have an aging population. The fact that this problem was noticed decades ago doesn't make it less problematic.
And likewise, the fact that SS surpluses should have gone towards reducing the national debt (to make future payments easier) is true. But that's not what happened. From a pragmatic standpoint we are sitting on a mountain of debt, with no plans to reduce it, staring at these looming entitlement obligations. That's what worries me, not the idea that there was never a plan. There was, but we screwed it up.
As for the GOP dropping its moralizing wing, I couldn't agree with you more. The Democrats deserve to be in power now, but they need a fiscally responsible opposition to keep them honest. If the opposition remains fixated on antagonizing gays and pro-choicers then we're in trouble.
mikef, just to clarify, i'm "howard" and someone else is "Howard."
that said, look, i'm sorry, you seem like a nice enough individual and all, but you clearly don't understand the social security system. it was, for example, designed to be pay-as-you-go; self-sustaining suggests that somehow, a critical mass is reached whereby social security doesn't need current revenues from taxes, and that has never been part of social security.
as for the "problem," which i deliberately put in quote marks, you are confusing a specific condition - the aging of the baby boom generation - with a long-term problem. social security could have remained on a pay as you go basis, but from the standpoint of generational equity, having the baby boomers prepay was the right thing to do.
but this is a specific demographic group, not a long-term demographic problem.
but now let's get to the bottom line: right now, the social security system is producing a surplus, which it will continue to do for years. the fact that the general fund will have to repay its debt to the social security trust fund is, indeed, part of that surplus, but only part. social security in no way is contributing to any long-term budget deficit problem, because, as i have noted, it has its own special purpose tax. the only issue that can arise with social security is whether current expectation concerning benefit levels in 40 years can be met. i can live with the anxiety.
meanwhile, it is a true statement that one of the burdens on the general fund in the coming years will be repaying the trust fund, but it is only one of many burdens, and by a long measure not the most significant. it remains an untrue argument promoted by charlatans that we can group social security with medicare and call it one "entitlement" problem, and you haven't presented any reason why we should. repeated invocations of a non-existent demographic problem do not such a case make.
Around 30% of Americans are socially conservative so to abandon that entirely is not helpful or realistic. (Okay considering most here are liberal or Democratic it's helpful in a "I really want them to lose worse than they do now" way)
That said the kind of extreme social conservatism Republicans give airtime to should be ditched. Don't show the kind of social conservatives who read Jack Chick tracts or admire Bob Jones. Or the kind who want sodomy and pornography to be banned. Denounce TV preachers who openly preach hatred of Mormons. Muslims, Hindus, or Homosexuals. Generally speaking de-emphasize the "Southern Baptist" strain of social conservatism. As Pentecostalism is growing, especially among Latinos, you can maybe look for the more tolerant among Pentecostals to replace them. Get smarter social conservatives too, like Robert P. George or some of the people who write for "First Things." (Or Culture 11's "Credo" segment)
One I kind-of dislike, but seems strategically right, is emphasizing effort to reduce abortion rates over efforts at banning. Although banning late-term abortion, and supporting parental consent laws, I think still helps Republicans more than hurts them.
In economic things favor earned-income tax credits and never again imply they're like welfare. Possibly encourage a system like "micro-loans" so poorer people can start home businesses if they can't find work. Dump the "spend and borrow" economic conservativism. Maintain a belief in low corporate taxes, but on individuals target any tax-cuts to those making less than $500,000 a year. (Has to be a bit wealthier than the Democrats would do or they could lose too much "working rich" support)
A major thing is reaching out to Hispanics. Conservatives should do about everything independent Hispanic voters want that existing Republican voters can tolerate. Conservatives should learn Spanish more and hire more experts on Latin America.
"As for the GOP dropping its moralizing wing, I couldn't agree with you more. The Democrats deserve to be in power now, but they need a fiscally responsible opposition to keep them honest. If the opposition remains fixated on antagonizing gays and pro-choicers then we're in trouble."
Posted by MikeF
Mike, there has not been a fiscally responsible GOP since 1980. This didn't stop the Clinton administration from doing very well - and that was even *before* the GOP took Congress.
We'll fix thins - you just lie, b*tch BS and kvetch. Don't worry; the american people do have a short memory, and in 2016 you can probably sell them on Jenna Bush.