My name is Ta-Nehisi Coates, and I'm a social liberal. I'm pro-choice. I believe in the right to die. I believe in gay marriage. I'm against the death penalty. And, and as we've recently seen, I don't believe that all kids should be raised by married parents. I also like being black. But I'm clear that most of my views are to the left of most black people. By and by, I hope that isn't the case. But it is today, and understanding that difference is key.
I think one of the biggest problems with the GOP is that they they mistake their deepest held beliefs for mainstream American beliefs. The root of the current conservative crack-up probably lies in Iraq, but the one event that exposed it all, for me, was Terri Schiavo. Here you had a sitting President, a gaggle of Senators and congressmen bending over backward to argue that government was a better arbiter of a woman's fate, than her husband and her doctors. The moment Bill Frist decided to give a diagnosis via video tape, I felt the wind shift. When it comes to the end of their days, most Americans would want their spouse--not the Senate Majority Leader--to be the final authority.
The point is that you have to be able to distinguish your deeply held beliefs, from the electorates. I think much of the GOP's trouble stems from the inability to discern the difference. That whole "Real America," "Real Virginia," small-town snobbery bit, isn't an act--they actually believe it. I've never understood the whole "Center-right country" meme, because it's ultimately self-serving--and then self-defeating. It blinds you to the hard work of arguing, cajoling and fighting with the electorate, until they see your point. It's interesting that so many of their most dominant voices of the GOP (Steele, Gingrich, Limbaugh) have either never won an election, or haven't won one in a decade.
I keep thinking about the big things that have always kept me from being a conservative--the knee-jerk worship of a past that branded me half a man, the elevation of the loud imbeciles who think science teachers should be using the Bible, the toleration and baiting of bigots who cloaked themselves in the garb of "States Rights," and now run under the garb of "protecting marriage." The common denominator here is an unreflective veneration of what was, a belief that tradition, no matter how backwards, can heal all. Thus it's only right, that Steele, Gingrich and Limbaugh make up the leadership.
It's not that I think liberals are without flaw, but to argue that our most strident members should be our public face, would seem silly. As Ross intimates, if most liberals thought it was good idea for Howard Zinn Randall Robinson, or Noam Chomsky to be a spokesperson for the Democratic Party, I'd think we'd all gone insane. If Democratic politicians were scared to disagree with Keith Olberman or Michael Moore, I'd be a man without a home.
But these guys think that they are America. They delude themselves with that "center-right nation" analysis, and then mask their losses by claiming they didn't really lose. They think the problem is their wardrobe, their slang, their hairstyle. This is what black folks call Project-Bougie or--more aptly put--just plain trifling. The GOP is out shopping for a new dining set, a new couch, a flat-screen--anything to make the crib look a little more inviting. Meanwhile the water bill is two months past due. The lights are off. And the eviction notice is in the mail.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
That was beautiful.
"unreflective"
You've hit the nail on the head. Lots of reacting. Not a lot of thinking. Thx for this.
Heh.
Great post.
The Schiavo thing was a backbreaker for a lot of people, I think. My father is pretty conservative, and almost always votes GOP, but after that happened, I'd never seen him more angry at the party. This was right around the time that his father was hooked up to a respirator and slowly dying of pneumonia, so it hit close to home. He was just completely repulsed by their arrogance and grandstanding, as I imagine a lot of people were.
These are the posts that keep me reading your blog, brother.
Well said.
Agree, and yet...
That's not conservativism. It's Modern Republicanism, or Reactionary, but not Conservative.Conservatives take the view that Tradition (such as the Tradition of the Rule of Law, rather than Rule of Mob, or Rule of The Leader) is there for a reason, and the assumption is that the reason is a good one. Now it is not unconservative to abandon a tradition that has outlived any usefulness it ever had, but one shouldn't just throw out traditions without consideration.
The whole Tery Schaivo thing was very radical, and opposed to States Rights. States Rights Conservatives felt the Federal Government had no business legislating on the liveliness of Mrs. Schaivo.
This right here is precisely why you're on my RSS feed--so I can forward stuff like this to my friends and relatives.
And that final paragraph painting the GOP as "hood rich" is awesome. Only now I have "got everythang in my mama name..." stuck in my head. Thanks a lot, man.
This is your most brilliant post so far. And what Tony Comstock highlighted was just beautiful. I've never seen such a brilliant description of deep denial...I'm both awed and jealous.
Simply a beautiful piece of writing, Ta-Nehisi. Swoon.
coates,
you don't give the gop enough credit. they don't worship a past that thought of you as half a man. they worship a past that thought of you as 3/5ths of a man...
Coates,
What a beaut. I'm borderline a fili-negro socialist and I knew I would never look at the GOP as an alternative after Schiavo.
LOL @ "project-bougie"
To pick a nit, Noam Chomsky would probably rather kill himself than be called a Democrat.
Allow me to join the chorus. Brilliant.
I enjoyed the hell out of this post, but I take a bit of an issue with this
if most liberals thought it was good idea for Howard Zinn Randall Robinson, or Noam Chomsky to be a spokesperson for the Democratic Party, I'd think we'd all gone insane.
The population of people in the US who think like Zinn and Chomsky is tiny compared to the population who go to church three times a week, believe in bible literalism and all the other social conservative ideas. So if 50% of "Chomsky Democrats" left the democratic party, the loss would be miniscule compared to 50% of Limbaugh Republicans.
This is all true, except for one thing: The past that conservatives worship is imaginary. More generally, conservatives have an extremely complex and problematic relationship with "America." Yes, most of them rely on the rhetorical device that Ta-Nehisi highlights, that they're the spokespeople for real Americans. But then they also denounce the America that actually exists as a cesspool of cultural rot. So, somehow, America is a wonderful, essentially perfect, yet rotten and depraved country.
Unpacking these contradictions is tricky; I've made my own attempt elsewhere (if interested, click on my name here and scroll down to "Why do they hate America?"), but Ta-Nehisi is certainly right about the world of hurt this is causing them right now.
I resent that every day of my life I have to wake up and find that the right is determined to highjack our national attention with their shrill buffoonery. One of the reasons that Obama won the last election was that the McCain campaign was in perpetual heart attack mode. It's tiring enough to be a citizen day in and day out working to improve the life of those with whom one comes in contact without having to answer one bit of nonsense after another just to get common sense across to people.
For me, beyond that and what Ta Nehisi has mentioned here is that even among more reasonably toned conservatives, I do not hear a lot of reflection in how their core principles have led to such an abject failure to bring about the results they desire. They tend to agree that the Limbaugh suit of clothes is nothing more than a poser playing mob don and pimp, but they themselves haven't noted the reason the wolf is at the door is that they have invited him to the table as their bodyguard.
@wiredog
That's a good observation, but it's the GOP that stole the word, not the opposition that gave it to them. Conservative now means what Limbaugh wants it to mean, until it gets taken back.
@DougEMI
You're right, but I think TNC was making a point about equivalence in the extremity of views, not population of those who subscribe to them.
Combining his logic with yours, a large number of Republicans (Limbaugh Republicans) are insane.
My gay, jewish, pragmantic, conservative, identipol rejecting uncle (whom I adore) is fond of saying, "Conservatives long for a past that never was, liberals imagine a future that can never be."
That's not conservativism. It's Modern Republicanism, or Reactionary, but not Conservative.
I've given up on this long ago, far too many people who vote straight Republican and agree with all of what they do call themselves conservative. The Republican party platform is also the conservative platform in common everyday usage now.
The worst part of the Terry Shiavo thing was they had to kill her by dehydration and starvation. Wouldn't it have been more humane to do it another way? Of course, Republicans would have had none of that and fought tooth and nail that if she was going to die, it had to by the hard way.
I voted for Obama because I'm a conservative. Couldn't stomach the Radical Right Limbaugh Republicans. But there won't be an alternative "conservative" party until the failure of the RRLRs is complete. So give the Democrats the keys and let them drive. Yes, they'll run up the deficit, but not as much as Bush did. And maybe they'll actually fix things up enough that the country can go to a more conservative view.
Although small (or, rather,local) government conservativism may be impossible in a country with 400,000,000 inhabitants.
Glorious post.
Your sense of not being the mainstream, but working to change the mainstream, reminds me of a Stephen Carter argument on being "Willing to Lose":
"Voting is the ultimate symbol of trust in our fellow citizens. To vote is to propose that we settle our differences not by warfare, and not by litigation, but by accepting the forms of democracy and laying our cherished certainties on how the world should be on the table. We rely on persuasion rather than coercion, which means that we risk being unpersuasive. If we are sufficiently unpersuasive, then our side loses and the other side wins."
Notably, that's Carter's effort to offer a Christian theory of voting, in a column for Christianity Today magazine. It's a touchstone for me of a careful, thoughtful version of how religion can interact with politics, proving that mindless bullying really isn't the only faith-based model around. [http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/march/33.74.html]
Picking on Michael Moore, who has been brave in the face of a vicious, ascendant Right & a cowering, obsequious Left is beyond pathetic. It's too easy. What do you disagree with him about? Corporate greed? Universal healthcare? Racial injustice?
Doug,
Your right on raw numbers, say the Zinn wing is 5% vs the 27% that seem to be Limbaugh's dead enders, so what? the bottom line is the same, you can make a lot of money as a talk radio host who appeals to 27% of the country, but you can't win any elections.
Your right on raw numbers, say the Zinn wing is 5% vs the 27% that seem to be Limbaugh's dead enders, so what? the bottom line is the same, you can make a lot of money as a talk radio host who appeals to 27% of the country, but you can't win any elections.
Part of my point, though it was unstated, is that someone who appeals to 27% has a hell of a lot better chance of winning an election than someone who appeals to 5%. It was only four years ago that Bush won an election with the forementioned dead enders. Two unpopular wars and a near depression got a democrat in the White House, if we remain in a deep recession and in one of those unpopular wars three and a half years from now, the electability of anyone with a Republican affilition goes way up.
Brilliant. Posts like this are why I read you. Thank you for summing it up so clearly.
TNC--
This is not directly related to much of anything, but you mention that you are to the left of black America, and I wonder what your impression is of African-American views on the legalization of drugs. I read recently that 40-plus percent Americans believe that weed should be legal. How pro or con of legalization or decriminalization do you think black America is?
To be fair, Michael Steele DID just win an election to become RNC head - of course, the only voters were committed Republicans, so that probably speaks to your point even more. You're right that their view of what Americans are really like (what they're not is, as simple and monolithic as the GOP thinks they are) is deeply skewed.
"The point is that you have to be able to distinguish your deeply held beliefs, from the electorates. I think much of the GOP's trouble stems from the inability to discern the difference. That whole "Real America," "Real Virginia," small-town snobbery bit, isn't an act--they actually believe it. I've never understood the whole "Center-right country" meme, because it's ultimately self-serving--and then self-defeating."
It's only relatively recently that more people lived in big cities of a million or more, than places that have a million or less. Population size and density are fairly good predictors of whether a place is going to vote Democrat or Republican. So if you're just going by "majority rules," then the small-town model really was the "real" America - in the sense that most people lived there, and therefore those places called the shots.
In a broader sense, it's the same conflict that's been around for literally thousands of years: the civilized (literally - living in cities) urban versus the small-town and rural. It's not going away anytime soon.
Picking on Michael Moore is beyond pathetic? Who was picking on Michael Moore? And just you might agree with someone on a number of principles doesn't mean you can't disagree with them.
Oh, and Fahrenheit 9/11 sucked.
You called them 'trifling'.
BWA HA HA HA HA
I hear you, Coates.
I hear you.
Doug,
I'd say Bush is the absolutely upside of that kind of strategy. He lost in 2000 (maybe not in a way that could be proven legally, but we all know that voters in FL intended to vote for Gore not Buchanan) And in 2000 as a sitting president during a war he beat the oh so charismatic John Kerry by 50,000 votes in Ohio. Remember the wide spread backlash against the war hadn't started yet, that came in 05 and 06. And the demographics have changed since 04 and continue to change in the wrong direction for the Base + a few moderates strategy that worked for Rove. Someone on a thread on 538 pointed out that if you took today's demographics and applied them to the 1980 vote Carter wins.
Interesting stuff - and I have to agree that the Schiavo thing was a big deal, because it showed that the GOP were nuts, and didn't really represent "family values." But I don't think it was the death knell, but just a harbinger, because it was really the failures of Katrina and Iraq and the economy, I mean, how could anyone in their right mind vote for these imbeciles again?
The GOP basically created huge potholes all over America. People can deal with a little nuttery like Schiavo if somebody fixed their potholes. But if you don't just not fix them, but create new ones in Iraq, New Orleans and a huge crater like pot hole in the world economy - well, a lot of folks can deal with religious nuts, but just not incompetent ones.
Thank goodness for the young - they are helping change this country and for the better...
Republicans aren't conservatives. I'm not sure they ever have been. What is so conservative about ignoring the environment, racking up huge deficits, waging unnecessary wars, allowing hurricane victims to drown and starve, outing CIA agents, expanding executive powers, and on and on and on...
kay: why do you take umbrage at TNC knocking Michael Moore as the face of the democratic party?
Ever get cut off by some jerk on the expressway, then you notice their Obama08 bumpersticker? You can like their politics, but hate their driving.
You ask, "What do you disagree with him about? Corporate greed? Universal healthcare? Racial injustice?"
How about a dislike of Moore's guerilla style of ambushing people with real civilians alongside of him as props for his films? I like his politics, but I hate his driving.
Rush Limbaugh asks, "Why shouldn't I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?"
Hell, given that argument, I'd have to agree with Rush. But then I remember he's a bloviating idiot that I can not stand to hear speak.
See. That's how that works.
Michael Medved once stated on his show that "The US is a conservative country." I then pointed out the following:
1) we have anti-discrimination laws on the books that conservatives oppose
2) The US remains a pro-choice country, regardless of moral resevations about abortion
3) Americans by a considerable majority think it would be wrong to deny housing or a job to a person because they are gay, and
4) the things that unions fought for (non arbitrary termination of employment, health care and pension benefits, seniority based salary, and pay increases that at least track the cost of living) are so engrained in the business culture as to make unions border on obsolete.
Given all this, he had to admit that, at a minimum, the country has embraced and enshrine liberal views on these big issues (non-discrimination, fairness in employment), not the laissez faire conservative position. Add in the fact that no GOPer EVER campaigns on a platform to end Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or any of the other Great Society inventions/expansions, and you have a country that looks an awful lot like Europe, as quiet as its kept.
I think what killed the GOP was Katrina. Spike Lee's "When the levees broke" has a segment where an older White couple was vacationing in Italy, I think it was, while CNN showed people stranded throughout Louisiana. Their response: "how could this happen to Americans in the United States of America." As with 9/11, all those normal boundaries of race and class just melted away.
And what was the GOP respose? Well, it was schizophrenic. On the one hand, you had the Bushies declaring everything was swell while the cameras showed people on Day 3 of living on a highway overpass. Loss of credibility. Then the Limbaugh types got in the act and said it was "their own fault" that they were drowning, or it was the gramatically challenged GOPers saying "when you have a Democrat governor blah blah blah." So not only were the GOPers not credible, they were politically petty and mean spirited to boot.
Now I agree that there was a lot of poor planning by the people who ended up on roofs. But when the house is burning down, that is not a time for a lecture on the dangers of careless smoking and lung cancer. Yet that is what the GOPers did: c.y.a. in the face of abject incompetence. And they though you voters were too f*cking dumb to know the difference at election time in 2008. Guess ya showed them, huh?
Well said, TNC.
@kay
Michael Moore is as much of an obnoxious bloviator as Limbaugh. he is rude, pompous, and twists the truth to serve his purpose.
You just happen to like his opinions.
Beautiful post.
Mr C.
I think you raise some valid points that need to be addressed if there is any hope of moving past the culture wars. Personally I think of society as a car traveling down a road. The ability to imagine a better future represents the gas which drives us towards the future. A healthy critical respect for tradition is the brake that enables us to avoid a few of the barriers on the road. We need both for a stable pluralistic humanistic society founded on a sense of commonality that embraces the rights and duties of everyone.
Our traditions while they can act as hindrances on our thought, as in the case of using scripture to teach science, may also act as a way to deal with an uncertain future. The bible is a prime example, on the one hand it has been used to justify horrible practices such as slavery, colonialism, and the inequality of women, so too has scientific opinion. However; the bible has also been applied as a force for social justice, for equality, and reason in public life. The proper role of tradition is to preserve the best aspects of human experience, while discarding or modifying the parts of tradition that are unjust, immoral, -meaning that an action is immoral if it violates the rights of people to live, act, and think freely-, or ignorant. Tradition is important, after all where would we be without the models of strong independent minded people, who weren't afraid to challenge the conventions of their day, that tradition has handed to us?
However, tradition is never enough. We also need the image-breakers, the iconoclasts who tear down existing frameworks in order to build a new social order. The small l liberal tradition in this regard is as important as the small c conservative tradition. Where would we be without the people who said that we must have a new beginning, a new past, a new future, or even to use the cliche "a new birth of freedom?"
And yet, once the rubble has been cleared away, once the framework that institutionalized people to be racist, sexist, prejudiced, and pejorative is torn down; if we are to build a new society with a better system our building material has to come from somewhere. Again we need the small c conservatives to remind us of the better parts of our nature, and our traditions, in order that we may use them to create something that is more than the sum of all its parts.
If we are going to clean the American house we need the liberals to take out the trash; but in some respects we need the conservatives to remind them to save a few of the heirlooms that are worth keeping. After all where would our examples of how to behave as rational individuals in a free society come from if it wasn't for the people in our past who have challenged us to be more than we are at the present time?
Bring it TNC! I don't disagree with anything you've written here.
You state, "It's interesting that so many of their most dominant voices of the GOP (Steele, Gingrich, Limbaugh) have either never won an election, or haven't won one in a decade."
That is true. But the thing is they get plenty of media exposure. In my small world of family, friends and associates, I am frequently dismayed by how many of them listen to what these, and other, republicans/conservatives say - and believe them without question!
My sanity was saved during the W. Bush administration when I discovered the liberal and progressive blogosphere. Finally, sources that provided both sides of an issue or just did the fact checking for me. I share as much as I dare with those in my world but they would rather watch cable TV news or listen to news radio than read. Unfortunately, many of these broadcasts are not fair and balanced, and I'm not only referring to Fox News.
Fortunately, a lot of the younger generation gets it. I just hope they continue to be involved and vote as they did in 2008.
I'm not sure if your familiar with term, Jumped the Shark, but you hit it dead on the head with Schiavo. That is when you knew this current crop of right wingers lost the country. Their biggest problem is not their philosophy. No their biggest problem is credibility. They have none whatsoever. they believe in limited government unless a woman wants to choose. The sanctity of marriage, unless a husband wants to pull his wife off life support. Returning money to the people, even though their states receive more money back from the federal government than the send to it. Small government and fiscal responsibility, except the last eight years have seen the biggest expansion in government since at least the Great Society and the worst fiscal mismanagement since Reagan. Their problem is hypocrisy. Do as I say and not as I do doesn't work with children, why the hell do these fools think it would work with adults
Stacy, I had a long post about Moore and then you summed up an answer better than I could have. Thanks.
I don't think the Republicans will ever realize how many votes Schiavo lost. Those videos of her horrified me. Was anyone really surprised when they did the autopsy and said her brains were pretty much banana pudding?
A very good post. I probably have more in common with your politics than many of my neighbours (I'm a very pale guy in rural western Canada). The moral righteousness is what infuriates me the most about the Limbaugh crowd. They are better than the rest of us, in their minds.
This is on it like blue bonnet. There are two ways to look at elections. "This is what i have to do to myself to win." or "This is what I have to do to my opponent to win." Clinton won because of the former, shifting right-ward because that's where the country was. Bush did the latter, tried to keep it there, but you cannot adjust if you do not adapt.
Also. Did TNC just invent he word "demonator"? if so, damn son.
Coates,
Damn, that was good. That was Jon Stewart, Ian Parker good.
You fucking nailed it.
The worst part of the Terry Shiavo thing was they had to kill her by dehydration and starvation.
Just noticed this-- they didn't kill her. They let her body naturally die by stopping the artificial feeding. This sounds like a pointlessly intellectual distinction, but artificial feeding is not 'feeding' by any conventional definition.
It's not that I think liberals are without flaw, but to argue that our most strident members should be our public face, would seem silly.
What if Limbaugh isn't the most strident member of the GOP? I'm sure there are many even more to the right.
Andrew,
No. I just need to learn ho to spell denominator.
As for Michael Moore, Stacey, Wilhome and co. basically summed it up. I couldn't get through Bowling For Columbine because the guy was just dripping with snark and contempt. Some liberals are condescending--mostly because they're people, and some people are condescending.
Limbaugh conservatives are fixated on a mythology of America that never existed - the America where if you work hard, there are no obstacles to success. And if you fail, it's your personal failure because you didn't work hard enough.
The belief in the power of the individual has blinded them to the strength of the collective. They call this a belief in "small government" but what they really are saying is, "You keep your hands off my shit."
Most of the population is realizing that no matter how hard they work, everyone's "pile of shit" is getting much smaller and it's time to start pooling resources to help each other out.
Same concept, but could we please call them 'Rush Republicans'? I'm alliterative like that.
Count me in - brilliant post. Made my day.
Re Michael Moore, count me out. He sets back the very themes he ostensibly supports by playing fast and loose with the truth in the name of sensationalism. He's the fast food of layin' it to the Republicans - those first couple of Doritos (Nacho Cheese) can be oh, so delicious, but too many and, well, you all know the feeling.
Last, today's Republicans may not be real conservatives, but they're the ones who've co-opted the term so I say, "Let 'em burn !"
TNC,
What was that about giving up after reading something so awesome from someone else?
Well, perish that thought this minute.
100% Pure WIN for this post.
A problem for the GOP is they consist of two very different groups, which I'll call the "evangelicals" and the "pro-business economic conservatives". I'm sure these aren't the best names for these 2 groups, but the point is, these 2 groups have very little in common. The GOP doesn't really have much of a unifying set of ideas that most Republicans can embrace. I suspect that their passionate antagonism against Obama is a way to distract from this simple fact: that there isn't much holding the Republicans together as a party. A small-government conservative has almost nothing in common with someone who wants to rewrite the Constitution to accomodate the Bible.
brilliant
It's interesting that so many of their most dominant voices of the GOP (Steele, Gingrich, Limbaugh) have either never won an election, or haven't won one in a decade.
Hmm. One could say much the same thing with regards to the neo-conservatives and the subject of war.
Perhaps the common thread here is that the GOP rewards ignorance, and that's why you get guys who've never fought in a war agitating for more and more wars, or guys who've never won an election (at least, not any time in the recent past) telling Republican politicians what they should be saying and doing.
You expressed a feeling that I have been unable to articulate.
I have never understood why a party so interested in scaling back big government believes that it is ok to interfere in the personal choices of it's citizens.
Bravo! I too thought the Schiavo affair was a critical turning point. It showed most Americans in a crystalized moment how deluded the Republicans really are. Now that they've purged their ranks of moderates, there's nothing left but the distilled essence of wingnut, based in the South.
It's only relatively recently that more people lived in big cities of a million or more, than places that have a million or less. ... So if you're just going by "majority rules," then the small-town model really was the "real" America - in the sense that most people lived there, and therefore those places called the shots.
Posted by Tel | March 5, 2009 12:57 PM
Well, I don't know. A million people is an arbitrary number, and a high one. By that standard, residents of Washington, D.C. don't live in a "big city." Even a city of 100,000 attracts diversity, cultivates art, and has people living shoulder to shoulder, or close enough to need that level of interconnectivity and stuff. How far back do you have to find an America where the majority of the population lived in towns of less than 100,000? Because that's the era that conservatives are pining for.
Absolutely the best column on the subject I've read.Very well done.
I like Moore; he's always ahead of the curve; he raises important issues. My Pet Goat was perhaps the single most important few minutes of film produced during the whole Bush Administration and it was done with restraint. Just think if he gave us the whole 7 minutes.
That said, it's easy to see that the guy does not strike up a tone that solves problems. He exposes them, and I am glad he's out there. I am glad Ralph Nader is out there too. One thing they have in common with the Limbaughs, who are less conscerned with humanity and its well being, is that they are provocateurs.
At a time when our country is going to hell in a handcart and we appear more divided than we have been in the past 40 years, having a provocateur for a spokesperson is stupid; there is absolutely no payoff in it. Sour grapes is not effective politically or philosophically.
The core problem with the GOP is the deeply schizophrenic contradictory themes that inform it.....that economic liberty is "good" while social liberty is "bad".
Striving to reconcile these antipathic memes has driven the GOP insane.
The imposition of traditional religio-social conservatism in a republic is basically mob rule.
Fortunately for the rest of us citizens the mob is being eroded by demographic and cultural evolution.
But for now the official branding of conservatives seems to be crypto-neanderthal secessionists.
The "Stupid Party" indeed.
Here is a pretty sweet study on the intelligence-religiousity axis....how long before someone regresses party affiliation on IQ?
And...what will we discover?
lol
Notably absent from this list [Andrew Sullivan's enumeration of Reagan's blind spots and failings ] is The Meese Commission, which I think is a good symbol for the rise to power of religious fundamentalism inside the Republican party during the Reagan years. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that The Meese Commission itself was the dowery delivered to evangelicals, who really had, and still have, no other reason to wed themselves to what was and still is the party of business. -- from The War on Sex and Andrew Sullivan’s “Degenerate Republicanism”
The GOP may not be the "party of business" much longer. Rumbling from their young heads about an anti-corporate GOP:
THE ANTI-CORPORATE GOP, PART II
http://theamericanscene.com/2009/03/05/an-anti-corporate-gop-part-ii
So let's see. They've run against everyone else, blacks, gays, immigrants, artists, intellectuals, even themselves. Now they're going to run against corporations. Perfect.
And lest anybody jump my case over Murray's Bellcurve, let me go on record as endorsing the Halle Berry Model of Eugenics.
"Let's all have sex with each other until everyone is the same color."
The Hutu and the Tutsi are the same color. So were the Catholics and the Protestants. People discriminate for all sorts of reasons. Race is just the latest--and it doesn't even depend on looking different. There was a time when the Jews, the Italians and the Irish weren't white.
TNC, the Hutu and the Tutsi are not the same color. Skin color lightness was preferred by the Belgian colonialists, along with relative height, which bred the resentment that resulted in genocide.
What Berry is actually proposing is a sort of end to tribal assortative mating.
You are right that skin color is a tribal discriminate, as religion is.
IQ and SES also can be dicriminates.
It is basic Hobbesian tribalism.
A reduction in assortative mating would benefit the species.
Outcrossing masks deleterious recessives.
;)
"The wogs begin at Calais" -- George Wigg, Labour MP for Dudley, in 1949
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog
I was home sick last week and watched some daytime tv show about "bleaching".
Mothers bleached their children to get preferential treatment for them in the classroom.
There are degrees of skin color.
Just because discrimination and prejudice have been hallmarks of human society in general does not mean that we have to allow these things to determine our behavior as individuals.
I think the GOP has thought that if they win an election that means America signs off on every single crazy extreme of their beliefs. Maybe people's involvement and thought about government is simply, "I'd rather pay less taxes" and they vote for the guy that harps on that.
But there's a big difference in then thinking that an American majority wants to drown government in the bathtub, or a host of other ideas that are offensive to most. People here want to preserve their individuality, but at the end of the day, this country does feel we ARE our brother's and sister's keepers, to at least some basic degree. And the GOP does NOT get that.
There are degrees of skin color.
This issue shows up better than four times as a major theme in various Spike Lee films. I think Lee's always had a nuanced and complex view of it.
TNC, you gave me a lot to think about in this post. I'm one of those black people that's to the right of you socially, but with you economically.
Anyway, I think Katrina was the turning point for most people with the Repubs. My childhood and early adolescence spanned the Clinton era so I remember the quick recovery that Clinton's FEMA did in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew and all the the other natural disasters during his time. I thought FEMA was a lean mean fighting machine. I thought hurricane clean-ups were quick and easy b/c it always seemed that way when Clinton was running things. I was utterly dismayed that W allowed the Gulf Coast to go down like that. I mean this is AMERICA. And I'm sure millions of people felt that way. It makes sense now that I found out last week while reading Newsday that W didn't appropriate in his budget for natural disasters; Obama apparently has asked for $20 billion on hand for natural disasters.
But, I think the Repubs demise is simplier than that: the Southern strategy that they've been cultivating for 40 years is no longer demographically feasible. And they can't get over that yet, b/c what do you do when your whole way of winning elections was being based on dog whistling racism to white moderates in the North. It's like a 5-year old finding out Santa isn't real. When they accept it, they'll come around. Now that a number of white people in the Northern surburbs are feeling greatly the true effects of supply-side economics, the Repubs can't revert to "Don't give the Dems money b/c they'll give it to those people" (i.e. poor black people) because so many of the white middle class feel (and are poorer) than during the Clinton era. Worst of all they feel the American dream is gone and think their kids will be worst off than they are. That's unprecedented b/c Americans have almost always been progressive in outlook that things will get better.
The NY Times has these graphs trying to show that the repubs are loosing x'ers and y'ers, but if you look more carefully at the sum of the graphs, the entire white population is 50/50 Dem/Republican while minorities are Democratic. You can't win on the Southern strategy anymore when your white audience is evenly split and your non-white audience is growing. You have to win over the largest minority groups to win a presidental election. Black people & Repubs are like oil and water since most of us like the fed gov't since it's been pivotal in making sure we can vote and not get lynched for that crazy idea; and the Repubs so insulted Hispanics in '06--and then McCain threw Hispanics under the bus to get the nomination, they went for Obama. For all his faults, Bush seemed to have realized this demographic problem and was pulling hard for immigration reform w/ a very Reagan amnesty so that a Repub would have a chance in '08. I'm still convinced if the Repubs had gotten immigrant legalization through, McCain would be president today or it would have been 2000 redux b/c of the closeness of the election.
Deleted. Please find another blog to read.
"TNC, the Hutu and the Tutsi are not the same color. Skin color lightness was preferred by the Belgian colonialists, along with relative height, which bred the resentment that resulted in genocide."
Point taken. I'd simply argue that even we were all beige we'd find something to be bigoted about. Could be brown eye vs. blue eyes vs. grey guys. We'd figure it out.
@AdHocBlues
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. I was just about to write basically the same thing. The GOP had lost it's most effective strategy because of changes in demographics and white attitudes about race.
Oh and great post TNC. The best I have read, not just by you but by anybody. The only thing I could have added to the conversation was the demise of the Southern Strategy, but AdHoc beat me to it. Props to you both. EPIC WIN!
Let me also say that I think this was a marvelous post Mr. Coates. I’d like to add a few things.
For one, your citing the example of the Terri Schiavo mess illustrated the moral superiority of the Republican Party, for the reasons you mentioned. Other readers have cited how it illustrated the GOP’s hypocrisy, considering that they are supposed to be the party of states rights and family values.
But the Terri Schiavo mess also illustrated the phoniness of the GOP. Many will remember how GOP legislators gave supposedly impassioned speeches on behalf of the woman, while also failing to pronounce her name correctly. But many may not know that the GOP’s political leader at the time, Pres. Bush, once held a contrary position. While governor of Texas, Bush signed into law a policy that forced all patients deemed to be in a persistent vegetative state out of their hospital rooms after 30 days, unless the families could afford to pay for it themselves. The policy itself may be morally defensible and somewhat reasonable to many people, but it is at odds to the position taken by the national GOP in 2005.
You know, I don’t affix the label “liberal” to myself because I do disagree with the CW of liberalism on one or two specific issues. Even though I do take a liberal stances on most issues, my dissent on those few issues is strong enough that I don’t want to be classified as “leftist”. That being said, I can understand and respect most people who do call themselves liberal, even those self-described as “far-left liberals”.
I have a very hard time trying to understand why any decent person would strongly identify with the GOP or modern American conservatism. (I fight against this regularly because I have close friends who are very active in my state’s Republican Party.) I totally understand voting Republican as what you see as the lesser of two evils, being somewhere between a conservative Dem and a liberal GOP’er. But to enthusiastically vote for Bush in ’04 or McCain in ’08, to go to a campaign rally or donate money? Automatically I start to think, “Ok, who does this person hate”? To me, that’s seemingly the strongest unifying principle in conservatism today, a vague but strong hatred of “the other”. It is a hatred of blacks, gays, Mexicans, liberals, atheists, union members…etc, anyone different than them.
Sure, liberals can be hateful but it’s a different kind of hate, more of a hatred of what you do or say and far less of a hatred of who you are. For conservatives, their hate just seems to be not just more vehement but more central to their political ideology. And like you very accurately note Mr. Coates, (unlike liberals, who may think of their views as correct or even more popular), conservatives think their views is the view of “real America”. I’m not sure if this is a cause for their vehement hate, (that their opponents are not American like them, thusly hate is ok or even necessary), or a result of it, (that they hate their opponents so much that they end up demonizing them as not even equal citizens.) Perhaps the nature of conservative hate is why their mocking just seems mean, while liberal mocking can often be funny?
There is one question about the modern conservative psyche I’d love to have answered. Specifically, why is there such an overabundance of urban legend e-mail chain letters with a smugly conservative bent? Check out the politics section at Snopes.com for examples. There are seemingly countless letters that either express outrage over some non-existent liberal action or rub the noses of liberals into some pompous insult based on phony information. Everything from some bogus analogy of Ancient Rome and the US over the perils of government spending, to many false stories that seek to impugn the patriotism of non-conservatives, to a whole separate section that catalogs attempts to make Barack Obama as un-American as possible. Every last myth has two things in common; their complete falseness and their hateful conceit.
Is there some deep-seated need in those with a conservative mindset to constantly be basting in loathing of those who disagree with you politically, no matter how dumb and untrue the juice/information is? And even if rabid hatefulness isn’t shameful, why isn’t gross ignorance seen as a disgrace?
Nuada: Let me try and answer your last question. To me, the Schiavo issue brings it into sharp focus; the idea that all the medical data on hand showed she was "gone" already, her husband (whom the "family values" party would usually tend to support) wanted to let her go, and her family - as much as they might have thought it was best for Terri - were still in the throes of grief.
So did the GOP grandstanders (Santorum, Frist, etc) try to educate themselves on the topic? Or take the "family values" approach and tell Jeb to get out of the road so that this family could grieve in peace?
Nope. They couldn't be bothered. Grandstanding was the order of the day.
It's almost understandable for Santorum (Mr. "Man-On-Dog" himself...he DEFINES "ignoramus"), but Frist was a frickin' DOCTOR, for cryin' out loud! One who took a "do no harm" oath! So he ended up putting his religious/political beliefs AHEAD of the patient's welfare - his duty to "do no harm" - and in fact tried to diagnose her OVER A TV PICTURE! It was disgraceful. And he should have known better.
But the GOP we have now thinks intelligent, rational approaches to problems and their solutions shows a degree of "pussiness". And their willful disregard for REALITY is frightening. But when you let hot messes like "intelligent design" rule the day, and your approach to stem cell research is that it "promotes abortion" - rather than "cures people" - well, you can't really reach them.
The willfull ignorance is worn as some kind of badge of honor.
Remember, the Alaskan MILF-y Wolfhuntress running for VP last fall spoke as if "The Flintstones" was a DOCUMENTARY! And she was CHEERED for this willfull ignorance by the Far Right. Sad.
BTW, GREAT post, TNC! It wrapped up a lot of ideas together in a readable, solid package. Keep up the good work!
“To me, the Schiavo issue brings it into sharp focus; the idea that all the medical data on hand showed she was "gone" already, her husband (whom the "family values" party would usually tend to support) wanted to let her go, and her family - as much as they might have thought it was best for Terri - were still in the throes of grief.
So did the GOP grandstanders (Santorum, Frist, etc) try to educate themselves on the topic? Or take the "family values" approach and tell Jeb to get out of the road so that this family could grieve in peace?
Nope. They couldn't be bothered. Grandstanding was the order of the day.”
You know, I think I understand where the actual elected politicians are coming from. In large part it is about phony political posturing. But to a somewhat lesser extent, even the pols on the other side of the aisle do that too, though it’s far less caustic when they do.
My bewilderment comes from the non-politician half of the equation, the ordinary voter who happens to call themselves conservative. Why is hateful derision seemingly so central to their political ideologies? For my part, I just don’t go out of my way to hate people I don’t even know.
Excellent post. Simply excellent.
All that. I'll only note that the politicians who were behind the Schiavo disaster-- Frist, Santorum, DeLay, Bush... are all gone. Oh, and Jews still aren't white, fwiw.
Wiredog hit the nail on the head. Congressional Republicans' grandstanding was repulsive for many reasons, but their complete disregard for federalism was really striking. Even within the Congress, the "States Rights Conservatives" got rolled by Tom DeLay, which cost these members a lot of credibility in their districts (there's an excellent NYT Magazine profile of Tom Davis that details this).
Republicans who don't stand for federalism don't stand for anything. The hey-lady-don't-kill-your-baby crowd can overlook this, but the folks in the middle can't. Given a choice between Democrats whose principles they're skeptical of and Republicans with no principles, it's a no-brainer to choose the Democrats.
And Conservatives/Republicans are both sore winners and sore losers. They are always angry and yet they rant on about the so called "angry left". Their ideology is I've got mine and I am entitled and they are smug and have NO empathy and ideas. I am just tired of them and wish that the mainstream media would stop giving these losers so much coverage. Please go away...you are scaring the children.
Great post Mr. Coates, keep it up and you may have a future in blogging...
Yup...homo sapiens sapiens has some pretty severe hardwiring for tribalism that was laid down in the EEA (environment of evolutionary advantage).
I think...the tribalism issue of the 21st century is going to be IQ.
Schiavo is a perfect example of IQ stratification....to anyone with sufficent IQ to grasp the science, the lady was a carrot.
I think Bill Frist dropped out of politics from shame.
There is a lot of work being done now on the negative correlation between intelligence and religious belief. I think that if we overlaid the bellcurve of IQ on party afflilation republicans would clump up around the mean, average IQ, with the tails being strongly democratic.
I'm going to get into a lot of trouble with you guys on this but my take on the whole Schiavo thing was not necessarily of politicians making fools of them selves. Yes, Frist should have know better. How do you diagnose someone via picture unless it's a rash???!!!
But I just resented Mr. Schiavo b/c he didn't, and no one else did to me, seemed to me to care about Terri's grieving parents. I really think he should have just let them care for Terri since they wanted that responsibility. It just seemed cruel to me for them to be suing back and forth over the right to end their daughter's life, especially since it meant depriving her of nutrition. Isn't that as painful as her ailment? I don't know all the logistics of this, so someone inform me. Let me be clear: The matter should have stayed within the family; I just didn't like how Mr. Schiavo seemed to ignore Terri's parents' grief.
I just didn't like how Mr. Schiavo seemed to ignore Terri's parents' grief.
He was acting according to his wife's wishes as he saw them. Basically you're saying he should have ignored those wishes in favor of what her parents wanted. Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but that isn't how it works. Adults get to choose for themselves.
Point taken. I'd simply argue that even we were all beige we'd find something to be bigoted about. Could be brown eye vs. blue eyes vs. grey guys. We'd figure it out.
Dr. Suess would agree with you. Just read "The Butter Battle Wars." Of course his story ends with a nuclear holocaust (it's one hell of a children's book), so I hope we don't figure it out THAT well...
I try not to be dismissive of differing views. The Republican ideas of lower taxes, a strong military, fewer regulations on small businesses, are not radical ideas that I in principle don't or can't agree with, but the problem with the Republican party is that they have been captured by so called conservatives.
The basic problem is that the conservative Republican worldview has very little basis in reality.
They are wrong about how the economy works, taxes, healthcare, Iraq, global warming, evolution, etc.
But the conservative Republican ideology doesn't allow them to deal with reality.
No matter what acutally happens they say the same things to every problem.
It is the same nonsense, fake culture war battles(gay marriage, affirmative actions, immorality, hollywood), tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals, militarism, a big government only for big business, needing a great enemy(liberals, illegal immigrants, commies, socialists), and a LOT of anger, fear, and ignorance.
As long as that is who Republican political leadership thinks is their base, you will get no ideas from the Republicans except things like John Boehner suggesting the fed government freeze spending to deal with massive unemployment.
Deleted. Keep trolling. I'll keep deleting.
Dr. Suess would agree with you. Just read "The Butter Battle Wars." Of course his story ends with a nuclear holocaust (it's one hell of a children's book), so I hope we don't figure it out THAT well...
As I recall it ends with a nuclear standoff. Neither party has used the bomb at the end of the book.
The GOP is still dangerous. The economy could get far worse in the next few years. There might be a significant terrorist attack. It feels good to gloat, but let's not write postmortems yet.
@ Nuada --
I lived with a guy from NC who was a fan of both the (late, unlamented) Sen. Jesse Helms, AND Bill Clinton. Which made me very confused at first, but eventually gave me some understanding of a certain type of conservative viewpoint.
My experience is that most conservatives are "Zero-Sum Tribalists," philosophically. They have little belief in a fair and just government, so nearly any government initiative is viewed through a lens of "which demographic benefits?" Government is viewed as a simple spoils system, rather than an entity that can directly benefit nearly all its stakeholders.
So there's a lot of focus on the "is he/she one of us?" question. By determining what tribe they belong to they estimate who benefits the most if they take office. That's why Palin gets the rapturous reception she does from the Heartland Conservatives -- she is "one of them" through and through, at least in the most superficial ways.
Same deal with that segment of white working class people who support policies designed for and by the (supposedly) "wealth-creating" local aristocracy, rather than the "weed-smoking bums on welfare." The rich whites are seen as a distant relative in the tribe, but in the tribe nonetheless. (Particularly if they present the proper bona fides.)
So a good ol' Southern boy can like both Helms and Clinton, regardless of how different their political outlook may be. Their tribal authenticity is more important.
To someone who grew up in a more technocratic culture, like myself, judging political leaders based on their lifestyle rather than their knowledge, wisdom, and discipline seems rather juvenile. But then any culture and upbringing has its blind spots -- some more than others. The same parochialism and outright xenophobia that cripples the political judgment of much of this nation also is preventative against taking on ultimately dangerous social mores -- a kind of lifestyle antiseptic, if you will.
Tangentially, I recommend watching the latest HBO documentary by Nancy Pelosi's daughter (I forget her name). It's about the people who supported John McCain, came to his rallies, etc. The film has a few memorable moments, like the soft-spoken redneck who apologetically explains how he was raised to despise n******s and he can't change his spots, or the young black man in Mississippi (?) who cusses at her, calling her hypocritical for exposing racist rednecks without doing the same in Blue State areas of the country.