Tim Pawlenty, governor of my home state of Minnesota, delivered a speech yesterday at the Governor's Convention in Florida, in which he raised several key points regarding the future of the Republican Party. The essential jist of what he said was that Republicans must change or face irrelevancy. I couldn't agree with him more.
Unfortunately, when it comes to change, Republicans have an incredibly hard time. Their party's ideology has essentially become so set in deep granite that any kind of movement seems impossible. In fact, the center piece of their platform is to be as immovable as possible.
So, I would like to know, as does Governor Pawlenty, how exactly are the Republicans going to be far sighted on issues like energy, health care, and education? How, specifically, are they going to broaden their appeal to working class families and small business owners as Mr. Pawlenty suggested is vital?
When one looks at all of these issues, as I have said many times over the last few years, the Republicans completely and utterly lack any kind of forward thinking. In energy, it's "Drill Baby Drill" which is akin to a person, in 1988, saying "We must expand the use of the typewriter." With health care, it's "Fuck you, get your own damn health care" and "Let's make all of my pals in the industry more wealthy by ripping people off." With education, it's "let's censor all that commie pinko bullshit and tell the story of the 'real America.'"
The worst, by far, is their "appeal" to working class families. Essentially the only thing working class families have gotten from the GOP is a giant sucking sound of all their money going to pad the linings of the oil industry, the defense industry, pharmaceuticals, the insurance industry, and HMOs. The cost of living has gone up and wages haven't risen to meet the demand of these new prices. The largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world has occurred under the direction of the Republican Party. Why on earth would the middle class want to support them? More to the point, the Republican's raison d'etre is fuck the little guy over and make damn sure that they have all the toys.
I applaud Governor Pawlenty for at least taking a step towards admitting things must change for the elephants but I think he is incredibly naive to think that it is even possible.
When the only tool in your tool kit is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
9 comments:
Unfortunately, when it comes to change, Republicans have an incredibly hard time.
M, you just couldn't be any more tone deaf could you?
The entire Bush administration has been at odds with the Goldwater-Reagan branch of the party. Those Repubs have followed Reagan's admonition to never speak ill of another Republican to the point of allowing the party to go to hell.
If the Repubs are to be relevant again it isn't following the advice of David Brooks, Bill Kristol, et al - let alone following the Dems in a gigantic lurch to the left. The Repubs need to repudiate the deviance that the Bush Admin has been and return to the principles of limited and non-intrusive govt (it should only do what it alone can do). It would be nice if they would stand up for individual liberty as well, considering the Dems are weak there (just not as weak as the current Repubs).
I really don't want all the things from govt that you do - and right now I have a choice between a party fully committed to what I don't want, and one half-committed. I don't care if the rich get richer - it isn't coming out of my wallet, but everything you want to the govt to do WILL come out of my wallet.
Not that I expect the Repubs to figure it out.
What the Republicans need is a new source of control.
In the past the Republican Party has used various devices to control the 'working class' into thinking that it was in their best interests to vote conservative.
device #1: The American Dream.
"Work hard and you could be rich one day." And when you are; you will be one of us, and you won't want to pay all those taxes when you get here do you!?
Truth #1: Reality.
Like it or not, you live in a Society of Classes and barring a lucky lotto ticket, chances are that you are not going to move up. Work hard and you will only spend what little extra you made just as quickly as you spent the lesser amount last year.
device #2: Religion.Very touchy subject with all but .001% of America
Abortion, Death Penalty, and the ability to pray to The Living God. Intelligent Design vs Evolution, Abortion is murder, Death Penalty is demanded of us by exodus 21:23-27.disclaimer: I am a spirit-filled christian who believes in a living god that created us and loves us and is waiting in Heaven for all those who choose him as their personal savior. THAT BEING SAID:
Truth#2: God is smarter than all of us
The Republican Party has built much of their platform upon the the Old Testament. Eye for an Eye and Death for Sin. But Christians that I talk to don't believe that the world is all black and white like the Old Testament picture. Abortion is bad IMO, but that means that I will never have one (not having a womb helps too btw). I encourage people to use condoms and pills and sub dermal pharmaceuticals, but your abortion is your sin and that's between you and YOUR God, I'm butting out of that one EVERY TIME!
device #3: Security.
"Who do want answering the red phone at 3 am when the terrorists are knocking at the door?"
"We need to bring the fight to the terrorist, instead of them coming here to fight us on our soil!"
Truth#3WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?!?!
Answering the phone!? Hopefully we have people for picking up telephones for the President of the United States at any time of the day or night, regardless which party got him/her elected. When the call comes in I doubt think the President is one of the first 30 people who know. I really hope that the Pentagon has contingencies for the President by the time the phone rings and the aid has time to get the President's attention away from the 2rd graders (btw, that was quite fitting; George with his classmates on 9/11 like that).
and BRING THE FIGHT TO THEM is a "which came first" thing. Did we invade their soil first or did they come and attack us on ours first?
device #4: The Economy is in Ruins. The DFL will make it worse!
Truth #4: This is classic Misdirection
Who got us into the war that is costing this country $200 MILLION A DAY!??!
Who was in the top seat of the American Government when the economy crumbled!?
device #5: Unknown
Truth #5: There will be another device soon
People evolve. We get smarter. But we're still stupid. We have seen through these devices of control, what will be the next lie/exaggeration that the Republican Party uses to lure us into lining their wallets?
My Name is Mu, and I voted Barack Obama for President!
Mark, you're wrong about the Republican party not changing. From 1980 onward it changed drastically. Before then it had a libertarian, corporate and east-coast country-club bent. With Reagan the social conservatives invaded and drove out everyone who believed in individual liberty. Since then it has become a right-wing, socially dictatorial, vindictive, anti-immigrant party.
Essentially, it has become the party of angry old white men and the women who parrot them.
Demographics indicate that these people are rapidly becoming a minority. If the Republican party caters only to this demographic they are doomed. They will slip into electoral irrelevance within 20 years.
So, naturally enough, the "base" of the Republican party is virulently against anything that will reduce their power or mainstream their enemies. Ergo, the stands against immigration, gay marriage, etc.
Palin's incessant harping about the "real America" was just a racist call to action. Real America to Palin consists of uneducated rural whites.
Juris, you're also wrong. There is no "Goldwater-Reagan" branch. The Goldwater and Reagan branches are separate and opposite. The mob that's been running the party for the last 28 years is the Reagan branch. Reagan set records for huge tax cuts, the attending deficits and foreign adventurism (the fiasco in Lebanon, Iran-Contra, Grenada).
Bush I tried to restore some fiscal sanity with a necessary tax hike, and return the Republicans to a semblance of what it had once stood for. He was reviled by the base -- it's one reason he lost. He did the right thing in the Gulf, but stumbled with Somalia -- he forgot the Powell doctrine.
Under Clinton we achieved balanced budgets and restricted foreign adventures to ones we could win (how many Americans died bringing Slobodan Milošević to justice?), and enjoyed a mostly positive economy (yes, in part due to the tax increase that Bush I instituted).
Bush II was Reagan on steroids (giant tax cuts for the rich, bloated government spending, rampant corruption, foreign adventurism). The base was completely silent on all these things until the incompetence of the response to Katrina began to crack the wall.
The Goldwater branch of the Republican party is the libertarian branch. In the last years of his life he lamented what the Republican party had become (check out the Wikipedia entry on Goldwater). According to that article, Goldwater told the right wing:
"Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have."
Jaysus you guys are screaming idiots. If you think the rest of the country thinks like you do it's no wonder you don't get why Reagan won. Hell, you don't even understand why Obama won because you're in la-la land.
Wiki has it's uses, but when you take it as authoritative on anything at all controversial you're just demonstrating your intellectual sloth.
blk I do recall that you claimed to understand now that there are different kinds of conservatives - not so much I see. You still don't have the basics. You still don't grasp that Reagan appealed to many Democrats and why (and no, it wasn't by drawing on their prejudices). You think of Bush II as continuous with Bush I and Reagan. Hell, Bush I didn't even stick with Reagan.
Hey juris, your personal attacks are way out-of-line. Is that the only arrow left in your quiver? I've noticed a distinct trait emerging in your posts of attacking the person instead of arguing the idea, and I think it takes your arguments to a pretty juvenile level. It is possible, you know, to dis-agree without being disagreeable. Try it sometime. Soon.
dan, it isn't my fault that they write such idiotic drivel. It's even more astounding when they are saying "this is why" and not "I just don't understand conservatives/Republicans". I'm nearly always respectful when someone asks; but when someone pontificates so profoundly wrongly - well, I have to admit I don't mind chopping them down at all.
Juris, you sound like your on drugs.
MO even when I am I can still make a point more coherently than you, and without using "your" in place of "you're".
Sometimes life is just a bitch.
Have to call BS on Mu's "reality"#1. You will not find a more socially mobile society on the planet than these here United States. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 5 people who worked their way up from nothing and I bet you can too, if you're honest enough. But I know, anecdotes do not equal data.
I think one of the fundamental differences between the two sides is one of optimism. The left doesn't have it, and that's a real bummer.
Juris imprudent sounds more exasparated with trying to get ideas across than actually making personal attacks. There is a serious disconnect between the left and right. We speak the same language, but we do not understand each other.
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