Conservative rot
February 20, 2018 Leave a comment
Excellent column from Matt Grossman on the incredibly dysfunctional cycle of modern American conservatism and why it is stuck in it:
The typical conservative cycle runs from backlash to embrace to disappointment — and we are right on schedule. After opposing government expansion and social change under Democratic presidents, conservatives typically give new Republican presidents the benefit of the doubt. By the time of the next counterattack against a new Democrat, historical revisionism sets in: Republican leaders are seen as part of the problem, being too accommodating to liberalism and selling out their principles.
The cycle is born of the infeasibility of conservative goals, especially the American right’s attempt to reverse the growth of the welfare and administrative state (which even the world’s most right-wing parties accept) and its tendency to start unwinnable culture wars against inevitable change (a typical conservative foible). The public shares conservatives’ broad desire for limiting government growth and social upheaval, but that does not translate into support for specific policies to achieve those goals. [emphases mine] The international and historical norm is that the size and scope of government grow over time and new social changes are codified; conservative resistance slows this liberal policy drift but does not reverse it…
The conservative movement has perennially stimulated resistance to liberalism, frequently incorporating new cultural issues and voters. But conservatives have been unable to guide Republican presidents to implement a policy agenda beyond lowering taxes and building the military. Despite gaining working-class constituencies, Republicans are not offering tangible solutions to rural poverty, family breakdown, rising drug addiction or deindustrialization.
Krugman, meanwhile, makes the case that this intellectual hollowness at the center of modern conservatism has, unfortunately, diminished the personal character of many conservatives:
Yet if you step back a bit and think about it, Trump’s latest outbursts were very much in character — and I don’t just mean his personal character. When did you last see a member of the Trump administration, or for that matter any prominent Republican, admit error or accept responsibility for problems?
Don’t say that it has always been that way, that it’s just the way people are. On the contrary, taking responsibility for your actions — what my parents called being a mensch — used to be considered an essential virtue in politicians and adults in general. And in this as in so many things, there’s a huge asymmetry between the parties. Of course not all Democrats are honest and upstanding; but as far as I can tell, there’s almost nobody left in the G.O.P. willing to take responsibility for, well, anything.
And I don’t think this is an accident. The sad content of modern Republican character is a symptom of the corruption and hypocrisy that has afflicted half of our body politic — a sickness of the soul that manifests itself in personal behavior as well as policy…
So what happened to the character of the G.O.P.? I’m pretty sure that in this case the personal is, ultimately, political. The modern G.O.P. is, to an extent never before seen in American history, a party built around bad faith, around pretending that its concerns and goals are very different from what they really are. Flag-waving claims of patriotism, pious invocations of morality, stern warnings about fiscal probity are all cover stories for an underlying agenda mainly concerned with making plutocrats even richer.
And the character flaws of the party end up being echoed by the character flaws of its most prominent members. Are they bad people who chose their political affiliation because it fits their proclivities, or potentially good people corrupted by the company they keep? Probably some of both.
In any case, let’s be clear: America in 2018 is not a place where we can disagree without being disagreeable, where there are good people and good ideas on both sides, or whatever other bipartisan homily you want to recite. We are, instead, living in a kakistocracy, a nation ruled by the worst, and we need to face up to that unpleasant reality.
Krugman is right. I think there’s an innate tendency to “both sides” on almost all things political parties. And, in many ways, human nature is human nature, no matter the political party. That said, a party is an organization and organizations develop their own cultures and values. And, sadly, it’s pretty damn clear that the 2018 Republican Party– especially in it’s embrace of Trump– has embraced a culture that is rotten to the core.
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