The Trail of Smears
Sean Scallon is mostly correct in his diagnosis of What Happened:
The conservative tradition of Burke expounded on by people like Russell Kirk or Richard Weaver simply was politically unsellable to the general public when actually tried. This why the Reagan Revolution failed, this why the Gingrich Revolution failed. The politicians then moved to right-socialism in order to survive all the while trying to fool people into believing they were still “conservatives”. This worked until 2008 when no one believed it anymore.
The Republican Revolution of the mid-1990s, particularly on the House side, probably did want to deliver something like "small-government conservatism." This wouldn’t have been "classical liberalism" or "libertarianism" – it blended strong elements of evangelical moralism into its low-tax, lower-spending ideology, and elements of anti-"other" paranoia with a sensible fear of government surveillance; anti-interventionism and militarism elbowed each other for space. Then Bill Clinton dared them to shut down the federal government if they were so serious about shrinking the state. They did, they lost the public-relations war, and it scared them right the hell out of "small-government conservatism."
At that point, being practical politicians, they fell back on what would engage a mass base of support: personal smears (starting with Clinton and working their way through Gore, Kerry and Obama); sexual proctorship and global pugnaciousness (militarism and nativism), all the while shoveling as much money as possible to favored constituencies. The striking thing is that it only sort of worked. The "Left" won the popular vote in 2000: Gore ran on left-wing economic populism in a way Bill Clinton never did, and when you add Nader’s vote to Gore’s you get a slim "left-socialist" (in Scallon’s terms) majority. George Bush’s reelection victory in 2004 was not especially impressive for a wartime president.His post-election attempt to partially privatize social-security was a spectacular political failure and the Democrats, more liberal than ever, have cleaned up the last two election cycles. I can’t prove it, but I think only GOP manipulation of the shock of September 11 kept Center-Left America from emerging earlier.
But Republicans went that route because of the failure to sell "limited government conservatism" as a political program from the mid-1990s forward. Since about 1996 they’ve been running on other issues and putting "limited government conservatism" in Stealth Mode. They’ve done this because, as Scallon suggests, they’re terrified of trying to run on a limited-government program. When they do run on it – the McCain campaign in its closing "Joe the Plumber" days – they lose.
Where Scallon goes wrong is when he writes, ‘trying to fool people into believing they were still “conservatives" . . . worked until 2008 when no one believed it anymore.’ This implies that the public rejected the GOP because the public figured out that the GOP wasn’t really "conservative" in the larger, older sense. I don’t think that’s true at all: I think the public rejected the GOP because Republican rule has been calamitous.
Comment by Walter —
November 12, 2008 @ 12:54 am
I dunno. No Republican nominee has run on a small government platform since Reagan. Sure, they can claim it, but everyone can see through ‘compassionate conservatism.’
I don’t think this is because small government is a sure ballot loser, although it is a hard sell to voters. It’s because it’s no-go in DC, and Republicans are get-along-go-along types more often than not. Someone should write an alternate history based on Republicans not backing down and actually shutting down the federal government. The chickensh… they were.
Comment by buermann —
November 12, 2008 @ 1:53 am
I was going to contradict Walter about that, since the Contract with America was mostly a lot of shop talk about smaller government, but then you look down at the “Taking Back Our Streets Act” and the “National Security Restoration Act” and find that the zero baseline budgeting plank of the platform stops short of the two biggest discretionary line items in government budgets, so I guess I take his point.
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that was true of Reagan’s platform as well.
Comment by Thers —
November 12, 2008 @ 2:23 am
they’re terrified of trying to run on a limited-government program. When they do run on it – the McCain campaign in its closing “Joe the Plumber” days – they lose.
Was the GOP really “running” on anything in 2008, especially when they got down to Mr. Plumber?
This is not sarcasm, more an observation. The McCain campaign was based on… trying to win the election.
Comment by Thoreau —
November 12, 2008 @ 2:28 am
“Limited government” can come in many forms. The form that Republicans have paid lip service to offers nothing to the poor and minorities, damn near nothing to the white middle class, a few bones (but a lot of rhetoric) to small businesses, and lots of favors for big business. They know that such a platform, if seriously attempted, would be political suicide (and for good reason).
“Limited government”, or at least smaller government, can come in other flavors, and one need not go all the way with some of the proposals of our friends at The Art of the Possible to see ways that smaller government might benefit somebody other than the business elite.
Comment by Avram —
November 12, 2008 @ 2:34 am
If I were going to pick a point where US voters rejected “small government”, it would be the 1964 election, when the small-government candidate’s opponent received the largest popular vote margin in modern American history.
Looking at Republican presidents since then, they’re certainly a big-government lot. Nixon may have been the biggest advocate of the command economy that this nation has ever had in the White House. Reagan tripled the budget deficit. Poppy Bush allowed the Dems to raise taxes and increase spending, and we all know how the Baby Bush has loved throwing our money around.
Comment by Hal —
November 12, 2008 @ 2:36 am
There seems to be a huge difference between running on the “small government” platform and actually – you know – doing whatever it would take to deliver on such a platform. When did the republicans ever deliver on that? Seriously curious, as AFAIK the only time the size of the government went down was in the Clinton years due to the efforts of Al Gore. Granted 87% of these reductions came about from cuts in the dept of defense and veteran’s affairs – thus likely due to the “peace dividend”. But that just brings the issue into stark contrast. At least from my POV, the only thing that the right has wanted to cut are the “social welfare” part of government. The defense side of the government equation always balloons under the right, and by far more than they actually claim to want to cut the other side.
As far as I can tell, the “limited government conservatism” has always been a crock – a marketing package designed to sooth the weak minded and idealistic. There’s never been even the barest hint of actual practice in any of the republican administrations – not to mention when they controlled congress.
I mean, say what you want about the lies and illusions that the left sells to keep its true believers and core inline – I’m sure one can name a zillion of them. But it seems that there is at least some patina of effort made on these various fronts, whether it be equality, worker’s rights, trade issues, race issues, women issues, etc, etc.
But the right? I mean, my lord. They don’t even try, it seems.
I think its far more likely that the American people may have possibly figured this difference out and despite whatever problems the democrats may have, at least they feel that they’re moving in the right direction instead of simply f*cking everyone over without even kissing us.
It’s kind of weird to see all this talk as if the right actually was once a party that fought tooth and nail for small government but were finally weighed down by the inevitable popular support for more government.
From what I can tell, it only existed in some people’s fantasies of what government should be and never, ever, ever was even attempted to be put into practice by their elected officials.
Ever.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
November 12, 2008 @ 2:46 am
“… fear of government surveillance; anti-interventionism …”
.
That wasn’t fear of government surveillance, or anti-interventionism, as far as I could tell. Rather, it was fear of Democratic government surveillance, and anti-Democratic-interventionism.
Comment by Glaivester —
November 12, 2008 @ 2:49 am
Then Bill Clinton dared them to shut down the federal government if they were so serious about shrinking the state. They did, they lost the public-relations war, and it scared them right the hell out of “small-government conservatism.”
Except that Clinton, I would argue, was made somewhat more receptive to small government because of this. Definitely he worked with the GOP to get programs such as Welfare Reform enacted, cut capital gains, and the government began running surpluses in 1998 (I am farily certain that all of that money would have gone into social programs had it not eben for the GOP Congress).
What happened is that the GOP got control of all three branches of government, and then decided that without checks, it might as well give the government money to its friends.
Where Scallon goes wrong is when he writes, ‘trying to fool people into believing they were still “conservatives” . . . worked until 2008 when no one believed it anymore.’ This implies that the public rejected the GOP because the public figured out that the GOP wasn’t really “conservative” in the larger, older sense. I don’t think that’s true at all: I think the public rejected the GOP because Republican rule has been calamitous.
I think that pretending to be for smaller government while being willing to spend huge amounts on the military infuriated a lot of people. The way that the Hannitys of the world would at once claim to represent the free market and then demand limitless funding for foreign wars was a real turnoff.
I do think that Repulblican spendthriftiness was one cause of the GOP loss. But it wasn’t just that they spent a lot and had “big government,” while claiming to believe in small government, it was that they had a tendency to be willing to expand government only in unpopular directions, and to invoke “small government” only in cases where it would seem uncharitable.
Comment by McCann —
November 12, 2008 @ 4:17 am
I don’t think one failure neccesarily rules out the other. The republicans managed a unique feat in this election year, they managed to convince left leaning Americans that they were going to abandon the small income earners, while at the same time convincing their base that they were selling out to the democrats. This election wasn’t just lost in the middle for the Republicans, it was lost in the middle and on the right at the same time, and even if you believe we’re seeing the emergence of left-socialism in America, you have to acknowledge there must have been some failure on the right for such a dramatic turn in states like Indiana and North Carolina.
Comment by Derek Copold —
November 12, 2008 @ 10:49 am
As Glaivester points out, the 6 years before Bush were not exactly lost years. There were a number of reforms, including Welfare reform. True, it wasn’t exactly a move to a Kirkean paradise, but it was important, and wouldn’t have happened without the GOP and Tom Delay. There were other smaller benefits: getting rid of the 55 mph speed limit. That’s a huge convenience if you have to drive long distances, I can tell you.
But Jim’s point is still largely right. Bush ran as a “compassionate” conservative, which is a big refutation of previous conservatism, and it led to a massive growth in government.
No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug Plan were awful pieces of government-growing legislation from a conservative POV. Amnesty attempts were extremely galling, more so because they were unpopular with almost all demographics. The Campaign Finance Reform bill was seen as an outright betrayal. You don’t like FISA? How about a requirement to register before you organize against a proposition? THAT, IMO, is much worse than a nebulous threat of someone eavesdropping on my banal phone conversations. Had Hillary won the Democratic nomination, McCain would have seen even greater losses, since she was a known “devil.”
All of this led to a collapse in the philosophical confidence of the right, because, as Scallon notes, the illusion was gone. They turned out only because Obama appears to be such a “transformational” character, but they didn’t do so with any sort of enthusiasm. You didn’t have the doorknockers or cold-callers you did in previous years.
Comment by bill —
November 12, 2008 @ 11:01 am
Sexual proctorship.
Good one, Jim.
Comment by Eric Martin —
November 12, 2008 @ 11:36 am
The defense side of the government equation always balloons under the right, and by far more than they actually claim to want to cut the other side.
As far as I can tell, the “limited government conservatism†has always been a crock – a marketing package designed to sooth the weak minded and idealistic. There’s never been even the barest hint of actual practice in any of the republican administrations – not to mention when they controlled congress.
I tend to agree. Since defense spending has never, to my knowledge, been considered a part of “big government” by the leaders of the small government conservative movement, the “small” in “small government” ain’t that small.
It’s more a question of priorities in terms of spending.
Comment by Michael —
November 12, 2008 @ 11:38 am
I think this is a key observation. The American people seem to be willing to put up with quite a bit as long as it’s competently done. Hurricane Katrina may have sunk the GOP for the last two cycles.
Comment by Barry —
November 12, 2008 @ 11:51 am
Glaivester: “I think that pretending to be for smaller government while being willing to spend huge amounts on the military infuriated a lot of people. ”
On the left, yes. But how many on the right were p*ssed off, at anything other than not delivering the quick glorious victories which they were promised?
Comment by Thoreau —
November 12, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
I like the way Eric Martin frames it. The right never wanted a small government, they just wanted certain parts of the government to be small.
Comment by Derek Copold —
November 12, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
Barry:
On the left, yes. But how many on the right were p*ssed off, at anything other than not delivering the quick glorious victories which they were promised?
Shamefully, all too few.
Michael:
The American people seem to be willing to put up with quite a bit as long as it’s competently done.
That part can’t be stressed enough. GOP leadership could never seem to see beyond the tips of their noses, so they were always caught by surprise by crisis after crisis. Look at all the screaming about the Fairness Doctrine. If you didn’t like it, then why didn’t you outlaw it when you held both houses of Congress and the Presidency?
I don’t think Katrina undid the GOP, but Iraq. It played a role, but it was more of a confirmation of what people had already grown to believe.
Comment by John Emerson —
November 12, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
I suspect that the famous “party discipline” of the Republicans in Congress was directly connected to giving and withholding pork. Likewise the Republican finance machine was pork-fueled (e.g. Abramoff, but there were many more). Some of the once-ideological operatives (e.g. Ralph Reed) also became pure pork operatives. My guess is that at every turning point the pork Republicans defeated the little-government Republicans.
If watched their hands, you could figure out what the Republicans really were about: militarism and aggression, low taxes (especially on business and the well-off), authoritarianism and the cult of Bush, and the minimization of certain kinds of recognizably liberal (but quantitatively insignificant) government spending.
That, and pork.
But not at all about limited government, fiscal soundness, reducing government intervention in people’s lives, populism except as soundbites, opportunity excepot as soundbites, or social conservativism except as sound bites.
Comment by buermann —
November 12, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
“Look at all the screaming about the Fairness Doctrine. If you didn’t like it, then why didn’t you outlaw it when you held both houses of Congress and the Presidency?”
Because it was, uh, already abolished in 1987?
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
November 12, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
GOP leadership could never seem to see beyond the tips of their noses, so they were always caught by surprise by crisis after crisis.
It’s been said many times, but it bears repeating: When you elect people who like to claim that the government can never do anything right, don’t act all shocked when they go about proving it.
Comment by Derek Copold —
November 12, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
Because it was, uh, already abolished in 1987?
It wasn’t abolished by statute. It was rescinded at the executive level, and two Congressional attempts to reimpose it were vetoed.
If Obama wants to (and his aides say he doesn’t), he could, I believe, reimpose the doctrine.
Comment by Derek Copold —
November 12, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
When you elect people who like to claim that the government can never do anything right, don’t act all shocked when they go about proving it.
But that wasn’t Bush’s position. Remember, he believed in giving government a role. It was part of his “compassionate conservatism” schtick.
Also, no significant group on the right argued against military competence. As others have noted, it was the one government program that enjoyed their unbounded (and deluded) faith.
I don’t think we can blow this off by pointing to a skepticism of government’s abilities. That viewpoint will be coming back into vogue real soon if we keep nationalizing chunks of the economy.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
November 12, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
But that wasn’t Bush’s position. Remember, he believed in giving government a role. It was part of his “compassionate conservatism†schtick.
Well, we’ll never know what Bush actually “believed,” but I’m inclined to think of “compassionate conservatism” as nothing more than, as you call it, a schtick. It was just another ruse for the rubes, a purely rhetorical reaction to what many saw as the gratuitous mean-spiritedness of the Gingrich GOP. The centerpiece of “compassionate conservatism,” after all, was the much-ballyhooed and quickly forgotten “faith-based initiatives,” which represented a negligible drop in the ocean in terms of the growth of the government under GWB.
Also, no significant group on the right argued against military competence. As others have noted, it was the one government program that enjoyed their unbounded (and deluded) faith.
Of course. My reference to “government” should have included that caveat, but I figured it was unnecessary given what was said upthread about the very odd definition of the word that’s commonly employed in US political discourse.
Comment by Derek Copold —
November 12, 2008 @ 6:55 pm
It was just another ruse for the rubes, a purely rhetorical reaction to what many saw as the gratuitous mean-spiritedness of the Gingrich GOP.
No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug Plan argue against that. He also continued Clinton’s Ownership plans. Maybe it was all his bullshit, but I’m convinced Bush bought into it.
But look, too, at the skepticism expressed during the 90s. Conservatives were very chary of the way the Clintons used federal law enforcement power, but having won the election they expanded it. Yes, the hypocrisy was eye-watering, I agree, but the short-sightedness was astounding. None of them was willing to consider what would happen when the other party came into power. They would simply blow off the possibility.
Even assuming a harsh government-skeptic POV, that’s just plain stupid.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
November 12, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
This is pithy and accurate. However, this fear also helped kill the Clipper chip.
Which raises the question: we can expect some Republicans to suddenly rediscover an appreciation for civil liberties now that they no longer hold power. If you are a genuine civil libertarian, what do you do?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
November 12, 2008 @ 9:05 pm
Hope that those idiots become useful.
Comment by Barry —
November 13, 2008 @ 10:31 am
Uncle Kvetch: “The centerpiece of “compassionate conservatism,†after all, was the much-ballyhooed and quickly forgotten “faith-based initiatives,†which represented a negligible drop in the ocean in terms of the growth of the government under GWB.”
Also, IRRC, they were pretty close to 100% crony capitalism, disbursed as much as possible to right-wing GOPpists. Evul Muzlims and Liebrul worshippers of a long-haired hippie peacenik were either excluded, or at the back of the line.
Comment by Barry —
November 13, 2008 @ 10:33 am
Jim: “Then Bill Clinton dared them to shut down the federal government if they were so serious about shrinking the state. They did, they lost the public-relations war, and it scared them right the hell out of “small-government conservatism.”"
I dunno if it was just the PR war; it was the reality that a significant shrinkage of the Federal government would hurt a lot of people. At least in the short run, and probably the long run also, given that the GOP plans for ’smaller government’ would be mostly focused on screwing the little guy, while protecting the elites and certain key interest groups.
Comment by Moe Blues —
November 13, 2008 @ 11:20 am
It’s worth noting too that much of the GOP’s actual “Small Government” initiatives translated into handing government functions over to (favored) private enterprises. In the majority of cases, the private entity proved incapable of delivering the services in as timely and efficient a manner of a government agency it replaced. Worse, the setup allowed all profits to be privatized will all risk was socialized.
Perhaps the classic example was the privatizing of FAA’s Flight Service Stations. The contract was handed to Lockheed-Martin, and the FSS network that had functioned well for 50 years was scrapped. Where it used to take me 15 minutes on the phone to get 25 flightplans updated, it now takes (on average) three days worth of emailing and phone calls to update one flightplan. Mass changes are unthinkable. And the cost to the taxpayer for this “efficiency” is nearly double what the old FSS system cost.
So even where “small government” principles as espoused by the GOP were put into practice, the results were not pleasing to anyone except the favored firms and the lobbyists. I think this sort of thing seriously undermines any confidence anyone could have in politicians running on small government as a platform plank–whether or not said politician is coming at it from a completely different (and perhaps viable) angle.
Comment by Thoreau —
November 13, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Good point by Moe Blues. Replacing a person who gets his check from the Treasury with a person who gets a check from a company that gets a check from the Treasury is not necessarily more efficient. Yes, there probably are instances where it is more efficient, but there are definitely instances where it isn’t. To favor it axiomatically is simply unjustified by the facts, and even in the cases where it’s more efficient it is at best a very small step toward smaller government.
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
November 13, 2008 @ 10:31 pm
I am glad David Plouffe is a better man than I, or I would have been touting Carly Fiorina as a Corporate Welfare Queen. Might have photoshopped some purple drank into her hand, even.
Comment by Nell —
November 14, 2008 @ 11:31 am
@Idi Amin’s Last Meal: That’s David Axelrod’s department. Plouffe ran the organization, not the messaging.
Comment by TGGP —
November 16, 2008 @ 2:06 am
Jeffrey Friedman already said it here:
http://www.the-dissident.com/friedman.shtml