Listen to the Man

Via Andrew Sullivan, words of wisdom from "crunchy con" Rod Dreher:

If we're looking to blame someone for the failure of Republican government and the conservative crack-up, look to the White House, yes, and look to the late, unlamented Republican Congress. But also look to the conservative talk show hosts, the conservative columnists, and finally, in the mirror. The only way we're going to rebuild after the present and coming political shattering is through honest reckoning, and taking responsibility for what we've done. It is tempting to blame Bush for everything. But it's not fair, and it's not honest. Bush is today who he always was. The difference is we conservatives pretty much loved the guy - when he was a winner.

Right. I would only add that beyond individual Bush-related errors, the big problem here has been the right's deep, deep, deep investment in the politics of resentments. Conservatives saw Bush's primary job as frustrating liberals. And he did that job well. He secured political power without really reaching out to us at all. We were pissed, and we were doubly pissed that not everyone was as pissed as we were. It just turns out that if your conception of the president's job doesn't involve running the country well, then your team's president is probably going to wind up doing a shitty job of running the country.

Comments

I really like this post, particularly because your suggestion is NOT that he had to reach out to Liberals. Rather, he needed to focus on running on the Country.

A lot of commentators have trouble distinguishing two situations:
1) One adopts the best possible policies, even it doing so means completely excluding X groups.
2) One adopts policies oriented towards increasing popularity with Y group because it hurts or annoys X group, which Y group dislikes.

A good healthcare plan, a good environmental statute, good civil rights legislation, etc. often require following number 1. There are some people whose interests are so contrary to your goal, you have to discount them. But, yo want your base, your commentators, and your politicians to be debating whether it's a good policy, not whether it pisses people off.

No good policy arises from number 2, and Bush mostly focused on number 2. A huge amount of his behavior was driven by that. More importantly, massive amounts of the conservative base only looked for that, not whether it was good policy.

Posted by MDtoMN | June 2, 2007 9:08 AM

Taking responsibility for their actions? Dreher goes on and on about how conservatives failed to stand up to Bush on the war, Rumsfeld and the ever-expanding police state as though they had spent the last 6 years on the sidelines biting their tongues, instead of cheering everything Bush did and accusing everyone who disagreed of treason.

Posted by The Next to Last Pope | June 2, 2007 9:21 AM

While the conservatives are doing their soul-searching, they ought to ask what it means that every attempt to implement their political vision has turned out catastrophically. Yes, they did a fair amount of mindless contrarianism and policy-as-spite, but that doesn't really explain it all. The more basic problem is that their instincts and their whole direction were simply wrong. A modern industrial state needs a modern, robust government. Allowing corporate interests to run everything unimpeded leads to bad results. And basing your entire foreign policy on the use of force leaves you as a huge loser, even if you start out with the most military toys.

I'm sure that conservatives, being the reliable numbnuts that they are, will find a way to avoid coming to grips with this reality. But for now it's funny to see them flirt with it, however fleetingly.

Posted by jimBOB | June 2, 2007 9:23 AM

I think the big problem has been unrestrained rightwing pride, or hubris. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove believed they had enough power to rule the whole world. They believed they could fool all the people all the time. America was already heading for trouble, already parading about all this unipolar hyperpower nonsense. But then handing it over to a pack of prideful, bragging conservatives led by a moronic cheerleader was the perfect recipe for disaster.

Posted by Gary Sugar | June 2, 2007 9:35 AM

Yeah, right. The big problem is he didn't listed to you guys. Sure. That's the BIG problem.

Posted by gaius sempronius gracchus | June 2, 2007 10:02 AM

Bush is today who he always was. The difference is we conservatives pretty much loved the guy - when he was a winner.

The implication that they loved him only because he was a winner is pure garbage. Bush is the fullest expression available of the modern Southern Republican Party's wishes. And he sucks. That might require some soul searching on Dreher's part, which he apparently wants to avoid.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 2, 2007 10:26 AM

Wow, I nominate this for Best Post Ever.

Posted by Mr. Noah | June 2, 2007 10:37 AM

Re: Bush is the fullest expression available of the modern Southern Republican Party's wishes.

Not really. They see him as kinda wimpy and they would have definitely liked a harder line on just about everything, from gays to welfare to even the "War on Terror" (invade Iran and all that). And on immigration Bush is now their worst nightmare. They forgave him a lot because of his loud and often professed Christianity, but I suspect that the marriage is finally on the rocks for good now.

Posted by JonF | June 2, 2007 10:37 AM

I agree with Mr. Noah. Matt, this is certainly one of your most insightful posts.

Posted by hal | June 2, 2007 10:41 AM

JonF

Do they? They sure could have expressed that earlier than this, but they mostly didn't.

They got what they wanted on tax policy, spending policy, foreign affairs, and government regulation. What they wanted is bad for the Country. They don't want to admit. They can argue all they wanted that they would have made more rubble in Iraq, or more invasions, or bigger tax cuts, but they basically got what they wanted.

I will concede that they did not get exactly what they wanted on gay rights or abortion - but then again, most of the conservative intellectuals seemed ok with that as long as they got what they wanted on the above.

They did not get what they wanted on Social Security, but most of them were never willing to admit what they actually did want from Social Security or how they would pay for what they claimed to want. That doesn't count. I want peace on earth and goodwill towards men. I can't be ticked that Clinton didn't really deliver that - I never proposed any real plan for him to achieve it.

Posted by MDtoMN | June 2, 2007 11:08 AM

What the cons really need to face is what incredibly cheap dates they've been. Throw them a gay marriage amendment every 2 years and they slobber like faithful dogs, never mind that BushCo is just using them so as to serve his corporate handlers who no doubt mock them at their cocktail parties.

Posted by kafka | June 2, 2007 11:29 AM

"It just turns out that if your conception of the president's job doesn't involve running the country well"

This entire post was a good summation of previous themes. The last point is important.

Conservatives have issues & ideology, and maybe a sick & disturbed foreign policy vision, but do Sullivan & Dreher really give a damn about how FEMA or the NIH or the parks are run & maintained?
They don't, except for the libertarian wing, necessarily want all these functions privatized, but they aren't very interested until Jonah runs into hassles.

I don't think conservatives feel responsible for nuts-and-bolts government, and I don't think they really want to be responsible. This, in combination with the ressentiment, will inevitably
ensure incompetence & disappointment in all areas of governance, thereby feeding more ressentiment.

Posted by bob mcmanus | June 2, 2007 11:39 AM

The soul-searching is all the more amusing because those with buyers' remorse towards Bush don't quite seem to know whether they need someone who's a 'better Bush' as his successor, or someone not like Bush at all.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 2, 2007 12:49 PM

"They see him as kinda wimpy"

maybe they do now, now that they've realized what a loser he was.

But you seem to be forgetting four or five years of paeans to his Robust Masculinity, his Steely Resolve (tm), and his Fatherly Sternness.

Man, Bush's base was completely enthralled by pictures of him in the flight suit. And the cowboy suit. And the hard hat.

His whole image was built on the Base's belief that he was the Non-Whimp, the Manly Man.

yeah, so now they realize what the rest of us knew all along, that he was a coward, a spineless cretin, and a moral midget. fair enough.

but don't go re-writing history about what they said up till now.

Posted by thag | June 2, 2007 12:53 PM

also--

hasn't there been a foreign policy version of this same dynamic, with "liberals" replaced by "international agencies", "treaties", "multilateral agreements", and "France"?

I.e., what's important is not so much whether the policy is good for the US, as whether it angers the UN.

Posted by thag | June 2, 2007 12:56 PM

"He secured political power without really reaching out to us at all."

I'm not a Bush fan, but you seem to be forgetting a lot of reaching out by Bush to a certain liberal Senator -- On education reform, immigration reform, etc. And don't forget Bush adding drug coverage to Medicare, something Dems had proposed for 30 years but never made happen.

Essentially, Bush has governed like a Johnsonian big government liberal -- simultaneously fighting to expand the welfare state while escalating costly wars overseas -- except that Bush has done so while cutting taxes.

Big government "conservatism" is simply big government liberalism with tax cuts instead of tax increases.

Posted by Fred | June 2, 2007 1:30 PM

Apropos of nothing, in reading SomeCallMeTim's reference to Southern Republicans, I was struck by the thought that the party of southern conservatives (in today's terms) has led the country into virtually every war in its history. Maybe that's because the party of southern conservatives has had disproportionate power historically due to the 3/5ths compromise and the electoral college and so it tends to be in charge, but I think there's also a cultural element to it.

Posted by Led | June 2, 2007 2:24 PM

Essentially, Bush has governed like a Johnsonian big government liberal

And thus it begins. Conservativism never fails, all failures of a conservative president can be attributed to insufficient conservativism. All Bush's failed policies are because he's a liberal.

Posted by Fledermaus | June 2, 2007 4:09 PM

Re: Do they? They sure could have expressed that earlier than this, but they mostly didn't.

You should read rightwing blogs then. There's always been a low-level growl of dissatisfaction with Bush for not pushing the rightwing agenda as hard and fast as many on the Right wanted. This started with skepticism over "compassionate conservatism", included snarls and hisses over "No Child Left Behind" and the Medicare Drug Bill, subsided for a while in the great rush of "Seig Heil!" over 9-11, then reemerged in the mass rightwing bitch-fest over Harriet Myers' nomination. And now with Bush "betryaing" the Right on immigration, and wimpily talking to Iran instead of bombing (and did I forget his Clintonian policy toward North Korea?) the Right is fairly well ready to dump him as their Hallowed Leader, if only they had a viable alternative.
FYI: I am talking about the rank and file of the Right, not corporate special interests (who really aren't Right or Left, just, well, self-interested special interests). The corporate folks did indeed get everything they wanted from Bush, except on Social Security.

Re: I was struck by the thought that the party of southern conservatives (in today's terms) has led the country into virtually every war in its history.

I suppose you would make an exception for the Revolution (where much of the radical pro-independence sentiment came from New England) and also WWII since FDR most decidedly was not a Southern Conservative.

Posted by JonF | June 2, 2007 7:29 PM

What was more important to right-wing bloggers, their mild dissatisfaction with NCLB and Medicare bill or the fact that Bush pissed off liberals? If you don't know the answer to this you should read some right-wing blogs.

Posted by Barbar | June 2, 2007 7:40 PM

"Re: I was struck by the thought that the party of southern conservatives (in today's terms) has led the country into virtually every war in its history.

I suppose you would make an exception for the Revolution (where much of the radical pro-independence sentiment came from New England) and also WWII since FDR most decidedly was not a Southern Conservative."

Additional exceptions might include Wilson (NJ Dem) dragging the country into the First World War and Kennedy (MA Dem) in Vietnam.

Posted by Fred | June 2, 2007 7:53 PM

I would exclude the Revolution, but southern conservatives were a powerful component of the Democratic coalition until the Civil Rights era, Nixon's southern strategy and Dixiecrat exodus. So I don't think the WW's and Vietnam are exceptions regardless of the regional background of the Dem presidents.

Posted by Led | June 2, 2007 8:55 PM

Also Korea, the first Gulf War, the invasion of Grenada, Kosovo and our other action in the Balkans, the Banana Wars, the Philippine conquest - honestly I'm struggling to think of wars that were engaged upon by Southern Conservatives besides the civil war and the current Iraq war.

Posted by MAX HATS | June 3, 2007 3:30 AM

"Big government "conservatism" is simply big government liberalism with tax cuts instead of tax increases. "

And, you know, a totally different agenda.

This idea that liberalism is all about wanting bigger government is a slander. Liberals want the most effective system for achieving their ends (however you want to define them), and believe that government is sometimes the best option to this effect.

Just because an "orthodox" Goldwater conservativism is about constraining the size of the government, don't make the mistake of thinking that liberalism seeks to expand it as an objective. If you want to disavow what Bush did as being heir to the theoretical underpinnings of conservatism, go ahead and make that case-- but don't pretend that it makes him liberal.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | June 3, 2007 5:07 AM

well said, mr. damiani.

conservatives have Big Govt Derangement Syndrome, pathologically hating it even when it manifestly increases human freedom and general welfare.

liberals, by contrast, don't place any independent value on whether govt is big or small; govt is just another tool in the tool-box for how we can best live together. you choose whatever size gets you results.

part of the difference here is that, as a liberal, i still believe in the democratic ideal that i *am* the govt and the govt is *me*. when taxes go up it is because *i* raised them, democratically. so I don't whine about my choice, i take responsibility for it.

conservatives abandoned that democratic ideal for the monarchist model that govt is something distinct from the people. conservatives view themselves as subjects of a sovereign instead of citizens of a democracy.

thus conservatives resent the monarch when they do not identify with it.

this is most clearly proven in an interlude like Bush 2000-2006, when the conservatives feel that the monarchy is in their hands, and are slavishly devoted to it.

turns out all that "we hate govt" stuff simply meant "we want to get the monarchy in our hands".

but...with the failure of the Bush regency, and the restoration of democracy, they will go back to saying that they "hate big govt". it's because what they really cannot get on board with is democracy.

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