Social Policy A La Newt

To get a sense of the basic hollowness of Newt Gingrich's "transformational" agenda for American conservatism, it's necessary to read his long-winded discussion of aging and retirement issues in America. Huge proportions of it are dedicated to rehashing tired bogus arguments -- Social Security is bad for black people, if we use inconsistent assumptions about GDP growth rates, then stocks are much better than guaranteed benefits -- because he's just putting forth the same old policy ideas: Health Savings Accounts and Social Security privatization.

And, so, fine. Conservatives shouldn't adopt a new set of ideas just for the sake of finding "new ideas." But Gingrich's whole schtick is the idea that he's some brilliant outside the box thinker when, in fact, all he has is the same old policies in what's more-or-less the same old packaging to boot.

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Comments

"But Gingrich's whole schtick is the idea that he's some brilliant outside the box thinker when, in fact, all he has is the same old policies in what's more-or-less the same old packaging to boot."

Multiple things going on here.

- he's actually a mildly entertaining intellectual speaker, which is unusual for elective politicians.

- he invokes The Future constantly in a way that fascinates stupid people.

- he invokes historical analogies constantly in a way that fascinates stupid people.

- he likes talking about Big Ideas far more than most elective politicians.

It's pretty good schtick. You assessment of the substance of it all is quite correct, of course.

Posted by Petey | June 1, 2007 3:03 PM

Let's be honest here. Newt Gingrich is basically a junior college professor who failed to get tenure.

...an untenured junior college professor with gigantic delusions of grandeur...

Posted by RKU | June 1, 2007 3:15 PM

Those issues don't matter to winning the Republican nomination anyway. Where does Newt come down on Iraq, torture, gays, and abortion? That's all that's important to Repubs right now.

Posted by Ron | June 1, 2007 3:32 PM

Americans like to imagine that their leaders know more than they are saying. With Newt, that would be impossible.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 1, 2007 3:38 PM

Every night when I go to bed I pray to god (or would pray to god, if I believed in it) to give Gingrich the Republican nomination, and to have him run on privatizing Social Security.

Posted by Tom Hilton | June 1, 2007 4:09 PM

As a real conservative, I'd never vote for Gingrich or Fred Thompson. They are both neocons.

http://www.conservativeexodusproject.com/

I have proudly signed the Conservative Exodus Project, and I'll only vote for real conservatives.

Posted by Real Conservative | June 1, 2007 4:36 PM

All the commenters, except the Real Conservative, have nailed it. A failed junior college professor with delusions of grandeur bloviating endlessly about the future which we will face by using 19th century nostrums recycled as new ideas. And yes, please, please, please let him run on privatizing Social Security. It will be like 1964 all over again.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | June 1, 2007 4:52 PM

Gingrich taught at West Georgia University in Carollton, Georgia. Then West Georgia College, West Georgia is a regional comprehensive, four-year, college rather than a community college. According to a Frontline timeline of Newt's life, Gingrich left West Georgia because he had "no chance" of getting tenure.

Newt's thoughts on retirement might be stale, but he has developed new ideas on limiting the First Amendment and setting up military tribunals to suppress domestic war opposition. However, these dangerous proposals have gotten little play in the mainstream media or the liberal blogosphere.

Posted by Ric Caric | June 1, 2007 5:57 PM

Beyond his failed small-college career, I think that Newt, along with Rudy Giuliani (perhaps taking a page from Bush 2000), are the vanguard of the New Republicans--politicans who eschew issue politics entirely in favor of inventing a persona that they think voters will accept/respect/worship, then they campaign to reinforce the persona rather than to try to offer new policy solutions to replace the rejected GOP ideas.

Along the way, they invent a persona for their opponent and focus their political energies on reinforcing their opponent's persona rather than showing why they have better ideas, etc.

I realize that this is hardly a new idea but the persona generation/reinforcement is reaching new heights right now. Look for it everywhere. Fred Thompson--Hardnosed Prosecutor Heir To Reagan. John McCain--Hardnosed Will Stare Down the Terrists War Machine. Rudy -- I AM National Security. Tancredo -- Love Me, I'm Nuts. Ok, maybe not him.

The lesser lights latch onto issues as ways to differentiate, but the majors are trying for broad appeal so they play into archetypal themes.

It's a fun game. To a lesser extent Democrats play a similar game, but we all know Dems want policy with their marshmallow creme. The GOP? What do they have except hollow men with images to project?

Posted by Daddy Love | June 1, 2007 6:05 PM

The popularity of SS reformed tanked in the Deep South, where stock market investors are not exactly abundant. The oft-repeated claim about SS reform being a favor to Blacks was probably a nail in the coffin.

Posted by piotr | June 1, 2007 6:31 PM

Along the way, they invent a persona for their opponent and focus their political energies on reinforcing their opponent's persona rather than showing why they have better ideas, etc.

Well, it's all they've got, isn't it? The Republican party has completely abandoned any interest in actually governing (as opposed to using government to enrich contributors and maintain and expand one's own power); Republican government was killed off by a generation of anti-government rhetoric ("Government is the problem, not the solution," said Saint Ronnie). So since they can't run on ideas they don't have (and aren't interested in), they have to run on invented personas.

Posted by Tom Hilton | June 1, 2007 7:10 PM

I think a related dynamic was that for a generation or two, top Republican leaders were always claiming that "only thieves and criminals want to work in government, and their only objective is to get rich by stealing millions from the public treasury."

And upon hearing this, a certain slice of young college students said "That's the life for me!," and immediately joined the Young Republicans...

Posted by RKU | June 1, 2007 7:59 PM

I was going to defend some of Newt's ideas here, but then I started wondering what exactly he is going up against on the Dem side. I saw him debate Chuck Schumer on CSPAN recently and Schumer had some un-Constitutional/implausible sounding idea of offering to cap Americans' property taxes. I must have missed the part where he mentioned his proposals for controlling the costs of Medicare and Social Security -- anyone want to fill me in on the Dem plans there? Or is it just more of the usual Robin Hood stuff?

Also, how do Democrats reconcile their zeal in making entitlement programs more generous while expanding the number of poor Americans by a few tens of millions with the new immigration bill?

Posted by Fred | June 1, 2007 8:40 PM

Fred,

Newt's an idiot with a big mouth. So by all means, bring your no doubt copious intellect to the fray and explain why Newt is smarter than Chuck Schumer, who at least upon superficial observation has at least a triple digit IQ (meaning he would be an intellectual giant amongst the GOP set).

And why does expanding the number of legal migrants to the US hurt Social Security and Medicare? It's not intuitively obvious.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | June 1, 2007 9:44 PM