A Conservative DLC?

I felt like I mostly read respectful disagreement with Peter Beinart's notion that the right needs a Republican version of the DLC, but I thought it was way off base. The GOP has shown itself over the years to be quite adept at standing for social conservatism just insofar as standing for social conservatism is politically expedient. Yes, every once in a while they missfire like with the Terry Schiavo business, but that was genuinely a mistake -- lots of people thought that the GOP was making a savvy play there until the polls starting coming out -- not the base driving politicians to do something they didn't want to do. Meanwhile, once some aspect of social conservatism becomes politically untenable, the GOP drops it like a rock. Nixon's "southern strategy" didn't promise resegregation any more than George W. Bush advocated federal criminal penalties for sodomy.

The Republicans' strength as a coalition is that the movers and shakers behind it in the business community have a much more coherent agenda than does the interest-group coalition behind the Democrats. The formula isn't fool proof, and it can hit stumbling blocks every once in a while like a recession (1992) or a badly misfiring war (2006), but over the long run if you think of the modern Republican Party as an organized conspiracy for the purposes of concentrating America's wealth and income in the hands of the smallest possible number of people, it's been wildly successful for the past 30 years and we've yet to see any really clear evidence that the basic formula has stopped succeeding.

Maybe the Republicans will lose in 2008, but prove capable of blocking a progressive agenda anyway just as they were in 1993. Maybe not. Or maybe they'll be punished at the polls for obstruction in 2010. But the time for the sort of reconfiguration that Beinart's talking about would be then -- in 2011 or 2012 if there were actual reason to believe that the party was failing to achieve its core purpose.

Comments

The real test will be 2012. At that point, Democrats will have to defend something like 24 Senate seats (in 2010 the shoe is on the other foot, though in very hostile territory for Democrats, mostly in the South and Mountain West). If Republicans fail to make substantial inroads then, and can't take the White House either, then the party will have to rethink itself. Note that the GOP didn't really rethink itself at all until the Roosevelt-Wilke contest in 1940, and didn't fully accept the New Deal until Truman-Dewey-Thurman in 1948, and didn't win an election under these circumstances until 1952. Likewise Bill Clinton was slaying lots of sacred cows not revisited at the Presidential level since the late 60s.

For those of us who are center-left, having a Republican DLC would certainly be nice and make politics more fun and less vitriolic, but I think you're right that it's not yet clear that the GOP strategy is fundamentally broken. It may become clear over the next five years, though.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | August 16, 2007 2:46 PM

"over the long run if you think of the modern Republican Party as an organized conspiracy for the purposes of concentrating America's wealth and income in the hands of the smallest possible number of people, it's been wildly successful for the past 30 years and we've yet to see any really clear evidence that the basic formula has stopped succeeding."

The only way to stop the formula from succeeding is to show you can win elections with a politics clearly opposed to the formula.

Win elections across the country with this, and you force the Republicans to head in a DLC-esque direction out of weakness.

Posted by Petey | August 16, 2007 2:48 PM

A Conservative DLC

They need a Northern (or possibly, non-Southern) DLC, not a conservative one.

movers and shakers behind it in the business community have a much more coherent agenda than does the interest-group coalition behind the Democrats

Don't buy that, particularly.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 16, 2007 2:49 PM

Perhaps I'm too far to the left here, but I just don't see that there'd be a huge policy difference between a republican DLC and the actual DLC.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 16, 2007 2:51 PM

"Maybe the Republicans will lose in 2008, but prove capable of blocking a progressive agenda anyway just as they were in 1993. Maybe not. Or maybe they'll be punished at the polls for obstruction in 2010. But the time for the sort of reconfiguration that Beinart's talking about would be then -- in 2011 or 2012 if there were actual reason to believe that the party was failing to achieve its core purpose."

Not mentioned here is the possibility that at least where the executive is concerned Republicans are already poised to rally around an authoritarian centrist (say one of these kewl mayor types) because they're more interested in swarthy, sinister Arabs than the crap (banning abortion, obstructing gay rights, punishing the poor) they've been concerned with for the last generation. It may be the case that they only half-care about Congress anymore.

Posted by Linus | August 16, 2007 3:16 PM

Republicans don't need a "conservative DLC" because the Republican party is not, and has rarely been, an exclusionary conservative group. Witness the leading contenders for '08 - on the Republican side, they span the entire range on social issues, from Giuliani to Brownback. The Democrats, on the other hand, uniformly support abortion rights, gay rights, and a rainbow of other socially liberal positions.

One could make a good argument that the Democratic positions represent mainstream America. If you did, you'd find many religious, rural, and southern voters who would disagree. In any case, it appears that Republicans have learned more from '64 than Democrats did from '72. If you don't believe me, ask Zell Miller.

Nick Kasoff
The Thug Report

Posted by Nick Kasoff | August 16, 2007 3:20 PM

Yes, the Republican Party: The Party of Tolerance!

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 16, 2007 3:22 PM

Mind you Matt, if the financial press that I've been reading is correct it could be that the GOP agenda has been too successful and the 'little people' who make up the bottom 70% of the pyramid have been squeezed to the last pip and are thowing in the towel, a la 1929, in which case history repeats itself...the material conditions of America dictating a move back to what is sneered at as 'far left', but is really common sense.

In which case the GOP doesn't have to change. They remain the same deluded rump they were in 1932.

Posted by Northern Observer | August 16, 2007 3:23 PM

I think there's a huge incentive for Republicans outside the South to begin abandoning the ultra-rightist Southern leadership which apparently has dominated the party for the last quarter century.

And if that is possible (maybe, maybe not, given current trends among GOP primary voters and donors) that may end up being a dramatic improvement in US politics.

I think moderate conservatives in the Northeast or Midwest, say, ought to be more than a little bit frustrated with having been stuck in the party of Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay and Trent Lott and other reactionary freak Southern Republican rightists.

Posted by El Cid | August 16, 2007 3:25 PM

Trent Lott is in favor of embryonic stem cell research and illegal immigration amnesty. Newt Gingrich never showed much genuine enthusiasm on social issues. DeLay is the only one of three you cite who comes close to fitting your pattern.

Posted by James Kabala | August 16, 2007 3:41 PM

It may be the case that they only half-care about Congress anymore.

Well, why should they?

Just as Reagan showed that deficits don't matter, Bush has shown that Congress doesn't matter.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | August 16, 2007 3:43 PM

NK,

If you said souther rural and religious then I would nod in agreement; that segment of America is different from every other segment in the rest of the country. It has a very unique political culture.

But you said 'many' rural, 'many' religious and 'many' southern. I would say many rural religous southerners. Some rural and Some religious. In particular, those rural and those religious whose beliefs are the same as the rural religious southerners. But it ain't a majority of rural or a majority of the religious. There is polling out on this.

Thing is, it just ain't a working majority. It's a recipe for a good regional southern party that does well in Indiana and Idaho.

Zell who? What an embarassement. What was his speach again? Democrats are bad because they didn't kiss the 'war' Presidents ass like all good Americans should otherwise Osama wins or something like that. Please. We all see through that now. Even the southern rural religious see through that BS now. No more Kings in the White House.

Posted by Northern Observer | August 16, 2007 3:45 PM

The course I see a prospective RLC taking would be one that is conservative on social issues but more receptive to Democratic ideas on health care, energy, taxes, etc. That would be a mirror image of the DLC, and I think our nation would be greatly enriched by it.

Unfortunately, convincing people to reform their institutions when there doesn't seem to be a problem is difficult. I think that you'll have to see the national mood go decisively against the Republicans and for them to lose a few more elections before they hit rock bottom and begin rethinking things.

I do agree with this quote, though: "...movers and shakers behind it in the business community have a much more coherent agenda than does the interest-group coalition behind the Democrats." The conservative movement and agenda is more coherent than the liberal agenda. Too many single issue groups on the liberal side, while on the conservative side you see religious groups working on getting tax cuts, for example. Once pro-choice groups and environmental groups, for example, start coordinating their agendas we'll be start to see a more powerful left.

Posted by Lev | August 16, 2007 3:46 PM

I don't see the Republicans sliding much farther down because too many Americans are-- and proudly so-- ignorant and reactionary. Until we get enough reasonable immigrants in here to push out the racist dittoheads, there is no hope for a Right Wing sea change. Hence, my evil plan for immigration relaxation is truly just a devious design to dilute the Republican base, and promote miscegenation and working class, immigrant-centric liberalism nationwide. MUHUHAHAHHAHAHA! Kill whitey.

Posted by Gregorio | August 16, 2007 3:58 PM

Matt, do you actually believe this stuff:

"if you think of the modern Republican Party as an organized conspiracy for the purposes of concentrating America's wealth and income in the hands of the smallest possible number of people..."

Or is this just political posturing for the Shots After Dark crowd?

It's a little rich to read the Dalton- and Harvard-educated son of a multimillionaire Hollywood screenwriter parrot tired rhetoric from the Gilded Age.

Posted by Fred | August 16, 2007 4:01 PM

I'll agree with a poster above. What's the difference between Governor Ahnuld and the DLC? Not much. It seems to me the difference between blue state Republican governers (see how Romney governed, for instance) and DLC dems is so minor that I see no room for a new organization. The DLC represents the center of both sides well enough. But, to be fair, that only covers the policy side of things. The GOP could clearly use some sort of organization to promote moderate candidates in blue regions of the country. The shrinking Republican presence in the northeast and west is crying out for a formal, moderate group to dig up viable candidates. But, I see no way RLC ideas could compete for space in the national party platform

Posted by Citizen (World) | August 16, 2007 4:08 PM

I think Nicholas hits the nail on the head: we're several years away from the GOP recognizing that the Southern dominated party is so uncompetitive outside the south that it can't win national elections. And, as Matt notes, so far that case is still speculative. But I think that Gordon and Citizen are sort of missing the point: its not that warmed-over corporate centrism is underrepresented in our politics, its that its increasingly underrepresented in the Republican party, which (admittedly as a matter of speculation) looks to be a significant barrier to the party's success going forward. If in fact the D's win hold Congress and the White House from 2008-2012, then I think you'll see GOP governors from the midwest to the southwest band together in a DLC like formation. Until the money pump stops working, the real GOP base will stick to what they know.

Posted by Rich C | August 16, 2007 4:23 PM

I'll agree with a poster above. What's the difference between Governor Ahnuld and the DLC? Not much.

I'd (also)agree with that substantially but I think GOP Blue state governors actually has a claim to being able to get their guys elected, whereas the DLC has a super mediocore record.

I think Arnold or old school Romney represent an attempt find a workable to strategy to govern or at least be popular, whereas the DLC is interested in moving to the center for the sake of moving to the center. I think the comparison is limited by the fact one group is practical and other is pseudo practical.

Posted by ChristopherColaninno | August 16, 2007 4:24 PM

NK, I think you're operating from the wrong premise. You're assuming that DLC equals "socially conservative Democrat," and focusing on social issues. By and large the DLC is more or less where the rest of the party is on reproductive rights, church-state separation, etc., and where they really differ is in being more free-market/free-trade/corporate-friendly, and also in being more hawkish.

I don't think those religious/rural/southern voters of which you speak are hostile to Democrats because they think they don't listen enough to pharmaceutical manufacturers, or because they're too skeptical of free trade, or because they don't want to stampede into Iran.

Harold Ford aside, the DLC vs. actual Democrat divide is not really about social issues.

Posted by SDM | August 16, 2007 4:25 PM

So what are you suggesting? A republican socially conservative, fiscally liberal organization to be the yin the the DLC's socially liberal, fiscally conservative yang? That seems implausible to me.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 16, 2007 4:29 PM

It's impossible for the Republicans to move substantially left on economic matters. Impossible. They've been explicitly wedded since the 1880s to laissez faire economics (or Manchester liberalism, more technically). At numerous points in time, that was the only thing sustaining them. There's no especial push within the party to abandon a near-universal economic stance, and worse, a more liberal economic stance would mean less dollars from donors (which is worse than losing votes for Republicans).

Posted by burritoboy | August 16, 2007 5:08 PM

It's impossible for the Republicans to move substantially left on economic matters. Impossible. They've been explicitly wedded since the 1880s to laissez faire economics (or Manchester liberalism, more technically). At numerous points in time, that was the only thing sustaining them. There's no especial push within the party to abandon a near-universal economic stance, and worse, a more liberal economic stance would mean less dollars from donors (which is worse than losing votes for Republicans).

Posted by burritoboy | August 16, 2007 5:09 PM

Hey Chimichanga Chap-- they ARE traditional liberals in the economic sense. That's why I have beef with the whole "liberal-conservative" axis overall. These terms have other, oft-contradictory meanings.

Posted by Gregorio | August 16, 2007 5:48 PM

Am I the only here who thinks that the Republican coalition has fallen apart? The 30 year period of Republican gains was based on a coalition of pro-business forces and social conservatives. The pro-business wing of the Republican party won't be able to co-exist with the social conservative wing going forward. Their goals are too much in conflict now. There is no compromise between an anti-immigration stance and the need for cheap labor. Also, business desperately needs relief from healthcare costs, and no one is touting a "conservative" solution for that.

The proof for this would be evidence that pro-business groups have decreased donations to the Republicans. I know that Republican fund raising is down, but I'd be very curious to see how much of the decrease is due to a drop in support from businesses and business leaders.

Posted by DMoore | August 16, 2007 6:12 PM

" It seems to me the difference between blue state Republican governers (see how Romney governed, for instance) and DLC dems is so minor that I see no room for a new organization."

Mr. Kos himself called that Schwarzenegger fellow a Democrat not so long ago but governing isn't just about the stuff you say in public and your big legislative goals. In those senses Governor Arnold is very much a DLC-ish Republican. But governing is about the stuff that doesn't make Sac Bee headlines too: what you fight to get in the budget and get out of the budget, the appointments you make to agencies and the judiciary, and the myriad of ways you can use the power of the executive to compel various agencies - from the state epa to the state tax board - to do what you want. There's little question in my mind that the Democrats are no less beholden to the interests of the police and prison state (for instance) than the Republicans, but in a number of less sexy but not unimportant ways Democratic governors tend to be superior than even centrist Republicans.

I mentioned a while back as an example the continuing stream of environmental legislation that passed during the Davis years. Little of it made front page news, and it was in a number of cases pretty technical stuff, but some of it was quite important and groundbreaking and despite all the attention Mr. Schwarzenegger has gotten for being the environmental governor or whatever that stream of environmental legislation has slowed to barely a trickle. I'm not apologizing for all the ways Davis was a bad governor, but the myriad of ways Schwarzenegger is a less than good governor don't get reported.

Posted by Linus | August 16, 2007 6:23 PM

"The GOP has shown itself over the years to be quite adept at standing for social conservatism just insofar as standing for social conservatism is politically expedient."

Disagree. The Bush regime has given social conservative everything they asked for and more. Faith based programs, reactionary judges, FDA blocking morning after pills, abstinence only education..........the social conservatives won it all.

Posted by DonB | August 16, 2007 6:39 PM

BTW, Beinart is wrong about the GOP needing a DLC. Why should they? The GOP has been catering to the most fringe elements of its base and winning for three decades. Why should they change?

Posted by DonB | August 16, 2007 6:41 PM

Gordon Lightfoot:

"A republican socially conservative, fiscally liberal organization to be the yin the the DLC's socially liberal, fiscally conservative yang? That seems implausible to me."

I don't know - it sounds an awful lot like the Bush Administration to me. Or have you forgotten that the Democrats now get to use the balanced budget, low tax talking points?

Posted by Anthony | August 16, 2007 6:41 PM

The only people a conservative DLC (the RLC?) would help in the long-run would be liberals. After all, look at what the real DLC did...

Posted by Naveen | August 16, 2007 6:41 PM

Republicans must die. End transmission.

Posted by Gregorio | August 16, 2007 6:56 PM

"The 30 year period of Republican gains was based on a coalition of pro-business forces and social conservatives. The pro-business wing of the Republican party won't be able to co-exist with the social conservative wing going forward. Their goals are too much in conflict now."

Perhaps, but that was a problem continuously throughout those 30 years, and prior to them as well. And, the reality is those two wings are closely welded together: the business elite knows it can't win anywhere without the social conservatives, and social conservatives are ideologically deeply invested in laissez faire capitalism. The Fundamentals (the highly influential group of texts from 1917 from which we take the term fundamentalist)devote as much time to opposing socialism as to any other major subject. Not surprising, since the publication of The Fundamentals were paid for by two oil tycoons.

Posted by burritoboy | August 16, 2007 8:42 PM

The other real opportunity for a GOP version of the DLC was four years ago, when a small group of Republican moderates in Congress would have had the power, in that closely divided Congress, to determine the national agenda if they'd been willing to coordinate as a bloc.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | August 16, 2007 8:44 PM

"There is no compromise between an anti-immigration stance and the need for cheap labor. "

Strictly speaking, that's anti-illegalimmigrant; Legal immigrants don't represent a source of cheap labor, it's only the fear of being deported that gives business such leverage over the illegal immigrants.

Business favored the amnesty because, without any real effort at border enforcement, it would have generated a huge flood of new illegal immigrants, and they would have been the cheap labor, not the newly legalized immigrants.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | August 16, 2007 8:52 PM

I will throw out the Republican Mainstreet Partnership founded in 1994 once again. The members were predominately from the northeast or Great Lakes region and were fiscally conservative but at least somewhat socially liberal.
The problem was this group never actually voted against the Republican majority. Founding member Amo Houghton voted for every one of the Contract for America bills. More recently, can anyone name a bill where the vote was close and Specter, Collins or Snowe sided against the administration.

The Republicans won't need to moderate until they can't elect any Senators from the northeast or pacific time zone. Our friends in Oregon, Maine (and Minnesota) can hasten this transformation in 2008.

Posted by Boehlert to Arcuri not Amo to Randy | August 16, 2007 9:11 PM

if you think of the modern Republican Party as an organized conspiracy for the purposes of concentrating America's wealth and income in the hands of the smallest possible number of people, it's been wildly successful for the past 30 years

I'm not sure this is true. Inequality has risen in that time, but not that much.

And I'd like to now which Republican policies specifically are thought to be most behind the inequality increase...Reagan-era deregulation? Financial bailouts? Tax credits that favored human-capital-intensive industries? Anti-union laws?

Posted by Mr. Noah | August 16, 2007 9:45 PM

"Legal immigrants don't represent a source of cheap labor, it's only the fear of being deported that gives business such leverage over the illegal immigrants."

I don't agree. The Republican party says they're anti-illegal immigrant, because that's how you can spin it and hide the underlying racism and fear of different cultures. But they fight just as bitterly to oppose opening up legal immigration and prevent business from bringing in the same number of immigrants that we have had flow into the country illegally. That's why there is the constant battle where businesses try to expand the number of H-1B visas. Labor is cheap when you have an abundant supply of it.

Immigration is the natural result of a relatively thriving economy. If there are more and better paying jobs in the US than in Mexico or India, people will try to move and work here. Pro-business conservatives recognize that reality, and say it's not government's job to try and change human nature. Social conservatives top policy goals are to change human nature: abstinence, immigration, homosexuality.

Posted by DMoore | August 16, 2007 10:49 PM

Trent Lott is in favor of embryonic stem cell research and illegal immigration amnesty. Newt Gingrich never showed much genuine enthusiasm on social issues. DeLay is the only one of three you cite who comes close to fitting your pattern.

Posted by James Kabala

I didn't argue that these were enthusiastic on social issues. I don't know whom you're addressing.

I described them as "reactionary freak Southern Republican rightists," and it was you that translated this as "social issues".

Gingrich spearheaded the campaign to bring an impeachment investigation into Clinton for a failed land deal and a blowjob, and was planning to take down both Clinton and Gore.

In any accounting, Gingrich is a right wing freak turd, and he's certainly Southern, and he led the national Republicans - he was even Speaker of the House for a while.

As a Southerner, I'm disgusted with this region typically being represented by reactionary freaks -- and, of course, I count Reagan and his entire agenda, now thankfully dying along with him, as reactionary right wing barbarism.

Use more polite terms if you want, but the incentive for the rest of the country's Republicans to abandon the idiotic right wing leadership from Southern right wing reactionary turds is clear.

Posted by El Cid | August 16, 2007 10:51 PM

I am in favor of a Republican DLC so long as Beinart joins it.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 17, 2007 12:22 AM

The Republicans already have their DLC, it's called Club for Growth. The problem is they are even more right wing on a number of issues than the regular party.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | August 17, 2007 12:48 AM

if you think of the modern Republican Party as an organized conspiracy for the purposes of concentrating America's wealth and income in the hands of the smallest possible number of people, it's been wildly successful for the past 30 years

I'm not sure this is true. Inequality has risen in that time, but not that much.

And I'd like to now which Republican policies specifically are thought to be most behind the inequality increase...Reagan-era deregulation? Financial bailouts? Tax credits that favored human-capital-intensive industries? Anti-union laws?

Keep going, Mr. Noah, you're on a roll.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 17, 2007 6:36 AM

"over the long run if you think of the modern Republican Party as an organized conspiracy for the purposes of concentrating America's wealth and income in the hands of the smallest possible number of people, it's been wildly successful for the past 30 years"

This formula is always a victim of its own success. Taken to its logical conclusion, it leads eventually to a single person owning everything. That person will then be assassinated, because *everyone else in the world* has an incentive to do so, and *nobody* has an incentive to keep him alive.

When Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and hedge fund managers think that wealth is getting concentrated among too few people, this formula is already showing that it's reaching its own limits. Millionaires, multi-millionaires, and billionaires are favoring wealth redistribution. They keep up the "all wealth to the King" policy by fooling the poor, but they can't keep that up forever.

Posted by Nathanael Nerode | August 17, 2007 10:59 AM

To specify, "They" in the last sentence is the Republican party, not the billionaires favoring wealth redistribution.

Posted by Nathanael Nerode | August 17, 2007 11:00 AM

A conservative DLC? Do we really need two of them?

Snark aside, this post is spot on. Matt, you're a lucky bastard to have a copy of Chait's book early.

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