Conservative Collapse?

David Brooks offers a very Sullivan-esque column on the failings of the modern GOP, which he traces to the hardening of conservative ideology into a firm creed rather than a Burkean disposition:

To put it bluntly, over the past several years, the G.O.P. has made ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots. This may seem like an airy-fairy thing that does nothing more than provoke a few dissenting columns from William F. Buckley, George F. Will and Andrew Sullivan. But suburban, Midwestern and many business voters are dispositional conservatives more than creedal conservatives. They care about order, prudence and balanced budgets more than transformational leadership and perpetual tax cuts. It is among these groups that G.O.P. support is collapsing.

Maybe. I feel, though, that it's easy to overestimate the depth of the crisis facing the Republican Party. They've implemented some policies that have not worked well, and so they've become unpopular and look set for significant losses in 2008. One could, however, easily imagine nothing in particular changing -- especially nothing as abstract as shifting he balance of credal and dispositional cosnservatism -- before they bounce back in 2010 or 2012. How many articles were written in 2005 about the "new Republican majority" and trying to explaining the pseudo-fact of how it came about.

Comments

I know all about "perpetual tax cuts," but what is "transformational leadership"?

Posted by Leo | October 5, 2007 9:24 AM

I doubt David Brooks knows what he's talking about. It's easy to ascribe all sorts of beliefs to the mythical Kansan. Brooks does it with the sort of self-flattering kind of pop psychology that at once makes him such a hit with establishment conservatives and so annoying to the rest of us.

Posted by Joe Strummer | October 5, 2007 9:30 AM

If you go with the ideas that the Democrats have enormous opportunities to expand their lead in the House and bring the Senate a lot closer to sixty votes, it looks really bad for the Republicans. It's not impossible for the Republicans to regain both chambers, but barring some sort of implosion, it won't be easy, either. It'll take a few years, I imagine, to chip away at the numbers, and during this time, the incumbency effect is only going to get stronger for each member that survives. Combining this with the possibility of a Democratic president with an electorate that looks increasingly favorable over the next generation, it's easy to see why the Republicans are very anxious.

Posted by Brian | October 5, 2007 9:30 AM

I agree that the basic fact about American politics is the pretty even split between left and right, and that this isn't going to change any time soon. So, e.g., Hillary Clinton's chances for election are better because conservatives fear and respect her-- she's not going to get their votes in any case.

Posted by MattF | October 5, 2007 9:32 AM

The repugs have nothing to worry about. The Clintons in the White House will help them immensely. Nothng like having the repugs worse nightmare to come alive to get them motivated. I am sure the resurgence will happen after four years of Hillary. Democrats obviously can't handle winning otherwise why hand the repugs a gift like Hillary.

Posted by rssrai | October 5, 2007 9:42 AM

There are philosophical conservatives, but mostly modern conservatism is based on whining and resentment. There's precious few philosophical Republicans.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 5, 2007 9:58 AM

The only thing that can save the GOP is Hillary. And the Democrats are probably just dumb enough to deliver their deliverer.

Apart from that, though, we should all remember the "values voter" mania that swept the country after the '04 election cycle. Every network was rolling out some new Bible mini-series and we heard all sorts of pontificating about the importance of religion and "faith." The GOP was all high-fives and I-told-you-so's and "I only see red" blah, blah, blah. Well, a year later we sure changed that diaper in a hurry.

Posted by jim | October 5, 2007 9:59 AM

I feel, though, that it's easy to overestimate the depth of the crisis facing the Republican Party.

Seriously. Wasn't it just in 2004 that people were worried about perpetual Republican dominance, and complaining that the Democrats were "out of ideas" and would stay out of power as long as that remained true?

Given the general levels of contempt for congress, it's hard to believe that the Democrats have a firm and lasting majority.

Posted by TW Andrews | October 5, 2007 10:06 AM

Please don't cite D**** B***** as if he were a serious opinionator. His occasional, marginal criticism of the R party is a smokescreen to validate his "objectivity."

His real game is to undermine any serious criticism of the Very Serious People, demand that Democrats be "moderate and bipartisan" in the face of vicious take-no-prisoners Republican partisanship, and (above all) attack real grassroots political commentary and activism.

People like D**** B*****, D**** B*****, D**** I*******, T** F******* et al eat each other's s*** and regurgitate it for the rest of us.

Best leave this beat to Glenn, Duncan and Digby.

Posted by Adams | October 5, 2007 10:10 AM

it's easy to overestimate the depth of the crisis facing the Republican Party. They've implemented some policies that have not worked well...

That statement would imply that the Republicans have implemented some policies that have worked well. Did you have something in particular in mind?

Posted by Gregory | October 5, 2007 10:12 AM

Sign that Brooks doesn't know what he's talking about: he thinks claiming that "the G.O.P. has made ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots" will provoke a dissent from Andrew Sullivan. That's an odd claim, since Sullivan's been saying precisely the same thing, that the GOP has gone against it Burkean roots.

If Brooks can't figure out what a single person (with a fricking blog!) thinks, why should I believe him when he claims to know what millions of "suburban, Midwestern and many business voters" think?

Posted by Peter Bautista | October 5, 2007 10:12 AM

So "William F. Buckley" and "George F. Will" are as "airy-fairy" as Arthur Sullivan? Is El Davo implying that Bill and Georgie are homos? And is he afraid that they will beat him up if he doesn't include their middle initials? Please, don't believe a word this guy says.

Posted by Alan Vanneman | October 5, 2007 10:17 AM

I think he's saying that Will, Buckley and Sullivan are offended by ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots, not that they're offended by his claim. IOW, he's trying to ally himself with those three.

Posted by Matt Weiner | October 5, 2007 10:22 AM

>>"airy-fairy"

Let's see how many different euphemisms people like Brooks can come up with for "gay." Airy-fairy, effete, sensitive, decadent, over-refined, pretty...

Yes, I realize that Brooks meant "impractical" by airy-fairy, but it is poor word choice at best when mentioning a gay man in the same sentence.

Posted by jim | October 5, 2007 10:27 AM

Given my own increasing disenchantment with the Democratic party, this matters less to me than it used to, but I do tend to think that the Republican party is potentially headed for a huge crackup. The wild card is "the war;" assuming that we continue along the dark path that we appear to be headed, that may well be enough to keep the Republicans competitive, at least, for the foreseeable future.

of course. to those more optimistic about the average voter than I am, that could be considered one more nail in the Republican coffin.

Posted by LarryM | October 5, 2007 10:30 AM

It's easy to ascribe all sorts of beliefs to the mythical Kansan.

As a non-mythical Kansan, let me just say that Brooks actually isn't that far off the mark here. Most of the Republicans around here that I know are deeply dissatisified with Bush for many of the same reasons Brooks articulates. And Hillary Clinton isn't nearly as unpopular around here as she was 8 years ago, either. Don't forget that in the past few election cycles, Kansas has moved from being completely Republican to a state with a Democratic governor, Democratic attorney general, and a House delegation that's 50% Democrat.

Personally, I wish that the national Democratic party would take some lessons from the Kansas Party. Here, the Democrats have won over formerly hard-core Republicans (such as our current Attorney General) by focusing on fiscal restraint, moderate positions, and general competence in the actual business of governance.

Posted by Alex Knapp | October 5, 2007 10:38 AM

many business voters are dispositional conservatives more than creedal conservatives."...it's easy to overestimate the depth of the crisis facing the Republican Party. They've implemented some policies that have not worked well.."

Yes. It's even easier for a 'dispositional' conservative to ignore the logical outcomes from what they support than it is for 'creedal' ones; the 'creedals' have to indulge in cognitive dissonance, outright freaky denial, whereas a mere 'dispositional' (ie wooly-head) can adjust his vague disposition, which can get more and more vague - sort of a cognitive sliding scale - when things don't work out. Of course Brooks doesn't want to say this, but 'dispositional conservatives' aren't really conservatives at all: they're independents - low analysis, low information, etc. The GOP has gotten a lot of them since Reagan, but they're up for grabs, more/less, like all independents.

Posted by jonnybutter | October 5, 2007 10:47 AM

IOW, there is a difference between a Brand-conservative and a real (or 'creedal') one. It's not unthinkable to change brands, depending on the product category. And the easier it is to change, the easier to change back.

Posted by jonnybutter | October 5, 2007 10:55 AM

Given my own increasing disenchantment with the Democratic party, this matters less to me than it used to, but I do tend to think that the Republican party is potentially headed for a huge crackup. The wild card is "the war;" assuming that we continue along the dark path that we appear to be headed, that may well be enough to keep the Republicans competitive, at least, for the foreseeable future.

I think it's all but certain that after their sweep in '08, the Dems will exhibit all the gutlessness, corruption, fecklessness and stupidity necessary to drive those who are still bothering to vote into the arms of the opposition. The Jackass has already been nothing but a disappointment (since only January!); it's naive beyond belief to think that they're going to change after a big victory. So like the Dems this cycle, the Republicans will revive, but it won't be through any real effort on their part.

Posted by sglover | October 5, 2007 10:57 AM

The Republicans are following the same strategy that led to the Democratic victory in 2006: change nothing, and wait for the other guys to fuck it up royally.

This is a risky strategy, in that it's always possible the other party will actually manage to govern the country well, but that's usually not the way to bet.

Posted by Steve | October 5, 2007 11:07 AM

Even if the Democrats don't perform particularly well (assuming they win the White House and have solid majorities in Congress), its highly unlikely that the Republicans will be able to come back anytime soon.

Look at the trends against them among young people. Also, I expect the Bush-Iraq political legacy to be just as bad as the Hoover-Depression political legacy was.

Posted by Jim W | October 5, 2007 11:08 AM

Neither Brooks nor Sullivan will pull their heads out of their respective arses and acknowlege that Conservative principles are to blame for the failure of Conservatism, and not the misdeeds of a few [hundred] wayward Conservatives.

I wish Sully in particular some serious harm. He is that much of a disingenuous motherfucker. Brooks? He's the sound of one hand clapping.

Posted by Jamey | October 5, 2007 11:10 AM

t's all but certain that after their sweep in '08, the Dems will exhibit all the gutlessness, corruption, fecklessness and stupidity necessary to drive those who are still bothering to vote into the arms of the opposition.

It's not THAT certain. 'If past is prologue..' is one of those truly ugly cliches: the ugliness comes from its essential un-truth - it doesn't really mean anything much, is a value judgement. The ugliness of a cliche is not about its banality so much as its fake-ness or meaninglessness. Cliches which are so because they're irreducibly true are not really ugly, merely banal. It's always good to give the professional dems shit, however - they heartily deserve it.

I'd call it 'a good possibility', not 'all but certain'. When dems get used to winning again, their attitude will have to change, at least a bit. But not-blowing it will take leadership from above (the pres., not g-d).

Posted by jonnybutter | October 5, 2007 11:13 AM

As a non-mythical Ohioan, I echo Alex Knapp. The disgust level with Bush is enormous. My uncle-in-law is a Republican mayor that will shift radio or TV to anything other than Bush, if Bush comes on. "Worse for us than Carter was for the Democrats" is his read. "I just can't stand to hear him talk anymore. I just want the incompetent asshole gone.."

Lefties looking at Bush's approval numbers try and translate that into claims that the public wants an American defeat in Iraq, wants gay marriage, wants a full Democratic Nanny state imposed over all of us.

Not so. Republicans and Independents deeply dislike Bush outside a Fundie core....but on different issues than the Democrats. Ohioans and much of the rest of Red and Purple America are against:

1. Tax cuts for the rich of this generation that ALL Americans of later generations will have to pay off the borrowed money Bush used to reward his fatcats.

2. Free Trade is killing small town America. And compensatory jobs in high finance, import agencies, and government are not in Red States.

3. Deep resentment of Bush's Open Borders and Amnesty policies.

4. Disgust at corruption and reckless spending that is the antithesis of what created 20th Century Republicans - people reacting to imprudent Democrat spending, Machine corruption, and government solving all problems only creating different ones.

5. Rejection of Bush as an incompetent, inarticulate leader that failed on so many fronts. Not just Iraq where he and his Neocons created a legitimate government for people out to kill us and each other....many fronts, where whole sections of Fed Gov't can now by described as dysfunctional.

6. Fear the Party was in the hands of the fatcats and the theocrats - with an endstate of wealth concentrated into the hands of the few while working towards Armageddeon and the Rapture...

In 2008, I expect further Republican losses. But I expect that even before Bush is out of office, the 11th Commandment will be suspended on an emergency basis to allow debate on how the Republicans were laid low by Republican leadership and Bushism. A debate on what must change to again reinvigorate Republicans as a national party that can be trusted to be clean, competent, not dangerously ideological, strong on defense, believing in smaller government, prudent spenders under fiscal restraint...Remaining the Party that will stand against the ACLU, transnational progressives in defending America's culture and historical institutions.

Posted by Chris Ford | October 5, 2007 11:44 AM

Maybe a great deal of the nostalgia for Reaganism can be explained by the fact that we were protected from having its craziness fully implemented. Thus its purported cleverness & flexibility came from us being partially defended from its worst attacks.

With Bush Jr., the Reagan II regime got absolute power for years and tried to do every crappy, nutty, sh*tty lunatic right wing thing they thought (often wrongly) they could get away with.

In the end the majority of Americans seem to have come to be fairly disgusted with the lunacy thrown at them full-bore, while the ultra-reactionary right feels let down because there's still an IRS, evolution hasn't been replaced by creationism in schools, and we've only invaded and occupied 2 out of the many enemy nations on earth.

B doing so perhaps the Bush Jr / Reagan II Republicans have finally put an end to the Reaganite flavor of right wing reactionary pseudo-populism, though certainly another one will eventually arise.

Posted by El_Cid | October 5, 2007 12:08 PM

I think it's worse than you imagine. The current
generation of nationally-known Republicans are all
heavily implicated in the corruption of the
DeLay/Hastert congress and/or the disastrous
policies of Bush/Cheney. In principle the party
could recover by bringing up a new generation of
leaders. However, the continuing institutional
power of the evangelical Christians (Dobson etc)
and the tax-cut crazies (Norquist and the Club for
Growth) mean that no Republican can get far up the
ladder without pledging themselves to a set of
unpopular (and largely crazy) positions;
criminalizing abortion, claiming that taxcuts
increase revenue, etc.

As an Englishman, this looks rather like the
problem the English Labour Party had during the
1980s: the party remained committed to unpopular
socialist policies such as nationalization and
nuclear disarmament (a good idea, but unpopular
at that time), and made itself unelectable through
the Foot/Kinnock years. They had to explicitly
discard the 1970s ideology - dropping Clause 4
which committed them to nationalization, and
changing party conference rules to reduce the
power of union block votes - to get rid of the
(perceived) crazies and get back to power.

The Republican party appears to need the same
kind of painful rebuilding. It might take
12-15 years (and 3 Dem presidential terms) for
them to realize it, and undergo the necessary
institutional and ideological change to become a
plausibly centrist party again. Schwarzenegger
is pushing in that direction, but since he isn't
even eligible for the presidency, and can't
deliver CA's electoral votes, he probably can't
make much difference.

Posted by Richard Cownie | October 5, 2007 12:19 PM

Having spent a good deal of time either in New Zealand or living with NZers, I'd echo Richard Cownie's arguments...only my example would be NZ's National and Act parties, the excesses of restructuring and the subsequent Labour combination of both a business friendly environment (#2 in the world after Singapore) and the revitalization of what remained of the welfare state especially National health care. The problem for the Republicans is structural. Whether the Democrats will have NZ Labour's success we'll just have to see.

Posted by jerry | October 5, 2007 12:32 PM

The Reps can come back. Watch how fast Romney or Giuliani moves to the center if they are nominated. Your head will spin. All of their hard-right primary stuff will be forgotten.

Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. There are plenty of powerful people in the party who understand they have to appeal to centrist suburbanites.

Posted by mq | October 5, 2007 12:54 PM

The absolute collapse of the libertarians, the libertarian Republicans, the little-government Republicans, the constitutionalist Republicans, the moderate Republicans and the fiscally-responsible Republicansduring the Bush administration tells us how much they're worth: nothing at all. All of thom viciously fought Bill Clinton, and then fully supported Bush.

Brooks is now trying to dig himself out of the wreckage, but he remained a Bush loyalist as long as it was even remotely possible.

Republicans are just preparing for the future. They'll expel a few scapegoats, find an attractive leader with no Bush ties and no baggage, and get to work sabotaging whichever Democrat is elected. The hard rightwing core will be seething with rage and I have no idea how they will react.

Posted by John Emerson | October 5, 2007 12:59 PM

I think he's saying that Will, Buckley and Sullivan are offended by ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots, not that they're offended by his claim. IOW, he's trying to ally himself with those three.

On a closer read, I think you're right. At first I thought he mean they would dissent from him, but yeah, looks like he means they join him in dissenting from the current G.O.P.

Posted by Peter Bautista | October 5, 2007 1:17 PM

"The Reps can come back. Watch how fast Romney or Giuliani moves to the center if they are nominated. Your head will spin. All of their hard-right primary stuff will be forgotten."

Well, if they drop the "pro-life" hard-line, then
Dobson and Co are going to run a third-party
candidate. So they're stuck on that. On the
Iraq War, Giuliani is more-Bush-than-Bush; Romney
might look for some wiggle room. On taxes and
healthcare, Giuliani is similarly talking rubbish.
I'd agree that if he could get elected, Romney
would probably govern as a centrist technocrat;
the point is that for a Republican to win a
primary, *and* then to fire up his base enough
to win a national election, he/she has to stick
to idiotic and unpopular positions.

"Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. There are plenty of powerful people in the party who understand they have to appeal to centrist suburbanites."

Yeah, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger - who won
election on the strength of his personality,
tried to govern as an orthodox Republican, and
then had to swing back to the middle to survive.
And who else ? Huckabee has an endearing populist
streak, but he's going nowhere in the primary.
The so-called "moderate" Senators are all old,
and the generation behind them are Santorum-
crazy. Why ? Because anyone who dared to
speak a word against the strict dogmas of the
evangelicals, the Club for Growth, or the NRA
found themselves with no money and a wingnut
primary opponent. That's my point.

And actually, the situation is worse than it
was for the Labour party, because unless and until
they get another Republican president, there
isn't going to be any party leader with the
power to overcome the influence of these extra-
party pressure groups. In fact, they're probably
going to be even *more* influential within the
Repub party in 2010, 2012, 2014, as business
lobby funding flows to the in-power Democrats.

Posted by Richard Cownie | October 5, 2007 1:22 PM

I'd call it 'a good possibility', not 'all but certain'. When dems get used to winning again, their attitude will have to change, at least a bit. But not-blowing it will take leadership from above (the pres., not g-d).

OK, good points. And there are always surprises.

But as a betting person, I note that

1) Bush is leaving to his successor more problems and political minefields than any President in my lifetime, and I think in this century

2) When unpopular choices loom, a substantial fraction, maybe a majority, of our democracy-loving fellow citizens don't give a damn about history, causes, any of that. They'll blame whoever is in office at the time.

3) Again, the Dems have shown pretty consistently that they're not up to the current challenges. I look at the Dem front-runners, and I am totally underwhelmed. I keep trying to tell myself that the FDR of the 1932 campaign gave almost no hint of FDR the President, but Edwards, Obama and Clinton still leave me completely cold. (Actually, I think the real culprit here is the political architecture described in the Constitution, which is broken beyond repair.)

It's not hard to imagine a big GOP comeback as early as 2012. Maybe even 2010 if the Dems screw up enough, though I expect Republicans will still be busy with fratricidal scapegoating and post-mortems.

Posted by Samuel Glover | October 5, 2007 1:25 PM

The Republican party appears to need the same
kind of painful rebuilding. It might take
12-15 years (and 3 Dem presidential terms) for
them to realize it, and undergo the necessary
institutional and ideological change to become a
plausibly centrist party again. Schwarzenegger
is pushing in that direction, but since he isn't
even eligible for the presidency, and can't
deliver CA's electoral votes, he probably can't
make much difference.

Interesting institutional analysis. But I wonder if political parties in the States might be more decentralized than in the UK? (I really don't know.) For every Norquist clone on K Street, there's about 10,000 corporate-friendly Social Darwinists in Republican party offices at the county and township level, and they seem to have real constituencies. In particular, I suspect they have the ear of the local businessmen, who are often the folks who really run smaller communities.

I note, though, that Dems did very well in state legislatures in '06, and presumably will again in '08, which supports your thesis more than mine.

Posted by sglover | October 5, 2007 1:38 PM

"2) When unpopular choices loom, a substantial fraction, maybe a majority, of our democracy-loving fellow citizens don't give a damn about history, causes, any of that. They'll blame whoever is in office at the time."

This is a good point, and a reason why it was foolish for Dems not to meet Bush at least partway on some cost-controlling entitlement reforms. Better to let him take the heat than a Dem President.

"With Bush Jr., the Reagan II regime got absolute power for years and tried to do every crappy, nutty, sh*tty lunatic right wing thing they thought (often wrongly) they could get away with."

"Right wing"? Bush is LBJ with tax cuts.

Posted by Fred | October 5, 2007 1:42 PM

The smartest thing the GOP candidate can do (if he believes in it) will be to run on cracking down on illegal immigration. He'll piss off the WSJ editors, and a few low-wage business owners, but more importantly he'll mobilize the largest part of the electorate, white men, who vote Republican by a 20-something percentage margin.

This would be smart for the long term health of the party too: if Dems are able to make 20 million+ unskilled migrants citizens, the GOP will be a permanent minority party. Democrat primary politics will be interesting though, as the different ethnic groups fight it out.

Posted by Fred | October 5, 2007 1:49 PM

The smartest thing the GOP candidate can do (if he believes in it) will be to run on cracking down on illegal immigration. He'll piss off the WSJ editors, and a few low-wage business owners, but more importantly he'll mobilize the largest part of the electorate, white men, who vote Republican by a 20-something percentage margin.

Southern Strategy II.

Posted by sglover | October 5, 2007 2:08 PM

"Right wing"? Bush is LBJ with tax cuts.

Posted by Fred

No kiddin', man, Reagan was a gol' durn damn socialist and hell don't even get me started on that Communist FDR. What we really got to do is get back to that good ol' states rights and small gubmit ideas we had back in McKinley's days, back before we started all this Big Gubmit Socialism.

Posted by El Cid | October 5, 2007 2:09 PM

Interesting institutional analysis. But I wonder if political parties in the States might be more decentralized than in the UK? (I really don't know.) For every Norquist clone on K Street, there's about 10,000 corporate-friendly Social Darwinists in Republican party offices at the county and township level, and they seem to have real constituencies. In particular, I suspect they have the ear of the local businessmen, who are often the folks who really run smaller communities.

Nominally, state parties are independent bodies that are affiliated with, rather than a branch of, the national body. The rise of party-affiliated (and distributed) direct-mail fundraising has tied the units a bit tighter than they used to be, though imo it's more productive to view this as a tradeoff for/response to the loss of centralized elite control represented by the mid-20th century shift from brokered conventions to direct primaries.

But yeah, I would agree with you that you shouldn't underestimate the viability of making a show of regrouping around a few principles and then passing the stick to local elites to figure out how to sell it.

Posted by Senescent | October 5, 2007 2:19 PM

"No kiddin', man, Reagan was a gol' durn damn socialist and hell don't even get me started on that Communist FDR. What we really got to do is get back to that good ol' states rights and small gubmit ideas we had back in McKinley's days, back before we started all this Big Gubmit Socialism."

Reagan voted for FDR, smart guy. Here, I'll make you happy and call Bush a right-winger and LBJ a left-winger:

Right Wing Left Wing

Bush LBJ
Iraq and Afghanistan Vietnam
Medicare Part D Medicare
Guns & Butter Guns & Butter
Tax Cuts Kept JFK's cuts
No Child Left Behind War on Poverty

Posted by Fred | October 5, 2007 2:51 PM

"Interesting institutional analysis. But I wonder if political parties in the States might be more decentralized than in the UK? (I really don't know.)"

Well, yeah, but that's the problem, not the
solution. In the UK an opposition party has an
undisputed leader with the clout to influence
party institutions and candidate selection.
Blair was able to ram through a lot of changes.
In the USA you don't *have* an opposition leader
except for the Presidential nominee - and he/she
only gets about 8 months and is too busy campaigning
to do much else.

Meanwhile, the Republican party is fracturing: in
some states, the party is strong but full of
crazies (see the Texas Republican Party platform -
bring back the Gold Standard, reclaim the Panama
Canal, etc); in others - Illinois, California -
it's weak, poor, and ineffective. And the
Republicans in Texas aren't keen to change what
works for them locally to help a bunch of losers
elsewhere.

Posted by Richard Cownie | October 5, 2007 3:12 PM

"Maybe a great deal of the nostalgia for Reaganism can be explained by the fact that we were protected from having its craziness fully implemented. Thus its purported cleverness & flexibility came from us being partially defended from its worst attacks."

Apparently the majority of Americans saw Reagan's legacy in a negative light until around 1999. Around that time his Alzheimer's took an even worse turn and people felt sorry for Reagan. He reminded a lot of people of their grandfather and grandpa can't be that bad, as the thinking goes.

Posted by Reality Man | October 5, 2007 4:57 PM

When things go wrong, shallower minds seek explanation in a combination of stupidity, cupidity, arrogance etc. Deep minds seek the underlying causes of such surface phenomena. Over the ages, they found

unfortunate credence given to a wrong school of interpreters of the writings of Kung-fu-tsy

heeding the natural philosophy of Archimedes rather than that of Aristotle, even though the latter was found correct by the Fathers of The Church

using Kantian ethics rather then Miltonian one; I am garbling that one because I never grasped what was it about, but the gist was that invoking Continental philosophers inevitably leads to sin, drink and rock-and-roll, while wise people still differ if the chief culptit is Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, or John Lennon; it is important though to establish which are the Chief, and which are Secondary wrong philosophers

vulgar and mechanistic interpretation of Marx's dialectics

and now

ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots.

etc. So, my fellow Russian peasants, if we want to find out how to improve things, we should study how they were done under the reign of Dir and Askold.

On the more realistic level, I think that Brooks is correct. The best thing Republicans can do is to mutter something that sounds wise and wait until Democrats will screw things for reasons that a shallower mind would attribute to stupdity, cupidity and arrogance, but deeper thinkers will see for what they will be: ideological choices offending Deweyian roots (or some such).

Posted by piotr | October 5, 2007 7:36 PM