by brainwave
Thu Nov 25th, 2004 at 08:17:10 PST
Many people here believe that the tensions among the various factions inside the Republican Party (and the Bush-voting world) are much more disruptive than the divisions between moderates and progressives on our side. I'm honestly not sure whether this is true. But I want to explore the possibility here and a possible policy platform that might exploit these tensions in an effective manner. I mean this as a forum for discussion - I'm interested in your views. Below the fold, I'll try to get the discussion started with some talking points.
The sparks between moderates/centrists and liberals/progressives have been flying high for years. Yet, it strikes me that the issues we've been fighting over are more of a strategic/tactical than of an ideological nature. Don't get me wrong - there are serious ideological differences between moderates and progressives. But what they've been warring over is not so much who is right on these ideological questions but how to win elections. For a concrete example, I believe that deregulation in the 1990s went too far and that Dean was right on the money when he said capitalism without regulation is like hockey without rules. But this is not something I'm prepared to go to battle over right now, and if I'm gauging the mood in these parts correctly, I'm not alone. So the first question I want to submit to you is this: We have our ideological differences as they have theirs. On either side, there is a potential for a faction going third party or crossing over to the other side (in a variety of ways, ranging from voters moving to the other camp via senators/representatives voting with the other side on specific issues via them caucusing with the other side in Congress to them actually switching parties). On which side is this more likely to happen, theirs or ours?
Now, here's an overview of the major factions within the Republican Party (distilled from this WikipediA entry - the author's categories aren't always non-overlapping i.m.o.):
- Christian fundamentalist right (Robertson, Falwell, Santorum) - these are the folks who got Bush elected, and they expect delivery
- Neoconservatives (messianic imperialism, fascistoid views of society; Wolfowitz, Perle, & Co.) - a small bunch of right wing intellectuals w/o any clearly discernible base, but has an enormous influence on the administration
- Paleoconservatives (socially conservative, economically protectionist, isolationist on foreign policy; Buchanan) - very important to securing the blue-collar vote, but not well represented at all in either the administration or the current party leadership
- Fiscal conservatives (fiscally and socially conservative and economically neoliberal; Goldwater, Gingrich)
- Moderates (fiscally conservative, economically neoliberal, socially liberal; Chafee, Snowe, Specter, Schwarzenegger, Powell, Giuliani) - hugely popular among the electorate, but without much influence on or support from the administration and hated by the religious right
- Libertarians (people whose primary goal is to minimize the influence of government on both society and the economy - it's misleading to equate the former with social liberalism or the latter with neoliberal economics, although there is overlap in both cases; represented by the Republican Liberty Caucus) - currently probably the most alienated, isolated, and disempowered faction
Some major issues that divide these factions:
- Social issues (abortion, gay rights, school prayer, etc.) - pit the religious right and the paleoconservatives against moderates and libertarians
- Bush's Imperial Wars - pit libertarians and paleoconservatives against neocons and the religious right
- Civil liberties and the Patriot Act - pit moderates and libertarians against neocons, paleoconservatives, and the religious right
- Globalization and Free Trade - pit paleoconservatives against libertarians, moderates, and fiscal conservatives
- Deficit spending - pits paleoconservatives, fiscal conservatives, moderates, and libertarians against Bush's "cut and spend" policy, and by extension against the factions most strongly supporting Bush - the religious right and the neocons
- Enronism (by which I mean both the lack of accountability in corporate culture and the access major corporations have to decision making in the White House and on the Hill) - pit libertarians and paleoconservatives against moderates and fiscal conservatives
Now, if we were to assemble a single policy package designed to best exploit these fault lines, it would most likely drive a wedge between religious right and neocons (and thus the Bush administration) on the one side and moderates and libertarians on the other, with fiscal conservatives and paleoconservatives caught in the middle. Here's what a platform crafted to be the wedge might look like:
- Return to fiscal sanity - balanced budgets and spend-as-you-go
- End the Imperial Wars
- Protect civil liberties - defend the Constitution against the grasp of the fundamentalists
- Limit the influence of lobbyists in Washington and enforce corporate accountability
- Tie the lifting of trade barriers to the globalization of labor protection and environmental standards
These are all policies Democrats and their constituencies can live with. But can they be effective? Will the factions of the Republican Party stick it out together, no matter how deep their ideological differences, because no faction finds itself opposing a particular other faction on all the issues? Or will they stick it out together no matter what, as long as staying together means hanging on to power?
Your views? Take the poll (if you please)!