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Friday, November 14, 2008
Countermarch: One of These Things is Not Like the Other
Or, how the Republican party is broken, and why it can’t be fixed.
Three factions, each alike in principles,
In the Republican party, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the caucuses of these three foes
A difference of ideology drains their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their bickering birth their party’s strife.
I have to stop now. I cannot keep doing that to the Master and retain any dignity whatsoever. I mentioned, in Countermarch, that it’s time for libertarians and conservatives to work outside of the party system. Today, I’d like to talk a little about why that is so. Much of the political muddle we find ourselves in comes from the abandonment of the principle that words have a fixed meaning; thus I will start with a couple of definitions.
In my mind, a libertarian (note the lower-case initial) is a person who believes that the government exists solely to protect the natural rights of its people from force and fraud, whether domestic or international in origin. To the extent that the government does this, regardless of how the government is formed and structured, it is legitimate. A conservative (again, note the lower-case initial), as I think of them, is one who believes that the past has lessons to teach us, and thus that long-standing arrangements are best changed slowly, and with much provision for the possibility to undo changes should they prove harmful. To the conservative, if the government follows the documented processes for structuring itself, the making and execution of laws, and the operation of the courts — and so long as its actions are within its rightful authority — it is legitimate. There is significant common cause between the two groups at present, as the former arrangements of society (prior to the progressive onslaught on Western culture in general and the American ideal in particular) were decidedly pro-freedom, and this onslaught has proven to be at best a mixed bag, and at worse an epic disaster, and worthy of at least partial reversal.
It should go without saying that the Democrats, dominated as they are by their progressive wing, has been a radical party since at least 1968, and probably since 1932 as possibly since the late 1800s, and has no conservative or libertarian instinct in its structure at the national level. For progressives, the government is legitimate if and only if it follows progressive principles and policy preferences, and any alteration to rules (by them, not their opponents) is valid as long as it serves that end. That the Republicans are also neither conservative nor libertarian, despite cultural assumptions (and even the assumptions of those within the party, including conservatives and libertarians), is a more astonishing claim. And as rational people, we know that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. It is my intent to provide that evidence, which will also show that the Republican party, by its nature, cannot be fixed.
The purpose of a political party is to gain power for its members; it has no other. The method for gaining power depends upon the system, and in our system, that means winning elections which are structured so that the candidate with the most votes wins. This structure means that a candidate who gets 50%+1 of the vote is guaranteed to win, and this simple mathematical fact drives us into a two-party system. Any strong third party challenge has the effect of ensuring the defeat of the other party most closely aligned with itself.1 But there are more than two factions in America; we do not divide cleanly into Democrats and Republicans, or even into Democrats, Republicans and Independents. A faction differs from a party, because a faction is defined by a set of common characteristics that differentiate the members of the faction from everyone else and that influence political behavior, while a party is defined by which factions adhere to it, with the goal being to accumulate the votes of sufficient factions to ensure victory for the party’s candidate. Examples for the basis of a faction include a shared economic self-interest, a shared set of principles, and a shared heritage (racial, gender, religion, cultural, or several others).
The Democratic party is an odd duck. In its modern form, it evolved in the 1890s primarily as a reaction to the Republican party that developed following the Civil War. Because the Republicans had a lock on power for more than thirty years, there were large numbers of groups that were left out of power entirely, and these groups all gravitated over time into the Democratic party. Thus the Democrats include hundreds of tiny fractions, largely defined by shared heritage, and usually a heritage of real or imagined victimology. These include various racial factions, radical feminists, the sexually abnormal, fringe religious groups, fringe ideological groups (including but not limited to communists and radical environmentalists), non-productive and non-competitive professions and trades (journalists, professors, bureaucrats’ unions), and the economically dispossessed (including trade unions, originally, and they still try to sell themselves this way). Basically, activists for any cause that had no large base of support flocked to the Democrats, and by supporting each other, found strength they could not have had individually. That this coalition has largely held over time is rather remarkable, especially as the core issues of many of the factions have been addressed. I believe that the stability of the coalition largely comes back to the socialist roots of the progressive movement, because what ties all these factions together is a combination of victimology and rent-seeking, and both of those (and thus all the factions of the Democratic party) benefit from an ever-expanding government sphere.
The Republican party, with one exception, is still largely what it was in the late 1800s, though with a ideological twist. In fact, the Republican party is pretty simple, structurally, with few of the fringe groups that characterize the Democrats (exceptions would include the libertarian gays of the Log Cabin Republicans). Essentially, there are three major factions in the current Republican party: the big-business faction, which promotes the needs of large merchants above all others; the small-government faction, which promotes freedom, and thus small government, above all else; and the social conservative faction, which promotes Christian values above all else. The social conservatives coalesced in the Republican party in the 1960s, as the Democrats took a radical turn to the left and abandoned any pretense at social conservatism (inevitable, I think, given that the Democrats depend on the votes of many factions actively hostile to Christian values); the other two factions were the base of the Republican party since it was formed. Whether the neo-conservatives, who fled the Democrats for the Republicans in the 1990s, will become a large faction in the Republican party is unclear at this point. Certainly, their economic populism and foreign policy Wilsonianism has heavily influenced President Bush, but it is unclear whether this will have any lasting impact, or if this group will end up reattaching to the Democrats.
But one interesting ideological twist occurred in the Republican party since the late 1800s: the idea of fascism2 took deep hold among the big-business faction. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, large businesses are well served by limits to their competition, particularly by raised barriers to entry and by protectionism. Second, large businesses are well served by government growth generally, as the more regulations that must be complied with and the more taxes applied, the higher the costs to be passed on to consumers; and since profit is charges as a percentage, the more absolute profit that accrues to the owners of the businesses, and thus the more control the owners will grant the business’s executives. This combination of interests made the big-business faction quite welcoming of ever-expanding government control of business, which removes the executives’ responsibility and the possibility of failure while increasing their monetary and social rewards.
It is worth note at this point that the big-business faction has been in control of the Republican party for most of its existence, with the exception of Ronald Reagan’s presidency and Newt Gingrich’s speakership. The social conservatives made a bid for party control following Reagan, but this was largely shut down by Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton. Had a Republican been president, it is quite possible that the social conservatives could have, at least for a time, taken control of the party.
So let’s look at the primary goals of the three factions of the Republican party. The big-business faction is essentially mercantile, favoring expanding government at home (as noted above) and Hamiltonian foreign policy; that is, foreign intervention based on its impact on economic impact, and particularly based on whether it opens markets to US exports or facilitates cheap commodity imports. The small-government faction is essentially libertarian and Jacksonian, favoring the largest possible range of freedom consonant with social tranquility, and thus very limited government intervention in social and economic affairs (essentially, the government exists, in the libertarian sense, to protect its citizens against coercion by force or fraud), and favoring foreign intervention only when US security interests (not merely economic interests, unless they impact national security broadly) are directly threatened. The social conservative faction is united by a moral foundation, and essentially tends to be populist economically and all over the place on foreign policy. The primary goal of the social conservatives4 is to reimpose as many as possible of the pre-19600s restrictions on personal freedom to deviate without consequences from the norm, and as a political faction, they mostly seek to do this through government action. In other words, the big-business faction is defined by its economic interest in big government; the small-government wing is defined by its ideological interest in personal freedom; and the social conservative wing is defined by its moral interest in government action.
Looking at these in combination, it is clear that there is a tension between the big-business and small-government wings of the party. While they can usually find common ground on foreign policy (largely shared interests, though not perfectly congruent) and social policy (the big-government wing has no real social policy brief, and can find common ground with anyone), the economic interests of the two are in opposition. (In addition, of course, small-government types see big government as intruding in every sphere of life, not merely the economic sphere.) There is also a tension between the social conservative and small-government wings of the party. The social conservatives tend towards small-government ideals on economic policy, though not towards free markets (at least internationally), but nearly always support government intervention in social issues. On foreign policy, the social conservatives speak with many voices, and thus can find common ground with anyone. The social conservatives and big-business faction, on the other hand, have largely shared interests. On social grounds, the big-business faction gives way readily, while the social conservatives are unwilling to compromise. On foreign policy grounds, the social conservatives give way readily and the big-business faction happily gets its way. On economic grounds, there is sufficient common ground to come to a meeting of the minds.
Is it any wonder that President Bush, while largely a big-business Republican, is also an activist social conservative? Is it any wonder that John McCain, exemplar of the big-business Republicans, failed to win social conservative or small-government faction support until he nominated Sarah Palin, who is apparently a small-government type and a non-activist social conservative? Could Sarah Palin win the nomination in 2012, and would it matter in the long run? Yes, to the first; the Republicans tend to nominate the last campaign’s primary campaign second-place or VP candidate, so Palin is well-positioned in terms of party trends. She also has support of two of the three factions of the party, while the big business types are trying (in collusion with the media, and apparently in an effort to throw the 2012 nomination to Romney, one of their own) to tear her down. But she also has four years to make up the shortcomings in knowledge that she showed, and to solidify her base in the party. But in the long run, it will not make a difference, for one overwhelming reason: there is no reason to think that the big-business conservatives will not do exactly what they did after Reagan and Gingrich: turn to the Democrats long enough to purify the party of the most successful of their opponents, to put themselves comfortably back on top. They would, in Pink Floyd’s unimaginably beautiful phrase, rather have a lead role in a cage than a walk-on part in a war.
So because the big-business Republicans have a significant affinity to the Democrats’ social positions, and can often stomach the majority of the Democrats’ foreign policy and economic positions (short of higher personal taxes and nationalization of industries), the big-business Republicans have always maintained control by tipping as much to the Democrats as necessary to marginalize their internal opposition. This has generally resulted in long bouts of Republican presidents and Democrat congresses. Even now, in the wake of their own faction’s terrible electoral thrashing, their position tends to be towards “fixing” the Republican party by eliminating their internal opposition, most critically Sarah Palin, with a leftward shift. It should be clear at this point that the reason that the Republican party cannot be “fixed” to consistently favor free minds and free markets is that small-government leaders can take control of the party with the support of the social conservatives, but they cannot maintain that control without the support of the big-business Republicans, with whom they have deep differences on nearly all fronts.
The Republican party cannot be fixed to be permanently friendly to small government, libertarian principles of free minds and free markets, or conservative ideals of continuity and careful change. It can only move more to the left, if in fits and starts, until the Blue Dogs among the Democrats (a cultural faction that is generally socially conservative and foreign policy Jacksonian) breaks off along with neo-conservatives and a few other factions to join the Republicans. At that point, the Republican party will be indistinguishable from the Democrats of the early 1960s, and the Democrats will have gone over to full-fledged progressive lunacy. The libertarians will have no home at that point in any political party, and the conservatives will be tolerated but not given any power in the Republican party.
Rather than end on this somewhat down note, I would like to make two final points: political parties are not the only way to make changes in society, and political parties will seek out any power block that helps them win elections. My next posts will be about those two points.
UPDATE: I realized that there was a point I did not make clear here, so I wanted to clear it up. In no way am I saying that disassociation from the Republican party should be a mandate for libertarians and conservatives. Rather, what I am saying is that if the Republicans are no more likely to implement conservative or libertarian policies, why should we reward them for lip service? Money and votes, and most of the time in that order, are all that drive politics in the US, and giving either to a party or a candidate based on the party name, rather than based on the professed and demonstrated conservative and libertarian policy views of the candidate, is not only pointless, but counterproductive. It encourages the party to continue paying lip service (to get the money and votes) while not actually carrying out the policies (to get other people’s money and votes). So when I say withdraw from the party, what I mean is that if we libertarian and conservative principles want to be acted on in our society, it is necessary both to work outside the party system, and to forbid money and votes to parties and candidates who do not honor these principles.
1 Consider history, for example, with Nader siphoning votes from Gore, or Perot siphoning votes from Bush pere. This is also reachable by reason alone. Assume a voter pool of ten people, of whom four are Democrats, three Republicans and three Libertarians. If the Republicans and the Libertarians vote for the same candidate, they win. If each puts forward a candidate and votes for their own, the Democrats win.
2 I mean this not as a political program, as Jonah Goldberg meant it of the Left, but as an economic program. Politically, socialism and fascism are much alike, favoring totalitarian government. Economically, they differ in that socialists want to see government ownership of all or most property, and fascists want to see nominal private property ownership essentially under government control via regulation and taxation.
3 See Walter Russell Mead. A summary of his thesis is available in article form.
4 Note that I am talking about a particular set of social conservatives: the politically involved ones who make up the activists within the party. There are a large number of social conservatives who, while agreeing with the goals of the activist social conservatives, do not wish to impose government regulation of personal behavior, but to eliminate government support of non-normative behavior and to reestablish social disapproval instead. This type of social conservative actually belongs more properly to the libertarian faction, and this is shown both by how they vote and by the reasons they give for their policy positions. Our esteemed host, for example, clearly is a social conservative of this, rather than the political activist, type. I suspect that this group actually far outnumbers the activists, but that (at least within the party) the activists serve as their voice.
Comments
I always leave something humorous in the “Location” field. I wonder if the blog admin ever sees it?
Meanwhile, ever since I called the Time of Death on November 5th, I’ve been considering the Media’s strategy against us more than our identity and principles. I’m of a mind to keep pointing people to look at how they were defeated, not in what they think will work to win it for us.
Look, conservatives are the ones using birth control, having abortions, and accommodating the testosterone deficit in the U.S. Black people and Hispanics and the poor working classes are having children. It pays. We pay.
If we’re not going to get involved in reproduction either through traditional means, or by infiltrating education and media, we will be reduced to the anathema of armed resistance if we want to preserve even our individual freedom.
We were overwhelmed at the last, by numbers. Any way you slice it, those numbers are growing. We were lumped together by the Media into One Face: Bush. No matter that sensible ideas and successful programs spoke better of us. We allowed another to brand us.
Dear Lord, send us a military tactician. Soon.
If we don’t have more parties with hard deliniations of identity buy close ties of three or four government tenets, we won’t have a Republic left to argue about.
/rant
Gonna go play my guitar.
:o)wv: the even the word-veri is out of ideas.
Posted by Joan of Argghh! on 11/22/2008 at 10:27 AMLest anyone think the above to be a racist rant, well, no. It’s just that, as a voting bloc, most blacks do not really accept abortion and do not support it. Just like gay marriage. The Hispanic and mostly Catholic demographic is equally adverse to abortion.
Only recently has the number of white women seeking abortions dropped in relation to minorities. It’s complicated demographics that I wished to convey, no sense of racism. Inasmuch as certain racial groups have a voting bloc demographic, that is what drives the voting. We’ve lost an entire generation of moderate conservatives on the altar of Moloch. We’ve lost many more liberals as well, no doubt, but the effective education campaigns have taken up any slack in that area.
Eh, I’m babbling. Sorry. Please feel free to delete.
Posted by Joan of Argghh! on 11/22/2008 at 02:30 PMI’ve suspected that the GOP is controlled by a hidden alliance of business and religious special interests. IMHO the participating businesses are not innovators whose performance will determine future living standards and great-power status. Thus, the alliance does not advance the national welfare.
Looking forward to your next two posts.
(Speaking of pernicious hidden bargains, I wonder if Bush struck one. The Iraq operation has not turned out to be ‘self-financing’; meanwhile, domestic spending has run rampant. Was there a quid pro quo?)
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 11/23/2008 at 11:56 PM
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