NEWS: The Hollow Triumph of the Right?

POLITICS: The Hollow Triumph of the Right?

The recent meeting of the American Conservative Union has led to a series of stories positing a conservative hegemony--certainly a superfically plausible claim, given that conservative Republicans control all three branches of the federal government and a majority of states. However, as TAPPED and Brad DeLong point out, this victory was achieved only by jettisoning the issues most impotant to conservatives in the Goldwater era. DeLong summarizes the positions that movement conservatives were still backing in 1964:

As both authors note, the right has abandoned many of these principles outright, and cannot achieve those it still holds. Conservatism was able to achieve power only after making its peace with the welfare state and the major decisions of the Warren Court.

The lessons of the Republican triumph, then, may be different than is often assumed, TAPPED argues:

An interesting thought. None of this diminishes the effects of the past 3 years, but it's true that the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Social Security, Medicare, Meidcaid, and Roe v. Wade are safe for the forseeable future, which was not inevitable (to put it mildly) in 1964. The past 40 years has, ironically, seen an entrenchment of the FDR/LBJ liberal tradition, although expansions have become difficult.

God, you're a fucking bore. Do you post anything than regurgitating from your favorite bloggers?

It would seem that at least some in the Bush admin have an idea about shortening that forseeable future. Embarking on the most expensive and difficult to stop policies possible, while simultaneously cutting the hell out of taxes, might be a good way to wreck the federal budget so badly that rollbacks in expensive social programs will soon become more justifiable.

[Edited on May 19, 2004 by anatomist1]

Ugh. I'm a liberal, I don't like Bush, I like Kerry, I like Nader, but seriously, this is awful misrepresentation full with loaded dialogue.

"--The continued disenfranchisement of African-Americans." & "--The defense of the right to discriminate against African-Americans in housing, employment, and commerce."
Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act of `64 because he thought it was the feds overstepping their bounds. Goldwater was one of the leaders of the desegregation movement in the South. He was not a racist. He was not a racist. HE WAS NOT A RACIST.

"--The abolition of Social Security--if you're not smart enough to save when you're young, you should be on the edge of starvation when you're old." & "--No significant government role in health care--if you're not smart enough to have saved for your medical bills, you should be dying in the gutter."
These wouldn't be as annoying if they omitted the "if you're not smart enough..." parts, which make the conservative view seem didactic and pandering. There are undoubtedly conservatives who feel this way, but there are also undoubtedly sincerely compassionate conservatives that simply don't feel it's just or fair to have government-run entitlement programs. That, and fiscal conservativism--the practice that Goldwater and other pre-Reagan Republicans preached, as well as Newt Gingrich in the 90s, when they didn't have majority control of the Senate--is strongly counter to entitlement programs. SS and Medicare/Medicaid are two huge, huge, huge expenses, and we're not paying enough to support the baby boomers that will come to depend on them in the next twenty years. THESE ARE THE FACTS.

"--Abandonment of the crypto-communist "Keynesian" belief that the government has a responsibility to maintain full employment, and to manipulate the budget deficit and interest rates to do so."
Yeah, way to throw in "crypto-communist" and then whine about Keynes somehow because his economic theories differ from the ideology of the writer. "Manipulate" is an interesting and probably loaded term to use. Conservatives on the whole don't want to manipulate budget deficits and interest rates, they don't WANT to have budget deficits and they think the gummint should keep its nose out of fiscal affairs.

Seriously. Even if you're a liberal, Goldwater was very sensible, and in his later years as a senator he told Republicans to lay off of Clinton for Whitewater and Lewinsky both, and voted against abortion prohibition bills. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater has a good article on the guy. LBJ ran severely negative campaign ads against him, and Goldwater didn't like Nixon or LBJ. He was buddy-buddy with JFK, and also with Sen. McCarthy, as some might quickly point out. But remember that JFK and LBJ didn't like communists either.

Well I would never had read about this if he hadn't, so thanks scooter

Wait, are you talking to scooter, or a mirror?

Wow, since when is the ranting of a liberal considered 'news'? I mean, stories written by liberals about a meeting some conservatives had, with no references to the actual content of the meeting, no references to the actual participants of the meeting, and no link to the organization that held the meeting.

So, a bunch of people talking about something a bunch of other people did is now 'news' on SG? Does this mean that Peter Jennings will now devote 2 1/2 minutes of ABC Nightly News to the discussions held on the SG Current Events board and call it 'news'?

Seriously, who edited this, and why did they let it slide?

I'd like to see more articles like this myself. Let the partisan id go streaking through the boards - it's good catharsis.

In the Guardian news paper there is a rather nice section called "Comment & Analysis". Unless you are trying to suggest that political oppinion should never enter news (which is impossible, so embrace it) then I think articles such as this one fit neatly into that category.

Oh, and I also see the total irony of being lectured about unsubstantiated claims by a member of the Right.

I am not lecturing anyone about unsubstantiated claims, nor am I bitching about commentary on the news.

scooter11 submitted an article to the politcal section of the 'newswire'. Ostensibly, this is supposed to be where we find out about current events, with the common commentary from the author.

In this case we have someone writing about other people who have written about another group of people who sat around talking about current events and trying to pass it off as 'news'.

Editorials are fine, but they don't need to be submitted to the newswire for publication. I suspect this was just a way to get five more SG Army points.

I couldn't agree with Sadistic_Bastard anymore.

This "editorial" is very blindly making comments and judgements about conservative politics that are unfounded. As much as I'd like to make blind and ignorant comments to the left, I choose to refrain. Strom Thurmond died last year... so if you wish to point this "editorial" in his dead face, go right ahead, but pointing it in the general direction of all conservatives is in the utmost poor taste.

BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

whew!

stock, that cracked me up...

blah blah blah, conservatives are racist and sexist, blah blah blah.

ah yes. the usual screed proclaiming the right to live on someone else's tab, kill babies, the abolition of the right to control the use of one's property peacefully, and generally be stupid and ignorant at the expense of everyone else.

i'm surprised there was no allusion to blood for oil, animal holocausts, or corporate power. slacker.

[Edited on May 19, 2004 by SpaceInvader]

Also, if we are talking republicans, more republicans voted for the civil rights act than democrats. Republicans allowed blacks to register as republican long before the democrats. Republicans were responsible for the end of slavery, if you want to go that far back.

Democrats like to give the false impression that the republicans are all racist, but historically it is very much the reverse.

Getting rid of social security (privatizing really) is still very much one of the goals, it is jsut not possible at the moment.

Minimizing the role of government in healthcare is still a goal, although this is the one issue you list where there has been compromise..

The rest of the claims aren't even worth adressing.

Hooray! I finally agree with you on something. Although, no need to qualify that statement with 'the rantings of liberals' The ranting of partisans would work much better, as I have seen both on these boards. But I feel the same way. If it's an opinion editorial, it belongs in Lifestyles. Just my 2 cents.

sigh you would think I could figure out how to reply by now....

[Edited on May 19, 2004 by thejuanupsman]

While I might agree with you about the (ancient) history of the two parties, the fact remains that neither party is what it once was. I am more concerned with their current stances than what they once stood for. It is pretty obvious that the republican party is no longer the party it once was say during the Lincoln era, just as obvious that the democratic party is no longer the party it once was when it was dominated by racist soutthern democrats. Sadly both pretty much suck now, but lets judge them on what they stand for now. There is plenty of current stuff to condemn on both sides.

And yet the congressional record tells me that 46 democrats voted for the bill, while only 27 republicans voted for it. Oh, wait, yes, they voted for it in higher percentages than the democrats, oh, okay. Not really a point there anyway, since the platforms of both parties have changed substantially snce 1964. And how does that explain the fact that all those Dixiecrats voting against the bill fled the democratic party for the Republican party? What was the Republican party offering the segregationists?

]

How is "you can register to vote as long as you register in my party" any sort of civil rights progress at all?

Yes, yes, the party of Lincoln and all that. But I don't think anyone would dispute that over the last 150 years, the platforms of both parties have changed, oh, just the slightest little bit. Not to mention the fact that even the most cursory reading of Civil War history will tell you that no, ending slavery was not the goal of the Republican party. Preserving the union was the goal, the emancipation proclamation was the means, and it didn't even free the slaves in Union states. Because the republicans from those states didn't want the slaves there to be freed. This is not Howard Zinn, this is 10th grade, public school American history textbook stuff.

Even of that were true, how does that rebut the fact that today, it is republicans who push for policies that are racist in either purpose or effect?

Let me tell you a little anecdote about the 2002 Senate race in Louisiana. We had a runoff election (because Louisiana just has to be different with regard to about everything) in December, and which was held on a Saturday. On Thursday and Friday, little yellow flyers started appearing on car windshields and on people's doorsteps in predominantly black neighborhoods, telling people, "Can't vote Saturday? Bad weather? Have to work? No problem! You can also vote on Tuesday!"

There was nothing on the flyers saying who had paid for and printed them, and that omission violated campaign law. African Americans in Louisiana vote overwhelmingly Democratic. So, you figure out who was trying to suppress the black vote. Yup, the party of Lincoln.

[Edited on May 19, 2004 by Lemonnier]

The posting is stupid. But the issue is real. The question is how much dominance the Republican Party will achieve, and what they'll do with it if they get it.

Karl Rove plans to achieve total Republican dominance, and he might bring it off. If, after the November elections, Bush is re-elected and the Republicans pick up a few seats in the House and Senate, they'll be able to push through more of their agenda. Right now, if they lose one or two Senators on a vote, they can't get their bills through. It's that close.

Besides, the real Republican agenda is to make life better for the rich. They've already achieved that. Republican "social goals" are secondary and exist mainly to energize their right-wing supporters. Look at the Bush Administration's "faith based" initiatives. They don't actually do much, but they keep the religious right happy.

The Democrats face some major problems. Organized labor, their classic base of support, is a pale shadow of its former self. The Democrats lost the Jews back in the Reagan years. Gays are only 3%of the population (see Sex in America, The Definitive Study). Efforts at "tort reform" have weakened the plaintiff's bar. The Democrats even have trouble organizing young people.
Who's left?

Very bold to label all republicans serving in the House and Senate as conservative. Stereotyping is very unbecoming.

I am involved with the Republican party in my community...
Anyone stating that we are nothing more then gun toting, racist, fascist, bigots, etc... may be the most uninformed ignorant person I've come across in a long time.
Your generalizations are uneducated and unsubstantiated.

Yes.

I wonder where this indignation is when the conservative wing is posting weeks old "news" and non events as an excuse for a buried lead attack on some random liberal or liberal ideal.

Your cries of "Unfair" would be a little more credible if you hadn't been playing "I see nothink" with Colonel Klink for the past five months.