What is the winning condition for Republicans on our political landscape?
When do they know they have achieved a victory that renders one of their principle strategies 'finished'?
In politics we often talk in abstracts. We want tax cuts, more funding for education, corporate deregulation, or consumer protections, but all of these things, in theory, strive to push towards a certain point on the horizon. After that point, if they are continued, they actually destructive. Take corporate tax cuts, for instance. The idea behind these tax cuts is that if business is a maximally profitable environment, they will generate jobs and stimulate the economy. However as any libertarian will tell you, corporations need the rule of law in order to have a fair playing field. The rule of law is enforced by the government. If taxes are cut too far, then government loses the ability to monitor and enforce that rule of law, and the free market begins to fall apart. So in theory there is a sweet spot for pro-private industry conservatives where taxes are as low as possible without destroying the foundation on which those businesses exist – the rule of law that lets them be corporations at all.
Over the last thirty years or so, the conservatives have been winning. I don't mean the Republicans, I mean conservative ideology as a whole. Both Democrats and Republicans have been shifting steadily right. It is, in fact, frightening how close the policies of Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan are when you hold them side by side. This is no sudden occurrence. Bill Clinton was very conservative by Democratic standards, and it let him appeal to the Reagan Democrats who had finally come off their gipper high and were not too happy with Bush. Year after year, the policies of deregulation, free trade, and the restriction, defunding or elimination of domestic government programs continued under both parties, Democrats quickly stepping forward to occupy the footsteps of the Republicans every time that party took another step right.
The language of combat between the two parties, however, never changed. 'Liberal' was a word used for whatever the Democrats wanted or did. Socialist was a term for any government work at all until even public transportation infrastructure was characterized as an agent of Stalinist Russia. Republicans decried high taxes and too much government no matter how low they got taxation or how many programs they dismantled.
Meanwhile Democrats were not doing much better. Addicted to the fight, they gladly stepped forward to embrace the moderates left behind as the Republicans marched towards the right wing horizon, rarely actually pulling back left. It was as if the Democrat's strategy was to follow the Republicans down the road and be the default answer for anyone who couldn't stand the rising extremism in Republican policy. But as we know, 'We're Not Them!' makes a rather weak battle cry, and as the Democrats shifted away from progressive ideals, they became internally incoherent, so filled with a mix of conservatives and liberals they couldn't even get along with themselves.
What is critical to understand here is that the average Republican or Democrat was unaware of the shift. Because the language never changed - lower taxes, stronger schools, smaller government - the fact that what constituted these things was becoming more and more extreme was lost on the average voter.
So today we watch as American politics seems to have transformed itself from a contest over shades of the middle into something wholly destructive. Democrats have forgotten who they are and are simply in the position of leaning away from Republicans, trying to get a position anywhere left of where their opponents are standing. Republicans, meanwhile, have carried the day for conservatives, but seem to have no idea what to do with their victory like a dog who finally caught the car.
So instead of holding territory in their victory zone, they continue to push the same strategies they used to get there. It's like watching the quarterback run through the end zone and out into the stands then down the street and over the horizon. Despite worldwide low tax rates, Republicans seek to cut taxes so far so as to undermine the ability of the government to perform basic functions. They seek to deregulate so far, so as to be unable to provide the rule of law a capitalist free market depends on. They seek to cut and end government programs, but instead of trimming waste and getting government out of unnecessary enterprise, they attack core organizations like the EPA, FDA, and others that form the central consumer health and safety purpose that government was created to oversee.
The horror that progressives are recoiling from in today's politics is that the Republican political machine that has served as the effective transport and battle tank of American conservatives has finally won the war. But instead of powering down to defend it's gains, perhaps out of fear of being rendered obsolete or out of years of habit, it has turned on the people it was created to protect. It is sitting on the goal line mowing down the rest of the team and anyone else it can attack while the Democrats sit back staring stupidly and wondering what to do, realizing they were providing fuel and support to that machine as it moved across the field instead of fighting meaningfully to go the other way.
American politics is a mess.
If we as a country are to survive this, the political parties have to stake out real territory. They have to stop playing with relative abstractions and furthering blind obedience to tax pledges or policy rules. They have to decide, concretely, what it is they want to see the government look like in the end. What tax rate is reasonable? How much should people be contributing to the collective good? What areas of life in a massive increasingly interconnected nation should government be involved in? Where should it not? These answers are essential lest the fight for 'small government' or 'lower taxes' turns the rule of law - the most precious gift of the founders – into collateral damage on the path to a place neither group would know if they found themselves there today.
When do they know they have achieved a victory that renders one of their principle strategies 'finished'?
In politics we often talk in abstracts. We want tax cuts, more funding for education, corporate deregulation, or consumer protections, but all of these things, in theory, strive to push towards a certain point on the horizon. After that point, if they are continued, they actually destructive. Take corporate tax cuts, for instance. The idea behind these tax cuts is that if business is a maximally profitable environment, they will generate jobs and stimulate the economy. However as any libertarian will tell you, corporations need the rule of law in order to have a fair playing field. The rule of law is enforced by the government. If taxes are cut too far, then government loses the ability to monitor and enforce that rule of law, and the free market begins to fall apart. So in theory there is a sweet spot for pro-private industry conservatives where taxes are as low as possible without destroying the foundation on which those businesses exist – the rule of law that lets them be corporations at all.
Over the last thirty years or so, the conservatives have been winning. I don't mean the Republicans, I mean conservative ideology as a whole. Both Democrats and Republicans have been shifting steadily right. It is, in fact, frightening how close the policies of Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan are when you hold them side by side. This is no sudden occurrence. Bill Clinton was very conservative by Democratic standards, and it let him appeal to the Reagan Democrats who had finally come off their gipper high and were not too happy with Bush. Year after year, the policies of deregulation, free trade, and the restriction, defunding or elimination of domestic government programs continued under both parties, Democrats quickly stepping forward to occupy the footsteps of the Republicans every time that party took another step right.
The language of combat between the two parties, however, never changed. 'Liberal' was a word used for whatever the Democrats wanted or did. Socialist was a term for any government work at all until even public transportation infrastructure was characterized as an agent of Stalinist Russia. Republicans decried high taxes and too much government no matter how low they got taxation or how many programs they dismantled.
Meanwhile Democrats were not doing much better. Addicted to the fight, they gladly stepped forward to embrace the moderates left behind as the Republicans marched towards the right wing horizon, rarely actually pulling back left. It was as if the Democrat's strategy was to follow the Republicans down the road and be the default answer for anyone who couldn't stand the rising extremism in Republican policy. But as we know, 'We're Not Them!' makes a rather weak battle cry, and as the Democrats shifted away from progressive ideals, they became internally incoherent, so filled with a mix of conservatives and liberals they couldn't even get along with themselves.
What is critical to understand here is that the average Republican or Democrat was unaware of the shift. Because the language never changed - lower taxes, stronger schools, smaller government - the fact that what constituted these things was becoming more and more extreme was lost on the average voter.
So today we watch as American politics seems to have transformed itself from a contest over shades of the middle into something wholly destructive. Democrats have forgotten who they are and are simply in the position of leaning away from Republicans, trying to get a position anywhere left of where their opponents are standing. Republicans, meanwhile, have carried the day for conservatives, but seem to have no idea what to do with their victory like a dog who finally caught the car.
So instead of holding territory in their victory zone, they continue to push the same strategies they used to get there. It's like watching the quarterback run through the end zone and out into the stands then down the street and over the horizon. Despite worldwide low tax rates, Republicans seek to cut taxes so far so as to undermine the ability of the government to perform basic functions. They seek to deregulate so far, so as to be unable to provide the rule of law a capitalist free market depends on. They seek to cut and end government programs, but instead of trimming waste and getting government out of unnecessary enterprise, they attack core organizations like the EPA, FDA, and others that form the central consumer health and safety purpose that government was created to oversee.
The horror that progressives are recoiling from in today's politics is that the Republican political machine that has served as the effective transport and battle tank of American conservatives has finally won the war. But instead of powering down to defend it's gains, perhaps out of fear of being rendered obsolete or out of years of habit, it has turned on the people it was created to protect. It is sitting on the goal line mowing down the rest of the team and anyone else it can attack while the Democrats sit back staring stupidly and wondering what to do, realizing they were providing fuel and support to that machine as it moved across the field instead of fighting meaningfully to go the other way.
American politics is a mess.
If we as a country are to survive this, the political parties have to stake out real territory. They have to stop playing with relative abstractions and furthering blind obedience to tax pledges or policy rules. They have to decide, concretely, what it is they want to see the government look like in the end. What tax rate is reasonable? How much should people be contributing to the collective good? What areas of life in a massive increasingly interconnected nation should government be involved in? Where should it not? These answers are essential lest the fight for 'small government' or 'lower taxes' turns the rule of law - the most precious gift of the founders – into collateral damage on the path to a place neither group would know if they found themselves there today.
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