So, the elections have been held. California looks like an even better place to leave, though it will have its black humor moment when its bankruptcy bailout request runs into a Republican Congress. The House is now solidly Republican, the Senate is back in its standard mushy grey zone of an under 60 seat majority.
Obama, no matter what he says (and really, how many people are listening at this point?), isn't going to change one iota. This will depress both his supporters and his opponents. His Godzilla class, city-destroying level of suck can be expected to continue.
The Republican leadership, no matter what they say, aren't going to change, either. They will still sort of suck, in the same old way. Therein lies the dilemma - and the opportunity - for the people that make up the Tea Party movement...
The Tea Party's principles of a return to constitutional government are, in my opinion, the key to America's future. With respect to this election, and the results it eventually produces, I'd say that the Tea Party has had a minor but noticeable effect.
Which is about what I expected, because for me, its best analogue and promise is something we've seen before: the 1960s anti-war movement. Some are kooks. But some prove to be very savvy. And many have begun a long march through key institutions. Many of their ideas will be carried with them if they survive as a force, but even if this works, it's a long-fuse, big-bang phenomenon.
Their combination of movement fortune (and individual misfortune, for many) is that they are colliding with, and surfing on, an unfolding time and events that are right for them in very broad and deep ways. But there are going to be lots of points where reality and circumstances will test them, reveal some organizations' real agendas, and demand creative thinking about applying their principles effectively.
There will also be many, many teachable moments over the next few years, that illustrate why pinning hopes on individual representatives or parties is a necessary but insufficient exercise. And why the Constitution has to start meaning something more than "a judge's partisan political beliefs," or "whatever we can twist the commerce clause into today."
Sometimes, they'll get both of those things at once. And I think one of those very moments is coming on like a train.
The most interesting part of this election, for me, was the shift among independent voters. This "surprised" endorsement of Rand Paul by the Richmond Register is a really interesting barometer. And the first post-election teachable moments are likely to be provided by the Republican "leadership" of K-streeters. That combination is the opportunity.
Will the Tea Partiers vocally turn their guns on Republicans, who will be working to betray them with unpopular policies like continuing earmarks, and taking steps to protect the systemic architecture of corruption in Washington (as they have been for some time)? Or will the Tea Partiers simply become a party adjunct, captured by it rather than changing it?
The former approach offers deepened credibility with independents, and sharper/ raised media profile and inroads, while raising the pressure on K-street Republicans. That lays the groundwork for future movement victories. The adjunct approach will limit the movement's eventual reach, and represent individual Republicans' enrichment at the expense of party and country.
Which is not to say that broad education and organization efforts by the tea partiers, and engagement in the party process at all levels, should not continue. They must. If the Tea Partiers can maintain open bridges and deepen credibility with independents, while sticking to their long march strategy of steady grassroots organization, building and leveraging technological and organization infrastructure, and getting better at recruiting better candidates, they will eventually create much of the change they seek.
I say "much," knowing that nobody ever gets all, and that anything above "some" is a major accomplishment, even over a time frame of decades.
In many ways, however, what happens in the next 2 years will say a lot about how deep the amorphous "Tea Party's" penetration into America's political landscape - and hence their eventual success - will go. Early times are defining times.
That probably means some very public fights over the next little while. And not just with Democrats.
Joe is exactly right. The real fight is just beginning, and its between the establishment GOP and the rebels that the Dems, GOP, and media have worked so hard to marginalize. They understand the threat, but the bright side is their natural inertia, lack of imagination, and sheer arrogance has failed them badly thus far, and may well carry the day.
We are going to see very quickly which way the wind is blowing. If the Republicans meekly get behind Boehner and the establishment.. well I think we're in for two more years of winter. Boehner will spar with Obama (badly in all likelihood), trying to win some sound bytes and media cycles but not really moving the ball. Good chance Boehner will hand Obama a reelection, by once again proving there isn't all that much daylight between the parties anyway. If you want to know if there is going to be a major third party initiative in 2012, witness how the House organization goes in the next few months. That will be the bell weather. That would be interesting- I doubt the 3rd party would even expect to win... but at some point just kicking sand into recalcitrant idiots faces is necessary. That's the long game.
On the other hand, its possible that either Boehner is actually something of an agent provocateur that has carefully worked the rungs and now can come out and destroy the Old Guard system and recreate the Republicans as the small government party... or (more likely, though still not likely) there is enough new blood that reads the tea leaves and knows they will have to go the the mattresses from their first day in DC. There are 80 freshman republican congressmen... a full third of the caucus. They are going to need to go to war with Boehner from day one... if they delay and try to work from the inside, its all over before it starts and they will be picked off and bought off one by one.
So we'll have a pretty good answer real soon.
Here's the flip side to that, Mark: Is the tea party going to stay a small government conservative movement, or are they going to try to be social conservatives? There's already been too much realignment to the social side of things for my taste. I find it disturbing not because I have issues with those beliefs, but because those beliefs will inevitably interfere with the small government agenda. Hide and watch: K-Street will suborn the freshman class using social issues as a lever, if they succeed in suborning them at all.
Damn, Joe, it's good to have you back. :)
I agree Phil- I just see no evidence that the tea-party, as a movement, has any aspirations on the social agenda... and the media and Dems have been looking really hard trying to find that.
Obviously at any given rally you will see all kinds of signs etc and individuals, even groups, will have different priorities. The point of the teaparty is that they are NOT a political party. Its a movement based on one thing held in common and considered paramount- government is way too big and too powerful. That's what the amalgamation of voices is clearly saying, and that's what the voters have demonstrated.
If the Tea Party has any kind of planks, it would be the Contract from America, which allowed people to vote online on whether over 1000 possible ideas should be included. Hundreds of thousands of votes were cast, and the 10 chosen had exactly zero social issues.
1. Protect the Constitution
2. Reject Cap & Trade
3. Demand a Balanced Budget
4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government
6. End Runaway Government Spending
7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
9. Stop the Pork
10. Stop the Tax Hikes
Which of these is so scary or so lunatic?
On the other hand, the Pledge to America that Boehner put forward includes abortion and gay marriage. So who is waving the bloody flag of social conservatism here?
Personally i find that argument to be demagoguery. If anything the teaparty is far more libertarian than the republican party at large... and if the GOP isn't too scary to take seriously how can the Tea Party be?
Rand Paul is already back-peddling on earmarks
I agree with him, to a limited extent, but I think the Tea Party loyals will be less forgiving...
My sense is that social issues will play a bigger role among the Tea Party backed candidates in 2010 than it will ever again. If you're recruiting candidates this cycle, they have to have some level of political experience. Which means likely ties, one way or another, to the Culture Wars.
Whereas the Contract From America that Mark points out reflects the full-klaxon, red-alert focus on an economy whose fundamentals are going nowhere good - and I mean that in ways that reach well beyond the unemployment rate of the day.
Those are the people who will be rising through the ranks, and coming to have more and more influence as the economy, and the accompanying lead weight of the Political Class and its entitlements, remain issue #1 for quite some time.
They'd get a further boost from likely GOP Presidential candidate Mitch "Eyeshade" Daniels, who is personally socially conservative but thinks that stuff needs to go on the back-burner while America deals with the big issues. The same is likely true if Chris "The Fat Reagan" Christie runs.
My reason for being concerned about it is conversations that I've been having with a number of "True Conservatives", and listening to social cons like Hannity work very hard to coopt and take partial credit for the tea party. I'm convinced that a state of what Nero Wolfe would call "trepidant vigilance" is absolutely justified.
You see, contrary to what Joe said, I don't believe that economic issues will remain in the forefront for all that long. At any rate, I sure hope not, because the only way they are is if things stay slack. Most people have short attention spans. Conservatives will continue to be concerned about fiscal issues for a couple more cycles after things pick up, but the indies will go back to voting for feelgood issues just as soon as they aren't worried about their jobs. Frankly, I hope that indies aren't worried about their jobs very much longer, but that means that fiscal conservatives will have to find something else to bring in voters - and that is probably going to be social issues.
I'm seeing a lot of right wing Kos Kiddies out there right now, acting exactly like the nutroots did in 2006. They got one more election out of their purity crusade, and it was disastrous for them and everyone else. If we don't pay attention, we'll have the same thing happen to us. Bank on it.
That would be the personal misfortune I allude to in the article. Our economic problems are deep, and we're more or less out of bullets. Borrowing can't disguise the slow-motion wealth collapse, and Obama's deficits will create their own problems as the USA moves into territory where it starts becoming very vulnerable to confidence-related shocks. Throw in that Wall Street reform has done nothing of the kind, that public sector unions continue to loot the Treasury at the expense of current (and especially future) services, and that the Baby Boomer demographic is shifting from "consumption from borrowing" to "sorry, I didn't save, I want my handouts."
Yeah, I do see this being a big issue set for some time, with seriousness escalating not retreating.
True. Just discovered that Little Green Footballs has changed somewhat (while alas, remaining the same in style). Charles' treatment at the hands of those who once called him an ally is reprehensible - all the more so because on critical questions, he still is an ally.
That's actually the other reason I see Tea Partier outreach to independents as so important. Doing that is a constant counter-tug away from the "party-sin" vortex.
Interesting to note that this election did away with more moderate Dems than the Kossacks ever have. Fully half of the Blue Dogs are gone, and unlike Joe Lieberman they'll stay gone. Should Kossacks not rejoice?
Phil, #2:
Here's the flip side to that, Mark: Is the tea party going to stay a small government conservative movement, or are they going to try to be social conservatives?
That's been my concern, too. My leftward friends have been pouncing all over the various social conservative Tea party candidates, but I haven't taken them too seriously, for two reasons:
First, compared to that group of friends, everyone is a scary social conservative. To some extent, this is true of me, too; I am not under the illusion that I am any kind of social moderate. On the other hand, I don't expect the entire country to agree with me solely on the basis of passion, nor do I expect progress to be perfect and instant.
Second, the Tea Party is still, to a degree, figuring out what it is, and what works, and what it wants to be. Until now, and maybe for another half a year or so, I'll give them more latitude than the established parties to wring our their crazies.
I am hopeful because the high profile Tea Party people who lost (my sense is) were the social crazies, while the Tea Party as a whole still (again, my sense is) rode the wave to success. If my sense is correct-- and I haven't had the time to really track or study things, and would welcome more informed opinion-- then any kind of learning mechanism in the Tea Party should tell them to avoid the social conservatism and lean toward fiscal conservatism.
The 60’s were also hard to pin down. Flower power, free love, rock-and-roll, drugs . . . what was the message in all of that. Like the Tea Party, the flower power movement was above all anti-establishment. But the long-fuse, big bang phenomena were hard to predict at the time: women’s liberation, Title IX (equal spending on major University sports programs), gay liberation, disabled rights, MTV. The Vietnam war did end, but that likely was not due to anti-war protests; a 10 year arc is about all that such adventures can sustain. We don’t have anti-war protesting now, but its safe to say that in another three or four years our combat troop involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a thing of the past.
The anti-establishment message of the 60’s amounted to a lot of bluster. The leaders of that movement, as one might expect, became the establishment and cashed in during the 80’s and 90’s. It’s likely that the anti-tax, small-government, back to the constitution (whatever that means) rallying cry of the Tea Party movement will go by the way of free love and flower power, and that the long-fuse, big bang phenomena that may come out of this movement are things we can’t now properly foresee.
The Tea Party is a reaction, primarily, to the abandonment of core republican fiscal policies throughout the W years followed by the runaway Keynesian policies we are seeing under Obama.
I think we are watching the very last gasp of the Neo-Con/Rovian brand of Adventurism and Politics. Good Riddance. If I ever saw a more terrified political hack than Karl Rove, when the results of the Delaware Primary came in, I can't remember when that was.
Though I have problems with the social side of some of the Tea Party, I have no problem with the Paleo-Con Foreign Policy, nor the Paleo-Con fiscal Policies.
Things should be very interesting for the next few years.
It would be nice to see the party fashion a coherent philosophy in the wake of this revolution, but I would bet this turns into a fight to the death between the Tea Party and the Republican establishment. Right now I would put my money on the tea Party.
toc3, it will be a fight. To the death? Well, the political death of some. Questions are who, and when, and what next?
Ultimately, I suspect the GOP will end up in a new place, which doesn't really look like the standard position sets currently on offer. There are a lot of rethinks coming, not just among the K-street Republicans, and foreign policy/ defense will be a major field for that.
I think you'd be hard pressed to demonstrate the Paleo-cons are less in the tank big gov spenders than whoever you consider the neo-cons. The opposite I should think- if you look at the republicans on the appropriations committees over the last decade you're going to see names like Bill Young, Jerry Lewis, and Hal Rogers, ollllld time republicans.
Which isn't to say I ultimately disagree with Toc, but I think the idea that getting back to 'the old days' is going to work (or is desireable), isn't really viable. We need to think forward, and bigger. Old school conservatism has proven to be a lot of compromise and being bought off on a one way street to big government. At that rate its only a matter of time- the logical conclusion to a defensive campaign being surrender.
Small government advocates need proactive ideas, positive ideas. We need to explain how our ideas lead to a future better than the past.
As far as fears that the new blood will certainly get bought off and coopted... well yes, of course they ultimately will. Everyone will, which is a major point of the philosophy. Which is why we need a much more dynamic government with people moving in and out at much higher rates... and to begin the structural shrinking of government power to lessen and slow the corruption.
But it has to happen in fast, furious, broad strokes. Statism and progressivism have inertia on their side, they can afford to wait and let government naturally become more powerful. Libertarians can't do that, time is not on our side.
Well, yes and no, Mark. Eventually, the bills and consequences come due. The key is to have a coherent, refined and viable argument, and people committed to it, when your own jurisdiction has its Greece moment. 'Cause it's going to.
"Libertarians can't do that, time is not on our side"
PaleoCon was a name that someone, maybe even you labeled me with a couple of years ago.
I do not think we should go backward. I think it should evolve. The Rove, NeoCon nonsense lost its tether and went off into some radically non conservative directions. I hope that the party is beginning to see that. This is the Message of the Tea Party.
I have ranted here for years that the Party politics under Rove was completely devoid of any intellectual base and we paid for it. I do not think that any of this has changed within the party elite, but they are being forced to look at shaping coherent policy because without it they cannot win. And by that I mean the Primaries, and by extension the election.
One thing we see here is a schism, that could very well split the party. Rovian politics and Rove are dead men walking. There is no conservative politics without conservative Philosophy.
I am speaking about the Neo-Cons in terms of the preposterous might makes right morality they were, American Empire, Neo Wilsonian spread democracy to the Middle East claptrap they were spewing leading up to the Iraqi Invasion.
Talk about innocents abroad, in five or ten years after we have gone and the same type of psychopaths rule the country, we will see how dreadful this adolescent adventurism actually was.
The Republican establishment is what is being attacked here, which, I think it should be. This election was not as great a victory as it has been made out to be. Yeah, we won the House but that does not mean that will be repeated in 2 years and the Democrats still have a pretty healthy majority in the senate. Remember this has been under the worst economic and employment numbers we have seen in decades and a lingering fear that we may have not even scratched the worst of it.
The country is in flux in a way I have not seen in my lifetime. It is more divided and unsettled than we have been since the '60s. Although I see this as much worse than the '60s. Then it was simply one war and a belch in the economy. Now it is 2 wars and an extremely shaky World Economic System.
The Party could split. The Tea Party is Angry. And, they have exposed the Party elite as Paper Tigers.
It is going to be interesting.
PaleoCon was a name that someone, maybe even you labeled me with a couple of years ago.
I do not think we should go backward. I think it should evolve. The Rove, NeoCon nonsense lost its tether and went off into some radically non conservative directions. I hope that the party is beginning to see that. This is the Message of the Tea Party.
I have ranted here for years that the Party politics under Rove was completely devoid of any intellectual base and we paid for it. I do not think that any of this has changed within the party elite, but they are being forced to look at shaping coherent policy because without it they cannot win.
The Republican establishment is what is being attacked here, which, I think it should be. This election was not as great a victory as it has been made out to be. yea we won the House but that does not mean that will be repeated in e years and the Democrats still have a pretty healthy majority in the senate. Remember this has been under the worst economic and employment numbers we have seen in decades and a lingering fear that we may have not even scratched the worst of it.
"I am speaking about the Neo-Cons in terms of the preposterous might makes right morality they were, American Empire, Neo Wilsonian spread democracy to the Middle East claptrap they were spewing leading up to the Iraqi Invasion."
You have that backwards, toc3. The philosophy was much, much closer to "right deserves might."
And interestingly, Iraq is now a democracy, with a lot of Sunni Muslims who now have zero time for terrorism, and looks like it's unlikely to retreat from those things. Whether it was all worth is it something one never knows for certain, until quite a few years after the fact. Politics does not stand still. But the "support the double-dealing authoritarians" game certainly wasn't working (How's Pakistan looking? What's Egypt's future? Don't get me started on the Saudis. Etc.).
So yeah, let's have that discussion again "in five years or ten."
As for America, you're right that the GOP could split. You're right that the country is divided, and it may well become more so. Welcome the Winter portion of the cycle.
I think you're wrong that this is going to be about Neocons, Paleocons, or any other such thing on more than a very superficial level. America's economic engine is askew in fundamental ways, and by any fiscal measure, the country is at least as bankrupt as Greece. The options for dealing with those things are none of them palatable, and going back to anything that "worked before" is unlikely to work now, because the reserves of savings, industrial base, etc. that America relied on to make those things work are gone now.
Everybody, absolutely everybody, is going to be forced to rethink key positions and programs before this is through. And everybody will bring something to the table. The labels within the conservative & independent base are just going to be in the way.
Check this out, these guys got some cajones:
Deficit Reduction Panel Plan
I thought this panel would come back with nothing but tax increases and smoke and mirrors spending cuts... but this is substantive. I don't agree with all of it, but at least somebody is serious and talking like a grown up about realistic eventualities.
Raise retirement age over coming decades- necessity. Demographic fact. Sorry AARP, this is going to happen. Plan it sooner so people have longer to prepare.
Partial means test of entitlements- we either do this or essentially enslave the youth with massive taxation levels, which is crazy. The elderly are the wealthiest age group and that will increase as boomers retire.
Peg SS increases to inflation- long past due. You dont get a 'pay raise' for successfully remaining retired, you get enough to keep you even.
Tax reform- simplify the tax code, get rid of deductions but lower rates. Good- get government out of the incentivising/rewarding business, it rarely ends well.
Gas tax- don't like tax hikes but if you have to tax something, might as well make it something that will promote and reward clean energy. I understand i just contradicted myself... but again, this is a compromise.
3 year freeze on federal pay, 10% reduction of work force- for sure. Of course this is a bigger poison pill than even the entitlement stuff.
Eliminate earmarks- yes... its a feel good exercise. Lets feel good and deal with the low hanging fruit.
Corporate tax reforms- long overdue as well.
THIS is how Republicans/conservatives should be thinking. Give the country some credit and touch the 3rd rails.
Mark, GOP reps. like Paul Ryan and Tom Coburn have been thinking in those terms for a while....
Time for the rest of the party to catch up, and look at options like the panel's.
Joe,
The NeoCon policy was to use our military force to impose a morality on the bad guys. Smacks of Wilson to me. It is very naive.
But, actually I do not think we are far apart on a lot of things and I sense we would probably agree that the party was in need of some creative destruction. the establishment had gotten way too complacent and focused on re-election and thought it could get away with not having a philosophy. After the primaries even Rove must realize that this is no longer viable.
I don't think it is about PaleoCons. (I was called that, I believe in a light hearted mockery by someone here). I do think that the destruction of the NeoCon fantasies is important to forging a sane Foreign Policy.
I have been absolutely consistent in this regard since I began posting here.
We will see. what has been won is no more than a small beachhead. That should always be in the forefront of everyone's mind.
There is an insurmountable obstacle to any meaningful tax reform, and I am not being facetious.
Who would have anyrhing to say to a member of the House, or Senate, for that matter, if they had a rational tax structure? It has always seemed to me that this is the basis of the typical members sense of self unimportance. Do you think they will ever give that up?
Joe, #19:
Everybody, absolutely everybody, is going to be forced to rethink key positions and programs before this is through. And everybody will bring something to the table.
And everyone is going to kick and scream, says the skeptic/cynic in me. But, it's still absolutely true.
But this:
America's economic engine is askew in fundamental ways, and by any fiscal measure, the country is at least as bankrupt as Greece. The options for dealing with those things are none of them palatable, and going back to anything that "worked before" is unlikely to work now, because the reserves of savings, industrial base, etc. that America relied on to make those things work are gone now.
This, I think is not entirely correct. Yes, what worked before isn't going to work now. Not because we've squandered or wasted something, though, but because the world is fundamentally different than it was in the height of the industrial post-war era, in at least two big ways:
First, the rest of the world has watched what we did, and to the best of their regional abilities, done the same thing, with some regional variation. The result is, of course, larger industrial bases and economies in other nations. (Which of course makes ours look smaller by compare.)
Second, related but distinct, we have actual economic competition, now. We can't snap our fingers and protect union (or non-union) jobs; jobs will go elsewhere. We can't snap our fingers and effortlessly attract the best minds and companies; companies will go elsewhere.
I don't think either party truly understands that it's not 1965, any more. But I think the Democrats, in a perverse way, are more likely to be "conservative" on these issues, because their interests and special interests are more resistant than the changes that need to be made. They're still beholden to unions, who favor protectionism over efficiency and international competition. And they're allergic to giving corporations the tax breaks that other countries will give.
Some core Republican ideas are going to be put to a new test, too-- the Republicans have tended to assume (and it's something I've agreed with them about) that increasing efficiency, and the attendant job loss that goes with it, is either a good thing, or at least not a long-term problem, because people will naturally find better and more valuable things to do with themselves. I still believe that's true, but as an open-minded person, I have to at least entertain the notion that there is a limit to how fast that happens, and that our increases in industrial efficiency may soon be destroying jobs faster than people can think up new ones.
Phil Bobbitt was right, not in detail, but in the general sweep of things, in The Shield of Achilles: The operating paradigm of the next chapter in history is the market of states. And for my part, I say this: If it isn't already, the WTO will be more important to the 21st century than the UN.
This panel plan is a good start, but instead of a 10% reduction in the public payroll over 10 years, we need a 10% reduction in 5 years and 20% in 10.
I hope this report doesn't get swept down the memory hole, because regardless of the specifics it proves an important point:
There are budget cuts available that can solve our problems. Those claiming only lunatic militia members who want to go back to the 1780s believe the budget can be cut are demonstrably wrong and proved to be unserious.
It is possible to get our budgetary house in order. Of course politically its difficult, that's what leadership is about.
The other telling part of this is that although the liberal end of the panel is disavowing this plan... they don't seem able to come up with an alternative. Certainly not one that passes the laugh test. Like many of us have been screaming- we CANT tax our way out of our long term budget obligations. THAT is impossible. Even a panel basically intended to do just that couldn't make the numbers work, and came back with a healthy dose of reality.
In other words this plan is a major shot in the arm for the Tea Party philosophy- our government is simply too big to be tenable, and nobody, even with rosy scenarios and unlikely levels of taxation can come up with a plan to prove otherwise. The Tea Party is correct, and their detractors are in fact the angry, scared demagogues that refuse to face reality.