Posted on 04/08/2005 11:15:24 PM PDT by neverdem
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Republican Party is running into a problem: the conservatism of the American people. Over the past decade, the Republicans have set themselves up as the transformational party. That's fine for a party with big ideals.
But the American people, who can be quite bold when it comes to transforming their personal lives, tend to be temperamentally conservative and cautious when it comes to government. They have a taste for order and a distrust of those who want too much change on too many fronts too quickly.
It's become increasingly clear that the Republicans are bumping into some limits.
First, there's the Terri Schiavo case. Republicans charged boldly forth to preserve her life and were surprised by how few Americans charged along behind them. Fewer than a third of the American people opposed removing her feeding tube.
Being conservative, most Americans believe that decisions should be made at the local level, where people understand the texture of the case. Even many evangelicals, who otherwise embrace the culture of life, grow queasy when politicians in Washington start imposing solutions from afar, based on abstract principles rather than concrete particulars.
Then there is Social Security reform. Republicans set forth with a plan to give people some control over their own retirement accounts. Here, too, Republicans have been surprised by the tepid public support.
Americans understand that there is a big problem, but right now most oppose personal accounts invested in the markets. According to a Wall Street Journal poll this week, a third of Republicans currently oppose them.
Being conservative, many Americans are suspicious of bold government initiatives, especially ones that seem complicated and involve borrowing. Being conservative, they prefer the old and familiar over the new and untried.
Then there is the Tom DeLay situation. Conversations with House Republicans in the past week leave me with one clear impression: If DeLay falls, it will not be because he took questionable trips or put family members on the payroll. It will be because he is anxiety-producing and may become a political liability.
Being conservative, the American people don't want leaders who perpetually play it close to the ethical edge. They don't want leaders who, under threat, lash out wildly at beloved institutions like the judiciary. They don't want leaders whose instinct is always to go out wildly on the attack. They don't want leaders so reckless that even when they know they are living under a microscope, they continue to act in ways that invite controversy.
House Republicans like what DeLay has done, and few have any personal animus toward him, but his aggressiveness makes them - and his own constituents - nervous. Only 39 percent of DeLay's Texas constituents said they would stick with him if he were up for re-election today, a Houston Chronicle survey found.
Then there's the lavish public spending, which offends the conservative sensibility. Then there is the talk of going to the nuclear option on judges' confirmations, which smacks of the radical confrontationalism that led to last decade's government shutdown. All in all, intellectual conservatism is bumping up against dispositional conservatism.
This does not mean good news for Democrats. That party is at risk of going into a death spiral. The Democrats lost white working-class voters by 23 percentage points in the last election, and now the party is being led by people who are guaranteed to alienate those voters even more: the highly educated and secular university-town elites who follow Howard Dean and believe Bush hatred and stridency are the outward signs of righteousness.
According to a Democracy Corps poll, the Democratic Party's standing has dropped eight percentage points since the election.
Nor does it mean that Republicans should abandon their ideas, but it may be time to think about methods. Public opinion is not always right, but it is always worth respecting. And the message the public seems to be sending these days is that there is a need for prudence. The world is risky enough. Leaders who want to change things had better not give off the impression that they love change for its own sake.
The public face of the Republican Party these days should be, when he recovers from minor surgery, the House speaker, Denny Hastert. This is a moment for leaders who seem stolid and secure, a moment for tortoises, not hares.
E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com
Then there is the talk of going to the nuclear option on judges' confirmations, which smacks of the radical confrontationalism that led to last decade's government shutdown.
While Brooks makes some valid points, I don't think of those statements are valid. Activist judges are as beloved as chiggers. We don't need more RINO judges on the bench. The dems will shut down the Senate, not the pubbies.
I like David Brooks - sometimes his insights are even stunning. Here I think he's doing merely pedestrian reading of political moods.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!
If they don't do something about it they won't have a parade to reign in.
I just love these pundits who speak for "the American people". It's downright Clintonesque.
If you mean he "took a wet finger in the air poll", I agree. I mean hell, klinton did that all the time and (mis)served two terms. Sounds to me like he's got no "backbone".
FMCDH(BITS)
This article can be summarized thusly:
"I don't have the slightest clue what to expect from Republicans/Conservatives in the next few months so I'm going to throw every ambiguous prediction possible at the wall and see what sticks."
Indeed, pukedits always rely on the "most Americans" theme. Bullshit, I say.
FMCDH(BITS)
FMCDH(BITS)
Is that Tom's brother?....hey, it's FRieday nite...
FMCDH(BITS)
When the judiciary decides to usurp power from its supposedly coequal branches, and insert itself into political matters, then it loses all claim to being 'above the fray.' Since they insist on being political, then any and all of the standard political attacks mades against elected officials is fair game and appropriate and appropriate for judges. They may get away with acting like kings, but they are in fact not kings. I'd like to see how 'beloved' they are if the GOP every mounted an effective campaign of pointing out in detail just how many times the Courts have given victory to the Left in the Culture War by rendering a decision that is vastly out of the mainstream, that couldn't be won democratically. The GOP has done a decent job with gay marriage, but there is so much more to said.
Brooks can't see this because he is the type of 'conservative' who supports judicial activism. He's on record as being for gay marriage, and that almost always means support for having it imposed by the Courts since that's the only way to implement it.
First of all .. Brooks doesn't have any valid points as far as I'm concerned.
I hate it when dems think they can explain who conservatives are. If dems could really do that - they would win more elections.
And .. we're not tempermental. Using that term denotes instability or fit throwing - which we don't do except when people want to murder an innocent disabled woman.
Last .. but certainly not least .. Brooks comment about "radical confrontationalism" is just another slap to our face as being out of control - but I agree with you - it the senate gets shut down - it will be the democrats who do it - and from the way they're already acting - what's the difference - they're blocking or stalling everything anyway.
Yes .. Clintonesqe - AND WRONG!!
He wasn't just wrong about the Terri poll, he was also wrong about the Social Security poll.
Then he tries to give some credence to the Democracy Corp poll - which is run by Carville - who would rely on that trash ..??
Brooks thinks he knows who conservatives are and how they think .. and he's wrong, wrong, wrong.
B I N G O !!!
Brooks isn't a "type" - because he isn't a conservative and he doesn't know how they think.
Brooks may not be as conservative as you or I want him to be, but he is about as conservative as you will find in the "paper of record". He calls himself conservative. Others might call him some sort of libertarian. But he is regularly critized by the likes of Nicholas Confessore, who also writes for the Times as well as The Washington Monthly, as well as Daily Kos, the lefty and largest, by number of daily visitors, webblogs, IIRC.
This is intelligent commentary? Oh, my.
Well, no. It's social satire, not all that different from Brooks, who is indeed funny when he's writing social satire. A serious observer of the American body politic he is not.
I had to stop when I got to the beloved judiciary. The Republicans are skating on thin ice, but Brooks is clueless as to why.
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