by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n Colin Powell keeps insisting that the Republicans lost the presidency because of right-wing extremists like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who, in his view, have become the public face of the Republican party, and thus will ensure its permanent marginalization.\u00a0<\/p>\n Others argue that the Bush administration had allowed Republicanism to become a cowboyish clique of the selfish who wanted a free hand to make money and let others less fortunate be damned. David Frum offered the novel notion that Rush Limbaugh\u2019s girth, past drug use, checkered marital career, and palatial digs were emblematic of the party\u2019s out-of-touch self-indulgence, especially when contrasted with the athletic, happily married, and transracial Barack Obama.<\/p>\n But none of these explanations rings true \u2014 especially since most of the current critics themselves were, in the heyday of 2002\u201303, either enthusiastically working for, or writing in praise of, the very administration whose policies they now claim caused the present mess.<\/p>\n Limbaugh & Co.?<\/strong><\/p>\n First, the real public expressions of extremism in American politics recently have\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>been from the Right \u2014 not surprisingly, perhaps, given that for much of this new century the Republicans smugly controlled most of the government.<\/p>\n It was not Rush Limbaugh, for example, but Michael Moore who announced that the 9\/11 killers wrongly selected a blue-state city, or that the al-Qaeda insurgents were Minutemen-like patriots. Moore, remember, was no marginal figure but the darling of the Democratic establishment, who flocked to the gala opening of his crude propaganda film\u00a0Fahrenheit 9\/11.<\/p>\n <\/em>Indeed, if one were to follow the logic of this new Powell doctrine that public expression of extremism sinks a party, then the Democrats would never have won back the Senate and the House. Senators as diverse as Dick Durbin, John Kerry, and Ted Kennedy shrilly compared American soldiers to terrorists, Nazis, Pol Pot\u2019s thugs, and Saddam\u2019s Baathists.<\/p>\n The most inflammatory public figure of the last two years was, in fact, Barack Obama\u2019s own minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who uttered vile racist characterizations of everyone from Italians to Jews, as part of his generic \u201cG-d damning\u201d of America. So far we have not seen a conservative version of Nicholson Baker\u2019s novel\u00a0Checkpoint<\/em>, or anything like Jonathan Chait\u2019s\u00a0New Republic<\/em>\u00a0essay that began, \u201cI hate President George W. Bush.\u201d Colin Powell himself has been demonized in scurrilous terms, but the epithets have come not from Rush Limbaugh, but rather from such observers as that old cultural icon of the Left, Harry Belafonte, who once quite unapologetically compared the secretary of state to a \u201chouse slave.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cycles of American Politics<\/strong><\/p>\n There were historical reasons why it was unlikely that the Republicans were going to win the presidency last year. It has always been difficult to extend a party\u2019s control of the executive branch for 12 consecutive years; the Democrats themselves had not done it since the Roosevelt-Truman years. In 30 out of the last 50 years, Republicans have controlled the White House, hardly proof of a conservative implosion. Over the last half-century, the general rule was that a Democrat could not win the presidency unless he had the cover of a Southern accent. That both JFK and Obama defied that conventional wisdom suggests that only the rare appearance of a charismatic youthful Democratic candidate can balance the stigmatization of out-of-touch northern liberalism.<\/p>\n The elections of 1964, 1976, and 1992 were all heralded as the beginnings of new permanent liberal majorities. In the first two cases, the inept governance of LBJ and Jimmy Carter ensured that Republicans were back in office in four years. Bill Clinton extended Democratic rule for eight years; but he did so without winning a majority of the votes in either election. Take Ross Perot out of the equation in 1992 \u2014 and perhaps even in 1996 \u2014 and Clinton might well not have won. Clinton survived Monica because no Americans were killed in his Balkans War, and because Dick Morris taught him the arts of triangulation, while the Republican Congress forced spending cuts that led finally to two years of budget surpluses. He left office popular, despite Monica, with balanced budgets and an assurance that the era of big government was over.<\/p>\n The September Meltdown<\/strong><\/p>\n John McCain was ahead of Barack Obama when the September meltdown occurred. Had the financial panic not transpired until December, there was a 50-50 chance that McCain would have won \u2014 despite deep defections from the conservative base. In that case, we would be talking now about the continued Democratic propensity for self-destruction by nominating liberal northern presidential candidates like Obama, Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, and Mondale.<\/p>\n A Stealth Candidate<\/strong><\/p>\n Obama was an especially charismatic candidate. His mixed racial heritage and exotic name were novelties that both intrigued and reassured elite white liberals, while galvanizing minorities in a way that Jesse Jackson and other traditional African-American candidates had previously not managed to do. Had the Democrats run Al Gore or John Kerry they might well have lost; or had Barack Obama, Kerry-like, paraded around in various costumes \u2014 duck-hunting camouflage, biker\u2019s spandex, a windsurfing wetsuit \u2014 or even kept up the arugula talk and the faux bowling appearances, he too would not have won.<\/p>\n On nearly every campaign issue \u2014 offshore drilling, nuclear power, NAFTA, guns, abortion, capital punishment, Iraq, the war on terror \u2014 candidate Obama hedged or triangulated in favor of the more conservative view. Had he in late October outlined a $1.7-trillion deficit, the need for serial apologies abroad, and the nationalization of the banks and the auto industry, he would have lost.<\/p>\n Red Ink<\/strong><\/p>\n But the above are peripheral issues. The real cause of unhappiness with the Republicans was simply that they could not make a convincing case for conservatism to a changing electorate because so many of them were not acting as conservatives.<\/p>\n Take the seminal issue of spending and expanding government. The last Republican to balance a budget was Dwight Eisenhower. Had President Bush \u2014 despite 9\/11, Katrina, and two wars \u2014 simply limited spending increases to the rate of inflation and natural growth, then he would have entered his last years of office with balanced budgets.<\/p>\n In contrast, once Republicans started talking about federal deficits only in terms of manageable percentages of GDP rather than as real money, they forfeited the entire issue of fiscal responsibility, and lost the moral high ground. Barack Obama can get away with unprecedented and astronomical of projected deficits, in part because the Republicans are not credible any more on spending.<\/p>\n Compassionate Conservatism?<\/strong><\/p>\n Compassionate conservatism was supposed to show the middle classes how, even with small government, lower taxes, and streamlining of existing programs, social protection was still ensured for those who did not do as well as the wealthy during the boom years.<\/p>\n Instead, it ended up as a rather crude quid pro quo on things like No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Bush\u2019s embrace of big old-fashioned spending was supposed to be a demonstration of bipartisanship that might extend to united congressional support for the war. Instead, Democrats cherry-picked the Bush overtures, increased their anti-war rhetoric, and then,mirabile dictu<\/em>, attributed the ensuing deficits not to the profligate spending but to \u201ctax cuts for the rich\u201d \u2014 despite the yearly increases in aggregate federal revenue.<\/p>\n The War<\/strong><\/p>\n Obama\u2019s continuance of the Iraq war, his escalation in Afghanistan, and his preservation of wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, renditions, Predator drone attacks, and, so far, the Guantanamo Bay detention center prove that Bush\u2019s war on terror per se, even the controversial Iraq war, did not lose Republicans the election. The problem was more complex than just the mayhem of the insurgency in Iraq, which was over by November 2008 \u2014 as witnessed by Obama\u2019s constant campaign demagoguing against the very Bush anti-terrorism protocols and war policies in Iraq and Afghanistan that he was soon to embrace.<\/p>\n When conservatives advance tough foreign-policy initiatives, they naturally evoke hostility from the therapeutic media. Instead of tough \u201csmoke-\u2019em-out\u201d talk that reinforces the cowboy caricature, they needed to explain exactly why the resort to force was needed, what the strategy was, and why such a bad choice was better than the existing worse alternatives.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the Bush administration was not able to articulate exactly what Iraq was about, why the congressional Democrats had willingly joined them to authorize the war on 23 counts (nearly all of them not about WMD), and why it was both moral and in the United States\u2019 interest to remove Saddam and not abandon the nascent Iraqi democracy.<\/p>\n Specterization<\/strong><\/p>\n If the Republicans think they can outbid the Democrats for the support of feminists, gays, and growing numbers of minorities, then they will only add embarrassment and permanent failure to the present natural cycle of political correction. Instead, they must be ready to show that deficits of the present magnitude, when added to existing debt, are unsustainable and will sap the vitality of the entire American society.<\/p>\n Most people dread going to the DMV; that such a state-run blueprint will now be superimposed on manufacturing, energy, health care, and banking should scare the landscaper and the roofer alike. Precisely by showing to gays, women, minorities, and the young that none of us gets an exemption from the iron laws of nature \u2014 you cannot spend what you don\u2019t make; you can\u2019t apologize to unsavory characters and end up respected and safe; you can\u2019t expect government bureaucrats to make better decisions than private executives \u2014 conservatives can become inclusive.<\/p>\n Conservatives should remind the electorate that the very wealthy, the Wall Street big money, and the elite in the universities and foundations are now consistently voting Democratic. It was the nexus between Wall Street financiers and lax liberal Democratic congressional overseers \u2014 the former wanting profits, the latter able to cloak lavish campaign contributions with populist rhetoric about caring for the poor \u2014 that got us into the financial mess.<\/p>\n The reason Sarah Palin earned real hatred was the populist nature of her appeal. Her rallies did not draw many of the government-dependent poor, true; but they also did not draw the rich and liberal elite. If Palin had survived the press demonization, she might have been able to show the electorate why the current leadership of the Democratic Party is at odds with the middle classes, who do not require most of the government entitlements that liberals love to dispense, and yet don\u2019t share the aristocratic tastes that the elite in the media, foundations, universities, and Wall Street see as requisites for paternal governance.<\/p>\n If the Republicans can offer a sane alternative of balanced budgets to the current mega-deficits; if they demonstrate the nexus between those who don\u2019t pay taxes and those who have so much money that they don\u2019t worry about taxes; and if they can talk without braggadocio of the tough choices abroad that are not solved by apologies, then they will win again in 2012.<\/p>\n Conservatism is the political belief that best mirrors human nature across time and space; but because its precepts are sometimes tragic and demand responsibility rather than ever-expanding rights, it requires adept communicators \u2014 not triangulators and appeasers whose pleasure is only for the moment.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And how can they get it back? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Colin Powell keeps insisting that the Republicans lost the presidency because of right-wing extremists like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who, in his view, have become the public face of the Republican party, and thus will ensure its permanent marginalization.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[716],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Jc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":156,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/conservative-populism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2802,"position":0},"title":"Conservative Populism","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The conservative failure in 2012 was not an inability to appeal to hyphenated groups on the basis of ethnic, gender, and age identification. Instead, there was a general cluelessness about how to reach the middle and working classes of all races and ethnicities\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2343,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/on-dishing-it-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":2802,"position":1},"title":"On Dishing it Out . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner What is weird about the liberal hysteria to the obstreperous (and occasionally rude) town meetings is the complete amnesia about what constitutes reckless public discourse. 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Like that disaster, the immigration bill is rushing to solve a whole host of complex problems with a massive, muddled bill few Senators will have the time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Immigration"","block_context":{"text":"Immigration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/immigration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8747,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/tooth-gnashing-in-the-republican-establishment\/","url_meta":{"origin":2802,"position":3},"title":"Tooth-Gnashing in the Republican Establishment","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Republicans should be upbeat. They control by large margins the state legislatures and governorships. The Supreme Court is a bit more conservative than liberal. The House and Senate are both run by Republicans. President Obama, after veritably wrecking his party, has for\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 13 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 13 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/tooth-gnashing-in-the-republican-establishment\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11416,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/oh-what-a-tangled-web-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2802,"position":4},"title":"Oh, What a Tangled Web","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The likely justification of the Republican majority for agreeing to a rehearing of the Kavanaugh nomination was political, not legal: Senate Republicans apparently worried that in-party potential No-voters on Kavanaugh, such as Senators Corker, Flake, or Collins, might become emboldened by an outright refusal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Republicans"","block_context":{"text":"Republicans","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/republicans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12063,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-happened-to-california-republicans\/","url_meta":{"origin":2802,"position":5},"title":"What Happened to California Republicans?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review From 1967 to 2019, Republicans controlled the California governorship for 31 of 52 years. 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Only seven of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2802"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2804,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802\/revisions\/2804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}