Could David Cameron Save the American Republican Party?

I watched the final debate between Britain’s current and two contending Prime Ministers this evening. They represented the Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats, and Labour Party. The contrast between the three was not half as stark as the contrast between British and American conservatives.

Let’s hope that American conservatives are paying attention to David Cameron of Britain’s Conservative Party. The Republican Party has been hijacked by policy makers who have decided that the clearest way to distinguish themselves from reasonable and practical policies is to offer unreasonable and ideological polices. Cameron’s campaign will hopefully remind Republicans that it is possible to distinguish yourself from reasonable policies by offering other reasons rather than just blindly opposing the other side.

For instance, Republicans in this country – the party that supposedly represents conservatives here – are mindlessly opposed to financial reform. Without reform, we will again find ourselves in the position of either bailing out bankers or letting them take down our economy. (And of course, no one wants to admit that even with great reforms we’re likely to find ourselves in this situation, the only difference being the probability and severity of the hostage situation.) Republicans simply don’t want to be seen cooperating with Obama – no matter how obvious or sensible his policies seem to be.

David Cameron, by contrast, rather sensibly wants to change things within London’s banking community in the wake of the Great Recession. He wants more regulation and more consequences for banks that pursue reckless policy. This position has the advantage of making sense whether one’s analysis is sophisticated or simply based in a common sense reaction to the last financial crisis. Cameron even mentioned that his plan for financial reform was very much like Obama’s.

In Britain, policies of liberals and conservatives sometimes align and sometimes clash. There does not appear to be a requirement to oppose everything the opposition party proposes. This used to be true in the US as well. Modern Republicans, as near as I can tell, seem to define themselves less by what they think will work than by opposing what Obama seems to think will work.

The curious thing about this is that Republicans are becoming more insistent on blind ideology in a time when the countries whose economies are performing best defy easy categorization: China is nominally communist but often more aggressively capitalist than the G-7 countries; Peru and Brazil’s economies have performed splendidly with some odd hybrid of socialist and free market policies that generally favor the poor. Anymore, the fastest growing economy is as likely to espouse adherence to free markets as socialism (and all the while adopting pragmatic policies). It seems as though the real solution to economic growth is ideological flexibility, not ideological rigidity. And yet Republicans, bucking the trend of conservatives and socialists alike around the world, are becoming more ideological. But if successful policy is pragmatic rather than ideological, having such an ideologically intent party means that we’re robbed of a practically conservative option in this country. No matter what your ideological orientation, you should find this troubling. We can’t steer right in this country because the party trying to pull the wheel in that direction does not want to pull into the other lane so much as go off-roading through the oleander.

I do believe that the Republican Party will look back at this period as the time of their great hijacking, a time when their only answer to any question was lower taxes and when they let themselves get defined on everything else by their automatic opposition to Democrats. As long as ideologues own the party, the country will either suffer from their rule (as under Bush) or conservatives will suffer from Republicans’ inability to win control in DC (as under McCain). As I said, one can only hope that American conservatives are paying attention to Cameron – and humble enough to learn from Cameron and even – on occasion – agree with Obama.

Political Science - the world's simplest political ideology test

What follows is the world's simplest test of political ideology. Read the lyrics to Randy Newman's Political Science and then find the word that best describes how you feel and what that suggests about your ideology.

------------------------------
Political Science by Randy Newman
1972

No one likes us-I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens

We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us-so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them

Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us

We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin', too

Boom goes London and boom Paris
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town

Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono
And there'll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now

----------------------------

After you read the above lyrics, if you feel:

• Disgust at the mocking, disrespectful tone – you’re a traditional conservative
• Like this is the best idea you've heard in years – you’re a neocon
• Like playing the lyrics backwards – you’re a theocon
• Outrage and horror – you’re a bleeding heart liberal
• Like commenting at length about imperialism – you’re a bore
• Delighted – you’re an anarchist
• Relieved that they’ll be no more jobs lost to outsourcing – you’re a protectionist
• Self-righteous – you’re a moderate
• Envious of so much destructive capacity – you’re a terrorist
• Like taking out a red pen to correct the spelling and grammar – you’re a bureaucrat
• Excited by the thought of Italian shoes – you have no political ideology (but love the small crowds at the mall on election day)
• Confused – you’re the swing voter to whom they target 30-second campaign ads and it is amazing that you made it this far given this posting doesn't have any celebrity pictures

Iraq and the Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda

I remember how frustrated conservatives would get talking to liberals in the 70s. "Sure it would be wonderful to end poverty," they'd say. "But the question is whether it can be done with policy."

At the time I was what you might call politically agnostic. I lurched about from Libertarian to Socialist views before settling down into what Rush Limbaugh would call a "racial liberal" and what the Europeans would call a moderate. I no longer believe that markets or governments offer one-stop panaceas.

The left began to lose their lead in politics in this country was when they stubbornly held to the pursuit of policy that was noble (e.g., ending poverty) but for which they had no real solution. That is, while a majority of voters may have agreed that their policy objectives should been pursued, they stopped believing that the Democrats could have achieved those objectives. At this point, they cashed in their idealism for practical promises.

I say all this because George and his defenders have gotten themselves trapped in the “should have” box. It almost seems irrelevant to them whether the democratization of Iraq could be done - what matters to them is that it should be done. Yet the world is full of should be done tasks (Darfur not the least among them) that are not being done. There are a variety of reasons for this but one is that policy makers don't know how they could do the task.

And perhaps this is the definition of an ideologue - someone who sees adherence to practicality as akin to selling out. And ideologues do get their followers. But the critical mass of Americans are ultimately pragmatic and are, finally, less interested in the woulda and the shoulda than the coulda.

It is, finally, not George's intentions that are going to put his political successors into the dust bin of irrelevance. Rather, it will be his refusal to acknowledge that, in the end, the success of a policy must be realized outside of the minds of voters and in the real world. That is, no matter how "should have" it is, a policy must prove that it qualifies as"could have."

Out with the wild-eyed ideologues!

American people are fairly pragmatic. The vote results in today's election are not a vote for liberals - most of the Democrats who are winning tonight are not anybody's idea of wild-eyed liberal. Many of them are social conservatives.

Instead, the "vote the bums out" attitude is a rejection of what is widely perceived as wild-eyed ideologues who to this day cannot admit that their policy does not work. Some Americans are conservative and some are liberals. The swing voters are pragmatic. When you move into a state of denial, you can expect to lose their vote.