03-08-2016, 03:43 PM
Here a simple but handy characterization of the Republican Party:
Here is David Brooks, conservative intellectual, who argues that the traditional Pavlov anti-government ("government isn't the solution, it's the problem") has had its best days.
Brooks cuts a lonely figure Here's the thing. Many of the Republican voters aren't nearly as anti-government as the party ideologues have it, much of the base basically wants to keep social security and don't expect miracles from tax cuts for the rich, and Trump has latched on to this.
Quote:Ronald Reagan used to describe the Republican Party as a kind of three-part coalition. Each part was primarily motivated by its pet issue: national defense, free-market economics, traditional values. Together these comprised a "three-legged stool" that supported the party. Saw off any of the legs and the stool collapsed--taking the party down with it. Trump makes no sense when viewed through this lens. He doesn't know enough about foreign policy to count as being strong on national defense. He's not a free-markets guy at all. No one would mistake him for a social conservative. So how can he be so popular?How the Republican Party imploded - Business Insider
Here is David Brooks, conservative intellectual, who argues that the traditional Pavlov anti-government ("government isn't the solution, it's the problem") has had its best days.
Quote:This isn’t about winning the presidency in 2016 anymore. This is about something much bigger. Every 50 or 60 years, parties undergo a transformation. The G.O.P. is undergoing one right now. What happens this year will set the party’s trajectory for decades. Since Goldwater/Reagan, the G.O.P. has been governed by a free-market, anti-government philosophy. But over the ensuing decades new problems have emerged.It’s Not Too Late! - The New York Times
First, the economy has gotten crueler. Technology is displacing workers and globalization is dampening wages. Second, the social structure has atomized and frayed, especially among the less educated. Third, demography is shifting. Orthodox Republicans, seeing no positive role for government, have had no affirmative agenda to help people deal with these new problems. Occasionally some conservative policy mavens have proposed such an agenda — anti-poverty programs, human capital policies, wage subsidies and the like — but the proposals were killed, usually in the House, by the anti-government crowd. The 1980s anti-government orthodoxy still has many followers; Ted Cruz is the extreme embodiment of this tendency. But it has grown increasingly rigid, unresponsive and obsolete.
Along comes Donald Trump offering to replace it and change the nature of the G.O.P. He tramples all over the anti-government ideology of modern Republicanism. He would replace the free-market orthodoxy with authoritarian nationalism. He offers to use government on behalf of the American working class, but in negative and defensive ways: to build walls, to close trade, to ban outside groups, to smash enemies. According to him, America’s problems aren’t caused by deep structural shifts. They’re caused by morons and parasites. The Great Leader will take them down.
Brooks cuts a lonely figure Here's the thing. Many of the Republican voters aren't nearly as anti-government as the party ideologues have it, much of the base basically wants to keep social security and don't expect miracles from tax cuts for the rich, and Trump has latched on to this.