Shortly before the end of 2006, Boston Phoenix political reporter David Bernstein observed that a variety of political and cultural trends suggest the potential resurgence of the Democrat Party, whose fortunes have ebbed and flowed since the dawn of the Reagan era. The strongest argument Bernstein advanced in his favor was his final one: that American society, as structured now, is more sympathetic to Democrat political positions than Republican ones. Bernstein asserted that more and more voters "...simply don’t share the skittishness that the Republican Party seems to have about global warming, embryonic stem-cell research, end-of-life issues, sex education, and indecency on the airwaves. This rising generation is also far, far removed from the era when America underwent its turbulent 20th-century reshaping of attitudes about race, gender, and religion. For those under 30, diversity and equality are a given: two-fifths of their peers are something other than white and non-Hispanic — compared with one-fourth among those over age 40. Their gay friends are not only out, they are holding hands in public. And geography no longer separates those who are different in today’s interconnected culture..."
It's hard to deny that American culture is moving in a more libertarian direction (and, based on the results of the 2006 midterms, it can be argued that it's moving in a more left-libertarian direction). The GOP's biggest challenge heading into the 2010s will be figuring out how to win elections despite this cultural trend. (You can hear the snarkiness from the left now: "Oh, you guys will just steal them...")
Republicans have had to confront the challenges posed by an increasingly libertarian culture for some time now. Paul Weyrich was dead-on in 1999 when he argued that "...if there really were a moral majority out there, Bill Clinton would have been driven out of office months ago." Weyrich also argued that
More powerful is the fact that what Americans would have found absolutely intolerable only a few years ago, a majority now not only tolerates but celebrates. Americans have adopted, in large measure, the MTV culture that we so valiantly opposed just a few years ago, and it has permeated the thinking of all but those who have separated themselves from the contemporary culture...
I believe that we probably have lost the culture war. That doesn't mean the war is not going to continue, and that it isn't going to be fought on other fronts. But in terms of society in general, we have lost. This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories fail to translate into the kind of policies we believe are important.
Then as now, I disagreed with Weyrich about the Right having completely lost the culture war. However, Weyrich's point about the apparent waning influence of cultural conservatism was seemingly validated that same year, when George W. Bush ran for President as a "compassionate conservative." At the time, I believed this slogan to be a mere marketing tool, an attempt by Bush to avoid the media demonization of such prominent Republicans as Newt Gingrich and Kenneth Starr. However, looking back, the "compassionate conservative" concept was more than just that.
Bush and his advisers clearly recognized that he could not run as a strong Reagan conservative in 1999-2000, as American culture had changed radically in the twenty years since Reagan's historic campaign against Jimmy Carter. In 1979 and 1980, Reagan did not have to "soften" his tone or "moderate" his message in order to win. However, by 1999, it was impossible to run for President as a representative of strong conservatism.
In the twenty years since Reagan's campaign, the very concept of strong conservatism had become so demonized in the culture, so smeared with charges of racism, sexism, religious dominionism and homophobia, that the only way Bush could have a fighting chance was to depict himself as a "compassionate conservative." The demonization of strong conservatism occurred at the same time as a rise in cultural (left-)libertarianism: during this time, we witnessed the fervent embrace of politically correct thought at major American colleges and universities, the growing acceptance of the belief that gays and lesbians deserved civil rights protection, the aforementioned adoption of the "MTV culture," etc.
We must be honest: take away "compassionate conservatism," and Al Gore would have dominated the 2000 election. Were it not for that effective, powerful slogan, Gore would have been the beneficiary of twenty years of cultural demonization of all things conservative. The culture had declared conservatism backward, eccentric, prejudiced, "mean-spirited." By declaring himself a "compassionate conservative," Bush managed to stand apart from those perceptions--and thus managed to succeed Clinton as President.
As Bernstein suggests, the culture is even more libertarian now than it was in 1999 when Bush ran. So where does the GOP go from here? It's not like we can pull the "compassionate conservative" rabbit out of the hat again.
The Republican Party must figure out a way to maintain the essence of its ideological principles while recognizing that the culture has irreversibly changed in certain respects. We must confront the unpleasant reality that a Reagan conservative will not emerge anytime soon--and that even if he did, he would be immediately pilloried by the press as a neo-fascist, gay-bashing, "immigrant-hating" piece of trash. In short, we must find a way to combine "Reagan conservatism" with "compassionate conservatism" to create a "pragmatic conservatism" that will lead to success over the next decade.
We must make a realistic assessment of where we can win on culture issues, and where we absolutely cannot. The current controversy over the gay rights movement is both a benefit and a burden for the party: while Bush was re-elected in 2004 partly due to his opposition to same-sex marriage, the fact that a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage went nowhere even before the GOP lost Congress clearly indicates just how thorny this issue is for the Right.
It will be increasingly difficult for conservatives to argue that a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is necessary to preserve traditional families, when as a result of cultural changes, more and more Americans seemingly accept the notion that gay and lesbian couples should be included under the definition of "traditional" families. (It can be argued that the limited amount of criticism from the Right about Mary Cheney's lifestyle is due to a recognition that large numbers of Americans have apparently adopted a live-and-let-live attitude concerning her sexuality.) While many states enacted prohibitions on same-sex marriage the wake of the November 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Court Goodridge ruling, it's reasonable to conclude that, if the country continues to move in a libertarian direction regarding gay issues, many of those bans will be democratically reversed over the next 20 to 30 years.
Republicans can still gain political traction by, for example, raising questions about efforts to introduce very young public-school children to sexual concepts: it's surprising that the Right did not embrace David Parker, the Lexington, Massachusetts father who objected to certain aspects of the Lexington Public Schools' "diversity curriculum" a few years back. However, it's clear that criticism of the gay rights movement per se will simply become more and more problematic for the Right as more and more Americans adopt a "What's the big deal?" worldview.
The GOP must remain, at bottom, a party that believes in a strong national defense, the stimulation of the economy through tax reduction, support for the individual's right to self-defense and reducing abortion. If this seems like a small list of principles, that's because, sadly, these are the only principles that the Republican Party really stands for today. Reducing the size, scope, and waste of government? Border security? The GOP abandoned those beliefs years ago, and it's difficult to see any scenario that would result in the GOP embracing those beliefs once again. We're down to the "Big Four." Our challenge is to figure out how to make these issues compelling once again in this current culture.
That's a hell of a task. Are we capable of it?
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