Right Wing Nation

If you think that last one was incendiary, just wait till you read this. And I might add that three hours on the phone with Microsoft support did not improve my mood.

Ryan Sager, author of The Elephant in the Room (which, ironically, cause a great deal of screaming when it came out), quotes an article about a panel discussion he was on:

The speakers generally agreed that the coalition Ronald Reagan assembled of social conservatives, libertarians, limited-government proponents and free-marketeers is fractured.

As I commented on the article, I don’t think “fractured” is accurate. Last month, I suggested that we all need to go back to kindergarten for a few days, and relearn some of the lessons, specifically, how to play with others. I’m going to reiterate that here.

I apologize for the cold, hard dose of reality, but you cannot have both a coalition (or a big tent) and a base (or “true” conservatives). If a coalition has a litmus test, then it must be minimal, and acceptable to everyone in the coalition. And the only way you can have a coalition is if every party compromises with every other party.

I hate to break it to you purists, but there are a lot of people in the coalition who are not happy with the current “only true conservatives need apply” GOP. Deb is, to put it blunty, really pissed off:

Last month, there were numerous blog postings about “How I will never vote for John McCain.” Most of these focused on how the “Republican Party has abandoned me,” or some other perceived grievance. Let me find my tiny violin.

Actually, that’s just the first paragraph. Here’s where she really gets honked off:

Part of me laughed at all those people so pissed that the Republicans didn’t select a candidate that they liked. They jumped up on their high horses and proclaimed, in typical holier-than-thou fashion, about how they would never vote for the lesser of two evils. Good for you. But I have been forced to vote for the lesser of two evils in almost every Presidential Campaign I ever voted in.

It has been funny to watch the Right morph into a perfect mirror of the deranged Left we were treated to after George W. Bush was elected. McCain derangement syndrome? Maybe. No compromise - not just on first principles, but on anything. If everybody felt that way, George W. Bush would not have been elected either time.

Anyway, I’ve had enough. The Democrats are totalitarian in their efforts to take care of everyone. The Republicans are totalitarian in their efforts to control morality. I will probably vote for one of the two of them - the Libertarian party is mostly insane, Nader is a Communist joke - but I won’t be happy about it.

And Uncle is none too happy, either, although he’s a bit less caustic:

That’s when the Big Tent decided that the small government types; small l libertarians; big L Libertarian types who were realistic; South Park Republicans; socially liberal but economically conservative types; and people who just don’t like Democrats; people who dig federalism; could collectively go fuck themselves. They dropped us faster than Brittney can drop a dime on therapy bills. But they stuck with the God Squad; the people that hate gay cooties; the Neocons; Paleocons; and others. To the former, the appealing to the latter seemed like they were keeping all the bad and none of the good.

Now, something else is happening. And the appeal of the party to the Paleocons; the God Squad; and the people that hate gay cooties; isn’t so great. All that’s left are the Neocons and some moderates.

So, forgive me if I’m not too sympathetic to cries of the Paleocons; the God Squad; and the people that hate gay cooties; about how the Republican party is dead. They abandoned me before they abandoned you.

Remember how you told me to suck it up and get in line? Not so fun, eh?

And Greg chimes in, in “Uncle Lays Out Why the GOP is Dying”:

Because they keep pushing out group after group.

And that’s inevitable when you have a “base” of “true” conservatives who are allowed to make (and change) all of the rules, and dictate who may and may not play. Just ask the Libertarians. They’re about as ideologically pure as it gets — in fact, ideological purity is all they care about — and you see how successful they are. They may not be able to get anybody elected, but they all pass that litmus test!

Understand that I am certainly not suggesting that anybody should be kicked to the curb. But the Colt .45 certain segments have been holding to everybody else’s heads needs to be taken firmly away. Every single issue needs to back on the table, with nothing held back, and the whole platform needs to be re-negotiated — well, that’s not the best word, since the platform wasn’t negotiated in the first place, it was dictated, and everybody else was told, in not only Uncle’s words, but those who were stamping their feet about McCain, to suck it up and fall in line.

And no party must be allowed to hold everybody else hostage again. No “true conservatives,” no “base.” Unless we want to walk ourselves right off the playing field, we have to become a coalition again.

And that means that no, you may not get your pet issue, and you over there, you may not get yours, either. Oh well. Life’s like that. Be an adult. If you’re not mature enough to compromise, then you need to find a nice, irrelevant, ideology-only party, like the LP, or the CP. Then you can scream and make demands all you like.

Compromise is possible, provided everyone agrees to be adults and compromise. Probably every faction would agree that Roe v. Wade is bad law and sets a bad precedent, and that judges are important, but that’s entirely distinct from using the Constitution as a social engineering tool (not to mention that the HLA is the very worst kind of pandering anyway, since every politician knows it has less chance of ever being ratified than the ERA). But there will be no compromise and no negotiation of anything unless there is no litmus test, no “true conservatives,” no “RINOs,” and no “base.”

Having said that, a McCain win in November may be the best thing that has happened to the GOP since Reagan — and, you see, I can invoke Reagan, because I was voting before he was elected the first time. A McCain win would effectively take the gun out of the hands of the self-appointed, screaming, juvenile, spoiled brat “base.” I don’t agree with him on everything, and strongly disagree with him on a couple of issues, but that’s tangential. Deb perhaps doesn’t realize that we rarely get to vote for a perfect candidate, unless we happen to be on the ballot. It took me a good ten elections or so before I realized it. But the fact that McCain is few peoples’ ideal candidate may be what saves the GOP from committing suicide.

A McCain win would force a re-assessment. McCain doesn’t pander to anyone, and would let no faction hold a gun to his head (and that, I think, really is the problem behind all of the screaming: They’re mad because McCain doesn’t kiss their asses, or kneel and kiss Dobson’s ring, or beg Robertson or Gilchrist for forgiveness for any sins, real or imaginary). A McCain win would disarm the “true conservatives,” but they wrongly claim that would “tear the party apart.” Actually, it may be the only thing that will save the party from the purists.

So please, put the revolver — and the crack pipe — down, take a deep breath, be and adult and realize that you can’t have everything you want, sit down at the table, and play nice with everybody else. And if you get the temptation to call yourself a “true conservative,” then keep your mouth shut, pick up a copy of Barry Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative and read it, then ask yourself just how truly conservative your issues are.

And if you think I’m exaggerating, see here.

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