A Second G.O.P. by D. Brooks
On the surface, Republicans are already doing a good job of beginning to change their party. Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana gave a speech to the Republican National Committee calling on Republicans to stop being the stupid party, to stop insulting the intelligence of the American people. . .
But, so far, there have been more calls for change than actual evidence of change. In his speech, for example, Jindal spanked his party for its stale clichés but then repeated the same Republican themes that have earned his party its 33 percent approval ratings: Government bad. Entrepreneurs good.
In this reinvention process, Republicans seem to have spent no time talking to people who didnt already vote for them. . .
The second G.O.P. wouldnt be based on the Encroachment Story. It would be based on the idea that America is being hit simultaneously by two crises, which you might call the Mancur Olson crisis and the Charles Murray crisis.
Olson argued that nations decline because their aging institutions get bloated and sclerotic and retard national dynamism. Murray argues that America is coming apart, dividing into two nations one with high education levels, stable families and good opportunities and the other with low education levels, unstable families and bad opportunities.
The second G.O.P. would tackle both problems at once. It would be filled with people who recoiled at President Obamas second Inaugural Address because of its excessive faith in centralized power, but who dont share the absolute antigovernment story of the current G.O.P.
Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Whos going to build a second G.O.P.?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/opinion/brooks-a-second-g-o-p.html?hp
longship
(40,416 posts)Ha!
Who is he fooling? Republicans are nothing more than a theocratic cabal. Jindal included. When they say that the party is stupid it's because the Republican Party is stupid.
Jindal is the definition of stupid.
MyshkinCommaPrince
(611 posts)Thomas Frank writes about two Repug factions as the Mods (moderate Rs) and the Cons (far-right wingnut Rs), in What's the Matter with Kansas. The Cons have now driven out the Mods, for whom David Brooks seems to have been one of the national voices for some time. Brooks seems to be saying to his Mods (if they're still out there) that they need to give up on fighting to control the existing Republican party and start a new version of it. Is... is that right? Like the Repug commentators themselves, Brooks doesn't seem to be questioning the core ideas of their current party. Or at least he's not questioning half of those ideas. If their party is currently stuck between needing to please their backers (big $$$ - Mods) and their base (those southern and western types Brooks mentions - Cons), and can't move much lest they offend one or both of these two groups (which have conflicting agendas)... then the backers should throw aside the Tea Party types and the culture warriors and start a new party representing the existing Republican economic ideals.
Not expressing myself well at all, tonight. I think Brooks is making another type of "repackaging" argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_%28author%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancur_Olson
Edited to add wiki links for the names Brooks drops. Wondering if he's making a coded statement of some kind by citing these two thinkers.
elleng
(130,721 posts)stopbush
(24,392 posts)BigDemVoter
(4,149 posts)I read about a paragraph of his tripe and muttered "idiot" under my breath & skipped on to the next page.