The Conservative Alternative Reality (TomPaine.com)

[marmar]

The Conservative Alternative Reality
Isaiah J. Poole
May 04, 2007


Isaiah J. Poole is the executive editor of TomPaine.com.


If Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate left you feeling as though you were watching 10 white men from some alternate universe, you would not have been as surprised if you had seen a debate at the National Press Club in Washington just hours earlier.

There, William Kristol, one of the main architects of the modern conservative movement, went head to head with Robert Kuttner, founding editor of the progressive magazine The American Prospect, at a conference sponsored by The American Prospect and the Campaign for America’s Future. Kristol helped build the alternate universe in which nearly all of the Republican candidates, with the exception of libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, spend most, if not all, of their time.

In this universe, the conservatism of Ronald Reagan—whose library served as the stage for the debate—has ushered in what Kristol called “very impressive economic growth over the last quarter century” that has not only benefited America but much of the world. Countries like China and India, by implementing Reagan’s formula of supply-side economics, deregulation and open markets “brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.”

In foreign policy, meanwhile, neoconservatism brought down the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War, and would have meant a successful Iraq war if it had not been for the twin evils of President Clinton’s underfunding of the military and President Bush’s management missteps.

...(snip)...

That was just one of the areas in which the conservative analysis of the last three decades, as laid out in the Kuttner-Kristol debate, failed to connect with reality. Many of us remember how Reagan made it seem real—Reagan says, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and the Soviet Union falls—but how quickly we forget that Reagan was a trained actor working with an admittedly skillfully written screenplay, and that the Soviet Union would have fallen without the dramatics and the billions of tax dollars diverted from domestic needs and spent on weaponry.

The screenplay, however, is no longer resonating with voters who want policies that speak to the economic stresses they and their neighbors are experiencing. “Fewer and fewer and fewer voters are buying either the ideology or the incumbent,” Kuttner said, citing a recent Gallup poll that indicated the percentage of voters who believe the rich have too much money and that the government should do more for the poor “are at their highest since 1939.”

But what the conservative movement does have going for it, Kuttner pointed out, is money, and those who have lots of it as a result of conservative policies will use it in the political arena to keep the ideology afloat as long as it can. That is why the progressive movement needs to keep boldly and creatively telling the truth about the real effects of conservatism on the nation and the world, and then offer a compelling vision of shared prosperity and a government that serves the common good. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/04/the_conservative_alternative_reality.php

[Donnachaidh]

1. The last paragraph totally sums it up --

"As Kuttner put it, “The challenge for progressives is not to be complacent, and to not assume that the collapse of conservatism is the revival of progressivism. That will take real work.”

We need to FOCUS, and keep pushing back. As long as it takes.

[raccoon]

2. Kuttner sure got that right,

"But what the conservative movement does have going for it, Kuttner pointed out, is money" And lots of it.

Sooner or later, most people finally wise up.