The Right: Down, but Maybe Not Out: "...no signs of atonement within the movement."

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: The Right: Down, but Maybe Not Out
By SAM TANENHAUS
Published: May 20, 2007


(Tim Sloan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)
FORWARD, MARCH Paul Wolfowitz, a case study for conservatives.

WITH the death on Tuesday of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Baptist minister and founder of the Moral Majority, and the announcement on Thursday that Paul D. Wolfowitz would resign from the presidency of the World Bank, two major figures in the modern conservative movement exited the political stage. To many, this is the latest evidence that the conservative movement, which has dominated politics during the last quarter century, is finished.

But conservatives have heard this before, and have yet to give in. Weeks after Barry Goldwater suffered a humiliating defeat in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson, his supporters organized the American Conservative Union to take on the Republican Party establishment. After failing to unseat Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976, Ronald Reagan positioned himself for the 1980 election. The conservatives dismayed by the election of Bill Clinton spent the next eight years attacking him at every opportunity. And after failing to impeach Mr. Clinton, House Republicans far from retreating into caution or self-doubt, kept up the pressure and turned the 2000 election into a referendum on Mr. Clinton’s character.

What accounts for this resilience — or stubbornness?

For one thing, since its beginnings in the 1950s, conservatism has been an insurgent movement fought on many fronts — cultural, moral and philosophical. Leaders on the right, as well as the rank and file, have always believed that defeats were inevitable and the odds often long....

***

... after 9/11, neoconservatives and evangelicals found common cause in their shared belief in American exceptionalism and in the idea that the country’s values could be exported abroad. Mr. Bush was receptive to the synthesis, and it became the ideological centerpiece of the war on terror, with its stated mission to combat the “axis of evil” in a global “war on terror.”

Today, of course, this vision, has been widely repudiated, if not altogether discredited. The public has grown skeptical, or maybe just tired, of the hard-edged and often polarizing politics. And this change coincides with broad-based skepticism of the Bush presidency itself — as witnessed by Mr. Bush’s and his party’s perilously low approval ratings. The G.O.P.’s embrace of the conservative movement is beginning, some say, to resemble a death grip.

But there have been no signs of atonement within the movement....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/weekinreview/20tanenhaus.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[glitch]

1. They refuse to adapt to a changing reality, an absolute requirement for evolution.

Which leaves them only one path, extinction. We already know their fate, it's built into their model. Our big question is: will they be able to take us with them?

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Good question -- great post! nt

[Hekate]

2. What I want to know is: What can we learn from them about redeploying candidates?

They redeploy their best presidential candidates, they consider them elder statesmen and not losers. They support these candidates. Ronald Reagan did not go away after he lost out to Ford. He "positioned himself for the 1980 election."

What kind of support does our fractious party give to John Kerry? To Al Gore?

Just sayin'

Hekate

[DeepModem Mom]

5. THAT is an important point -- I agree with you. nt

[Donnachaidh]

4. No atonement means they are incapable of learning from their mistakes

And means they need to be beaten out of existence. Cannot WAIT for 2008 when this will be done. :bounce:

[DoctorStrangelove]

6. Hard-edged and often polarizing politics

It is curious that the NYTs should write that 'The public has grown skeptical, or maybe just tired, of the hard-edged and often polarizing politics.' I wonder how this seems to be contradicted by the very 'hard-edged and often polarizing' expression of political opinion in online forums.

[newyawker99]

7. Hi DoctorStrangelove!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: