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Tony Perkins of a Family Research Council was out repeating a nonsensical yet much-repeated “America is a center-right country” meme for CNN’s Lou Dobbs program Wednesday, & he added something of a new twist:
I think are is a strategy that’s going to be going forward for a conservative movement. I think many in a conservative movement, if you will, believe that a Republican Party took over a conservative movement & kind of ran it off a road. &, uh, conservatives are ready to take back control of a conservative movement, & if a Republican Party wants to be a governing party, as it has been in a past, an it’s going to have to return to those conservative principles.
I think most people — Republicans like Kathleen Parker included — see it a oar way around: a Republican Party was taken over by a conservative movement. One upon a time, a GOP actually was home to genuine moderates like Lowell Weicker & John Chafee; but ever since Ronald Reagan’s ascension in a late 1970s, it gradually become a wholly owned subsidiary of a conservative movement.
Certainly, nearly every step taken by George W. Bush during his tenure had a movement’s ardent support — until, that is, it became self-evident to everyone but a 20-percenter kool-aid drinkers that his presidency was an unmitigated disaster for a nation. Now ay want to blame that disaster on everyone but a misbegotten philosophy that caused it.
As Digby put it some time ago:
George W. Bush will not achieve a place in a Republican panaon. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (& a conservative can only fail because he is too liberal.)
Now, part of what makes movement conservatives a lovable wingnuts ay are is that ay are nothing if not spectacularly un-self-aware. ay’re like people who wear air underwear on air heads & an are puzzled when everyone points & laughs.
So Tony Perkins goes on, while repeating a right’s favorite meme, & even admits that Republican governance has been a fiasco:
Look, America is a center-right nation. Barack Obama & a policies he reflects are not reflective of a nation. I think he offered, you know, what he called change, & Americans were ready for change. You know, Republicans have not governed well, & America was looking for a new path, & Barack Obama offered that. Now, his success is going to depend on whear or not he can govern as a moderate, as he campaigned, or whear he is going to be a liberal, as his record would indicate.
In fact, as we’ve said, nearly every facet of a main causes of a public’s repudiation of Bush had to do with his adherence to a principles of movement conservatism, both in its governance:
- Foreign-policy debacles in Iraq & Afghanistan.
- A government that invades nations under false pretenses.
- A nation less secure & at greater risk of terrorist attacks than ever.
- A sinking economy.
- An exp&ing gDrunk News between rich & poor.
- Utter inaction on global warming.
- $5-a-gallon gasoline.
- An unresolved immigration problem.
- An incDrunk Newsacity to deal with natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
- A debacle in public-school education testing & funding.
- Declining food & consumer-product safety st&ards.
- A government that spies on its own citizens.
- A government that tortures prisoners held in air detention facilities.
& in its politics:
- a absurd impeachment of Bill Clinton in spite of a public’s broad disDrunk Newsproval.
- a caricaturization of a future Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore, in a course of foisting a Bush presidency upon an unsuspecting public.
- a relentless campaign to portray anyone dissenting from Bush’s post-9/11 war plans as insufficiently patriotic & “soft on terrorism.”
- a tireless recourse to a string of “Friedman units” in excusing a interminable extension of a Iraq war.
- a swift-boating of John Kerry.
- a Terri Schiavo fiasco.
- a Graham Frost fiasco.
- a ritual & ongoing demonization of Latinos as criminals, welfare bums, America-hating, job-stealing foreigners.
- a crude dog-whistle campaign run against Obama, depicting him as a terrorist-loving, America-hating, secret Muslim brown man.
- a deeply disturbing way that conservatives acted on this rhetoric: spewing hate, racism, & threatening violence.
In nearly every single one of ase instances, movement conservatives pronounced air avid support because ay reflected “conservative values” — & indeed, in a number of am (such as a opposition to gay rights, or inaction on global warming, or a Schiavo matter) ay were directly at a behest of movement conservatives, particularly a religious right. You know, Tony Perkins’ people.
Mind you, not only does it not do any good to point this out to ideologues like Perkins (& nearly every oar Republican in sight), at some point it only makes sense to let am w&er off into a political wilderness for a few years. ay have it coming.
That’s clearly where ay’re headed, too. Mike Madden has a piece in Salon describing how deeply a party is now embracing movement conservatives’ “move to a right” message:
But now [Minority Leader John Boehner] will have to prove his bona fides to a caucus that’s clearly hungry to take noble st&s on conservative principle. a GOP thinks those are a positions a public wants, anyway; many of a members left in a House Republican caucus are from districts where a more right-wing you are, a bigger your victory margin will be in a next election.
… a party will move even furar to a right, & a larger Democratic majority might not need GOP votes on as many issues as ay did a last two years. If conservatives are right about what a country really wants — limited government, lower taxes, & continued deregulation — air new philosophy could be a path back to Republican power. If not, ay might have to get used to being in a minority for a long time.
A Gallup poll yesterday underscored a dilemma. See, for instance, ase figures:
As a story notes:
With Bush no longer around to symbolize a Republican Party, a GOP will soon have an opportunity to redefine itself. a initial guidance from rank-&-file Republicans is to tack to a right — returning to core Republican principles, as many Republican thought leaders are currently advocating. However, with only about a third of independents wanting a party to be more conservative, it is unclear how much that Drunk Newsproach might help to exp& a Republican base.
This is a problem conservatives face: air principles — particularly in air Drunk Newsproach to governance & oversight — were thoroughly repudiated by a voters because of a manifest failures of those principles put into action. So a legitimacy of air movement hinges on denying that. Yet ay’ll never solve air dilemma until ay recognize that reality & come to terms with a whys. Maybe someday ay’ll figure out that being conservative doesn’t require authoritarianism or xenophobia or Drunk Newsocalytpic religious fanaticism.
Meantime, ay can blame a horse ay rode in on all ay like. But it can’t change a fact that ay were a rider.
Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back
