Now that this grueling campaign for the U.S. Presidency and Congress is over I cannot help but think of my young adult days when my anti-hero, Albert, of Pogo fame, said while with one benign alligator claw in the air: “We have met the enemy and it is us!”
And so it is. Ramesh Ponnuru’s recent offering in National Review (November 17, 2008) states: “Many of us believe that Republicans have suffered electoral defeat not because they have failed to demonstrate sufficient compassion for lower middle class voters but because they have failed to show how conservative policies can benefit those voters.”
The division that was seen at first opaquely in the late 90’s and more clearly during President Bush’s term between the social and economic conservatives now is recognized as some possible deep fissure not capable of repair. There is talk of replacing the social conservative leg of the 3 legged stool, which constitutes the Republican Party. But with what? And more importantly, how?
Governor Palin, who captured large swaths of conservative voters, would certainly need to be thrown overboard if Republicans decided that social conservatives must go. And, let us not forget the Republican leadership is now substantially regional and that region constitutes States from the Old Confederacy. The Northeast Republicans are hardly a force to be reckoned with.
For example both the Assembly and the Senate of New York State are now safely in the hands of Democrats. The Governor is a Democrat, the Attorney General is a Democrat and there aren’t hardly any Republicans holding state office or City office coming from New York City which constitutes at least half the State’s population.
The other Mid-Atlantic and New England states are not much better. So where are the Republicans coming from? Throwing the social conservatives overboard is therefore not an answer. In fact, if the economic conservatives are not respectful, it will be them that are thrown overboard. Based on recent economic events, while the current administration is Republican, for some this may not be a bad time for such a result.
Therefore instead of thinking about removing various legs of the Party why not build stronger legs and while we are at it, add one. So instead of a stool….we have a table.
It is ironic that the candidate that captured the electorate’s imagination with the slogan of “Change” in this last presidential election is a member of a party that throughout its history has promoted the opposite of change. Perhaps the only Democrat President that promoted real change was Andrew Jackson when he changed the leadership of the Country from the old elite founding families and handed it over to those who fought and died for the Revolution, the yeoman farmers and urban Irish.
But let’s not forget Jackson hailed from the South and was a slaveholder throughout his life. Democrats, during the Civil War, were against abolition and against the war. Wilson was hardly interested in change when it came to domestic issues. FDR had change in mind, economic change from a free market economy to Socialism. Perhaps the only President that may have led the Democrats into an era of change was Kennedy, but he didn’t live long enough in office.
My point is that from the end of World War II the Republican Party has been the party of change…we are comfortable with it. Though Truman fashioned the strategy that addressed the aggressive power of the Soviet Union it took Republicans to promote it and ultimately win with it. It was Republicans who promoted and developed the economic concepts undergirding free markets and free trade that created the economic boom which the U.S. experienced from 1980 right through the years of George W. Bush.
Republicans developed the concept of a volunteer armed forces making it the most formidable military force for peace that has ever existed on earth. If the American people want real change they shouldn’t be looking for Democrats to make it happen. Moreover, there is little in President-elect
The change that Americans can expect is already upon us: The change from a Nation State to a Market State, from a state which provides benefits to a state which provides opportunities. The 4 legged table therefore will look like this:
1. Develop a less sectarian but a more ethical approach to the developing moral issues of our time. The young adherents of the Religious Right are ready to lead us in that regard. The writings of Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard John Neuhaus and, yes, the Evangelicals of our time along with those secular philosophers such as Antony Flew, George Weigel and Midge Decter are creating the core beliefs of American ethical values for the 21st Century.
2. The Economic Conservatives are already developing new concepts for the Market State, one of which is the opening of our borders to Mexico and Canada. One ingredient which the United States must have for this developing new dynamic society is, plainly put, more people. Unfortunately we can’t do it alone if the American family insists on having 2 or less children. Therefore we must look to our neighbors to the South and North. Will Messrs. Hannity, Limbaugh and Levin take a back seat, please.
3. Our national security policy should build on the strategy developed by George W. Bush with the advent of 9/11: America can no longer sit back and watch countries develop weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, we cannot allow oppressive countries to murder their own people without consequences. And we must develop strategies that respond to natural catastrophes. All in the name of national interest. However, we cannot do it alone. We can begin by joining with the English speaking countries who share with us law and culture upon which we can build new international institutions. And lastly America must expand our armed forces in a direction which the Battles for Iraq and Afghanistan, in the War Against Terror, have already led us: A more flexible approach to insurgency without forgetting that there are enemies of ours which are armed states for which we must be ready to engage if attacked or if those to whom we promised security are attacked.
4. And the new leg: We can no longer separate law from strategy, the stakes are too high. We must begin to develop a new legal framework (crimes which have occurred) compatible with new strategies (crimes which we are attempting to suppress) which deal with the War Against Terror. Those organizations which refuse to accept the real possibility of mass injuries and deaths caused by those whose only purpose is to destroy our nation of consent must be revealed for what they truly are: intellectual Luddites.
As the days progress I hope to amplify each of the legs of this new table as time allows. But to gain back those Republicans who stayed home, voted independent or Democratic, this last election (nearly 4,000,000 voters) the Republican Party must begin this process with each of us contributing our ideas and energies. The stool is now a table, a stable platform upon which many of us can stand with confidence and vision.
Since this is a discussion which affects all who read Urban Elephants please add your comments. I promise to respond to everyone of your e-mails.
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