GOP Schism

[SLCPUNK]

PEGGY NOONAN

Too Bad President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.

Friday, June 1, 2007 12:00 a.m. EDT

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement.

I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they're defensive, and they're defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill--one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions--this is, always and on every issue, the administration's default position--but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.

They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!

If they'd really wanted to help, as opposed to braying about their own wonderfulness, they would have created not one big bill but a series of smaller bills, each of which would do one big clear thing, the first being to close the border. Once that was done--actually and believably done--the country could relax in the knowledge that the situation was finally not day by day getting worse. They could feel some confidence. And in that confidence real progress could begin.

The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq.

What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks.

One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal

[freedom78]

I'm not certain what to make of this piece, to be honest.  Bush is unlike any Republican in recent memory, in his ability to simultaneously offend both his base, the middle, and the left. 

[SLCPUNK]

I'm not certain what to make of this piece, to be honest. 

Why is that?

[freedom78]

I'm not certain what to make of this piece, to be honest. 

Why is that?

Two reasons:

1.) Noonan is criticizing Bush for one of the very few things (immigration reform) in which he's gone in what I feel is the right direction.  The plan isn't perfect, but it beats the "build a wall" philosophy.  So, while I'm always open to some Bush criticism, this is one case where he doesn't really deserve it.

2.) Republicans are traditionally in favor of a fairly isolated (or, better stated, non-interventionist) foreign policy and small government.  Under Bush we're in one war (rightly) and have started another (wrongly) and he's dramatically expanded the power and size of the federal government, the yearly deficit, and the national debt, while doing little to actually IMPROVE the federal government (see: Hurricane Katrina Debacle).  So, the fact that, after all that, IMMIGRATION is what breaks apart the coalition...it's just like a bad joke.  The coalition should have fallen apart the moment he wanted to start a war.  It should have fallen apart when his solution to security was the creation of a new branch of the federal bureaucracy.  I just think it's sad that Republicans completely sold out their values to this failure of a President, and while thousands died and trillions were spent, it still wasn't enough to "break the coalition."  But now he wants to allow a few brown people to stay in the country...well that just crosses the line.  Two political parties have simultaneously had their heads up their asses for the last 6 years;  the Republicans for betraying their core values to a President that has led their party to disaster, and the Democrats for not having a coherent enough vision to get elected sooner or the balls to do something now that they have been elected.

[The Dog]

Freedom, I agree with you it is a joke, but i think the article is right on.  to me this is just a great example of republicans getting up in arms about the things that aren't NEARLY as important as the real, big issues facing this country.  Bush can fuck up the country all he wants so long as the gays can't marry, stem cells stay in their petri dishes and all the illegals don't become citizens than all is good in the US of A 

[25]

Is the lack of coalition support really relevant to a President in the last couple of years of his second term? Especially given that he seemingly had only one objective when he came to power and he's already achieved it?

And, from the opposite perspective, what does the "coalition" have to gain from continuing to support the most unpopular President in decades when he's already on his way out the door? Surely any excuse will do in order to break step with the current administration and save a little face? Immigration is a good choice as it's a social policy which doesn't rely on the psycho christian base for it's relevance. "We're the conservative coalition, we're not obsessed with gay marriage and abortion rights, honest! We also care about paying less tax and waging war on the darkies! O BEAUUUUUTIFUL FOR SPAAAACIOUS SKIES, FOR AAAMBER WAVES OF GRAAAIIIN!"

Or something like that.

[Booker Floyd]

Republicans are traditionally in favor of a fairly isolated (or, better stated, non-interventionist) foreign policy

When was the last time this statement was applicable?

[judaskennedy]

this is a very interesting topic that i may or may not read later on tomorrow,  all i know is the article was very long and contains some real big words,  at first i thought this was a thread about Tool?

anyways,   most of your replies seemed longwinded and overthought,  maybe its an important topic that merits such a response.
i did manage however while skimming the many lines as the screen scrolled down to the bottom ... that the topic has something to do with politicians and george bush-  possibly your election news.

but heres my response now- 

all american (and canadian, and many other nations..) politicians who get elected into any sort of high office... are part of a secret society called The Illuminati.  They're satan worshipers whos mission is to form a one world goverment therefor bringing about prophicies from the bible (revelations). 
George W. Bush is a member, as is his father. Bill Clinton is a member, as is his wife (who WILL be the next president... just you watch)    Reagan was a member, as was JFK, as was George Washington and too many other historical figures any 9th grader would have heard of.

But when it comes to american politics....   Have you ever seen the episode of south park where cartman goes back in time to the decloration of independance?
America is the country that can do what ever it wants, but seems like it does not want to do these things... Its called having your cake, and eating it too

[Booker Floyd]

all american (and canadian, and many other nations..) politicians who get elected into any sort of high office... are part of a secret society called The Illuminati.  They're satan worshipers whos mission is to form a one world goverment therefor bringing about prophicies from the bible (revelations). 
George W. Bush is a member, as is his father. Bill Clinton is a member, as is his wife (who WILL be the next president... just you watch)    Reagan was a member, as was JFK, as was George Washington and too many other historical figures any 9th grader would have heard of

I cant believe this!  Thanks for opening my eyes to the truth.

[GeraldFord]

all american (and canadian, and many other nations..) politicians who get elected into any sort of high office... are part of a secret society called The Illuminati.? They're satan worshipers whos mission is to form a one world goverment therefor bringing about prophicies from the bible (revelations).?
George W. Bush is a member, as is his father. Bill Clinton is a member, as is his wife (who WILL be the next president... just you watch)? ? Reagan was a member, as was JFK, as was George Washington and too many other historical figures any 9th grader would have heard of

I cant believe this!? Thanks for opening my eyes to the truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminati           

[polluxlm]

all american (and canadian, and many other nations..) politicians who get elected into any sort of high office... are part of a secret society called The Illuminati.? They're satan worshipers whos mission is to form a one world goverment therefor bringing about prophicies from the bible (revelations).?
George W. Bush is a member, as is his father. Bill Clinton is a member, as is his wife (who WILL be the next president... just you watch)? ? Reagan was a member, as was JFK, as was George Washington and too many other historical figures any 9th grader would have heard of

I cant believe this!? Thanks for opening my eyes to the truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminati? ? ? ? ? ?

Soon is the word.