The GOP: Caricature Or Conventional Wisdom?

It is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between conventional liberal wisdom about conservatives and the Republican Party (including the fact that liberals think the two indistinguishable) and a risible caricature. Take, for example, this current column by Edward Luce in the Financial Times, “The Strange Revival of Republican America.”

Strange, according to the un-lucid Luce, because “[t]he decline of whites as a share of the US population and the spread of tolerant values” should have “snuff[ed] out its appeal” long before now. The Grand Old Party, however, apparently ignorant as well of the fact that it should be dead, “has a stubborn way of bouncing back.”

Also inexplicable in the fact that “President Barack Obama is giving everything he has in terms of fundraising to retain Democratic control of the Senate,” but the harder he fundraises and campaigns “the lower his poll numbers fall.” Imagine that! Those crazy Americans: the more they see and hear Obama, the less they like him! (Of course we didn’t like George III either, who treated us much the same way.) Even Democrats who voted for Obamacare but now have to face voters in states where it is highly unpopular are treating Obama’s “signature healthcare law …  as though it was some kind of virus.”

There are at least a few glimmers of hope, however, for the GOP’s eventual demise.

In some cases, such as Texas, where the Hispanic minority is about to become a majority, the writing is on the wall for conservatives unless they drop their reflexive nativism. In others, such as California, where Republicans have for years done their best to alienate immigrant groups, the party faces the likelihood of being in a permanent minority. Non-whites dislike being scapegoated for society’s ills. They also tend to be more tolerant of fiscal redistribution than whites. Being a party of “small government, big prisons”, is not a recipe for long-term Republican success.

Note how neatly the above paragraph crystalizes and encapulates the conventional liberal wisdom that Republicans are defined by their race, class, and nativist bias. No doubt the main reason whites are not “tolerant of fiscal redistribution” is their bias against non-whites. (Ed: But then why no redistribution to Appalachia? JSR: Probably because the Republicans are too dumb to figure out how to redistribute to whites without also redistributing to blacks and Hispanics.)

Apparently “there’s something deep within America’s political DNA” that not only makes Republicans racist, classist, and nativist but also makes even some natural Democrats unreliable over time. “For most of the 20th century,” for example, “Catholic Italians and Irish were a reliable Democratic voting block. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan changed that partly by using dog whistles to play on their racial fears and partly by appealing to their upwardly mobile aspirations.”

Well, whether it’s in “America’s political DNA” or not, liberals have long known that a desire for upward mobility is ineluctably intertwined with racial fears and resentment. That’s why they work so diligently to ease those fears and resentments by a plethora of government support programs to make workers — and now especially former workers — happy and content with their current lot.

Say What? (2)

  1. Federale (@Federale86) March 24, 2014 at 12:25 pm | | Reply

    Perhaps RINOs should reconsider support for amnesty is non-white immigrants support higher taxes and more welfare spending.

  2. CaptDMO March 24, 2014 at 12:38 pm | | Reply

    I don’t get it. What’s “new” about this latest bit of (IMHO)recycled pre-election political projection?
    Well, “teaching” the new batch of soon-to-be-eligible (by ANY means) voters I suppose. But in Financial Times?
    Who (pharma/med aside)is the intended audience for reinterpreted historical minutia THERE?
    Cautionary tales for Payroll/HR compliance folk?
    “Savings” institution folks?

Say What?