Can Bush/GOP Pass the Thomas Frank Test?
I took a week off from blogging. Sue me. Cross-posted at RedState
The most provocative political book of recent memory was Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas. The book’s thesis goes something like this: Republicans sell themselves as the party of values, of social conservatism; this is how they win elections. Once in office, they drop social conservatism and focus on rewarding crony capitalist friends and enacting a reckless free-market ideology. Liberal political commentators turned to Frank for consolation and enlightenment in the aftermath of Kerry’s defeat in 2004. Conservatives, Ross Douthat and W. James Antle have wondered aloud whether there was something to this analysis as they’ve perceived enervation in the Bush administration.
With Sandra Day O’Connor’s departure from the Supreme Court (with more retirements seeming inevitable), Bush has a chance to change the balance of the Court on cultural issues, putting Frank’s thesis to a critical test. Until now social conservatives have born every slight and snub by GOP leadership with the hope that they would be able to exert enough pressure to capture vital Supreme Court seats. If Republicans fail to change the Court, or even drag their feet – Thomas Frank may be proved right and the biggest voting bloc of Republicans may sink into political despondency by 2006.
Thomas Frank is correct to note that conservative culture warriors have been using language reminiscent of old time economic populists. In the days of William Jennings Bryan the “elites” were the East Coast bankers, crony capitalists, and other Gilded Age goons. The enemies in the modern culture war are still East Coast “elites” but now they reside in the media, in the government, and the universities. Rather than constituting a plundering plutocracy these elites are a Culture-cartel. They thumb their noses at the values of working class church going patriots in Middle America. Laura Ingraham’s book Shut Up And Sing is a perfect example of the anti-elite meme that circulates among cultural conservatives. Looking at the language and populist posture of the socially conservative activists, Frank concludes that the Culture War is old fashioned class warfare by another name.
It is understandably disconcerting for a liberal to see Wall Street wizards and market prophets like Larry Kudlow, Stephen Moore or Neil Cavuto casting their lot with put-upon working men and women – claiming to champion the “little guy” against an “elite”. It is a perverse reversal of all the supposed lessons of the Progressive Era. The division between the Wall Street and Main Street crowd was not lost on Frank either. In a chapter of What’s the Matter with Kansas, Frank outlines the differences between moderate Republicans (Mods) and conservatives (Cons) – where Mods are “corporate types”
“And as corporate types, these Mods are the primary beneficiaries of the class war that rages against them. Although the Cons vituperate against the high and the mighty, the policies they help to enact – deregulating, privatizing- only serve to make the Mods high and mightier still. And while it may hurt the Mods’ feelings to overhear their secretaries referring to them as RINOs, the many rounds of tax cuts the Cons have accomplished surely made the sting subside. The Mods win even when they lose.”
Putting aside arguments about whether a free market ideology, or economic populism is in the economic interest of heartland conservatives, it is undeniable that Bush has been a strong advocate of free market ideology. He has enacted broad tax cuts, agitated for Social Security privatization, CAFTA is hurrying through the legislative halls, and he quickly abandoned his timid steel tariffs – amid a cascade of criticism from free-trade advocates. His immigration policy (or lack thereof) ensures a steady flow of cheap labor to clean up the offices and arrange the landscapes of the elite. The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal couldn’t be happier.
On social issues, however, Bush has been less responsive to his base. The morally dubious compromise on stem-cells sat uneasily with conservative activists. Bush and Senator Santorum helped to save Arlen Specter from defeat at the hands of a strongly pro-life Pat Toomey. Specter now controls the Senate Judiciary Committee. Though many credited Bush’s 2004 re-election to anti-gay marriage initiatives he has spent his “political capital” on a doomed Social Security reform rather than a doomed Federal Marriage Amendment. While the heartland rides a bus to Washington every January for the annual March for Life, Air Force One flies over them to the heartland so Bush can campaign for privatization, phoning in a “Hello” to the brigades of pro-lifers that elected him.
In the heartland, in Ohio, and Florida activists went door to door for Bush to stem the tide of social revolution, their eyes squarely on the aged Supreme Court. They do not march for Free Trade with El Salvador and Honduras, their sons and daughters don’t defy school principals with t-shirts saying “I will not accept capital gains taxes which God forbids”, or ride with bumper stickers pleading “Pray and Fast for privatization.” They do not look at rappers and other media elites, lower their angry brows and declaim “These people pay too much in income taxes!” Yet, the Republicans in the legislative and executive branches prioritize GOP politics as if their base did all this and more.
With a bad nomination to the Supreme Court, Bush will prove Frank’s thesis correct. More substantially, he may disabuse social conservatives of their steadfast support. If social conservatives see their work rewarded with nothing, their political energy will spread in contradictory, self-defeating directions. Some will wage a bloody war against the modern day Rockefellers to complete the purge the Goldwater movement never finished. Others will abandon the GOP for various “uncompromised” (i.e. unelectable) third parties. Others still will abandon politics entirely to focus on “changing hearts” rather than the laws.
In 2004, with his finger pointing at Scalia and Thomas as his judicial beau ideals, Bush put his Texas hat over his compassionate conservative heart. But now we approach the moment of truth. Is the GOP the party of the heartland too, or merely the handmaiden of global business? Is Bush a fearless down home Texas conservative, or is he an elite Connecticut blue-blood poseur? Is Thomas Frank just a lefty populist crank? I’m worried he’s a prophet.
The GOP needs to be a big tent, but when a sizeable portion of any congregation feels the leadership lacks fervor for the cause – they call down fire from heaven – and down the street they pray for revival in another tent.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Politics
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4 Comments
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Reader Comments (4)
I have been reading your blog for a while now, but have not been moved to comment. I think you are dead on and the conclusion is the next nominee may not be named David Souter, but that will be the biggest difference.
Fat chance of that? Just like it was when Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'connor.
We already know it's pro-abortion Alberto Gonzales. And the pro-lifers will grovel and lick the boot that kicks them in the face one more time.
Why should the Republicans do otherwise? It's a winning strategy which gives them exactly what they want.
You know the tune:
Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me as often as you please, I'm a pro-life Republican.
Btw, is it just me, or is anyone else tempted join-in fun and grind under heel those repulsive groveling worms.