Tom Friedman actually penned a (mostly) righteous rant about that present status of the Republican Party, and he’s right that the country needs a center-right party that isn’t just a racket for grifters and nuts. But, maybe this shouldn’t be our highest priority right now. Can’t the modern GOP be vanquished before we start talking about building its replacement?
The Republican Party presently has a lot more power than the Democratic Party in Congress and on the state and local level. The upcoming elections may go a long way toward rectifying that situation but it’s doubtful that they will completely reverse it.
Rebuilding a credible and responsible center-right in this country won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen at all unless the voters insist that the existing party change. Maybe Trump will make things so bad for the GOP in places like California and New England that some financial heavyweights will start a new center-right party in those areas of the country. That could be a starting point. Maybe a new center-right that conforms to Friedman’s wish list can first take hold on a regional basis. They can be serious about climate change, for starters.
It might be useful to think about how to create a more viable and reality-based alternative party to the Democrats, and I’d almost be willing to work on a project like that just for the good of the country even if I’d never agree with them on most things.
But, first things first, is how I see it. The danger posed by this late-stage Conservative Movement hasn’t left us, and it’s still possible that they’ll wind up with the nuclear codes at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Preventing that is probably a higher priority than building, as Friedman wants, a “healthy center-right party to ensure that the Democrats remain a healthy center-left party.”
and atrios’ (which I happened to read immediately before this one) take on this is stunning!
I suppose I could actually read The Mustache of Understanding’s column to try to sort out what explains this jarring apparent difference.
But then that would subject me to actually reading The Mustache’s column.
So think I’ll pass, and just keep wondering.
We have a center-right party, the Democrats.
We need a center-left party.
Good news.
http://www.gp.org/
Completely agree. Where oh where is a center left party? Seems to have abandoned this nation some decades ago.
lol
Heh.
I thought about that part of it, too.
I decided not to focus on it.
If you read what Friedman wants out of a center-right party, it does sound like either something the Democratic Party is already doing or something that they’re perfectly capable of doing once they absorb what’s left of reality from the dissolving Republican Party.
Friedman wants all the political fighting in this country to fit in a phone booth.
Not a phone booth, a board room.
Maybe even a bathtub.
Duncan:
IOW — the GOP as it existed up until 1948, 1964 or 1980 depending on how one measures such things.
Atrios had the same reaction I had. “Hasn’t he written this column, like, a million times now? And isn’t most of what he asks for in these columns already in the Democratic platform?”
The danger posed by this late-stage Conservative Movement hasn’t left us, and it’s still possible that they’ll wind up with the nuclear codes at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Unless Hillary can get a Democratic Congress elected, and make good progress in fixing the economy, it will likely happen in 2020. Scary thought that is.
With friends like Peter Beinart…..
The waiting meme is Obama as Truman and Clinton as Nixon. The similarities really are positive, but the intent isn’t necessarily. Watch this one evolve.
What’s the comparison to Truman?
That one doesn’t work at all for me either. Although I can think of several that would.
Arriving in office with little foreign policy experience, having the legacy of the previous administration in war thrust upon him decisions that resulted in a major institutional change in the national security and intelligence community institutions of the US. The result when he leaves/left office is a fundamental increase in the unitary (not subject to checks and balances) power of the President.
In the cases of both Truman and Obama, the radical nature of the Republicans swept into office during his term drove a more military policy than would have been expected at the beginning of his term.
In the cases of both Truman and Obama, federal employees were subject to extraordinary periods of emphasis on internal security, and some federal employees were severely punished on the basis of little evidence.
In the cases of both, a putative enemy requiring a massive military response was whipped up by the media and became an article of belief in public opinion in a way that hampered our foreign policy. In the case of Truman, it warped our foreign policy for decades.
In the cases of both, the extension of civil rights to minorities (Truman) and LGBT individuals (Obama) set up a domestic squabble easily exploited by the GOP for a time.
In the cases of both, GOP illusions of preventing a second term were thwarted.
In the case of Truman, the GOP next win came from recruiting a winning general from World War II. In the case of Obama, there are no winning generals to recruit, which says something huge about US flag officers.
Other than a GOP nominee without any experience in elective office running as they both leave office (and I wouldn’t lay that at the feet of Truman or Obama), the other similarities that you list have little to nothing to do with the two men and were present in many administrations.
Truman did a good job mangaging the post WWII policies and spending. That as much as having the crazed commie-hunters like Nixon and McCarthy was at the root of why he lost command of the situation.
He ended up being a non-factor in ’52 once it was clear that he couldn’t win and dropped out. (Quite different from LBJ in ’68.) However, likening a term limited POTUS to one that wasn’t is weak.
Truman also didn’t have a bi-partisan fetish. Ten years in the Senate gave him an opportunity to know his friends and enemies.
Every time I get a glimpse inside the bubble in which the Friedmans of our political pundit world exist, it scares the living shit out of me. Part of me ends up laughing like hell at the idea that someone could be so detached from reality that they would actually pen something like this. But the other part of me trembles in panic and fear because I realize after reading this that Friedman is being as serious as a fucking heart attack.
My god, man, what must it be like to be Tom Friedman, and waking up every day in such a delusional and conflicted world as this? I have to keep telling myself that he is not a stupid man, but this column is positively David Brooks-ian in its complete ridiculousness. Honestly, there have to be some massively awesome drugs floating around the Beltway cocktail circuit to generate shit like this.
further enhancing, consider this: some time in recent years somebody (National Journal pops into my head, but who knows?) surveyed Beltway Media movers-and-shakers re: who was the most influential (iirc, that was the characteristic queried) among them.
Do I have to spell out who “won”?
The travel and pay makes waking very pleasant.
My favorite was when Friedman, husband to a shopping mall heiress and living in a bajillion-square-foot house, decided to write a book on environmentalism and our need to not be so wasteful.
I thought Matt Taibbi was gonna have a stroke.