The myth of an impure GOP
For starters, the movement has an unhealthy share of hucksters eager to make money from stirring rage, paranoia, and an ill-defined sense of betrayal with little concern for the real political success that can come only with persuading the unconverted.
A conservative journalist or activist can now make a decent living while never once bothering to persuade a liberal. Telling people only what they want to hear has become a vocation. Worse, it’s possible to be a rank-and-file conservative without once being exposed to a good liberal argument. Many liberals lived in such an ideological cocoon for decades, which is one reason conservatives won so many arguments early on. Having the right emulate that echo chamber helps no one.
Ironically, the institution in which conservatives had their greatest success is the one most besieged by conservatives today: the Republican party. To listen to many grassroots conservatives, the GOP establishment is a cabal of weak-kneed sellouts who regularly light votive candles to a poster of liberal Republican icon Nelson Rockefeller.
This is not only not true, it’s a destructive myth.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »
Link no work.
John the Libertarian on January 16, 2013 at 2:24 PM
Name names.
John the Libertarian on January 16, 2013 at 2:25 PM
I suppose it’s also a “destructive myth” that Boehner traded $6T in tax hikes for Obama’s word that there will be $2T in future reductions of planned spending hikes after he is long out of office. I suppose it’s a destructive myth that Boehner was “speechless” when Obama told him that Trillions of Obamacare cost were not new spending. Yea, Boehner and the GOP must have used their “persuade a liberal” powers to win that debate instead.
The conservative opposition has been virtually silent as Obama broadcasts “$4T in real tax cuts”, “meeting Republicans more than half way” is broadcast across all media. Boehner and company are worse than liberal progressives, they’re enablers of liberal progressive. The GOP is worse than worthless, it’s destructive to liberty.
elfman on January 16, 2013 at 2:38 PM
Jonah Goldberg.
An elitist beltway hack who makes his living spinning GOP establishment talking points for NRO without the intellect to convince conservatives (or liberals for that matter).
sauldalinsky on January 16, 2013 at 2:46 PM
Excellent article by mr Golberg..
PS..Link does not work..
Dire Straits on January 16, 2013 at 2:49 PM
Sorry..
Dire Straits on January 16, 2013 at 2:50 PM
I like Jonah Goldberg, but he’s delusional. Conservatives are hated only marginally less by the mainstream GOP than by the left. Just look at the actions of the GOP since the historic victory of 2010. The establishmentarians have a vested interest in maintaining and growing the federal bureaucracy because that is their bread and butter. They are either blind (willfully or otherwise) to the 100 year Democrat/Leftist agenda or are in bed with it. Period. End of story.
If the GOP is so damned wonderful, why do they keep ramming candidates like Ford, the Bushes, Dole, McCain and Mitt down our throats? The Bushes hated Ronald Reagan just as the establishment has tried to destroy the Tea Party candidates.
Sorry, Jonah. You are way off on this, sorry to say.
Rixon on January 16, 2013 at 2:51 PM
A much needed message.
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 2:51 PM
Amen..
Dire Straits on January 16, 2013 at 2:53 PM
How can they ram candidates down our throats? Don’t the people have a say in the primaries? The people ended picking those candidates.
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 2:53 PM
Here’s the link:
The Myth of an Impure GOP
It’s Golberg whining that the rubes are too dumb to know how awesome the ruling class Republicans are…
sauldalinsky on January 16, 2013 at 2:55 PM
One reason is the primary schedule, with blue states going first, which gives a very distinct advantage to the squishes. There are other reasons, but the machine is out to destroy the conservatives.
Rixon on January 16, 2013 at 2:59 PM
Sad that an obviously intelligent person like Mr. Goldberg chooses to become the mouthpiece of the RINO surrender establishment.
It’s a small matter though, the teaparty’s effort to purge said RINOs from the party will continue just the same.
Rebar on January 16, 2013 at 3:00 PM
Here’s the link:
The Myth of an Impure GOP
It’s Golberg whining that the rubes are too dumb to know how awesome the ruling class Republicans are…
sauldalinsky on January 16, 2013 at 2:55 PM
Hardly. Here Goldberg, like his mentor Buckley, trusts in the people:
American conservatism began as a kind of intellectual hobbyists’ group with little hope of changing the broader society. Albert Jay Nock, the cape-wearing libertarian intellectual — he called himself a “philosophical anarchist” — who inspired a very young William F. Buckley Jr., argued that political change was impossible because the masses were rubes, goons, fools, or sheep, victims of the eternal tendency of the powerful to exploit the powerless.
Buckley, who rightly admired Nock for many things, rightly disagreed on this point. Buckley trusted the people more than the intellectuals. Moreover, as Buckley’s friend Richard Weaver said, “ideas have consequences,” and, consequently, it is possible to rally the public to your cause.
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:00 PM
The system is antiquated and needs to be overhauled but it’s not a conspiracy, it’s just an old legacy. States weren’t always blue and red.
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:02 PM
How about those rule changes that for the first time ever, allowed Republican party leaders to change the party’s rules without the consent of elected delegates.
idesign on January 16, 2013 at 3:02 PM
For those of you who think that Jonah Goldberg is correct, then several million people in the base would not have stayed home last November and Mitt Romney would be president-elect.
Rixon on January 16, 2013 at 3:02 PM
The Ron Paul delegates?
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:03 PM
That’s on their consciences. Who would have turned out those people?
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:05 PM
Hardly, Palin and other Conservatives have all spoken out against those rule changes And I see you didn’t comment regarding the changes, but just through Ron Paul out there to muddy the waters.
idesign on January 16, 2013 at 3:09 PM
Years of “ONLY X can win!!!! Don’t even THINK about Y!!!!” propaganda. Tell me: how else did Romney win the nomination? And don’t bring up that phony “weak field” argument. Romney was touted as the Only One Who Can Win long before there was even a field, and in fact the propaganda campaign coupled with the Next In Line mentality SHAPED the field. And NRO was on the whole carrying that Romney water all the way, with a couple of honest exceptions — Andrew McCarthy being one.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:09 PM
Yeah, and the ‘bots were such sticklers with those rules when it came to things like having the required number of signatures before a primary.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:11 PM
A conservative. Duh.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:12 PM
Are you suggesting that any dumb rule bending, which I won’t defend, is why we lost? What’s the solution?
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:12 PM
Yeah, I read his piece, that’s why I methioned the “rube” part. Buckley was a genius, and is exactly right about trusting the people. Jonah’s not bright enough to write a quote, then follow through on the logic for the rest of the column. To say that Mitt Romney is not in the intellectual tradition of Rockefeller Republicans is idiotic.
sauldalinsky on January 16, 2013 at 3:12 PM
Who’s “we”? You won. You got the guy you wanted. Oh, that’s right. After Romney gets creamed he was everybody’s fourth or fifth choice.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:13 PM
Who could have won, ddrintn? How would you replace the so-called Next In Line mentality?
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:14 PM
We as The Right. The left won.
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:15 PM
I alays think of that great line from The Usual Suspects:
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:16 PM
* always
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:17 PM
You’re on the Right and you were touting Romney? The left won on November 5 2008 when the “Romney’s the one!!!!” garbage really began.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:18 PM
I was touting Palin on that day. Sadly, she didn’t run. What were you up to?
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:20 PM
Anybody but Romney. He was the ONE guy who was bound to lose. And I include Paul and Huntsman in that.
I think it’s being replaced as we speak. People aren’t going to buy into it any more in 2016 than they did in 2012.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:20 PM
It doesn’t matter if we won or lost, It matters that the Republican party acts in a free and open manner and not inact rules that protect the status quo.
idesign on January 16, 2013 at 3:22 PM
Good. Hopefully it will end this pointless infighting.
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:23 PM
If so many were touting Palin, why did we never hear “Palin’s going to be the one to beat for the nomination in 2012″? I never heard that. All I ever heard was, from the “right”, the usual ritual disclaimer tic “Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Palin’s a serious candidate…” And this was before her resignation.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:23 PM
Like South Carolina?
Illinidiva on January 16, 2013 at 3:24 PM
Like Iowa, NH and Florida.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:27 PM
It’s not at all pointless. It’s vital.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:35 PM
Don’t bother. There’s something very strange going on with that one. Most people here didn’t want Romney in the first place, but sucked it up for the general.
kim roy on January 16, 2013 at 3:37 PM
As we should have. Unity.
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:38 PM
So how did he win the nomination, being EVERYbody’s 9th or 10th choice?
I’m “strange” in that I’m a little more “principled”, I guess. I refuse to whore for any GOPe mannequin.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:39 PM
Right, that sweet and precious Unity, which we had in abundance when it came to O’Donnell and Angle.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:40 PM
Because choices 1-9 sucked worse and/or made absolute fools out of themselves on the national stage.
MelonCollie on January 16, 2013 at 3:41 PM
Oh, no. Like I said, His Electableness was the anointed “frontrunner” long before there was any Klown Kar “field”.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:42 PM
If we wanted to win, yes. The left knows how to win. We don’t.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know Romney is a RINO. Blah blah blah.
I don’t know how many times I posted it, but we had two choices: To get in line with Romney and buy a little time and someone somewhat friendly to our positions while we were cleaning out the GOP or getting a viable third party going.
Or to have Obama re-elected and do the same thing except with all the BS that is coming with an Obama second term.
We enjoying fighting over the second amendment? Doubt we’d be dealing with this BS with Romney. More EOs?
Nothing has changed EXCEPT now we have to deal with Obama’s garbage AND still clean up the party/start a new one.
These whiners after the fact never want to address this.
kim roy on January 16, 2013 at 3:43 PM
Ok, sure unity is great. I voted for Romney as did many conservatives (lesser of two evils). But do you agree that Goldberg’s wrong and Romney was a Rockefeller Republican?
sauldalinsky on January 16, 2013 at 3:44 PM
Politically, I’d say that Romney never was much of anything at all. He was an amorphous blob of gray Jell-O.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:49 PM
Honestly, I think he was on the cusp of it. But didn’t cross the line. If he did, he did when he was governor of MA, an insanely leftist state. And he walked back from the line and showed he would have been a much better president than Obama. He was no McCain, or Snowe or Huntsman. It’s a pity. So no, Goldberg isn’t wrong. He would have been if we had Huntsman as our candidate, but we ended up with the survivor, Romney.
thebrokenrattle on January 16, 2013 at 3:49 PM
He signed RomneyCare into law. He didn’t cross the line, he ran 50 miles beyond it.
ddrintn on January 16, 2013 at 3:52 PM
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »