We need a second GOP
It’s probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It’s smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It’s smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton.
The second G.O.P. wouldn’t be based on the Encroachment Story. It would be based on the idea that America is being hit simultaneously by two crises, which you might call the Mancur Olson crisis and the Charles Murray crisis.
Olson argued that nations decline because their aging institutions get bloated and sclerotic and retard national dynamism. Murray argues that America is coming apart, dividing into two nations — one with high education levels, stable families and good opportunities and the other with low education levels, unstable families and bad opportunities.
The second G.O.P. would tackle both problems at once.
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Might I suggest calling it the Liberal Party, or perhaps Social Republican Party?
sharrukin on January 29, 2013 at 8:04 PM
We need an actually conservative NYTimes columnist.
Warner Todd Huston on January 29, 2013 at 8:05 PM
What we need is to roast marshmellows at 620 Eighth Ave, NY, NY.
Dusty on January 29, 2013 at 8:09 PM
Of course, no need for a second Democrat party. As if the current Democart party is in any way carrying the torch of Jack Kennedy? Why no call for a Democrat party that represents the values of Midwestern, gun-owning, church-going Democrats?
Because that party’s been wiped off the map by the forces of Hopenchange.
Republicans just need to grow a pair and be courageous and principled, limited government Republicans.
Or we could nominate another RINO squish for president in 2016.
Bruce MacMahon on January 29, 2013 at 8:09 PM
David, your check will be cut on the 28th this month, instead of the 30th as usual, as it is February. Regards, D-Axe.
HitNRun on January 29, 2013 at 8:09 PM
I am convinced. This guy is living in some sort of parallel universe or something.
Bmore on January 29, 2013 at 8:10 PM
brilliant! this is why i love brooks…build a unicorn and fairy dust party that will fix everything
so smart, so new york
/
r keller on January 29, 2013 at 8:10 PM
I suppose the most important part of this new GOP, though, is that they have sharp creases in their pants.
malclave on January 29, 2013 at 8:10 PM
It’s already called the Democratic Party.
Seth Halpern on January 29, 2013 at 8:10 PM
Maybe Brooks can start the “Creased Pants Party” for those elite liberal northeasterners he hopes to rope in.
DiscePati on January 29, 2013 at 8:11 PM
We need to destroy the elitist Prog media…America will not survive such a powerful national corruption.
d1carter on January 29, 2013 at 8:12 PM
Great minds…
DiscePati on January 29, 2013 at 8:12 PM
D’oh, Two a’s, no e. I have to work on my pronunciation.
Dusty on January 29, 2013 at 8:13 PM
Brooks wants a moderate democrat party, that is committed to making the great gears of government turn more efficiently, without curbing their scope. His mantle is “reasonableness” as befits a NYC dweller, who occasionally does not vote Democrat.
Revenant on January 29, 2013 at 8:14 PM
That’s the core of the article, and it’s spot-on.
…and that’s just foolish.
Stoic Patriot on January 29, 2013 at 8:15 PM
You think Brooks will be happy to learn that Beck called for the same thing this morning?
budfox on January 29, 2013 at 8:16 PM
Bloody liar.
Resist We Much on January 29, 2013 at 8:17 PM
Divide and conquer yourself.
CW on January 29, 2013 at 8:18 PM
Go join the Dems and try to change them into what you are looking for. You already ruin the GOP, we are all looking for some place to go.
Cindy Munford on January 29, 2013 at 8:19 PM
Cindy Munford on January 29, 2013 at 8:21 PM
I do see what Brooks is getting at, but what he doesn’t realize is that the people of those quadrants have radically different motivations that will not care wtf policy you put in front of them if it even remotely sounds conservationist in tone.
These are people who do not believe the fiscal problems facing the country should curtail social agendas.
Hot the F do you expect people who think funding Planned Parenthood and PBS when we’re broke are going to comprehend entitlement reform, no matter how “Pro-Gov” the Rino sounds?
What Brooks is calling for is for a Repub to run like a Dem, lie to the people, and enact Bobby Jindal’s policies.
It’s more “people are stupid, so we need to pander to back to power, then like typical pols, we’ll screw ‘em and say it was for the best”.
budfox on January 29, 2013 at 8:21 PM
Sort of already exists.
That is the upper echelons of the GOP. It’s placating the “Tea Party Wing” that’s holding them back.
I thought the article was going to suggest some sort of Conservative place within the GOP. Then, I thought Romney was going to be elected and that Laura actually meant “I love you” when she said it every stinking day — WHY LAURA, WHY — so my record on interpretation is a bit sketchy.
Axe on January 29, 2013 at 8:22 PM
How about a party that demands a greater roll of government in everyone’s life. One that preaches that the poor need more money and that there are probably enough rich people to pay for it all. That unemployment benefits should last a lifetime. That everyone should be able to be a poet if they want to no matter how bad they suck at it.
Then that party will split the democrat vote and the rest of us can hopefully get some fiscal responsibility back in action.
MechanicalBill on January 29, 2013 at 8:22 PM
.nO problum’
CW on January 29, 2013 at 8:28 PM
I don’t think that’s really spot on. It would be wasteful to sift that line by line or something, but the basic idea there is that the GOP needs a progressive caucus.
Axe on January 29, 2013 at 8:33 PM
The GOP in the south is fine. The GOP has a solid hold on the south and …
That’s a landmass that is equal to the landmass of all of Europe from Spain to Austria – inclusive of the Italian Peninsula.
If the South were it’s own country – there’d be no unions – because we don’t like them down here. There would be Dimmocrits – because we have some blue urban areas but …
I mean – all this crying about “conservatism is dead” is hogwash. It’s not dead as long as you own a solid portion of states like the South.
Eff the Northeast. But yeah – if they want a liberal GOP up there go for it – but don’t expect us to vote for their candidates for POTUS.
HondaV65 on January 29, 2013 at 8:45 PM
How the h3ll is that spot on? He’s saying the GOP is too obsessed with nasty little notions of “freedom” and “liberty” and that the GOP is beholden to small/anti government types, which is bizarrely laughable it’s so far from the truth. The GOP hasn’t had a small government conservative nominee SINCE Goldwater, and he’s complaining that the “Goldwater” wing is some sort of albatross around the GOP’s neck.
Brooks is a statist f@ck who never saw a big government program he didn’t like, who –along with his b@ttboy Frum– enjoys telling people what they should and shouldn’t do (like smoke weed), and believes in 21st century Hamilontian economics (read cronyism on steroids approaching facism) and “national greatness.” Why do we let idiots like this represent the “right”?
Firefly_76 on January 29, 2013 at 8:47 PM
*Hamiltonian*
Firefly_76 on January 29, 2013 at 8:48 PM
Well, Miss Cindy (and others), if you think the Republican Party is already of, by and for moderates and RINOs, then perhaps you TruCons should form YOUR own political party?
If Brooks is arguing that there are two factions of the Republican Party that cannot peacefully co-exist and therefore cannot work together to exercise influence and power, he couldn’t be more correct. I live in the Northeast and cannot abide the rightwingers any more than the far left crazies. There are many of us who are put off by the extremism on social issues advocated by out-of-the-mainstreamers like Rick Santorum, but are even more alarmed by the across-the-board extremist liberal policies of Obama/Pelosi/Reid–especially when it comes to the economy, the debt and deficit, and the entitlement culture.
We deserve representation, too. It’s too bad the TruCons are so hostile to us and want to exclude us from the Republican Party. When you get right down to it, the TruCons actually swim in the same waters as Obama when it comes to demonizing those who don’t share their lofty principles and supposed overall moral superiority. Like Honda, for instance (“eff the Northeast”).
I don’t like you and your ilk, either, wiseguy. But your dismissal of an entire region of the country shows you aren’t nearly as politically savvy as you think you are. The NE is home to a lot of people–a lot of educated people who know that “it’s” means “it is” and is not the possessive “its.”
I’m generally no fan of David Brooks, but it makes no sense to alienate huge portions of the electorate. And that’s what the conservative wing of the Republican Party is doing.
Meredith on January 29, 2013 at 9:09 PM
Brooks was speaking specifically about the Republican narrative, not their candidates. Their candidates have suffered from a distinctly different problem (essentially being social liberals who want tax cuts).
When it comes to the narrative though, take a look at the positions advanced and columns penned by Jonah Goldberg, Michael Barone, George Will, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, etceteras. They have a problem of uttering the same mindless platitudes time and again without any substantive policy behind them, and furthermore, are examined solely through a singular scope: that any problem worthy of the title ‘problem’ must be a government creation, that it could not possibly exist irrespective of government, and it most certainly could never have a solution addressing it promulgated by the government. Such premises are wrong.
These flaws in turn lead to larger problems in enacting an agenda (due to Federalist inclinations that prevent any national action from ever being taken), which in turn leads to issues pertaining to intellectual consistency (e.g. if abortion is returned to the states, why should it be legal in one state and illegal in another? Does the humanity / development / biology of the child change depending on what side of a state boundary someone lives? If not, how do we justify a legal framework that does not universally enforce a universal right? How can the arbitrary exercise of local authority supercede natural rights?)
Stoic Patriot on January 29, 2013 at 9:14 PM
Meredith on January 29, 2013 at 9:09 PM
You know, I’m not a fan of the socons either, but to be fair, I don’t see that for all the bluster they’ve actually had any serious electoral success or had control of any levers of power within the GOP. The GOP pays lip service to issues like abortion, but rarely does anything about it. Your conflation of Santorum (a candidate who never had a real chance of becoming the nominee) with Obama/Pelosi/Reid (who have held office and have been wreaking havoc with our economic policies since 2007) reveals your bias.
Firefly_76 on January 29, 2013 at 9:19 PM
Notice that it doesn’t occurs to the NYT’s token conservative that the Democratic Party might be in some way extreme in their policy prescriptions and go on to advocate that there be a second Democratic Party created.
No, the problem isn’t within the ranks of the Dems for this token conservative of the NYT, it’s within the ranks of the GOP.
Dusty on January 29, 2013 at 9:22 PM
They certainly should. And then you’d find your precious GOP to be about as big and powerful as the Libertarian party.
ddrintn on January 29, 2013 at 9:22 PM
Translation: The “true conservatives” have so screwed this party up over the past 8 years that we are going to have to acknowledge their victory on behalf of the Democrats and try to rebuild a Republican party.
crosspatch on January 29, 2013 at 9:24 PM
George Bush won two terms. It’s the social liberals-apathetic-neutral-not-my-pay-grade/ lip-service-to-fiscal-conservatism types who are the electoral disasters.
ddrintn on January 29, 2013 at 9:24 PM
I’d like to run in to ol’dave in an upper eastside fine establishment, order a Milwaukees Best and a shot of jack, pick my nose, fart a lot, and discuss the founding principals. Original intent and such.
wolly4321 on January 29, 2013 at 9:25 PM
Stoic Patriot on January 29, 2013 at 9:14 PM
You may want to peruse the US Constitution, in which federalism is enshrined. If you perceive ‘intellectual inconsistency’ as a problematic result of federalism with respect to abortion, do you also complain that different states have different murder laws (what constitutes what type of murder, what defenses can be raised, aggravating and mitigating factors, whether the death penalty is available etc.). According to your logic, why should a criminal defendant, or victim’s family, receive different treatment within the justice system depending on what side of a state border they live on?
Firefly_76 on January 29, 2013 at 9:26 PM
I guess we’d all better be just like you, then.
trigon on January 29, 2013 at 9:29 PM
Oh, please do. We troglodyte Neanderthals are tired as hell of being browbeaten into voting half-heartedly for you bunch of half-assed Dem Lite losers.
ddrintn on January 29, 2013 at 9:30 PM
All the time.
Stoic Patriot on January 29, 2013 at 9:33 PM
Everything you wrote, not only what I quoted for reference, validates the story of progressive Republicans despising conservative Republicans and wanting to rid the party of them — all the way down to the “New England” cliche.
But, why aren’t you a Democrat?
Honest question. Is it really because of the choice that can be inferred by what you wrote? You could happily be a Democrat if the party was more fiscally restrained?
Axe on January 29, 2013 at 9:37 PM
OK. But what did he do, in a lasting way, for social conservatives? Bush’s major contributions were “compassionate conservatism” (read big government welfare programs) and GWOT (read expanding the police state and creating the TSA). Apart from the Teri Schiavo debacle, what did he really accomplish for the pro-life movement, for example?
Firefly_76 on January 29, 2013 at 9:38 PM
The partial-birth abortion ban, for one, upheld in Gonzales v Carhart thanks to his SCOTUS picks.
Stoic Patriot on January 29, 2013 at 9:40 PM
OK, I concede that one. Still think Meredith’s hyteria about social conservatives is misplaced. And, still think you are a big government conservative.
Firefly_76 on January 29, 2013 at 9:46 PM
What the hell is a “big government conservative”? We’re not the ones who are cool with Planned Parenthood keeping its collective mouth glued to the federal teat.
ddrintn on January 29, 2013 at 9:50 PM
I’m a SoCon, and George Bush in my memory is starting to glow. It wasn’t exactly prime-time at the time, but compared to this progressive hell, it’s starting to seem like paradise.
Maybe anything would.
Axe on January 29, 2013 at 9:57 PM
Sounds like a personal problem to me, either everyone agrees with you or the suck.
Cindy Munford on January 29, 2013 at 9:58 PM
You don’t like me and my ilk? You don’t even know me. All you have done is say what you don’t like and what you won’t put up with and you expect everyone to bend to your will. That’s not how it works. Trust me I wish it was. I have never labeled anyone but you seem to have the name calling down to a science.
Cindy Munford on January 29, 2013 at 10:03 PM
Maybe when these North Easterners can manage to elect a few Senators that are mildly conservative we can talk. They couldn’t even deliver Scott Brown. All those states are blue. What have you done to turn them red? But blame our problems on the South, by all means.
KCB on January 29, 2013 at 10:04 PM
Maybe the stick makes her cranky.
Axe on January 29, 2013 at 10:05 PM
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