Posted by
KWG on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:27:08 PM
The Democratic party, and progressives generally, love to pride themselves on being elite. It may shock some to know that I have some lefty friends who are exactly like this. So I posited, with my tongue firmly in my cheek, that the reason that Dems seem to be headed for such a resounding victory is that the general mood of Americans has trended toward Democratic ideas, and those ignorant rednecks simply aren’t sophisticated enough to get their heads around nuanced Republican ideas like social security privatization and healthcare reform.
This caused howls of outrage amongst my friends, because in their minds, the only reason we don’t live in a socialist paradise is exactly the opposite: that the anti-intellectual American people cannot see the wisdom and enlightenment of progressivism. Let’s look a little closer at my silly premise:
It was not so long ago that the GOP was touted as coming into a period of pure electoral dominance. An unprecedented 2002 midterm election followed by a decisive victory and increase in majority in 2004 had many demographic analysts predicting the decade of the elephant.
Ah, it was not so long ago at all. But things change with the wind. Whereas four years ago, the Republican Party was hailed as the party of ideas and the Democratic Party directionless, there are now those who proclaim the death of conservatism and the paper-stale taste of its ideas.
Perhaps it’s natural that such a long time spent in power will cause a party to become stale, at least in the minds of the voters. After all, it is time spent as an opposition party when politicians can come up with how they would govern differently. It is easy to gain power and enact what has been planned, but evolving and changing while there is the difficulty.
Nevertheless, the Republicans do still have innovative thinkers and refreshing policy proposals. When compared with Democratic ones, Republican solutions to social security and healthcare reform are comprised of outside-the-box thinking. Additionally, it’s far more difficult to explain the conservative approach to some of the pressing issues of the day than it is to explain the progressive one.
For example, the Democratic plan to solve the social security crisis is to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and slightly alter the payout structure. This won’t raise enough money to be a long term fix and ignores the basic problem with Social Security in the first place: it’s destined to bankruptcy. George W. Bush’s plan, on the other hand, is nuanced, a complicated mixture of tax code manipulation, partial privatization, and investment regulation.
A recent CBS/New York Times poll indicated that a majority of Americans are in favor of government guaranteeing universal healthcare, even at the expense of rising costs. Another recent poll said that 80% of Americans believe that it’s the government’s job to guarantee a minimum standard for social security. In the face of this initial bias against Republican ideas, what chance does a conservative have?
All the lefty contender has to say is “I support government-provided universal healthcare” and “I believe in a guaranteed social security, I’m going to keep the system intact,” and they’re going to have large numbers, most likely a majority, of Americans on their side.
This is despite the fact that conservative ideas are good, solid ones. There’s an easy Democratic answer to be made, i.e. “The government will take care of it.” In an environment far less hostile to government than ever before, this might just be little enough and vague enough to win.