Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
Don't want to get everyone's hopes up, but...
- the reaction of rightwing US pundits to John McCain's ascendency in the primaries suggests that the message of the right wing coalition is sliding into incoherence. He's an anti-abortion, foreign policy hawk. He's charismatic. By any analysis, he's the only republican candidate who would stand a chance of keeping the democrats out of the white house - he can hold at least some of the centre ground, and undermine either Obama or Hilary on experience and moral credibility respectively. His success in the primaries suggests that the party faithful realise this, and furthermore that northern, secular republicans are tired of being defined in terms of religion. But the pundits hate him because he opposed Bush's tax cuts (at a time when the US budget deficit was at a record high) and he works with the democrats to get things done. Get that last one especially - what exactly do they think governments do all day?
- the republican party can't call off it's attack dogs, even when their message is clearly counterproductive. Rush Limbaugh is telling listeners to vote democrat in the event of a McCain nomination 'so the republican party doesn't take the hit'. I doubt his audience will do that, but they may well stay at home with a few beers on election night and hand it to the democrats. This is all strongly reminiscent of the tory's self-destructive battles over europe in the 90s. It suggests that the republican shock troops are now in the general's seat deciding strategy - never a wise idea for a party serious about being in power.
- the religious right have been massively gamed by a shameless piece of divide and rule politics, and they're starting to realise it. They have supported the republican party against thier economic interests in jobs and healthcare because they were promised action on the Red America issues: abortion, gay marriage, gun control. And they have got fuck all in return. Where is the republican equivalent of the civil rights and welfare bills that the democrats passed in the 60s? Bush was sincere when he told America he wanted action on these issues, but ultimately he wasn't calling the shots, and the party restricted his christian right agenda to people who couldn't punish them at the ballot box - for example, in making AIDS relief to the third world conditional on preaching sexual abstinence. It is no easier or harder to buy a gun or to get an abortion in the US today than it was in the 90s - if I was a working class evangelical Christian who had voted for Bush, I would feel mighty pissed off about that. And the problem with relying on Christians for votes is that they can always pin thier hopes on the next life if this one isn't working out to thier liking. Again, huge potential for voter apathy there.
- and if the republican major domos won't implement a grassroots agenda on issues with little economic significance, then the rank and file have no hope of action on issues intimately connected to economic performance - to whit, immigration, which is to the republicans what Europe is to the tories. Big business is dead against immigration reform - they know that those mexican labourers working for poor wages and no benefits are keeping inflation low and profits high, and are stopping the trade deficit from being even worse than it actually is. And they are the ones running the republican party. Look at the way the republicans approach immigration - just like the eurosceptic tories, there's a lot of hot air and finger pointing, and absolutely zero genuine action. If the party had thrown the poor right (the Reagan democrats, as they were) a few bigger bones on Red America issues before now, maybe they could carry this off. But the gulf of mistrust between the top and the bottom of the party is widening.
- looming behind all this is an existential crisis in the republican party that makes what the tories have been through in the Blair era look like small beer. Because the ideological programme the republican party has adopted under GWB - a christian morality, an aggressive foreign policy doctrine, an opening up of the state to private enterprise - precludes small government. And what exactly is the point of the republicans if the cant deliver small government? It's not just about budget deficits and taxes, although the practical side becomes increasingly important as the economy weakens. But it's also about whether Americans ultimately really want to live in a theocracy where government propegates the law of the bible. And whether they opposed communism for decades, only so the federal government could intrude into the most intimate areas of family life with sermons on the morality of abortion, and cut shadowy deals with big business that undermine thier local communities. It doesn't help that republicans are hardly introspective by nature - like the tories, it may take them several years before they can even face these problems honestly, let alone begin to deal with them.
- and I haven't even mentioned Iraq.
- finally, every cultural and political movement has a natural lifespan. And it's so often the way that the seeds of it's destruction are planted at the time when it seems most dominant. It happened with the American left in the late 60s - is history now repeating itself on the other side? And the other question is, do the Democrats have a Reagan of thier own - a politician talented enough to exploit the weakening republican position? Well, they might have more than one. Even though it hasn't produced an outright winner, there's a confidence coursing through the democrat primary race - a choice between two thoroughbreds is not a bad choice to have to make, especially given the paucity of the republican field. I'd narrowly favour Hillary this time, as John The Baptist to Obama's Messiah - the democrats should size the chance to get her into the White House while the republicans are in a hole, and let her do the spadework on welfare reform which she is amply experienced and motivated to do - the political hit will be minimal, since the right hates her so much already. Then hopefully Obama can step in in eight years time and really lead the American liberal left back to the promised land.
Maybe this is all a bit premature. The republicans still have a lot of money, a lot of hate, and a well oiled election machine. But so did the Tories, and it did not save them once their time was up. McCain is going to be fighting a war on three fronts - against the distrust of his own party, a confident and focussed Democratic campaign, and the appalling record of the Bush administration. You'd give pretty long odds on him winning.
So what do dissensians think? Will the contradictions in the republican coalition finally tear it apart? Are the noxious neo-cons finally being nudged into that dark night?
- the reaction of rightwing US pundits to John McCain's ascendency in the primaries suggests that the message of the right wing coalition is sliding into incoherence. He's an anti-abortion, foreign policy hawk. He's charismatic. By any analysis, he's the only republican candidate who would stand a chance of keeping the democrats out of the white house - he can hold at least some of the centre ground, and undermine either Obama or Hilary on experience and moral credibility respectively. His success in the primaries suggests that the party faithful realise this, and furthermore that northern, secular republicans are tired of being defined in terms of religion. But the pundits hate him because he opposed Bush's tax cuts (at a time when the US budget deficit was at a record high) and he works with the democrats to get things done. Get that last one especially - what exactly do they think governments do all day?
- the republican party can't call off it's attack dogs, even when their message is clearly counterproductive. Rush Limbaugh is telling listeners to vote democrat in the event of a McCain nomination 'so the republican party doesn't take the hit'. I doubt his audience will do that, but they may well stay at home with a few beers on election night and hand it to the democrats. This is all strongly reminiscent of the tory's self-destructive battles over europe in the 90s. It suggests that the republican shock troops are now in the general's seat deciding strategy - never a wise idea for a party serious about being in power.
- the religious right have been massively gamed by a shameless piece of divide and rule politics, and they're starting to realise it. They have supported the republican party against thier economic interests in jobs and healthcare because they were promised action on the Red America issues: abortion, gay marriage, gun control. And they have got fuck all in return. Where is the republican equivalent of the civil rights and welfare bills that the democrats passed in the 60s? Bush was sincere when he told America he wanted action on these issues, but ultimately he wasn't calling the shots, and the party restricted his christian right agenda to people who couldn't punish them at the ballot box - for example, in making AIDS relief to the third world conditional on preaching sexual abstinence. It is no easier or harder to buy a gun or to get an abortion in the US today than it was in the 90s - if I was a working class evangelical Christian who had voted for Bush, I would feel mighty pissed off about that. And the problem with relying on Christians for votes is that they can always pin thier hopes on the next life if this one isn't working out to thier liking. Again, huge potential for voter apathy there.
- and if the republican major domos won't implement a grassroots agenda on issues with little economic significance, then the rank and file have no hope of action on issues intimately connected to economic performance - to whit, immigration, which is to the republicans what Europe is to the tories. Big business is dead against immigration reform - they know that those mexican labourers working for poor wages and no benefits are keeping inflation low and profits high, and are stopping the trade deficit from being even worse than it actually is. And they are the ones running the republican party. Look at the way the republicans approach immigration - just like the eurosceptic tories, there's a lot of hot air and finger pointing, and absolutely zero genuine action. If the party had thrown the poor right (the Reagan democrats, as they were) a few bigger bones on Red America issues before now, maybe they could carry this off. But the gulf of mistrust between the top and the bottom of the party is widening.
- looming behind all this is an existential crisis in the republican party that makes what the tories have been through in the Blair era look like small beer. Because the ideological programme the republican party has adopted under GWB - a christian morality, an aggressive foreign policy doctrine, an opening up of the state to private enterprise - precludes small government. And what exactly is the point of the republicans if the cant deliver small government? It's not just about budget deficits and taxes, although the practical side becomes increasingly important as the economy weakens. But it's also about whether Americans ultimately really want to live in a theocracy where government propegates the law of the bible. And whether they opposed communism for decades, only so the federal government could intrude into the most intimate areas of family life with sermons on the morality of abortion, and cut shadowy deals with big business that undermine thier local communities. It doesn't help that republicans are hardly introspective by nature - like the tories, it may take them several years before they can even face these problems honestly, let alone begin to deal with them.
- and I haven't even mentioned Iraq.
- finally, every cultural and political movement has a natural lifespan. And it's so often the way that the seeds of it's destruction are planted at the time when it seems most dominant. It happened with the American left in the late 60s - is history now repeating itself on the other side? And the other question is, do the Democrats have a Reagan of thier own - a politician talented enough to exploit the weakening republican position? Well, they might have more than one. Even though it hasn't produced an outright winner, there's a confidence coursing through the democrat primary race - a choice between two thoroughbreds is not a bad choice to have to make, especially given the paucity of the republican field. I'd narrowly favour Hillary this time, as John The Baptist to Obama's Messiah - the democrats should size the chance to get her into the White House while the republicans are in a hole, and let her do the spadework on welfare reform which she is amply experienced and motivated to do - the political hit will be minimal, since the right hates her so much already. Then hopefully Obama can step in in eight years time and really lead the American liberal left back to the promised land.
Maybe this is all a bit premature. The republicans still have a lot of money, a lot of hate, and a well oiled election machine. But so did the Tories, and it did not save them once their time was up. McCain is going to be fighting a war on three fronts - against the distrust of his own party, a confident and focussed Democratic campaign, and the appalling record of the Bush administration. You'd give pretty long odds on him winning.
So what do dissensians think? Will the contradictions in the republican coalition finally tear it apart? Are the noxious neo-cons finally being nudged into that dark night?