Great post, but I think you left out one important pillar of GOP support: Foreign-policy GOoPers, like the “security moms”. I hate to use these stupid media-created titles, but Bush would have lost spectacularly if not for the false impression that he was strong on national security. And it’s important to realize that as the horrors of 9/11 fade, and the horrors of the Republican Party get worse and worse, the majority of these people are no longer going to want to vote for the GOP.
A good point about security moms. I didn’t mention them because I agree with you: they’re not a long-term part of the Republican strategy. The Republicans will lose them as they revert to being soccer moms, and there’s really nothing the GOP can do about that. I also think, though, that unfortunately until that happens there is not a lot that the Dems can do to get security moms to vote Democratic. I think a big factor in the last election was this borderline irrational sense that it would harm our security to change leaders, even though the current leader was doing a demonstrably lousy job. It’s really hard to fight against those kinds of impulses.
jmooresays
This is well, wrong. One part of your argument is basically this: Fiscal conservatives rely on the fed judiciary, and social cons are “assaulting” the judiciary. Therefore, conflict between the two sects. Well let’s define how social cons are assaulting the judiciary: by placing more conservative judges on the bench. Conservative judges generally have two key characteristics, they’re socially conservative and they’re fiscally conservative. Where then is the conflict? If you believe that the rhetoric of the social cons is scaring the fiscal cons, don’t fret. Fiscal cons(those that are only fiscally conservative and not at all socially conservative) aren’t going anywhere. The only thing that scares them worse than Delay’s rhetoric is Kennedy’s rhetoric.
Conservative judges generally have two key characteristics, they’re socially conservative and they’re fiscally conservative.If that’s who DeLay, Frist, et al. were trying to put on the bench, then I might agree with you. But I reject the suggestion that the judges being filibustered (and, more importantly, the ones that the theocrats would really like to see appointed) are “conservative” in any meaningful sense of the word. They are radicals, and corporate elites don’t like radicals. I think the newly-empowered religious right wants to destabilize the federal judiciary, both by scaring it with impeachment threats and by getting radicals onto the bench, and I don’t think that’s good for the moneyed elites (or, for that matter, for anyone else).
philsays
Businessmen don’t like “tort reform” because of some love for the federal courts. They want cases removed to federal court so they can be dismissed (because of various Supreme Court precedents that make it harder to maintain cases in federal courts than in many state courts). An independent judiciary doesn’t enter into it.
john-nighswandersays
What happened to the economic conservatives, those that want fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, smaller government, balanced budget etc. The ballooning deficit, devalued dollar and a policy of no taxes to pay for the war and hand the cost to the next generation are an economic fiasco.
Hear hear. Today’s Republican party is a lot of things, but “conservative” is not one of them. I don’t know how the “economic conservatives” you describe vote these days, but if they should be voting Democratic if they’re serious about fiscal responsibility and the other values you mention.
jmooresays
But I reject the suggestion that the judges being filibustered (and, more importantly, the ones that the theocrats would really like to see appointed) are “conservative” in any meaningful sense of the word. They are radicals, and corporate elites don’t like radicals.I take it you really haven’t looked into these judges. The majority really aren’t radicals. Stop using left-leaning magazines, blogs, etc. as your only source of information. This is a political struggle, and is not about “extreme judges.” Janice R. Brown, for instance, has been portrayed as a bigot for her dissent in Aguilar v. Avis Rent S Car. However, any lawyer can look at that case and realize there is nothing extreme about her decision.
Oh for heaven’s sake. Look, I’d call Justice Thomas a radical too, and I think that’s a perfectly defensible position (and no, I didn’t get that from blogs or lefty magazines – I got it from reading his opinions while I was clerking on the Supreme Court and afterward). Plus – the “majority” aren’t radicals?? What the Hector Heathcote is a “conservative” President doing appointing any judges who can fairly be described as radicals? One of the most galling things about this whole business is Republicans piously claiming they don’t like “judicial activists” who “legislate from the bench,” while simultaneously lauding Scalia and Thomas, the two most activist Justices the Court has seen in years. The fact is that the theocrat Republicans – perhaps like Democrats in the past – want to remake the legal landscape of this country, and they’ve decided that getting radical activist judges onto the federal courts is a key part of that strategy, perhaps because they don’t have the votes to do it democratically. I’ve noted elsewhere that I don’t think this is a great strategy for Dems – I certainly don’t think it’s a good one for Republicans either.One more thing: you might be interested in this post from Andrew Sullivan – a self-described conservative lamenting the GOP’s current theocratic tendencies. People in the party are scared, and justifiably so.
Judges are the key to cracking the Republican coalition, though I think you got the details wrong. There’s not specifically anti-corporate-conservative about the kinds of judges the Christian right likes, and I don’t think there’s a specific problem there. The reason judges are a key has little to do with the corporate side of the Republican coalition. It has to do with the fact that a majority of Americans of all types, rich and poor, independent and Republican and Democrat, southern and northern and western and midwestern, are all disinclined to have radicals on the bench.To the extent that the Democrats succeed in communicating that Bush is trying to put radicals on the bench, public opposition to it will continue to grow. The only group that really wants these radicals is the Christian right. However, to the Christian right, judges are the issue. No compromise is possible. This is more important to them than any one “culture” issue, like gay marriage or abortion or euthanasia or “under God” in the pledge or prayer in schools… because this is all of those culture issues all wrapped into one.To put it simply: Judicial appointments are the reason the Christian right is in politics. It’s the reason they vote.That huge surge in Christian right participation in the 2004 election? It’s a direct result of the fact that finally, after decades, Republican after Republican repeatedly letting them down, finally, a Republican president was actually nominating their kind of judges. For the first time since the Christian right got organized in the 70s and 80s, here was a Republican who was actually delivering rather than just giving them lip service. So millions of them voted for the first time.If the Bush administration backs off, these new voters will be very very angry. They will feel betrayed. They probably won’t vote Republican in 2008. So Bush cannot back off without losing a critical piece of the base.And yet, the more he pushes this, the more he’ll lose standing with the rest of the country.
I am not making this up. We report, you decide. (Click image to enlarge.)
I agree, pendulum is swinging. Like it always is.
Great post, but I think you left out one important pillar of GOP support: Foreign-policy GOoPers, like the “security moms”. I hate to use these stupid media-created titles, but Bush would have lost spectacularly if not for the false impression that he was strong on national security. And it’s important to realize that as the horrors of 9/11 fade, and the horrors of the Republican Party get worse and worse, the majority of these people are no longer going to want to vote for the GOP.
A good point about security moms. I didn’t mention them because I agree with you: they’re not a long-term part of the Republican strategy. The Republicans will lose them as they revert to being soccer moms, and there’s really nothing the GOP can do about that. I also think, though, that unfortunately until that happens there is not a lot that the Dems can do to get security moms to vote Democratic. I think a big factor in the last election was this borderline irrational sense that it would harm our security to change leaders, even though the current leader was doing a demonstrably lousy job. It’s really hard to fight against those kinds of impulses.
This is well, wrong. One part of your argument is basically this: Fiscal conservatives rely on the fed judiciary, and social cons are “assaulting” the judiciary. Therefore, conflict between the two sects. Well let’s define how social cons are assaulting the judiciary: by placing more conservative judges on the bench. Conservative judges generally have two key characteristics, they’re socially conservative and they’re fiscally conservative. Where then is the conflict? If you believe that the rhetoric of the social cons is scaring the fiscal cons, don’t fret. Fiscal cons(those that are only fiscally conservative and not at all socially conservative) aren’t going anywhere. The only thing that scares them worse than Delay’s rhetoric is Kennedy’s rhetoric.
Conservative judges generally have two key characteristics, they’re socially conservative and they’re fiscally conservative.If that’s who DeLay, Frist, et al. were trying to put on the bench, then I might agree with you. But I reject the suggestion that the judges being filibustered (and, more importantly, the ones that the theocrats would really like to see appointed) are “conservative” in any meaningful sense of the word. They are radicals, and corporate elites don’t like radicals. I think the newly-empowered religious right wants to destabilize the federal judiciary, both by scaring it with impeachment threats and by getting radicals onto the bench, and I don’t think that’s good for the moneyed elites (or, for that matter, for anyone else).
Businessmen don’t like “tort reform” because of some love for the federal courts. They want cases removed to federal court so they can be dismissed (because of various Supreme Court precedents that make it harder to maintain cases in federal courts than in many state courts). An independent judiciary doesn’t enter into it.
What happened to the economic conservatives, those that want fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, smaller government, balanced budget etc. The ballooning deficit, devalued dollar and a policy of no taxes to pay for the war and hand the cost to the next generation are an economic fiasco.
Hear hear. Today’s Republican party is a lot of things, but “conservative” is not one of them. I don’t know how the “economic conservatives” you describe vote these days, but if they should be voting Democratic if they’re serious about fiscal responsibility and the other values you mention.
But I reject the suggestion that the judges being filibustered (and, more importantly, the ones that the theocrats would really like to see appointed) are “conservative” in any meaningful sense of the word. They are radicals, and corporate elites don’t like radicals.I take it you really haven’t looked into these judges. The majority really aren’t radicals. Stop using left-leaning magazines, blogs, etc. as your only source of information. This is a political struggle, and is not about “extreme judges.” Janice R. Brown, for instance, has been portrayed as a bigot for her dissent in Aguilar v. Avis Rent S Car. However, any lawyer can look at that case and realize there is nothing extreme about her decision.
Oh for heaven’s sake. Look, I’d call Justice Thomas a radical too, and I think that’s a perfectly defensible position (and no, I didn’t get that from blogs or lefty magazines – I got it from reading his opinions while I was clerking on the Supreme Court and afterward). Plus – the “majority” aren’t radicals?? What the Hector Heathcote is a “conservative” President doing appointing any judges who can fairly be described as radicals? One of the most galling things about this whole business is Republicans piously claiming they don’t like “judicial activists” who “legislate from the bench,” while simultaneously lauding Scalia and Thomas, the two most activist Justices the Court has seen in years. The fact is that the theocrat Republicans – perhaps like Democrats in the past – want to remake the legal landscape of this country, and they’ve decided that getting radical activist judges onto the federal courts is a key part of that strategy, perhaps because they don’t have the votes to do it democratically. I’ve noted elsewhere that I don’t think this is a great strategy for Dems – I certainly don’t think it’s a good one for Republicans either.One more thing: you might be interested in this post from Andrew Sullivan – a self-described conservative lamenting the GOP’s current theocratic tendencies. People in the party are scared, and justifiably so.
Judges are the key to cracking the Republican coalition, though I think you got the details wrong. There’s not specifically anti-corporate-conservative about the kinds of judges the Christian right likes, and I don’t think there’s a specific problem there. The reason judges are a key has little to do with the corporate side of the Republican coalition. It has to do with the fact that a majority of Americans of all types, rich and poor, independent and Republican and Democrat, southern and northern and western and midwestern, are all disinclined to have radicals on the bench.To the extent that the Democrats succeed in communicating that Bush is trying to put radicals on the bench, public opposition to it will continue to grow. The only group that really wants these radicals is the Christian right. However, to the Christian right, judges are the issue. No compromise is possible. This is more important to them than any one “culture” issue, like gay marriage or abortion or euthanasia or “under God” in the pledge or prayer in schools… because this is all of those culture issues all wrapped into one.To put it simply: Judicial appointments are the reason the Christian right is in politics. It’s the reason they vote.That huge surge in Christian right participation in the 2004 election? It’s a direct result of the fact that finally, after decades, Republican after Republican repeatedly letting them down, finally, a Republican president was actually nominating their kind of judges. For the first time since the Christian right got organized in the 70s and 80s, here was a Republican who was actually delivering rather than just giving them lip service. So millions of them voted for the first time.If the Bush administration backs off, these new voters will be very very angry. They will feel betrayed. They probably won’t vote Republican in 2008. So Bush cannot back off without losing a critical piece of the base.And yet, the more he pushes this, the more he’ll lose standing with the rest of the country.