Dark Days Ahead: Why Republicans Need Xmas Vacation

[babylonsister]

Dark Days Ahead: Why Republicans Need Xmas Vacation
Posted by michaelscherer | Comments (49) | Permalink | Trackbacks (1) | Email This


It's bad. Never mind that for two elections in a row Republicans have lost political independents by wide margins. Never mind that their reputation for competence is approaching Bernie Madoff-like levels, or that the nation's demographic shift, particularly the growth in Latino voters, imperils their electoral future. Never mind that party leaders will return to Washington next year with less actual power than at any point since 1995. The real Republican concern is this: The deteriorating economy now threatens to undermine the political value of the GOP's fundamental identity as the party of private markets and limited government.

The terrifying credit crisis is, as I write, morphing into a "liquidity trap," a term from the bygone era of men's hats and ladies' girdles, or at least Japanese kimonos, when the fiscal master's of the universe risk losing control over the financial system, when regular people hoard their money, and when the economy looks to cycle ever downward. It's not yet the Great Depression Redux, but it can be talked about in the same sentence. And in that lies the potential for great calamity for the party of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. Liquidity traps are fought with government interventions. They are fought successfully with big ones. Republicans now face the real possibility of a generation of American voters who will see government not as the problem, but as the solution.

The last time America faced such a major economic retrenchment, Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded with a massive expansion of government spending and regulation, new programs like Social Security and new protections for unions and workers, which were controversial at the time, but which proved to be popular over the long haul. It took leaders like Goldwater more than two decades to gain some significant popular traction in opposition to Roosevelt's vision. Conservative economic ideas did not really impose themselves on the White House until 1981, more than 40 years after the bulk of the New Deal era had been established.

In the face of this peril, conservatives find themselves without leadership, direction, or even a cogent ideological response to the crisis. Conservative lodestars, like Dick Cheney, are warning of Herbert Hoover times if Republicans don't open up the federal pocketbooks. Even President Bush has admitted that he "abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." And he did not succeed, clearing the way for much more abandoning to come.

more...

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/12/23/dark-days-ahead-why-republicans-need-xmas-vacation/

[FrenchieCat]

1. Yep. The only thing they have left is Hate

and that is being challenged as we speak via dialogue and reaching out.

They are going to have to go and reinvent themselves, and hopefully, it will take
a whole lot of time.

meanwhile......

[babylonsister]

3. Meanwhile, they're going to fight the Dems every step of the way,

because they can.

[FrenchieCat]

4. And because they have nothing else. n/t

[SpiralHawk]

7. Republicons have more than hate; they also have corruption

Which they have used to line the pockets of their oil, munitions, mercenary, and financial cronies...so while republicons have flushed America whirling down the toilet economically, environmentally, and morally, the fatcat republicon cronies are smirking into their silk shirts...

[Selatius]

2. The only thing missing in this equation are FDR-style Democrats, albeit more socially liberal.

If only the Progressive Caucus had more representation in Obama's cabinet...

[babylonsister]

5. We have an FDR kind of economy. We might see some surprises. nt

[stillcool]

6. At least they represent people..

and pass/fail legislation.