Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Angelo Codevilla has a typically interesting and provocative piece in Forbes on America's ruling class. Codevilla first discussed America's ruling class in an important essay in The American Spectator in 2010. The newness of the argument in his Forbes article is the emphasis on the failure of mainstream or Rockefeller Republicans to represent their largest constituencies:
For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a “country class.” Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.” They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans. In short, at the outset of 2013 a substantial portion of America finds itself un-represented, while Republican leaders increasingly represent only themselves.
The Republicans of 2013 would do well to look at the Whigs of 1850.
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Dec '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
The Republican party has more in common with the Democratic party than it does with middle America. We are ruled by a political class whose agenda is centralization of power. Republican party is not based on conservative principles and, along with Democrats, are leading us to ruin. Tea Party attempted to reform the Republican party and failed. The sooner we realize the permanent political class is at war with our intellect, faith, and values; and organize a political party that will represent us, the better our chances of pulling out of the death spiral. Otherwise eject!
Apr '11
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Codevilla is exactly right. The GOP elite are the problem. They do not represent us. Many GOP candidates do not even believe in the principles of liberty, much less can they explain them.
They must be driven from the party.
Jan '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
This is why, for nigh on these many years, the two political parties in America are known to many as, "Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dee!
Jul '10
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Jeff: Codevilla is exactly right. The GOP elite are the problem. They do not represent us. Many GOP candidates do not even believe in the principles of liberty, much less can they explain them.
They must be driven from the party. · 9 minutes ago
OR... as suggested, form a new party. I have heard all the comments about how that doesn't work, but it did in the late 1850's. Some would say the the Whigs only rebranded themselves as Republicans, but there was a real difference. For many Whigs there was no where else to go. But the "new" party was different.
So, too, would there be a change today if someone could create a real alternative to the dems. Cruz is doing well from Texas, but he got there with TP support. Perhaps it is time to withdraw and look to get support elsewhere. Last election I heard all manner of people saying just that - that Romney just wasn't IT.
Dec '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Jeff: Codevilla is exactly right. The GOP elite are the problem. They do not represent us. Many GOP candidates do not even believe in the principles of liberty, much less can they explain them.
They must be driven from the party. · 9 minutes ago
It is probably already too late to drive them from the party. On this one Rush is wrong, time to abandon the Republicans and organize a new party. Don't build a new house on the broken foundation of the old.
Jan '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Jeff: Codevilla is exactly right. The GOP elite are the problem. They do not represent us. Many GOP candidates do not even believe in the principles of liberty, much less can they explain them.
They must be driven from the party. · 24 minutes ago
Codevilla IS right; but we will never succeed in "driving" the GOP elite out of the party.
They are the managers and controllers of the party; the rest of us (who identify as Republicans) are the 'worker bees'.
We need to stop sending them money.
We need to get bi-partisan support for a law that makes it impossible for a member of Congress to be a paid lobbyist for 25 years,
and we need to get bi-partisan support for a law that states that Congress shall pass no law that does not apply equally and fully to all its members.
Then we may find that a lot of GOP elite have become members of the other party.
May '10
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
I couldn't agree more.
My worry is that there is so far no viable alternative.
Jun '10
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Mr Codevilla, with this essay, crawled inside of me, read my mind, and felt my heart. Starting a new party, however, could mean terrible defeat for a number of years. OTH, what do we gain now when we win? We have merely elected the same people we thought we had defeated.
May '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
This is a great post and article, but I am not sure this is news. The seeds for this were planted between 2000 - 2006, grew and caught fire in 2009.
The Tea Party's primary challenge isn't democrats or Obama, it is republicans.
I realize I am a minority in this camp, but I think the time is near to abandon the republican party and strike out on our own. It will be clumsy and there will be setbacks, but freedom isn't free and politics isn't pretty.
May '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Depending on where we are in the election cycle, Presidential or mid term, our re-election rate for incumbents ranges in 80%.
We will scream for term limits and re-elect those we seek to limit. We will paper our bumpers in stickers about sending the rascals back home, but re-elect our rascal every 2-6 years.
At the end of the day we have the government we elect and deserve. I will concede what we have elected is as much a lack of options as it is a proactive choice.
Jan '11
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
It's later than you think. Has anyone commenting on this post read "Revolution From the Middle" by Sam Francis? Codevilla is echoing "shots fired" over 15 years ago.
Jan '11
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
The problem with the way we conservatives have been fighting is that we've been defending, not attacking. An insurgency, which is what we "country party people" are, does not spend its time repulsing attacks upon its mountain redoubts; the insurgents stage unexpected and demoralizing attacks on the strongholds of the elites. They are idealistic and always on the offense. They look for opportunities to make a commotion, to disrupt the comfortable Kabuki dance of the status quo, to mock and ridicule the pretenses of soft despots of our age.
Jan '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Yes, and with it came a clearer understanding of the 'neo-conservative'.
Apr '11
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Angelo Codevilla is an interesting thinker, but this essay lets the voting public off the hook. The reason "elitist" Democrats and Republicans have held power for so many decades is because the voters elected them and kept returing them to power in election after election.
Dec '10
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
I think its more than a "failure to represent" their constituentcies. Codevilla flat out says they're against us. More than failed they have abandoned their constituents, undermined and betrayed them. The leadership in Washington doesn't even like us very much, let alone attempt to fight for our most profoundly held values.
I've always been wary of populism, but I worry even more about being left to the mercy of Leviathan.
More thoughts on this article can be found on the member feed: http://ricochet.com/member-feed/An-Intellectual-Voice-for-the-Conservative-Insurgency
Aug '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
I don't agree that a new party start-up is the best approach. I think we just keep the Tea Party juices flowing, and vote for the best candidates we can find in the primaries. Panic is not a good way to victory.
I have let my membership in the GOP lapse on three different occasions, each time because the Party leadership was such a crashing disappointment. But the GOP is the best way to fight the Dems, and they are truly dangerous.
Jul '10
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
Codevilla makes some good points, but his broader narrative is uneven. Sure the conservative political, intellectual, and media elites split with the membership on issues. Yes, in many instances they are condescending and insulting while doing so.
Codevilla labels Mitt Romney (amongst others) as wannabe "junior partners" in the "ruling class." Obviously, the only point of that is to scorn -not describe- the good Professor's targets. Politicians regularly require criticism, and always demand scrutiny, but please forgive me if I'm unmoved by the tenured gentleman's belief that he is more in tune with popular will than the politicians who routinely compete for votes.
I see. The vox populi on, say, immigration or TARP is both the beginning and end of the discussion, yet programs popular with the "country class" must go... for our own good, of course.
Indeed. We have seen the enemy and it is us.
Edited on February 23, 2013 at 5:36amDec '10
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
What he's saying is that when you have a vast number of people who are not being represented in a free democracy you have an unbalanced situation that cannot endure. Its not that the dissenters should take control of the party, its that they inevitably will take control due to external pressures. The (largely meaningless) question that remains is: do you continue to call the oppositional party that emerges the Republican party, or has the name become so tainted that you call it something else? I see the piece as more prophetic than proscriptive. It will interesting to see how things play out in 2014 and beyond.
Dec '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
The Republican brand carries too much baggage, call it something else. Tea Party perhaps?
Dec '12
Re: Angelo Codevilla On Democrats and Country Club Republicans
We need to unite and push back hard against the statists (includes Republicans) and their nanny state. I believe that by ranting against everything, the right has become too watered down. Where is statism the most vulnerable and how can we attack its center(s) of gravity? Conservatives need to agree on a handfull of viable goals that can best undermine statism and begin to reverse the damage it is doing to our economy and culture. We cannot fix this problem shotgun style, but need to stay rifle focused. My contract to save America would include:
1. brand spankin' new conservative party (I'm good with the Tea Party.)
2. term limits for congressmen
3. flat or fair tax
4. free market capitalism (domestic) and free trade (international)
5. abolish the US Department of Education
6. King Dollar (controlled growth of dollars in circulation)
Edited on February 24, 2013 at 2:36am