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David Frum and “The Great Republican Revolt”
The GOP plotted to restore the Bush dynasty, but instead triggered a class war. That’s the thesis of David Frum’s latest piece for The Atlantic, “The Great Republican Revolt,” which is really worth reading:
The angriest and most pessimistic people in America are the people we used to call Middle Americans. Middle-class and middle-aged; not rich and not poor; people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English, and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description.
You can measure their pessimism in polls that ask about their expectations for their lives—and for those of their children. On both counts, whites without a college degree express the bleakest view. You can see the effects of their despair in the new statistics describing horrifying rates of suicide and substance-abuse fatality among this same group, in middle age.
White Middle Americans express heavy mistrust of every institution in American society: not only government, but corporations, unions, even the political party they typically vote for—the Republican Party of Romney, Ryan, and McConnell, which they despise as a sad crew of weaklings and sellouts. They are pissed off. And when Donald Trump came along, they were the people who told the pollsters, “That’s my guy.”
They aren’t necessarily superconservative. They often don’t think in ideological terms at all. But they do strongly feel that life in this country used to be better for people like them—and they want that older country back.
I don’t read a lot of Frum since I disagree with him so strongly on gun control and other left-leaning views, but he correctly identifies the divide between the donor class and the party rank-and-file. After discussing the long history of GOP compromises and sell-outs, he offers several alternatives to help the party heal the rift:
- Double down on comprehensive immigration reform to hopefully win over Latino and Asian American voters.
- Make a tactical concession on immigration enforcement to win back the party base.
- Reform the entire GOP agenda. I’ll let Frum explain:
Admittedly, this may be the most uncongenial thought of them all, but party elites could try to open more ideological space for the economic interests of the middle class. Make peace with universal health-insurance coverage: Mend Obamacare rather than end it. Cut taxes less at the top, and use the money to deliver more benefits to working families in the middle. Devise immigration policy to support wages, not undercut them. Worry more about regulations that artificially transfer wealth upward, and less about regulations that constrain financial speculation. Take seriously issues such as the length of commutes, nursing-home costs, and the anticompetitive practices that inflate college tuition. Remember that Republican voters care more about aligning government with their values of work and family than they care about cutting the size of government as an end in itself.
My advice is for the GOP to combine options 2 and 3, but my “reform” is very different from the swing to the left noted above. Frum has long advocated accepting Obamacare and other progressive programs, much like Eisenhower made peace with the New Deal. If you want to turn the Republican internal cold war into a full-blown civil war, option 3 is excellent advice.
Instead, the party elite should do something far more radical: Admit that it completely failed on comprehensive immigration reform, repeatedly lied about it to the base, and apologize with contrite words and concrete action. This is not the grudging “tactical concession” offered by Frum, but a full repudiation of amnesty and anything that smacks of open borders.
I don’t think illegal immigration is the biggest issue facing the country and I live in Arizona of all places. But it has become a proxy for the chasm that divides the elite from everyone else. Until the GOP proves its honorable intentions on immigration, forget trying to persuade the base on anything else. Even with this about-face, it will take a few election cycles before Republican voters trust their party on the issue. Nevertheless, confession must precede forgiveness.
Then begins the reform of the party agenda. Contra Frum, it cannot be a list of Democratic-lite policies; DC Republicans’ slouch toward progressivism is the reason the base is so furious.
The party can “open more ideological space for the economic interests of the middle class” by ending the self-serving racket that is the DC/Wall Street/Chamber of Commerce power structure. End idiocies like the Ex-Im Bank which exist only to serve big business. Instead of worrying about the tax rates of the highest earners, eliminate loopholes and lobbyist-written rules that advantage the monied class. Cut through red tape that interferes with charities, non-profits, religious organizations, and small businesses. Stop trying to slow the growth of the government and shrink it outright.
A large part of the GOP base doesn’t want government to do a better job of taking care of them; They want to take care of themselves. If Washington stops meddling in the inconsequential, it can focus on those few things that only the federal government can do, such as protecting the country.
My recommendations are far less “congenial” than Frum’s, because the elites would have to place their fellow Americans’ welfare above their own vanity, power, and quarterly dividend statements. I’m not advocating a temporary pose to trick the yahoos, but a change in heart, mind, and direction. The party bosses must admit that much of the work they do in Washington is either useless or counter-productive.
Even worse, they need to admit that, at least on a few issues, the “yahoos” were right.
Published in Politics
Frum = Good Analysis + Horrendous Solutions
ExJon = Good Analysis + Get’s It Solutions
We don’t want the gov’t to do a better job of
breaking it off in ustaking care of us. We want the federal gov’t out of the way and liberty to take care of ourselves.Shrink government outright? What radicalism is this of which you speak?
Nice analysis and recommendations Jon.
I think Frum is crazy on his first two points. Totally not paying attention crazy. Whether you like comprehensive immigration reform or not, you don’t need to be a genius to know where the politics lay on that issue.
His argument is essentially, we will give you socialism in exchange for more Mexicans. There’s already a party offering that.
Where I am concerned is that there might be more interest in point 3 than I would like. Socialism without foreigners. I don’t think that is the Republican base or most of it. I suspect it is some modest percentage combined with some portion of people who are looking for a moderate Democrat in the age of radical progressivism.
Jon,
If you think the GOP will come close to almost considering thinking about maybe kinda/sorta doing a full-fledged mea culpa on immigration, I got some property li’l bit west of Florida City, abutting the Everglades Park I want to sell you.
Almost zero incentive exists for politicians not to spend money. All kinds of incentives exist for politicians to spend money.
The result? Trillion-dollar budgets that get bigger every year, each and every year, regardless of how the economy’s doing. In fact, when the economy is slow, politicians tell us it’s time to spend more than ever in order to “jump-start” the economy.
The idiots siphoning off the productive labor in the form of dollars from the people tell us that they need even more of their money, and their unborn children’s money that they haven’t earned yet, in order to “fix” the economy is a cosmos-shattering explosion of stupidity not seen since, well, there was a bang that was big.
We are idiots for re-electing people. Anyone who votes for budget increases and not the moving around and trimming of existing waste – of which there’s hundreds of billions – should get curb-kicked quicker than you can say “extra tacos”.
That two lumpy Socialists are heading the Democrat ticket, and we can’t seem to cough up anyone other than a paunchy reality television star to generate interest is the most saddening result of all.
That, sir, is a brilliant distillation.
I guess one (of the myriad) thing I don’t get is why?
Why don’t these fat-cat, Rino-squish, soul-less establishment types just cut their losses? It should be clear by now that they will NEVER be able to pry a vote from the cold dead lever of any voting booth that a true patriot will enter? Why not just back Hillary and get their share of the spoils? A small check (relatively speaking) to the Dems will get these ne’er-do-wells all the free immigrant labor their little black hearts could want. And it is a given that amnesty is all they care about, so why not take the easy route? “It don’t make no sense”, as the Grand Puhbah, Rino Bush II has been known to say.
Amen! <standing ovation>
This post makes a lot of sense to me, even though I’m an immigration squish. (The OP makes sense. Not Frum)
On almost all of the points of contention between the base and the establishment, the base is right.
The past two administrations enacted policies that benefited Wall Street and K Street to the detriment of Main Street. Bailouts, TARP, dollar devaluation and increased regulation all benefit people that are already rich, and creates all kind of lobbying opportunities for K street.
While reaching out to the disaffected, let’s not forget that good economic policy, brought about by small government and classical economics, benefits Wall Street and Main Street to the detriment of K street. Strong economic growth can heal a lot of wounds.
Not everybody wants to be a entrepreneur, but everybody wants a job. Those interests converge.
So, what to do about immigration? (Remember, I’m a squish and can’t be trusted on this issue.) Finish the wall before doing anything else.
If we get a Republican President, that President should appoint Donald Trump to finish and/or certify the wall. That will help calm people down.
The onus is on the Establishment to make peace, since they caused of most of the problems, mostly by bad economics, refusing to fight the Democrats and refusing to defend their constitutional prerogatives.
I won’t ask the immigration hard liners to change their minds, because I don’t want to get beat up.
Blame the Fed.
I’ve read stuff by people wiser than I that Presidents tend to get the dollar they want, in spite of the Fed. That is, Bush and Obama both wanted a weak dollar and that’s what they got.
I don’t fully understand the mechanics or division of labor here, but I learned this from columnist John Tamny, among others.
The Treasury, which is under Presidential control, has a lot to do with it.
This is not to defend Benjamin Bernanke, who was educated beyond his capacity, or Janet Yellen.
This is getting tiresome. The speed and genius it took for the white glove conservative class to decide it might be the middle class, whom they have been screwing for decades, trashing for longer and have not actually talked to one in the same time period would be comic if it wasn’t tragic.
It is not a listening problem. The middle class is required by law to feed the elites. The donor class needs to be courted to give them money.
The middle class is a cheap date.
The party that ran Dole, McCain, and Romney, and can live with a Hillary victory but not a Cruz or Trump one?
The party that successfully took the voting quid from the Tea Party but didn’t deliver the asked for policy quo well, despite having a majority in Congress largely elected by the Tea Party?
The party whose unexpected generosity on that last minute, secret budget that Chuck Schumer was crowing about?
The ones who are faithful to that stuff?
Technically speaking, the Fed doesn’t have jurisdiction over the (foreign exchange) value of the dollar, which is formally the responsibility of the Treasury Department, not the Fed.
But the Fed does things like QE, over and over again, which tends to deflate the value of the dollar, when there’s billions in dollars floating that aren’t being spent anywhere. The M2 velocity is stagnant and has been ever since QE began. That’s why you see no uptick in middle-income incomes, job growth, etc.
Too many levers, too inconsistent, and too few politicians looking to simplify the tax code to reduce cronyism. Until the code gets blown up and flattened, expect more of the same.
Mitch McConnell’s recent comments on Tea Party candidates were extremely unhelpful. Listening to him, you would think that all Tea Partiers practiced witchcraft and legitimate rape.
The article was a fairly good history and some insights. The recommendations were wankery, which is wonkery with an indulgent approach. David Frum (S) otherwise Known as one of the geniuses behind the “No Labels” Party – a self-canceling mind-invasion, a tautological nightmare, Alan Watts’ most vexing Koan
It was Frum who confirmed my suspicions about some Republicans about a decade ago.
I’m still learning. Thanks in large part to Ricochet.
What mechanism does the Treasury have to set exchange rates?
I think inflation expectations and short-term interest rates have more to do with exchange rates than anything the Treasury has up its sleeve.
Of late off shore central banks have more impact on exchange rates than the Fed. That doesn’t lessen the reality that central bank monetary policy is the driving factor.
The end of Soviet Union and the unfettered globalization of business began the demise of not just the middle class but of the working class as well. Open borders the last few decades has helped to kill wages by non enforcement of the law barring employers hiring illegals and for much lower wages. Friends in the construction industry say if the people they hire don’t speak Spanish then they are a danger on the job site. I’ve watched my company’s IT department become little India because of the H1 visa business. The constant influx of immigrants are competing for the available jobs. Educated and non educated are most unhappy about the current state of the country. Trump voices what most of us think.
People forget that Milton was a sympathetic character
From the article:
“The inaugural issue of The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine launched in 1995, depicted then–Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich swinging into action, a submachine gun blazing in his left hand, under the headline “Permanent Offense.” But that was then. Maybe the more natural condition of conservative parties is permanent defense—and where better to wage a long, grinding defensive campaign than in Congress and the statehouses? Maybe the presidency itself should be regarded as one of those things that is good to have but not a must-have, especially if obtaining it requires uncomfortable change.”
That’s inspiration! Let’s play defense forever! Frum is Tokyo Rose with a typewriter.
Jon,
Taking advice from Frum is like taking poison for a head cold. The question isn’t whether the Republican rank and file is pissed off but whether what they are pissed off about is real.
It’s been a very long time since anything labeled civil rights in this country has actually benefited black people. It’s been a very long time since Vietnam and we didn’t notice the Cambodian genocide which makes the whole war a lot more reasonable and relevant. Genocide is genocide. It’s been a very long time since any policy to do with women (call it gender if your like) has improved the lives of women. It’s been a very long time since any policy has helped a poor family.
All of this has nothing to do with white, socially conservative, men. This has to do with the hopeless destructive stupidity of the entire progressive (krypto-Marxist, Jihadist sympathizing) left wing agenda.
Throw the bastards out is still the only course open. However long it takes, we will stay the course.
Regards,
Jim
How about standing four square against anything that can be described as “Omnibus” or “Comprehensive”?
That quote was Frum’s characterization of the donor-class mindset, not the mindset of Frum himself.
Sounds like the right idea. Tired of having the economy thrown under the Omnibus. Tired of undocumented democrats being the Comprehensive social concern of the government. We need a Comprehensive Gutting of Washington D.C. for those who have no respect for the American People. We can send them home on the Omnibus.
Regards,
Jim
“That quote was Frum’s characterization of the donor-class mindset, not the mindset of Frum himself.”
Thanks. I see that I missed that. Nevermind…..
If we keep blaming the wrong things for our economic mess, we won’t be able to fix it.
Globalization is not the cause of our problems. Globalization in one form or another has been around since caveman tribes started trading rocks with each other.
The cause of our problems is the leftish economic policies of the past two administrations.
We had prosperity in the 80’s and 90’s, for everybody, even with globalization. The problem is elsewhere.
Not a big fan of David Frum, but this paragraph of his is spot-on. I am pessimistic, angry, and resentful. And rightly so.
With you on two out of three. I’m optimistic, angry and resentful.
So true and so not happening. Recent remarks by establishment figures like Bush, Rove and McConnell show they don’t get it and don’t plan to get it. They seem bent on poking the angry bear with a stick.
And it’s so unnecessary. They don’t need to agree with all of Trump’s idiotic ideas. Just show a little humility and make the admission suggested by the OP. Why? Because it’s true.
And it would deflect a lot of unnecessary electoral carnage.