A Liberal Moment

As the left retakes the reins of power and get its political footing, both sides try to make sense of the shifting tides:

Leftward, Ho? - New York Times

But it is optimism nonetheless, and well-founded, too, say Mr. Frank and a broad spectrum of political thinkers and leaders. And, they say, the evidence goes beyond the obvious indicators — the ascendance of Democrats in the House and Senate, President Bush’s second-term belly-flop and poll numbers showing the Democratic Party trending left and the nation’s political center trending Democratic.

The chicken-egg riddle is how much this alleged “liberal moment” bespeaks genuine momentum for the left and how much stems from anti-Bush, antiwar, anti-Republican fervor.

In other words, liberal moment or conservative slump?

Both, presumably, for reasons that could be explained in part by the “mommy party/daddy party” cliché — that is, that voters typically favor Democrats (“mommy party”) on social issues and Republicans (“daddy party”) on national security.

“At the moment, daddy seems to have messed up the war in Iraq,” says Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review magazine, “so people are much more willing to listen to mommy, which helps Democrats.”

A slump implies a generally brief dip in performance that has the potential to be corrected with some small magical tweak. You know, an Iraq-sized tweak. But is that really all? Is this just a slump?

Naturally the Republicans are going to try to limit the perseption of the damage, but let's be clear: George W. Bush was the right's best shot. He was the right-wing version of Kennedy's Camelot. The young crown prince arriving to usher in a new conservative era, tasseled with starry-eyed prognostications of "The Permanent Republican Majority".

Bush brought with him everything they wanted, including a built-in cognitive dissonance filter. This allowed the president to preach small government and tax cutting, while building the government to a size of historic proportions (and claim fiscal responsibility). It allowed him to push for policies that simultaneously fostered a hands-off economic approach, while also encouraging a religious and social nanny state. The right-wing saw no problem with putting all these trains on a collision course, presumably because they stopped believing in real-world consequences a long time ago.

But after the myriad list if real-world disasters, the fantasy-worlders have had no other option but to run from Bush, claiming him a pretender to the throne. And now they look to the ill-fitting replacements.

McCain? He's not really one of them.

Guiliani? Here's a man running on basically one day's worth of work, and has faced little to no vetting by the Republican machine. Presumably he'll be asked what he thinks about the War in Iraq before he's given the Republican nomination. Regardless, he's definitely not one of them.

Mitt? [Bing], thanks for playing!

It's gotten so bad the Draft Condi Campaign has been thinking about putting a few unfriendly fizzies in VP Crazy Uncle Cheney's soda water in order to present a "just-can't-pass-it-up" opening for our generally ineffective secretary of state. Their only problem is Condi knows how bad Iraq is going to be over the next 10 years, and she wants nothing to do with it. Most likely yes, it'll be mommy's job to clean up after daddy's drunken binge, and find out how to pay off all his gambling debts.

Not only the movement conservatives, but even the wingnuts are dismayed:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — A group of influential Christian conservatives and their allies emerged from a private meeting at a Florida resort this month dissatisfied with the Republican presidential field and uncertain where to turn.

The event was a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although little known outside the conservative movement, the council has become a pivotal stop for Republican presidential primary hopefuls, including George W. Bush on the eve of his 1999 primary campaign.

But in a stark shift from the group’s influence under President Bush, the group risks relegation to the margins. Many of the conservatives who attended the event, held at the beginning of the month at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla., said they were dismayed at the absence of a champion to carry their banner in the next election.

After basing a political ideology on "if you repeat a lie enough times it becomes true", the Republicans have hit the Reality Wall. They've been making up lies about the economy and taxes for so long, the disease has spread to all the other parts of the body. Iraq? Katrina? Jobs? Healthcare? The deficit? Social Security reform? No one outside of the 25-30% hardcore base believes them anymore, and that's a problem for a political party looking more and more like a southern regional political party.

But even if we did believe them, what would they have to offer? Obviously no new ideas are going to come from the Republicans given their current minority position, and a country where 40% of Americans say the Iraq war is the most important issue, trumping all others by a wide margin. But even the past six years have been the same warmed-over conservative think tank ideas about ways to continue to rig tax collection for the rich, and put social policy in the hands of the insane and inane on the religious right.

The new prince brought us very little that was new, and a great deal of what was old. The only difference was the shiny new package, the guy you'd like to have a beer with (except you can't because the man is a former alcoholic; who knows what he might do?!)

Yet while the Republican policy apparatus lies in tatters, the PR machine grinds on triumphantly in the form of Fox News's "The 1/2 Hour News Hour", a show so funny you can just tell from the title. Isn't that hilarious? What are you, a traitor? Well, you may not buy it, but the right certainly still believes it's own PR. From the first article quoted above:

Ultimately, Mr. Feeney said, any “liberal moment” will ultimately rest on the left’s ability to govern. He says the early wave of legislation passed by the new Democratic majority in the House — the so-called “six-for-’06” — dealt with easy, popular issues like supporting stem-cell research and raising the minimum wage.

“Democrats might have an edge on health care right now,” Mr. Feeney said. “But let’s see what happens when they put something forward that scares the bejeezus out of everyone.”

Now clearly if ability to govern was a concern, the Republican House caucus would be down to about 15 people. And what's with all this passing of legislation by the Democrats that was so popular the Republicans were unable (unwilling) to pass it? Wait, you mean this guy is admitting the Republicans didn't WANT to pass popular legislation? Careful now, you might be identifying a pattern.

Much like this pattern on healthcare where the Republicans poo-poo every proposal as scary, even though even Hillarycare would have had us in a better position than the one we're in right now. But hey those health savings accounts will sure help.

Professor Ackerman takes us home:

“We’re at a moment where I think the disasters of the Bush administration’s domestic and foreign policies are being appreciated,” said Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale University and author of “Before the Next Attack.”

These failures constitute what Mr. Ackerman calls “an opening” for American liberals, but hardly a triumph.

“This is a moment of relative calm,” he says. “We’ll see where it leads."

Over the past six years the Republicans Party had virtual governing carte blanche. Buoyed by a president with a 90% approval rating, we have witnessed a party policy and political flame-out of historic proportions. A triumph? Certainly not. But with a Republican Party clearly not done sinking, a Democratic Party looking toward likely further gains in 2008 on top of an historic victory in 2006, this party is just getting started.

(Crossposted: Daily Kos Diary)