Is history repeating itself? Is the GOP following the Whigs?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Musing over the subtext of the Shutdown thread -- TEA party v GOP moderates -- I decided to do a little reading.

While the Democratic Party can trace its roots back to Jefferson, its ups and downs have not torn the party apart -- despite deep divisions that lasted for decades (Dixiecrats and Northern Democrats for example) and despite temporary fragmentation (War v Peace Democrats in 1861-1865).

By contrast, the Whig party that formed to oppose the growth of Presidential power under Jackson, was torn apart and destroyed by the slavery question. The anti-slavery elements of the party opted out, denying the party's nomination for President even though he was an incumbent, and...in a very few years...the party folded. The new party, the Republicans, took advantage of a major rift between southern and northern democrats to elect Lincoln in 1860.

Following the civil war, however, the democrats reformed, brining in the conservative dixiecrats who were often at odds with their northern party members but nevertheless maintained a mostly coordinated effort on behalf of the party. The democrats remained viable despite the domination of the Presidency through most of the last half of the 19th century.

So, unlike the Democratic party, the GOP comes from a group that has already demonstrated that they will withdraw support from a party and kill it rather than give up their point.

Is this happening again?

Are the situations analogous? Is limited government/stricter constitutionalism as focal an issue as slavery? The nascent GOP of the 1850s were the "liberal" party. Are the TEA conservatives fundamentally different so that that analogy does not apply, or is this issue as divisive as slavery?

Thoughts?

[Lemur]

Is limited government/stricter constitutionalism as focal an issue as slavery? [...] is this issue as divisive as slavery?

I would question the premise that the Tea Party is about limited government. The #1 predictor of Tea Party involvement is not libertarian registration, or independent registration, or any particular stance on issues. No, the #1 predictor of Tea Party involvement is previous engagement with GOP politics (PDF warning).

A better analogy for the Tea Party might be the John Birch Society (which did not destroy the GOP).

Medicare then, as Obamacare now, was the key evil. An editorial in the Morning News announced that “JFK’s support of Medicare sounds suspiciously similar to a pro-Medicare editorial that appeared in the Worker—the official publication of the U.S. Communist Party.” [...]

The whole thing came to a climax with the famous black-bordered flyer that appeared on the day of J.F.K.’s visit to Dallas, which showed him in front face and profile, as in a “Wanted” poster, with the headline “WANTED FOR TREASON.” The style of that treason is familiar mix of deliberate subversion and personal depravity. “He has been wrong on innumerable issues affecting the security of the United States”; “He has been caught in fantastic lies to the American people, including personal ones like his previous marriage and divorce.” Birth certificate, please?

The really weird thing—the American exception in it all—then as much as now, is how tiny all the offenses are. French right-wingers really did have a powerful, Soviet-affiliated Communist Party to deal with, as their British counterparts really had honest-to-god Socialists around, socializing stuff. But the Bircher-centered loonies and the Tea Partiers created a world of fantasy, willing mild-mannered, conflict-adverse centrists like J.F.K. and Obama into socialist Supermen.

[AntiDamascus]

It depends on what is worth more, ideology or money. You could see Tea Party members split to form a new party but it would mean the death of both on the national scale. It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the next few years. It mostly depends on how the TP does in elections and where groups put their money.

[Kadagar_AV]

USA

[a completely inoffensive name]

There is too much money involved to let a little thing like ideology get in the way of good business.

[AntiDamascus]

For the people with the money. The people with the ideology? That's a different story. Would the TP splinter off if it felt it wasn't being respected?

[Kralizec]

It's a natural phenomenon in multi-party systems that parties rise and vanish, or that smaller ones band together to stay relevant. Traditionally the Netherlands has had three main political parties*. None of them ever had an absolute majority, but a combination of 2 of 3 of them usually did in the decades following WW2.
Generally though the last few decades 2 out of these 3 were not enough; and another coalition partner was needed - a smaller "fourth party" (there has never been a grand coalition between the big three together)

Outside these big three, the "fourth parties" have come and gone over the years.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

* the big three are PvdA (Labour), VVD (right-wing liberal) and CDA (religious centrists).

Actually the CDA is a fusion of three post-war parties itself, which focused on the various christian denominations. They banded together when religious affiliation became less and less relevant as a factor for determining one's ballot choice. At their high period, these christian splinter parties could easily have formed an absolute majority with eachother.

As for them 'mericans: I'm an outsider and I don't know enough about the slavery/state rights comparison to comment on that.

The democrats and republicans are usually considered "catch-all" parties, in the sense that they cater to many different interests and opinions in order to secure an absolute majority for themselves.
I tend to think that the Tea Party (with its current attitude and views) is simply not viable on its own. It would not attract the same number of votes in a presidential election that the GOP could, the support of moderate republican voters is also needed. It might feel good to call a moderate republican a RINO, but the truth is that the GOP has always needed the votes that so-called RINO's bring in.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I think it depends. Some support the TEA party because they believe that the current coalition can no longer win major national elections. They want to see the party de-stablize, reduce and be able to form a new coalition that sucks winnable levels of support from traditional Democrats interested in things alien to the current GOP. Other people support the TEA party because they are radical anti-government opponents who believe in minimal government and detest where the modern Federal and many State governments are headed. Others fall in between those two.

Opponents of TEA party or other minarchist factions in the GOP tend to be big government statists who are relatively socially and economically "conservative", but believe in an all-powerful Federal arbiter of stupid things like loss of rights without due process or conviction, forcing cable companies to sell channels a la carte, banning guns based on what they look like.

Old people who are angry also tend to support the TEA party and insurgent factions, but don't realize that we are attempting to re-structure their pensions because they are ripping us all off.

The TEA party is a pariah with young people, but minarchist organizations and ideologies are taking off. The web site Young Americans for Liberty constantly drives membership and doesn't have a terrible presentation. It attracts social and economic libertarians as well as Orwellian socialists and people who are interested in overcoming discrimination. This is a winning coalition which will be built on. We attract young people by tearing things apart. This is what young people like; always and forever. Stodgy collectivist garbage is for old people. We want the Capitalist machine to be cogs in our wheel and we recognize that the natural enemy of the worker is the policeman.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I challenge your assertion that "most Americans want Obamacare" at this point. Most people want everything as advertised, the trouble is that some advertisements are just fantasy. Americans want less expensive healthcare, period. This doesn't give that to them and makes their health care cost more money. Barack Obama is either a liar or he is incompetent to fix our problem. If you think that Americans will blame the party that has been obsessing over how stupid this law is and trying to repeal/reform it for 5 years you have had too much kool-aid.

Americans want an Affordable health care act. They also want a Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Challenge away lol.

I'm not really arguing for the ACA. You know I think its a far cry from ideal. I'm just saying that most Americans want affordable healthcare for all like the rest of the first world. The specifics don't matter. The Republicans are doing absolutely nothing to convince people they are serious about healthcare reform, only that they are serious about stopping it.

Marketability issues. The TEA wing would prefer, in their ideal world, Untaxed medical savings accounts and private insurance. They would also want Medicaid reserved for the completely indigent and Medicare done away with in favor of MSAs.

"The ACA is becoming a boondoggle" is a marketable, if not sweepingly popular, stance. The TEA ideal stance would market....poorly.

[HopAlongBunny]

A way forward for the GOP?:

http://aje.me/19GDHUG

A very interesting guy

[Lemur]

Good essay in the Economist on this topic. Choice quote:

[M]any of the so-called policy planks in contemporary hard-right politics are more the product of a need to attack sitting GOP officeholders for supposed moderate treachery than they are the result of any serious or consistent conservative ideology. This is why, for example, when conservative policy wonks at the American Enterprise Institute sit down to come up with an alternative universal health-insurance plan, what they come up with shares enough features with Obamacare that GOP politicians have to reject it out of hand.

The subordination of policy to tactics is a feature of apocalyptic-extremist factional politics. It's a mistake to think that extremist parties are characterised by ideological rigidity; in fact, on any question on which there can be internal competition in such parties, there tends to be a succession of changes in position. Each shift produces apostates who can be purged on the basis of previously holding positions that have now been revealed as incorrect, and this provides opportunities for advancement to lower-ranking members. A party caught up in this dynamic can't take any policy positions on which it might be able to compromise with the opposition, or win new constituencies outside of existing insiders; the compromise would be a death sentence for the members who agree to it, and allegiance to new constituents is suspect in the eyes of existing ones.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Good essay in the Economist on this topic. Choice quote:

[M]any of the so-called policy planks in contemporary hard-right politics are more the product of a need to attack sitting GOP officeholders for supposed moderate treachery than they are the result of any serious or consistent conservative ideology. This is why, for example, when conservative policy wonks at the American Enterprise Institute sit down to come up with an alternative universal health-insurance plan, what they come up with shares enough features with Obamacare that GOP politicians have to reject it out of hand.

The subordination of policy to tactics is a feature of apocalyptic-extremist factional politics. It's a mistake to think that extremist parties are characterised by ideological rigidity; in fact, on any question on which there can be internal competition in such parties, there tends to be a succession of changes in position. Each shift produces apostates who can be purged on the basis of previously holding positions that have now been revealed as incorrect, and this provides opportunities for advancement to lower-ranking members. A party caught up in this dynamic can't take any policy positions on which it might be able to compromise with the opposition, or win new constituencies outside of existing insiders; the compromise would be a death sentence for the members who agree to it, and allegiance to new constituents is suspect in the eyes of existing ones.

Beh, this is a problem with every ideology. Look at Democrats who were in favor of civil unions a few years back. They are viewed as interminable bigots within the same party today, unless they "update" their thinking. I don't care about this and it doesn't make the GOP particularly bad. Something must be done to allow us to build a winning coalition. I would like to see certain plank purges in order to do this. Which planks? I'm not sure, but most likely the strong on national security at the expense of individual rights are in the crosshairs right now. Also, the GOP members who are overtly racist and looking to harm immigrants are being purged as well. It may not seem like this, but xenophobia and economic protectionism are much more natural bedfellows. Let the Democrats have them back

[Xiahou]

@Lemur
Which AEI plan is that?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Social conservatism is THE reason the GOP is on the wane. It will take a concerted effort by all aspects of the party to re-brand themselves as something constructive.

Unfortunately for middle of the road GOPers that concerted effort is unlikely. First party leaders have to acknowledge the need for a total re-branding (unlikely) then they would have to convince my generation that the last twenty years or so are in the past by adopting their own progressive policies that pass the twenty-something cynic smell test (very unlikely).

A tough issue for the GOP. While social conservatism is not THE issue for a majority of Republicans, it is THE issue for a surprising portion of grass roots party activists -- and those people matter to getting candidates elected. That was one of the leverage tools Robertson and Falwell manipulated during the 1970s. They were part of the "Reagan Revolution" even though the Reagan administration was a little leery of much of the Moral Majority legislative agenda.

Reagan, though mostly a social conservative himself, did NOT do a lot of preaching about it -- focusing most of his efforts on economic issues, de-regulation, and hammering communism. He spoke in favor of traditional values, but the only legislative/executive measures he acted on were regarding the right to life -- and even there he was fairly limited.

[ICantSpellDawg]

As I've stated in the past, I am a social conservative but I also want to get the government out of our lives. I live like a social conservative and do whatever I can to undermine government authority over our personal lives. I think that the gay marriage debate is the dumbest debate I've ever heard of, but it doesnt mean that they don't bring up good legal points; what business is it of the government who I love or share my life with? Why do they need to value or accept who I love or live with? Contracts need a mediator, but I don't need you to value my lifestyle and, I'd prefer that you didn't.

On the abortion issue, the thing is homicide. Unacceptable and people who kill their kids rather than be responsible and use birth control should be ashamed of themselves. I understand the duress that they are under but their ethics are hideously grotesque.

Hey, free birth control for ever insured person. There is even less of an excuse not to destroy your childs life for your own selfishness.

[Montmorency]

be responsible and use birth control

Isn't that what they're doing?

[Crazed Rabbit]

I think one peeve of mine with the social conservative issues voter is that they (talking generally here) support 'values" candidates who have very little chance of getting elected. But even if they do get elected the politicians won't be able to pass any social conservative issues/whatever into law. Abortion won't be banned, nor will gay marriage. These voters just get the GOP portrayed -rightfully - as out of touch and clinging to issues that are less and less relevant to increasing numbers of people - for no potential benefit even if they do win.

CR

[Beskar]

I can tell that your opinions have shifted, Crazed Rabbit. Not shifted as in, away from your ideological fundamentals, but your opinions of the Tea Party and such.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Its time we get smarter about our priorities. Lindsay Graham is talking about an abortion bill. Nonsense at this point as it won't pass the Senate and would never be signed into law by this President, it would be vetoed out of hand. To me, this is a pointless vote grabber for morons. We have some priorities that can be worked on - tax reform, immigration reform, and healthcare reform. Right now, democrats are reeling from a major credibility hit on health care. Let's get in there and help them fix it.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Chris Christie isn't a Moderate moderate, like Romney was. Christie is staunchly pro-life, as pro-gun as any Republican President over the past 100 years, against gay marriage, pro-market. He broke the backs of the Teachers Union. He won New Jersey by winning the PR game as a Conservative. Big C.

Is he a libertarian? Unfortunately no. Is he a TEA partier? I'm not sure what that is, by the definitions presented. Chris Christie is Conservative candidate, whose only liberal move has been to take Government funding to relieve the coast of NJ during their time of need and actually speak to minorities like they matter in the life of the nation.

He will be the most Conservative Republican President we've ever elected.