When friends fall out - better watch out!

The greatest allies the Republican party has today are President Obama and his Democrat party!  The so-called 'Obamacare' project has crash landed and I sense that the worst is yet to come.  In any event, the American people now have a rock-hard example to confirm their suspicion that governments are incapable of actually organising a piss up in a brewery!  Now is the chance, one would think, for a Republican party, united behind a philosophy of smaller government, to stand together at the forthcoming hustings and sweep the board.  Fat chance!

As Jeffrey Lord spells out in The American Spectator, the Republicans are split down the middle!  Actually, I'm not sure if the split is actually in the middle, it is more a split between the ordinary 'Joe Does' who mostly loathe government and the political apparatchiks who love it.  You can understand why politicians of all colours love government because it is through government that they can exert their power.  For the average politician, the whole game, the whole wretched business of smarming to 'the folks', attending endless numbers of tedious 'chicken suppers', wheedling money out of donars, kissing babies and media arseholes, is all worth it for that chance to gain office and wield power!  So, it is going to be a hard job to find a politician who not only does not wish to wield power but positively strives to relinquish as much of it as possible.  Such people are as rare as hens' teeth which is why we, on both sides of the pond, have only only enjoyed one Ronald Reagan and one Margaret Thatcher.

Jeffrey Lord is a brave man because in his article he takes on no less an opponent than 'The Kraut', than whom . . . etc, etc!  'The Kraut' argues that there is no split in the Republican party on matters of principle only of tactics, as he said on TV:

I think this whole thing [a split in the Republican party] is very much blown up in the liberal media…. The difference between the hard right and moderates is really one over tactics rather than over ideology and objectives…. On objectives you tell me what is the fundamental difference between the so-called moderates and radicals. I don’t see it. We all agree on limited government, we all agree on restoration of individual rights, we all agree on liberty being the central ideal, we all agree on the restoration of individual responsibility and initiative… where’s the big difference?... This is ginned up by a lot of players for a lot of self-interested reasons…. Cool this a little bit by looking rationally at what are the real differences… and they are tactical.

Jeffrey Lord absolutely disagrees and in doing so actually quotes the late, and very much under-estimated, Sir Keith Joseph:

When you ask “where’s the big difference?” I would suggest it is right there with moderates whose view of the federal government and its role is entirely different from that of the party’s conservative base.

As has been discussed here before this difference was well expressed by Margaret Thatcher’s longtime adviser, the late Sir Keith Joseph. Joseph believed that the internal dynamics of politics continually ratcheted left — and that British Conservatives had simply acceded to what was called socialist  ratcheting. To be a Conservative Prime Minister was to simply manage the leftward, socialist ratchets of the last Labour government, never to change course. The reason for Thatcher’s success — and Reagan’s in America — was precisely because they did not go along with the leftward socialist ratcheting and sought to ratchet rightward. To go completely in the other direction.

That seems to me to be absolutely spot on.  And as Mr. Lord also reminds us, both these 'counter-revolutionary' leaders were forced to struggle against their own parties, the majority of whom simply could not bring themselves to diminish in any way their own power. 

If 'Obamacare' brings down the Democrat party then the Republicans need to be aware of the danger of collateral damage.  As Americans survey the wreckage, more and more of them will demand to know what solution the Republicans can offer.  At that point the brown stuff will hit the Republican fan - so be ready to duck!

 

Comments

[backofanenvelope]

The only cause for optimism is that no-one saw Reagan and Thatcher coming!

[David Duff]

Indeed, they sort of slipped through the net when no-one was looking.

[Michael Adams]

I read, and it well may have been from a link from D&N, that there are a lot of young people in Britain who have been Thatcherized. Unlimited dole, NHS for foreigners, other excess, they find silly and/or repugnant. The Leftie writing the report was appalled, of course, and thought they were as heartless as the Wicked Witch, who was actually very nice, according to people who knew her in extra political settings. Naturally, there will be a dedicated effort to enlighten these poor automata of the Right, but it may well fail. The reason I am talking about this is that the problem with Soetero and his British equivalents is that they were elected, and, to get things put right, we need an electorate who will choose, on purpose, straight-shooting, upright men and women to serve us. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our (political) stars, but in ourselves."

[Dom]

"NHS for foreigners" A few years back, I met a woman who needed rhinosurgery. She figured it was cheaper to fly to England and have it done for free there rather than pay for it here. She didn't think this was theft. She just thought the English are so much more civilized ...

So cough it up DD, bless your soul, the woman needs a new nose!

[JK]

I seem to recall David, putting this on D&N in the past. However if I did not - I'd think this something you might want to bookmark then, work up a follow-on post:

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2012/12/crisis-american-conservatism-inherent-contradictions-and-end-road

In my humble (you say something Duff?) opinion Mr. Kurth has it nailed.

[David Duff]

That's the way to keep yourself out of the dreaded 'spam box', Michael, quote a bit of old Will! Alas, our 'youfs & youfettes', in so far as they ever think politically, are as divided as the adults.

I was beginning to wonder what "rhino surgery" was so thank goodness you answered my unspoken question, Dom. And, of course, I don't mind paying, I look upon it as repayment for all those food parcels you sent over during the war, although, as it happens, I never saw one! Actually, to be serious, there has been some political noises about ways and means to stop 'tourist' medical treatments.

[David Duff]

JK, yes indeed, you did send that link before and I duly bookmarked it and then, in my usual lazy fashion never got round to reading it. But now I have and it is absolutely superb. I recommend it to all my readers with an interest in American politics. Thanks, JK.

[Antisthenes]

“A system in which a majority of the population is dependent on the
government leads to an unstable political and economic situation, since a majority of the population then has a vested interest in increasing the power of government to redistribute wealth."

I quote Ludwig von Mises and how right he was. The left have indeed ratchet up their influence and has made their ideology the only one that most will these days accept. They have done this either by design or accident by whenever they have been in power by increasing the power and size of the state and at the same time making the citizen ever more dependent on the state. From the public sector worker, through to the recipients of state benefits (even child benefit) which means the vast majority have now got a vested interest in insisting that governments of whatever political hue maintain high levels of wealth distribution. Reagan and Thatcher bucked this trend but for all the good they did they were unable to arrest the forward march of socialism. I do believe it will not be hindered in it's progress until the money runs out which we know from past and present experience that it will. Socialism is only good at spending inefficiently and wastefully wealth creators money and at the same removing the incentive for that wealth to be created. Socialism cannot be defeated because it offers something that human beings cannot resist; something for nothing. Any sane and rational person knows that everything has a price. Still the socialist juggernaut lumbers on maybe either because most of us are not sane or rational enough or consider that the price to be paid will not be us but some other generation in the future. I believe that those of us on the right cannot win the war against socialism we can win a few battles but they will be Pyrrhic and will only delay socialism ultimate triumph. We can vote in right wing governments now and then who are hamstrung by the majorities vested interests and have a lingering death or let the left get on with and make it a swift death.

[David Duff]

'I feel your pain', 'Ant', and I would urge you to read JK's link for an excellent analysis of the onward march of progressivism and the disarray of the conservatives in the USA.