It’s time for an “internal restructuring,” because the Republican party and its brand are so tattered that you have conservatives, moderates and independents within that party ready to slice off the wingnut religious base and start anew. The question is, will the mainline conservatives be able to sever those ties.

Honestly, it would be really nice to have a sane conservative party, not one that keeps doing batshit crazy stuff like insisting that cutting off access to birth control will somehow magically prevent unwanted pregnancies if you just clap your hands hard enough.

It’s worth noting that both the late Buckley and his son were against the Iraq War, among many other Bush policies.

Mnemosyne—

I agree. I’d like a liberal party vs. a Eisenhower Republican/Bill Clinton Democrat Party.

There’s really no cure for it; the GOP is going to have to splinter into several parties:

Fundi-Republicans,
Hawk-Republicans,
Econo-Republicans,
Republican Front for Judea
...and maybe more.

the really fun part will be when one of the groups, in the middle of the night, digs up Reagan’s body and spirits it away so they can claim him as “one of their own”.  Hilarity ensues.

I’d like a conservative party more like the one that my father (once even a GOP delegate) believed in.  One where national healthcare made perfect sense, where executive pay was considered an embarassment, where public office wasn’t viewed as an opportunity for further enrichment. Where the response to people suffering was “how can we fix this in a principled manner?” rather than “they brought it on themselves” or “Poor suckers! they’ll make great fodder for ads to scare the base.”

But I think way too many of the supposedly mainstream conservatives have swallowed the lies they told the right-wing proletariat. Just look at how ostensibly sane people have been frothing at the mouth about “voter fraud”—not just for the cameras and the newspapers, but enough to get members of their own party fired from jobs at the DoJ and to risk putting their own highest officials in federal prison. You don’t do that unless you’ve come to believe your own bullshit.

So if there’s going to be responsible conservatism in the US, it’s going to come from democrats, and it may be a long time coming. It will look more like the conservative parties in europe,  and the current GOP leadership will be the far-right splinter parties who occasionally get enough votes to make everyone publicly wonder what’s wrong with their country.

Quite frankly, I think it’s refreshing to see this chaos in conservative land.

Amanda, I’m ashamed of you.  When I hear “Night of the Long Knives”, I expect to see actual knives being used. “Emails running 700-1” just don’t cut it; what ever happened to REAL wingnut infighting?

Sorry - Pam, not Amanda.

When I hear “Night of the Long Knives”, I expect to see actual knives being used.

 
I gotta admit, that made me chuckle.

It is gratifying to watch the conservative revolution devour its children.

“It’s time for an “internal restructuring,” because the Republican party and its brand are so tattered that you have conservatives, moderates and independents within that party ready to slice off the wingnut religious base and start anew. The question is, will the mainline conservatives be able to sever those ties.”

Pam, very well said up the point above.  And we may even agree on this, perhaps that last bit was just ambiguous.  But I don’t mainline conservatives, whatever they are, having any power in the republican party.  The hardliners of all stripes, be fundies or neocons or something else rule and they rule with an absolute iron hand.  Any other interpretation of the situation seems to me to be, at best grossly over-generous and at worst, just missing the picture altogether.

I think that it’s good, in a sad way, that more Americans are having the modern republican party rubbed in their face.  I think it’s good that the rethugs are pushing the limits even further.  It forces people to see that throughout a republican party that is moral bankruptcy, dedicated to outrageous cronyism and ideological hypocrisy. In essence, it’s a lot more than just cutting your taxes or something equally moronic.

I think it was the Rude Pundit who said that beating the republicans wasn’t enough.  You had to splash the country with their ideological blood and beat them politically until they were afraid to show their racist faces in public.  Perhaps, just perhaps, they’ve taken a small step towards making that come true.

You have to remember that American Conservative ndorsed Kerry, and have almost endorsed Obama. This is the election that will matter. Will the Republicans continue to have genuine concern about the future of America and the world or will they become a theocratic party bent on the destruction of the wonderful nation both conservatives and liberals created?

I suspect that the late William F. Buckley may very well have agreed with his son… there’s a reason that the current Bush is the most disapproved-of President in the history of opinion polling!

(Abraham Lincoln was probably the most disapproved-of President ever; he’s the only President under which we had a civil war, after all.)

The Republican Party will only lose power/cease to be controlled by the right-wing Christians if and when the US has free and fair elections again.

Who controls the voting machines, controls the results.

Who controls the military and the police, controls the protests against the results.

Who controls the mainstream media, controls the official narrative of the results and the protests against the results.

How many people reading this still think that Bush won in 2000 - and in 2004? If so, you are ripe to believe that McCain won in 2008.

Anybody seen any of the thousands of apologies to the Dixie Chicks now that Bush’s approval ratings are setting new records for low? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

In a few years, you will be very hard pressed to find a Republican who won’t say that the recent period was a scandal and a disaster. Won’t fix the careers of the people they threw under the bus.

I do have limited sympathy, though, especially for those who were for so long shouting “La-la-la” the loudest with their fingers in their ears. The next few years will be full of the sort of “but nobody could have known then what we know now” BS.

It is gratifying to watch the conservative revolution devour its children.

I know it’s more principled to wait until they grow up and become journalists, but they’re so tender as fetuses!

In a few years, you will be very hard pressed to find a Republican who won’t say that the recent period was a scandal and a disaster.

Incorrect.  In a few years, you will be very hard pressed to find a Republican who won’t know that the recent period was a scandal and a disaster but they will never admit it, either in public or perhaps even to themselves.  More likely they will point to any negatives and ascribe them to the Dems, illegal immigrants, the Left, and so on and so forth.  Modern American conservatism is pathologically narcissistic; it is incapable of admitting error, and self-reinforcingly programmed to blame others.  The more intense the movement’s failure then the more intense the hatred and blame of others.

If you think me exaggerating, kindly look at cases like Buckley’s: to take an objective, intellectual view of one’s own circumstances, surroundings and events is prima facie worthy of expulsion.  To move from psychological language to religious, movement conservatism is faith-driven; mild disagreement is heresy and serious disagreement is apostasy.  These folks will admit nothing; they are spiraling downward.

NRO has a bit of a different take on the split.

A Word on Christopher Buckley   [Rich Lowry]

UPDATE: The Daily Beast headline has been changed to “Buckley Bows Out of National Review.”

I have no problem with him splitting with Republicans or NRO, but voting for Obama?  WTF?  You can’t BE conservative and vote for Obama.  You could vote McCain and pretend he’s conservative “enough,” you could not vote, you could vote Libertarian or Constitution as a protest, but you can’t vote for the (obviously) liberal, big-government, socialist, marxist, anti-Jew, anti-free market, anti-business, anti-capitalist.  No, that is not conservative.

You can’t BE conservative and vote for Obama. 

Technically, you can’t BE conservative and vote for Republicans, this year. Smaller government? Stronger military? Privacy? All the “traditional conservative values” are only given lip service nowadays.

Of course, the Modern Conservative has almost nothing to do with conservatives from just a few decades ago. It’s all about thuggery and hatemongering now.

Scott

So true.

And sad.

Libertarians “could” vote Repub in the past with just some nose holding.

Now, not so much.

As someone said, they said if I did not vote for Bush we’d get socialism.
Well, they were right.

You could vote McCain and pretend he’s conservative “enough,” you could not vote, you could vote Libertarian or Constitution as a protest, but you can’t vote for the (obviously) liberal, big-government, socialist, marxist, anti-Jew, anti-free market, anti-business, anti-capitalist.  No, that is not conservative.

In other words, you’re finally giving up the facade and admitting you’re a conservative, not a libertarian?

As someone said, they said if I did not vote for Bush we’d get socialism. 
Well, they were right.

So, wait, if you personally had voted for Bush, Bush would not have nationalized the banks?  Or is Republican socialism fine and dandy?

I’ve always enjoyed his novels… I am proud of him for having a mind of his own, apart from dear old dad.

So, wait, if you personally had voted for Bush, Bush would not have nationalized the banks?  Or is Republican socialism fine and dandy?

Republican anything is fine and dandy. It’s one of the few principles left for the Modern GOP—calling something “Republican,” even if it isn’t, makes it holier than Jesus.

Libertarian:

I’m a coservative; i.e., Blue Dog Democrat.  I’m voting for Obama.  Conservative means protecting the legacy given to you.  To conserve the Constitution.  To conserve fiscal sanity.  To conserve the Liberty and Rights handed down to you.  The Neo-Cons have done unutterable damage to everything we should be fighting to conserve.

Today’s so-called conservative is nothing but a boot-licker of the powerful.  I remeber George Will saying, “Mr. Bush, I don’t know what you are but you are not a conservative.”

Mnem

No, I said you could hold your nose !

Socialism is not fine, whether it comes from Repubs or Dems.
Looks like we’re gonna find out though.  So we’ll see.

Magis

You’re no conservative.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
(or we could fight about definitions)

Quite frankly, I think it’s refreshing to see this chaos in conservative land. It’s time for an “internal restructuring,” because the Republican party and its brand are so tattered that you have conservatives, moderates and independents within that party ready to slice off the wingnut religious base and start anew. The question is, will the mainline conservatives be able to sever those ties.

The major factions in the GOP need each other to win elections.  You can’t win the presidency on the Talibaptist vote alone, nor can you win it on the quasi-Libertarian vote, nor can you win it on the imperialist military vote, nor can you win it on the big corporate/anti-tax vote.  I don’t think there will be any major restructuring of which factions the political elite play to.  Sure, some peripherals like Chris Buckley might get the can or pushed offstage, but he was never a major GOP player.  Mostly he’s a political satirist more known for his last name than his ideological bent.  (Love his books though, and his column in Esquire was pretty good.)

All this will result in is more euphemisms and more jargon meant to play to the mainstream, distracting voters (in the GOP’s typical Orwellian manner) from their real, destructive policy initiatives.  I think Frank Luntz just got a pay raise.  I can’t wait to see what follows “culture of life” and “traditional marriage”.

You can’t be conservative and vote for Obama?  I can’t see how a true conservative would vote for anyone else. Obama is way to the right for anywhere but the US.

Libertarian:

I don’t think you know what conservative means.  It means to CONSERVE something.  It means to give presumptive weight to something or things that pre-dated the present discourse.  Like maybe human dignity, habeas corpus and all those other things the neo-cons found inconvenient to one-man rule.

Conservative means protecting the legacy given to you.  To conserve the Constitution.  To conserve fiscal sanity.  To conserve the Liberty and Rights handed down to you.

You may want to question how you can be a conservative who wants to conserve liberal values.

All those things you listed are values handed down to you by liberals. Maintaining those traditions because they’re traditional might very well be “conservative”, but the tradition you’re maintaining is a liberal one.

Why not just identify as “liberal”?

In Virginia, moderate Republicans have been run out of the party or made irrelevant.  From Russell Potts in the state legislature to Congressman Tom Davis.  Davis might have been a decent candidate against Mark Warner, but the hard core right wing Republicans went with Jim Gilmore, who last I looked was behind by 30 points (!!!!).  It’s possible that when the dust clears after the election, Virginia will have gone for the Democrats for the national ticket, two Senatorial seats and the Governor’s house and the rout of right wing Republicans will be nearly complete (stubbornly holding onto state house seats but that go round will be the next state election).  Will the moderate Republicans regroup and take over the thoroughly defeated party or will they have been shunted aside and stay out of politics?  Probably the latter.

Will the moderate Republicans regroup and take over the thoroughly defeated party or will they have been shunted aside and stay out of politics?  Probably the latter.

Given the way things have gone in California, I think you called it right.  Schwarzenegger is only in power because he’s a celebrity and a moderate Republican (yes, one or two still exist).  Up until then, the Republicans kept getting their asses kicked because they insisted on nominating gubernatorial candidates who declared that they would try to make abortion illegal in California.

The crazy fringe is pretty much all they have left.  I’ll be interested to see if disgruntled conservatives manage to coalesce into a new party, but given the quick decline of the Reform Party from Ross Perot to Pat Buchanan, I doubt it.

MikeEss & Chet

I won’t quibble with what you say.  Certainly most who know me would call be liberal on most issues.  However, my point was actually about the violence these neo-cons do to our language by using the term conservative to describe themselves.

In an ideal world, the terms liberal and conservative would be used to describe a persons outlook and general philosophy rather than a description of a whole basketful of litmus tests one must pass to use one or the other of these labels.

Today’s so-called conservative would more accurately be described as a radical deconstructionist.  They are trying to deconstruct our beloved Republic into something that never existed (and never should).  Conservative?  What the hell are they trying to conserve?  Perhaps their own wealth.  But how does that explain the “great unwashed” type of winger?  No, I guess I really don’t get it.

(That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.)

By the by, the next time some neo-con uses the word ‘liberal’ as if they had something distateful in their mouth; ask them this.

“When you go to Baskin-Robbins would you rather the person with the scoop be liberal or conservative with it.”

Ooh, the constitution as a liberal value. It wasn’t liberal, it was goddam revolutionary.

Wait, you can’t be a conservative and vote for Obama? Somebody inform Andrew Sullivan!

MikeEss writes, ¨true, but it has been redefined as conserving privilege — class/gender/economic/race/etc. The only principles the Reichwing has left are worship of power and those who have it.¨

This is definitely true of much of the USA´s right wing. The shame is that conservatism is supposed to be about preserving traditional political and social arrangements that have worked for a particular society and culture rather than discarding them for speculative ideals, and this has some theoretical merit (though the theoretical drawback is what MikeEss describes and is what I agree has happened in the USA: clinging to traditional arrangements means one could end up trying to preserve hierarchies and inequality). But it is interesting that the ACLU for example describes itself as a truly conservative organization - i.e., by trying to preserve constitutional principles in the face of government officials trying to hoard more power for the state -  and that much of the opposition to Bush and his goons, hardly conservatives in the sense of constitutional principles, has emphasized how sad it is that our country is shedding traditional principles and how un-American is torture, how unconstitutional to strip minorities of rights, etc. I think a fair interpretation of conservatism and the Constitution allwos for vigorous minority rights while at the same limiting state power. How tragic that today´s conservatives do not want to conserve fundamental principles, but only the hierarchies that have shamefully been with us for far too long.

Also, the fatal flaw with conservatism seem to be theoretical and not that conservatives in practice could be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., since in a society without hierarchy conservatives would not really be at risk of trying to perpetuate hierarchy. The particular social and political arrangements that get chosen for any society would seem to me to be subject to either empirical scrutiny or deductive reasoning, and so then depending on whatever your chosen moral theory is, you could say some arrangements are better or worse. History and tradition would thus not trump anything, since an idea could come along that is better or worse, and since I am not a relativist, I would say better or worse for any social system. In my view that is what much of the Constitution was - good, new ideas - that are worth preserving for their moral merits and not their traditional status. On the other hand, one could argue that my view is undemocratic, so I just have to resort to the idea of a supermajority’s historical approval to defend, e.g., due process rights as democratic, even though I also happen to think they are good.