Santelli, Beck and the silent majority
Ross Douthat mediates the Continetti/Goldberg debate, writing of Goldberg’s critique:
This critique seems much too literal-minded. Yes, there isn’t actually a self-identified Santellian faction of the Tea Party, or a self-identified Beck wing. And yes, no binary will ever capture all the nuances of a diverse and motley movement. But the point of Continetti’s “literary” analysis was to identify tendencies, not factions — and tendencies can co-exist not only in the same movement, but often in the same people, without being formally acknowledged as competing ideologies. (There’s probably a little Beck and a little Santelli in every conservative heart …)
Moreover, once you start applying the frame to real-world figures, it’s pretty easy to see what Continetti’s talking about. Nikki Haley and Scott Brown are both Santellians, for instance (even though Haley is more right-wing than Brown), because they’re forward-looking and positive rather than conspiratorial and apocalyptic. Rick “Gather Your Armies” Barber, on the other hand, is a Beckian. So is Michelle Bachmann, at least when she’s fretting about Barack Obama’s sinister plans to create a “global economy.” When Tea Party darling Marco Rubio talks about the need to reform Social Security, he’s being Santellian. When Tea Party darling Sharron Angle talks about how Social Security and Medicare “can’t be fixed,” that’s Beckian. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap is Santellian. Rand Paul’s critique of the Civil Rights Act is Beckian. And so on and so forth.
I think this is exactly right. Obviously the divide is too simplistic and too dualistic to be of much practical use, but in terms of thinking about tendencies on the right and within the Tea Parties, the two-faces device works fairly well. It’s certainly a tiny bit more specific and useful than ‘moderate’ vs. ‘hard-liner’ or ‘true conservative’ vs. ‘RINO’ or what have you.
I think in the long run you’ll see a more sober – and yes, more moderate and realistic – GOP emerge. The Beckian style of conservatism is too wild-eyed to be sustainable. People will eventually lose interest. I know plenty of people who are fairly conservative, very mainstream in any case, who hear Beck on the radio or catch a bit of his Fox show and are immediately turned off. These are reliable Republican voters who want free markets, low taxes, and minimal government intervention, but who can’t stand the tone or the message from right-wing pundits.
This is the ‘silent majority’ you hear so much about. They’re not the angry, antagonistic minority.
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Erik:
No. It isn’t. Right-wingers of all stripes have deluded themselves with this “silent majority” bullshit for forty years now. On the one hand, it’s not silent. I mean, what the fuck? You cite a loudmouth Santelli who has a national media platform as a “silent” type?
And they’re not a majority, either.
No. I said the people who are turned off by Beck but still generally conservative (though generally not terribly political either) are the ’silent majority.’
In response to another comment. See in context »P.S. There are plenty of reliable Democratic voters who are not activist-progressive types who might vote for a sensible Republican candidate if the pick on their side was not so great, but who are entirely alienated by the loud and angry and not-so-silent wing of the conservative movement. These are part of the ’silent majority’ too. I would define that majority not as conservative or liberal but as broadly non-ideological and apolitical. This might lean them toward conservative if only because people generally fear change. That does not mean they are conservative in the way many conservatives wish they were. That make sense?
In response to another comment. See in context »I have trouble differentiating Santelli and Beck. Both are narcissistic blowhards who have made it to the top of their respective small mountains. They roll rocks down the hill for entertainment and to keep the population down up top. They both are experts of self-promotion via a vaguely disguised message of racism and blame. I can see where this is unsustainable institutionally, but Fat Rush is still squeaking over in the corner.
As the most recent recipient of the “I Just Got My Ass Kicked By Somebody” award, Dave Weigel, might say, watch the ratfuckers.
I just think we all spend too much time worrying about the loudmouths, myself.
In response to another comment. See in context »A point well made. I suppose this idea could be expanded to explain some of the progressive inaction and mis-action. No good policy can result from obsessing with the extreme propaganda from either camp. Your post today concerning ideology vs. ideas advances the discussion.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Kain,
You wrote:”I think in the long run you’ll see a more sober – and yes, more moderate and realistic – GOP emerge.” I do not believe that this is true. You are certainly correct that there are plenty of reasonable and reasoned Republicans out but whether they are the majority or not is irrelevant because they are irrelevant to the direction of the Republican Party. The Republican Party has been on a relentless rightward trajectory since 1964. The logic of this trajectory was the bringing together of southern racist conservatives of the Democratic Party and northern business conservatives in the north and west. These two groups have violently opposed to each other for over a century, well before the Civil War. Bringing them together was no easy task. However the efforts of Berry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush were successful.
A five part core program was developed, deregulation of business, granting cultural hegemony to the religious right, and crippling of government on every level through massive debt and deficits. To win popular support among ordinary white Americans, tax cuts and a vigorous defense of racism and national chauvinism were part of the program. This last element was key as it would rob the Democratic Party of its traditional base in the rural South (the “Yellow Dog” Democrats).
The program has been extremely successful, it gave Conservatism in general and the Republican Party in particular political, cultural, and ideological hegemony in the United States for forty years. As the party embraced this program more and more, it became more and more successful, culminating in the second Bush Administration. It has lead the Republican Party to have for six years control of the White House, both houses of Congress, and dominance of the SCOTUS. It also gave the most conservative wing the Republican Party all of the initiative and control of the party. The moderate Republicans and most Democrats were cowed and impotent. However it also created a fantastic level of arrogance, conservative Republicans believed that they could achieve complete and irreversible control of society.
The Republican Party is completely and irreversibly the party of Big Business, racism, immigrant bashing, and big government (“borrow and spend”). However there is now a problem, Big Business unchained from government regulation has created economic and environmental catastrophe. The “borrow and spend” economic strategy has now lead to government cutting vital services which in times of economic upturn were barely maintained. People have discovered that “government waste” is “government programs you now desperately need”. Finally, the core voters of the Republican Party, the mostly white, rural, Christian voters, are becoming and smaller and smaller voting block while non-white, urban, “other” voters are growing.
The currently levels of hysteria and insanity of the Glen Becks and Tea Partiers are simply the shock and disbelief of the Republican core that their world is crumbing around them. They cannot imagine that the Democratic Party could possibly have won any elections, much less two elections in a row. It must be a trick. If they huff and puff loud enough and long enough, they believe that they can bully everyone into acknowledging that Mr. Obama and the Democrats must have gotten in to power by illegal means. It is the only possible explanation and they won’t hear of anything else. It is disbelief and denial on a massive scale.
The Republican Party’s secret formula for success for forty years is now its doom. With no “loyal opposition” within the Party, there is no one to step forward with an alternative. Indeed, what would that be? Any alternative program would just be what the Democratic Party is doing right now. There is no way to get back from, or forward to, where they are now to the US is heading.
Someday, not necessarily someday soon…that’s what I meant. Certainly not in the next few years.
In response to another comment. See in context »The GOP has lost its way. It is wandering aimlessly through a forest of many conservative and conservative-like coalitions. This is exactly the disarray the Democrat Party found itself in eight years ago.
However, the coalitions the Democrat Party have built are largely the result of Bush Derangement Syndrome. They are only loosely aligned and it is fraying. The Dems are getting pulled in several directions at once, and they’re not going to be able to satisfy everyone. Likewise, the GOP wasn’t able to satisfy everyone under its tent because there were too many ideologues pulling it in too many directions. What happened to the GOP will happen very shortly to the Democrat party.
What both parties need is a return to core philosophies. Gun control, Abortion, Immigration, and National Security are orthogonal issues that do not align well with either party. The key issues that should matter to both are fundamental ways of addressing each of these issues with a philosophy that the party can stand behind: The ultimate goal should be to present alternatives to the citizens of the United States: Should we move to the Right or to the Left to address these concerns? Moving to the Right is not necessarily conservative, nor is moving to the Left liberal. This is not about liberalism or conservatism.
THAT’S what I expect from our parties. But that’s not where either of these parties are. Instead they’re busy making political hay at someone else’s expense. There is no shame in either party, though they both have much to be ashamed of.
And finally, when they demonize each other’s party, it’s a sign they do not have a good negotiating point. They’re not looking for answers.
I expect better of my officials, even if I didn’t elect them.
Very well put, Jake.
In response to another comment. See in context »