American Political coalitions, forward from 2012

Douthat vs Krugman on our two major political coalitions

Ross Douthat is a terribly interesting writer--highly intelligent, intellectually honest, willing to be an outcast from his beloved Conservative movement for the sake of speaking what he believes to be the truth about reality and government policy.

A bit of an old school (and religious) traditionalist, when asking himself how the party needs to change, he tends to suggest that the right's economic ideology needs to move back toward the center and come up with new ideas to provide solutions for regular people, for the challenges of the present day, which he does not believe the movement has really quite done since the Reagan-era.***  Douthat also has many interesting, reality-based things to say about Liberalism, sometimes insights into its flaws that modern white sixth-party coalition Obama liberals may be unlikely to see after their historic electoral victory in 2012 (which was, as some have noted, in part an affirmation of the Democratic vision as opposed to the GOP's, rather than just a rejection of and gesture of dissatisfaction at the latter, as one could interpret 2008 as having been, if you were so inclined).

Here are some links to some cogent and important articles of his since the election, including one interlocution their intersections with Paul Krugman's blog, which adds to Douthat's insights and notes its deficiencies, as well:

Douthat's column from November 17th, around the height of American Liberal self-satisfaction:
The Liberal Gloat
"Maybe it’s too soon to pierce this cloud of postelection smugness. But in the spirit of friendly correction — or, O.K., maybe curmudgeonly annoyance — let me point out some slightly more unpleasant truths about the future that liberalism seems to be winning.

Liberals look at the Obama majority and see a coalition bound together by enlightened values — reason rather than superstition, tolerance rather than bigotry, equality rather than hierarchy. But it’s just as easy to see a coalition created by social disintegration and unified by economic fear."

Krugman's response, which says, in part, that the Obama coalition is indeed motivated by economic insecurity, but that this is a feature of our post-post-war age, and they are right to vote on those grounds to preserve a welfare state they need more than ever. Where he differs from Douthat is in (not) seeing in 21st century social changes a sort of social disintegration that must be fought to preserve a traditional America.
The insecurity election
"Ross Douthat’s column today...makes a very good point...that the winning Obama coalition did not...consist of forward-looking, NPR-listening, culturally adventurous liberals; ...the big numbers came from groups “unified by economic fear”. Indeed: single women, Hispanics, and, as always, African-Americans are for a stronger welfare state because people like them need the security such a welfare state can provide.

Where I would part ways with Ross is in his suggestions that (a) rising insecurity reflects “social disintegration” and that (b) turning to the welfare state is a dead end.

The truth is that while single women and members of minority groups are more insecure at any given point of time than married whites, insecurity is on the rise for everyone, driven by changes in the economy. Our industrial structure is probably less stable than it was — you can’t count on today’s big corporations to survive...over the course of a working lifetime. And the traditional accoutrements of a good job — a defined-benefit pension plan, a good health-care plan — have been going away across the board.

...Your church and your traditional marriage won’t guarantee the value of your 401(k), or make insurance affordable on the individual market.
...Now, none of this will bring back traditional mores — but that’s really a different issue."

Douthat also has this rather optimistic (all things considered) take on the future 'retrenchment' that may remake the GOP into something more useful to society than it presently is. He argues, basically, that Jim DeMint's exit from the senate may mark a shift in the GOP from the radical ideological retrenchment DeMint represented (and which Douthat argues was necessary to purge the contradictions, cynicism and overspending of Bush II / Delay-era Conservativism {both of which states of being actually extends, in important respects, at least back to the GOP's ideological rebellion against the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990 and its horrible 3% increase in taxes on the uppermost income of the rich and near-rich during a time of budgetary crisis and cuts--the same bill, a deficit reduction package, was composed of 61% in spending cuts--history he doesn't quite acknowledge} ), toward a new era in which GOP ideology will be less rigid and will conform to meet the challenges of the times. Douthat does more or less admits that in the prime example he gives to show the coming changes--Marco Rubio's post-election speech--all that changed was the tone, and not the content of policies, but for the moment I'd like to hope with him for a future party that's a useful and reasonably honest partner in governance.
The Years of DeMint (and the Tea Party)

I think some skepticism is in order, considering the more or less continuous rightward movement of the GOP since 1978, but perhaps if Douthat is wrong about now, another defeat in 2016* will finally push them toward genuine reform.

*Not that I'm assuming this will be the way of things.

Update:

Krugman's blog of November 20th is too good a response not to post as a response to Douthat's column on DeMint and the party's future:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/the-new-republicans/
"Second, today’s Republican party is an alliance between the plutocrats and the preachers, plus some opportunists along for the ride — full stop. The whole party is about low taxes at the top (and low benefits for the rest), plus conservative social values and putting religion in the schools; it has no other reason for being. Someday there may emerge another party with the same name standing for a quite different agenda; after all, the Republicans were once defined by opposition to slavery.... But that will take a long time, and it won’t really be the same party."

Read the rest: the 'first' point is at least as important as the 'Second' I quoted above, and in this brief post he makes very incisive observations about contemporary punditry on the 'moderate' right.
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(***For what it's worth, economic data suggests Douthat gives Reagan far too much credit for success on economic data in the '80s--those were solved for him by Paul Volcker's short-term cruelty and the disappearance of oil shocks, and there's little evidence to show that conservative economic policies did a damned thing to help (though it did help create our looming debt and deficit today, limiting our options for dealing with this liquidity crisis-induced recession--but really that's mostly Bush II and the modern congressional GOP's fault); the first thing that happened after Reagan's signature policy achievement, the 1981 tax cut, was the biggest recession for twenty-five years or more on either side, which only went away after Reagan agreed to claw back a third of the revenue the next year--though both those policy changes and their economic results are examples of correlation without causation. My point is, the tax cuts and deregulation didn't help, either (unless you count large deficits at the peak of the budget cycle and a 400 billion dollar Savings and Loan bailout to be 'helping'). Like I said before, the reason for those economic instabilities was mostly oil shocks and high interest rates. Reagan suffered politically for them in 82, which wasn't really fair, but also gained immensely when the oil shocks and 13% interest rates finally went away in the second half of 1983 (and for the next twenty or so thereafter, though we've had some high oil prices again recently) ), and some measure of stability returned)