Explaining GOP Legislators' Lockstep Loyalty

"Tyranny is always better organised than freedom".--Charles Peguy

They are bought and paid for. How else to explain why they are risking their political careers in standing by a disgraced, failed president ?  I don't mean bought and paid for in the sense of outright bribes, but more in the promise of their being "taken care of" by the movement's moneyed machine. Digby explains:

If one assumes that we are dealing with a party and a political movement that operates as the constitution expected politicians to operate, this [loyalty to a broadly reviled president] would all be very odd. But they aren't. The modern Republican party has somehow managed to create movement loyalty that supersedes not only the national interest but their own political self-interest.

And that's probably where money comes in. In a system where people are aware that historical narratives are being written to spec and where they are rarely held accountable for past political misdeeds, there is little downside to putting party before country or even before your own public career. There is no such thing as disgrace, and if you lose an election, when you leave office you immediately become a well paid director or executive of various firms you used to regulate, a television commentator or "motivational speaker" and just wait a bit before becoming a high priced lobbyist. There are not only second acts in conservative politics, there are third and fourth acts, well paid and guaranteed.

This is true to some extent in the Democratic Party as well, but the conservative movement is a much more organic, full service organization that offers cradle to grave welfare for loyal soldiers at all levels (and a lonely wilderness for apostates.) They don't fear losing. As individuals, they stand to benefit handsomely from their association with the Business Party and no matter what happens they remain comfortably ensconced in the vast array of conservative organizations and affiliations that have been created over the past 30 years.

The conservative movement is built to last --- even when it suffers electorally, the individuals within it pay no price, and the movement itself is reinforced. They believe, with good reason, that they have a solid minority at least that will always vote for them and whose regional and political prejudices they will always represent well. They know they will win the presidency as often as not. They are very good at political campaigning and manipulating the media.

If you are not co-optable, the movement will reject you. It's classic machine politics. I suspect Huckabee is being "Gored" by the media and movement mouthpieces like Limbaugh because the machine perceives him as a loose cannon.  Many of his views overlap with the basic movement ideology (e.g., support for the war, attitudes toward gays, etc.), so it's obvious why Liberals can't stand him, but he's getting so much negative treatment from "his own" because he's a true believer from the religious wing of the party, and as true believer less easy to manipulate. He's the GOP version of Jimmy Carter, and as such the Beltway establishment's worst nightmare. Ron Paul, the other GOP loose cannon and true believer from the Libertarian wing of the party, would be getting blasted the same way if he was the threat to machine control that Huckabee appears to be right now.

Thompson would have been the perfect machine candidate, but his vacuousness and cynicism was simply too magnificent for even the most skilled machine propagandists to paper over.  The second choice would have been Giuliani, but his self-destruction has forced it to settle for Romney.  He's a loser, but better to lose an election than to lose control.

Relating this to my post yesterday about Obama's conciliatory approach, there is no reconciliation or reasoning with the machine--there is only resisting it.  The machine and its minions in the White House and congress have proven that they don't have to give an inch so long as they stay united.  Sure, they're in a defensive posture for now, but they haven't given up any of the ground they've won.  They have been very effective in using guerrilla tactics to harass and confuse the Dems, and it's only a matter of time until they regroup and go on the offensive again. Digby is quite right to say that the movement's machine is built to last, and the only thing that can defeat it in the long run is broad public repudiation of its agenda.   

Comments

[anon]

"If you are not co-optable, the movement will reject you. It's classic machine politics."

Can't we say the same thing about the Democrats? In order to appeal to the very powerful and influential players in the base and move toward the nomination, candidates must appeal to special interest group politics to an even greater degree than Republicans. Democrats must appeal to the abortion-rights advocates, gay-rights advocates, labor unions, and re-distributionists (and perhaps in the future, obese-rights advocates and ugle-people advocates). People like Obama and Edwards are the most heinous panderers to these interest groups.

Further, it seems as though you have a bit of a Hilary Clinton, 'vast right-wing conspiracy' thing going on with your post. Could it be that opinion leaders in the conservative movement simply reject the candidate's views on important policy matters? Shouldn't they therefore reject them because of such major disagreements? Isn't that a legitimate reason to oppose a nomination?

[anon]

"The second choice would have been Giuliani, but his self-destruction has forced it to settle for Romney."

Even if there is a 'general will' of movement conservatives (a bit Rousseauian?), it's hard to believe that they would ever whole-heartedly endorse Giuliani? Giuliani's promise to appoint Scalia-type strict constructionists (don't you love his recent Christmas ad promising so) notwithstanding, his failure to see abortion as the greatest injustice to natural law in the United States since that of slavery will never win the hearts of passionate conservatives. It's nice to see that Romney has ultimately seen the light--good Catholics can now find Romney the Mormon acceptable, but Giuliani the Catholic not.

[anon]

[Romney's] a loser.

How is that exactly? If you look at his record, he is by far the most accomplished individual of all the candidates. If Huckabee did not possess the best and most natural political skills than anybody I have ever seen (in addition to looking like Dick Nixon), Romney would be well on his way toward the nomination. Huckabee, it must be said, quite likely has better political skills than Reagan and Clinton. It was solely on the basis of his natural ability that he transformed himself from nothing into the presumptive winner of the Iowa Caucuses.

[anon]

To add further, Obama does have good rhetorical skills. However, notice that his skills shine only when he is talking about his favorite subject: himself. When he participates in the debates where he is required to focus on issues, he isn't nearly as impressive and looks quite weak at times. He mumbles, stumbles, and stutters often during these things. In fact, during his 2006 Senatorial run against Alan Keyes, Obama was lambasted by Keyes in the debates--Keyes (although a professional debater) ran circles around him.

Although I don't see myself as voting for Hilary Clinton, I can't help but feel some sympathy for her. She has this naive, unexperienced candidate, who hasn't really accomplished anything remotely significant beating her in Iowa and New Hampshire.

[Jack Whelan]

Anon--

"Can't we say the same thing about the Democrats?"

If you've read my blog for any time now, you know that I'm no partisan for the Democrats. My argument all along has been that they represent collaborationist, venal careerist politics at its spineless worst, but pose far less of a threat than does the GOP. The GOP power core represents a concerted agenda to destroy the institutional underpinnings for the rule of law and to return the country to the Robber Baron era. I think the evidence is overwhelming to support such a view for anybody whose primary news sources are other than FOX or Rush.

"vast right-wing conspiracy"

You don't need a conspiracy; just a well-funded political machine with an agenda. The machine comprises the intra-beltway collaboration of the key players in the conservative think tanks, the K-Street lobbies, the corporate media, and leaders within the GOP. There is a clearly defined culture with an easy-to-discern groupthink. All this is pretty well understood, and I don't have to prove it. The Democrats are disorganized and have no coherent agenda, and the wealth and power of the interest groups you point to that support Dems pale in comparison to that wielded by the GOP-leaning interest groups in pharmaceuticals, energy, and defense industries.

You can't possibly believe there's equivalence between corporate interests assembled in the K-street project and the hodge-podge of cultural interest groups that lean Democratic?

Nothing is more important than doing whatever it takes to reverse this GOP-driven trend (with plenty of support from "moderate" DLC type Dems) toward a crony capitalist system, except maybe the restoration of habeas corpus, the repudiation of torture and the doctrine of preemptive war, the rejection of the unitary executive doctrine, the de-politicization of the Justice Dept., the restoration of vigorous congressional oversight, and on the list goes. The Dems have been pathetic in their tepid resistance to these developments, but at least there's been some. There's no resistance from the GOP. One has to be suffering from the worst kind of denial or cognitive dissonance not to be able to see the threat posed by the Republican machine. I covered all this in my Moderate Complacency post 12/17. Comment further there if you want.

"[Romney's] a loser."

My meaning is clear: Romney will likely win the nomination, but lose in the general. He's a loser against all the major Dem candidates. He's even worse than Kerry when it comes to pandering and flip-flopping. He's a completely, utterly empty suit that offers nothing to a country sick of of the disgraceful GOP mentality that wants to double the size or Guantanamo or that is capable of only the lizard-brain thinking for which survival is the only value. Someone who thinks survival is the only value is capable of any barbarity in the name of self-defense, even if it's slightest threat. This kind of nihilism parading as patriotism is an un-American as it gets: Remember "give me liberty or give me death." Guys like Romney assume that everyone will gladly give up their liberties to authoritarians like him because they are cowering children who need a big daddy. Maybe I'm naive here, but I think most Americans are better than that. The man is repugnant in every way that matters. Only Giuliani is worse.

Regarding Obama's experience.

If people cared about experience Gore would have annihilated Bush in 2000 and Bill Richardson followed by Biden and Doddd would be leading the Dem field. Obama's experience deficit compared to Clinton's is negligible. Neither has proved anything. It's just something to talk about, but it's secondary to what motivates people's choices.

[anon]

"You can't possibly believe there's equivalence between corporate interests assembled in the K-street project and the hodge-podge of cultural interest groups that lean Democratic?"

If by 'equivalence' you mean the power to enact legislation in their favor, then perhaps you have a point. But isn't that the whole point of a democracy? One side wins and the other loses.

But on to a more deeper point. When you speak of "corporate interests" and "crony capitalism," you don't seem to see that the reason pharmaceutical, energy, and other interest groups lobby the government is because they know that their efforts can lead to government favors. What true free-market advocates believe is that until government stays neutral with regard to tariffs, subsidies, and other matters affecting commerce, crony capitalists will continue to seek government favors and on the corruption goes. Get rid of government favors and harmful interest groups will slowly vanish from Washington--this goes for all those interest groups on the left as well.

"Someone who thinks survival is the only value is capable of any barbarity in the name of self-defense, even if it's slightest threat. This kind of nihilism parading as patriotism is an un-American as it gets"

First off, if one believes that living (through survival, of course) is the only value, then clearly that person cannot be nihilistic by definition--if nihilism is for one to be bereft of all values. For even the great Lincoln had to suspend habeas corpus in order to save the Union; in order to allow it to 'survive.' Circumstances dictate prudence in any situation, and with 9/11 and this threat from radical Islamists, prudence dictates that we adjust to the situation.

Moreover, Romney stands for more than national defense, he also stands for economic and family values. He's for the free-market principles that have allowed this country to grow into the most wealthy and prosperous country in the history of the world. He's also for maintaining strong families, and most importantly, he's against abortion, the greatest offense of natural law since slavery. Nihilist, I think not.

Finally, Obama hasn't had experience running any kind of sustained organization--I think Hilary is right, running for president is no qualification for being president. When some of the worst mistakes made by the Bush administration have been because of incompetence (Katrina, Iraq, Justice Dept, etc.), it's crucial to have a executive who has the experience and skills to run an organization like the executive branch well. In this regard, Hilary has had first-hand experience with seeing and knowing how her husband's executive branch was run, and I think that is an advantage. The challenges and hardships the new president will face requires that he or she be ready to manage well from the get go, especially when at any time and in place, Islamic terrorists can attack and devastate America (what were to happen if they detonated a nuclear bomb in Puget Sound?).

[Jack Whelan]

Anon--

"One side wins and the other loses."

It's possible for a democracy to vote in its own destruction. The Nazis, after all, were democratically elected in 1933. And there are lots of other examples of democracies morphing into tyrannies. The founding fathers were acutely aware of how fragile democracy is and how easily it could be lost. Contemporary Americans are far too complacent about the permanence of democracy in America, and as a result they lack the vigilance to be aware of and to prevent the subtle ways that its infrastructure is being slowly eroded. That's at the heart of my concern--that the the GOP machine, with too much Dem collaboration and complicity, is turning us into a crony capitalist quasi-authoritarian oligarchy. So if the GOP keeps winning elections, we deserve what we get, but it will be a tragedy nonetheless.

"What true free-market advocates believe is that until government stays neutral with regard to tariffs, subsidies, and other matters affecting commerce, crony capitalists will continue to seek government favors and on the corruption goes."

In my fantasy of ideal reality we'd all live in a Jeffersonian Hobbiton where everyone was a self-reliant, prosperous small businessman, professional, or artisan. No business would get too big, none would puts its own interests above the common good. Everyone would have a reverent respect for the environment. If anyone broke this social contract, he would be shamed and shunned, and there would be no need for legislation to keep him in line.

But that's not the world we live in. If there is no government big enough and powerful enough to regulate and tax and play the referee in labor disputes, how do you think it's possible that we will not revert to the law of the jungle in the economic sphere? Do you really want to return to the economic warlordism of the Robber Baron era? Isn't it obvious that in an unrestricted free market the winners arrogate more wealth and more power, destroy their competition, and dictate their own terms with labor, and act with impunity to destroy the environment? Who's to hold them accountable? This idea of laissez-faire is a ridiculous bit of 19th century economic dogma as there is. We've been there, done that. It works to make the powerful more powerful, but it doesn't work for the rest of us. The government is the only tool the rest of us have to protect us from the predation of huge private sector actors who care about nothing but their own self-interest.

The problem is not big government, but a docile electorate that buys into the Social Darwinist rationale of free markets. The problem lies in this electorate's complacency in failing to pay attention or to hold its elected representatives accountable when it does not represent its interests and and when it is complacent about allowing the already wealthy and powerful to aggregate more wealth and power while it allows itself to be distracted by bread and circuses.

About Romney: It's not what he says; it's what he is--a cipher, an empty man whose interior vacuity is encased by political cliches that change as the constituencies he woos do. That's my definition of a nihilist.

Survival, by the way, is not a value; it's an instinct. Anybody who equates values or virtue with instinct is an animal. Nihilism is the philosophy that looks at humans as no more than highly intelligent animals with no transcendent purposes except to fulfill their instinctual lives.

Agree with them or no, neither Paul nor Huckabee are ciphers. There's a there, there with both of them, unlike the other soulless zombies. I'm surprised you're not a Ron Paul supporter. I agree with him on the civil liberties, the threat to the constitution and rule of law, and abortion; you agree with him on laissez faire and abortion. Is it Paul's stand on the constitution and civil liberties that gives you pause? Maybe--after all you seem to be buying Romney's pitch to vote for him as the Big Daddy who will take away your freedom, but keep you snug and safe.

The worst mistakes of the Bush administration were not due to inexperience but to cronyism. The negligence and incompetence that followed from the ridiculously venal criteria he used to make appointments was completely predictable. Go down the list from Alberto on. It's a disgrace. Since these GOP ideologues hate government so much, they have no interest in making it work the way it can and ought to. NOLA and Walter Reed are Bush/GOP disgraces, not government disgraces.

I will not support Hillary in the Washington State caucuses, but I will vote for her in the general if she's the nominee. Experience is a factor, but it's not the defining issue that distinguishes her. Hillary, while not quite the abject political zombie Romney, Giuliani, and some of the other GOP candidates are, is zombie-ish or Kerry-ish, which is the same thing. She would not be as bad as any of the GOP alternatives, with the possible exception of Ron Paul, but she would not be good. Her complicity in the current middle east fiasco and her status as a member in good standing of the DLC are more important to me than whatever she learned as first lady. She's still proven nothing.

If by some miracle Paul is the GOP candidate, I might think twice about voting for Hillary, I'm not crazy about Obama for many of the reasons that you state, but I think that at this juncture in our history, he might provide a needed tonic. He can't be worse than what we have now, and he might be something quite a lot better. I might change my mind about that, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

[anon]

"I agree with [Paul] on the the threat to the constitution and rule of law."

Paul reminds of that Tammy character from that Mathew Broderick movie "Election." She was the brash outspoken candidate in her high-school election who would say what was on her mind and what she probably believed and thus appealed to the rebellious-types among the student body. From listening to Paul over the last couple of weeks, what he says is radical, he is undoubtedly genuine about what he says, and he appeals to many of the anti-authority rebellious-types who hate being told what to do and like to see the overthrow of the status quo just for the sake of it (libertarians fit this category).

Yet when you get right down to it and consider the practical consequences and implications of what his views entails, it is scary. If I remember correctly, he has said that we should abolish the CIA (or perhaps it was the FBI, or both?), Dept. of Education (financial aid anyone?), and IRS (perhaps a good idea in the long run, but the guy seems to take seriously the idea that you can abolish it in the next four years, and I haven't heard any reasonable alternative proposed). He still claims that the civil rights acts passed over the years should never have been enacted, and he criticizes Abraham Lincoln for starting the civil war; yet was it not the South that seceded from the Union and initiated the attack on Fort Sumpter (weren't they the traitors to the Union?). One gets the impression that he would have allowed legal segregation to continue on in this country because, after all, it would violate states' rights to interfere. Moreover, if he were consistent with his political philosophy, he would have considered the Social Security Act unconstitutional, and this matters today because he would quite likely harbor tendencies to undermine it gradually over time.

However, in the end there comes a point when assessing the candidates that you have to ask yourself, can I envision this person as our president and do I feel comfortable with him or her in that office? Paul is sometimes interesting to listen to and appeals to people's inner rebelliousness, but especially in light of former PM Bhutto's assassination, the country needs a grown-up in charge.

[anon]

"Survival, by the way, is not a value; it's an instinct. Anybody who equates values or virtue with instinct is an animal. Nihilism is the philosophy that looks at humans as no more than highly intelligent animals with no transcendent purposes except to fulfill their instinctual lives."

This is very insightful. Yet I think we can slice the word 'instinct' up and thus make distinctions among different types of 'instinct' (as Aristotle would say, 'instinct' is a homonymous word). I agree with you that survival is an animal instinct. But if by instinct, you mean to have a natural disposition or inclination, then can't we say that pursuit of love, beauty, and virtue are instincts as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was it not Aristotle who claimed that humans have a natural urging to be virtuous and to seek truth. And don't we all have the natural disposition for loving others? We want to be loved and we want to love others in return.

I think we would both agree that nihilists, then, relegate their values to the instincts common to lower animals, incapable of rational thought and deliberation. For we wouldn't want to say that those in pursuit of love, beauty, and truth are nihilists, do we?

In any case, I do believe that Romney has a conception of the 'good society' that embodies the family, economic, and security values characteristic of conservatism. If you're going to criticize candidate's for being nihilistic, I have a difficult time understanding on what basis you separate Romney's conception of a good society from a Lincoln's. If you try to appeal to 'transcendent purposes,' then I assume you appeal to some kind of Platonic conception of goodness, broadly conceived. Looking at Lincoln, he gradually came to have a conception of a good society based on a set of core natural rights, but can't you say the same as Romney? Unless you have special access to his mind, I think Romney sincerely believes in the equal dignity and worth of all people (the most radical idea of Christianity and Modernity), and that individuals have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. If believing in those propositions means you believe in transcendent purposes, then how can Romney be considered a nihilist?

Lastly, if you think that it is almost vacuously true for Americans to believe in those propositions stated above, then you would be seriously mistaken. See Harvey Mansfield. Although his writing is sometimes difficult to fully comprehend, I'm fairly certain that he truly is a nihilist who was persuaded by Nietzche, and consequently doesn't believe in ultimate, transcendent truths. He agrees with Thrasymachus when he says that justice is the will of the stronger. He claims that natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are 'half-truths,' presumably meaning that they have no ultimate philosophical basis but are necessary for the Americans to continue to believe in order for the country and culture to remain stable and to avoid degenerating into chaos and disorder.

[Jack Whelan]

I think that Romney is a Thrasymachus in sheep's clothing. As I said, it's not what he says' but what he is. It's a question for me of character discernment. The editorial in the Concord Monitor makes my case: http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071222/OPINION/712230301

I think the test of a virtue is that it is not reactive, and can in some circumstances be counter-instinctual. So fear for one's life in a dangerous situation is instinctive and natural, courage is the virtue that masters the instinct and does what conscience dictates.

The love of justice, to take another example, is not instinctual in the animalistic sense. It requires an ability to cognize a transcendent ideal, and that's the point Socrates is trying to make in the Republic. One needs a bit of gold in one's soul in order to cognize the ideal. I believe that gold is there in every human being, but for most of us it's buried and needs to be dug out.

So I would say regarding Aristotle that managing desire is the key to his ethics. It's all a question of what ends a person desires. The spectrum of ends for humans is broader than for animals and embraces in addition to the natural or ferrous desires of the body, the golden desires of the spirit for transcendence. And so the human who only desires what the animal desires, which is natural and appropriate for the animal, is a stunted human being, someone who fails to eudaimonistically realize his fullness.

"Wherever your treasure lies, there your heart will be". says St. John in his gospel. If your deepest desire is ambition for power, then you become a certain kind of person. You are no better than the bull or buck fighting it out with another buck to be leader of the herd. If your deepest desire is for God, or for justice and truth, then you can become another kind of person. It's true also for nations. What do you think American foreign policy is dictated by more--the love of power or the love of justice? More often than not nations use the language of justice to disguise the truer motive, which is powerlust or greed. What Socrates said about the origin of war in the Republic is perfectly applicable to our involvement in the Middle East

In my opinion, Romney is more in the first category, no matter what he says. His words are scraps of paper swirling in the wind. They are used as a smokescreen to cover his baser objectives. Underneath all the pandering, he's a militarist with a cast-iron soul. The Republican con all along has been to tell decent Americans what they want to hear when it comes to traditional and family values, and then when they get into power ransack the constitution and line the pockets of their cronies. Support for the war is nothing more than support for the defense and energy industries coupled with neocon fantasies of U.S. global hegemony. Every thing else is window dressing. Romney is just the most recent edition of this kind of con.

I've written a lot about the country's drift toward authoritarianism, but if you think I'm alarmist, please respond to what I wrote on this post: http://afterthefuture.typepad.com/afterthefuture/2007/05/authoritarian_w.html