GOP 2.0: The Huckabees & The Jindals (DailyKos)

[Battlehymn Republic]

Yet another look at a possible future for the GOP

GOP 2.0: The Huckabees & The Jindals
by lobbygow
Thu Nov 06, 2008 at 10:42:14 AM PST

Ever since the Know-Nothings joined the Republican party in the late 19th century, the GOP's DNA has been comprised of the following strains:

* Anti-intellectual Nativists
* Robber Baron Capitalists
* Cultural Traditionalists
* Empire Expanders


Of course, there are some partisan Republicans who don't fit neatly into those categories, and there are many people who occasionally vote Republican for topical reasons. Also, it should be clear that may Republicans might belong to more than one category. However, I believe those four categories represent the primary pillars of the GOP worldview - a worldview that, by definition, is suspicious of change.

While the strains listed above characterize world-view, there is another important grouping that divides Republicans based on self interest: power brokers and useful idiots. The power brokers obviously align well to the "Robber Baron" and "Empire Expander" camps. They are interested in preserving their status as the top predators in the economic food chain while expanding overall economic opportunity for their caste through territorial conquest (although this is always couched in terms of "promoting Democracy"). These power brokers are served by useful idiots which we might as well dub the "Know-Nothings" because its traditional and just so damned accurate. To quote Paul Krugman:

[K]now-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: "Real men don’t think things through." (source Wikipedia)

The power brokers could easily use these idiots because maintaining the status quo could be defended with simplistic appeals and expanding the empire is similarly simplistic and manly sounding. Some have argued that the focus on external "threats" from scary foreigners is the main thing keeping the Know-Nothings in line. That certainly contributes, but the main thing is the fear of social evolution at home. Social evolution is too risky because the affect on the power structure is unclear. I may be a shit eating peasant in the current structure, but God forbid I end up in an even worse spot!

So where is the GOP in 2008?

The Know-Nothings have taken over the party. What started with the Southern Strategy has ended with the Palinistas.

How does the GOP avoid extinction?

If Palin becomes the new face of the party (which I highly doubt), then we can be assured the GOP will be in the wilderness for several election cycles. The idea that "American=White Christian" is permanently kaput for demographic reasons. There will never again be a WASP majority in this country no matter how loudly the Know-Nothings angrily shout from their soap boxes. If Palin takes over, the GOP is dead, and I'm not sure what will eventually rise in its place.

However, I think any belief in this scenario is wishful thinking. A far more likely scenario is a cordial alliance of two tribes that I will call the Huckabees and the Jindals. Here are the defining traits:

The Huckabees: A group of "values voters" that are concerned about America losing its moral compass. However, they will eschew intolerance as antithetical to their principals. Traditional wedge issues will be softened by broadening their scope and appeal through redefining key terms. For example, "pro-life" will no longer refer to a simple opposition to a woman's right to choose an abortion, instead it will focus just as much on the quality of life as the quantity of life. To paraphrase an oft used line from Huckabee on the campaign trail "If we care more about unborn children than we do about children living in poverty or without healthcare or educational opportunity, then we have failed." I could also conceivably see a softening on same sex marriages as long as the term "marriage" was forever reserved for heterosexuals. This tribe will be for more populist on economic issues than the traditional GOP. Social programs will not automatically be seen as an evil. This tribe could appeal very much to religious Latinos, a group that is still very much up for grabs.

The Jindals: The Jindals are the more pragmatic offspring of the free market/ small government/anti-regulation conservatives typified by Grover Norquist. They will not talk about eliminating government, but rather about "right sizing" or even "smart sizing." They will advocate "smart regulation" over "no regulation." They will still be unapologetic supply siders in the macro sense, but they won't balk at the idea of progressive taxation or a little help for main street now and then.

What does this mean for Democrats?

I'm not really sure.

Personally, I think the Huckabees are the bigger short term threat, but I'm more concerned about the Jindals in the long run. I am a small government libertarianish Democrat, so I know how appealing and practical the supply side model of reality can be -- unfortunately, it does not bear up to scrutiny. The whole idea of unlimited economic growth is so fundamentally flawed that I want it to be repudiated forever. We can't afford for the entire globe to engage in 20th century American style capitalism. Capitalism needs to evolve as well, and this won't happen as long as there are still credible politicians and pundits out there who still believe in free market fairies or the wizards of Wall Street.

Eh, just some mental flatus for a lazy afternoon.

Are the powers that be in the GOP not dumb enough to avoid extinction?

[Solauren]

Yes and No.

The powers that be in the GOP, at least the know-nothings, will go extinct. This will let the other people take over, and thereby avert the total extinction of the party.

In some ways, we are looking at a potiental 'apocalpyse' event for the GOP, with the survivors rebuilding afterwards.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Oh, and other question for the thread: do you think the Huckabees or the Jindals, or what other camp, will take over the Republican coalition? Remember if we're supposing that the party survives they will have to be moderate enough to appeal to enough people to remain viable.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd rather have the Huckabees than the Jindals, since at least Huckabee seems less economically conservative and more willing to help the poor. I also remember him as being less gung-ho on the death penalty during the primaries. And even on the religious issues, I don't think Huckabee's as far right as Jindal.

However, I'd ultimately prefer that the religious right was completely marginalized. That probably won't happen though, until the older generation dies out.

[CarsonPalmer]

Their historical chain is all wrong. The Know-Nothings didn't join the party in the late 19th century; they were gone by that point. Similar to many conservatives who seek to blame everything bad on the Democrats, they associate the Republicans of today with Teddy Roosevelt's Republicans.

The party structure was different in the early 1900's, and this needs to be taken into account. Remember, it was the Republicans who were progressives and the Democrats conservative (in some ways) prior to Wilson.

[Medic]

This "GOP-is done and gone" tract desperately needs a Devil's Advocate... *sigh* and I really don't wanna do it but...

To quote Sean Hannity (I stay "in touch" with if not "in step" with Conservative media, for a reason) 57 million Americans voted against Obama, or to be more precise, for McCain. To many of them he was the "lesser" of two evils and those same people I know claim Bush was probably the most "liberal" Republican to serve in a longtime. Disclaimer: I'm not obviously talking about the most sophisticated people in the world, but these are two complementary tracts in the right-wing as.

I will put money on Bush being the worst POTUS ever, when all is said and done and historians have their piece, but for our own time, I believe that this election went to Obama for a handful of reasons which doesn't disqualify the GOP as a party for a generation --

1) 1st black candidate / a better candidate -- inasmuch as he claims to be "post-partisan" is nice to hear, but his voters clearly weren't; the %95 black vote in his favor speaks to this. This phenomenon may repeat for future black candidates, but they still have to be good candidates. Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton running every year clearly weren't. Having any voting block in-pocket like this seems to me to be a one-of. Ditto on the economy, I happen to believe Obama will do a better job than McCain, but in a purely political gamesmanship sense, McCain maneuvered himself terribly here, claiming the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

2) Repudiation of Bush / Republicans, as is (or "party in charge when the economy went to shit") -- I still balk at the 2004 election results and hold in the highest contempt the self-described "values voters" that propelled Bush 43 into a 2nd term. I can also pinpoint the date of "Buyer's Remorse" however, for this demographic, and the broader demographic of swing votes that put Bush in office in 04: Katrina. Iraq... dragging it's feet, extra-Constitutional bullfuckery, cronyism and all the other various things that just couldn't get quite the traction needed to upseat him finally did, or at least, added fuel to the fire. I think Katrina just struck at America's heart and soul. Combined with various Republican scandals like Tom Delay and Mike Foley, we got a preview of this election in 2006. 2 more years of horrible approval ratings for Congress and Bush, combined with the economy and McCain's previously-described woeful handling of it meant 2008 was 2006, writ large.

3) McCain's selection as Messenger / Palin's blatant unpreparedness to step-in -- he broke with Conservatives on tax cuts and other issues at various times. It's true that the Republicans had, essentially, a weak field in 2008 but that speaks to what? A failure in their Messenger, not their Message, at least with respect to their base. Bush was a tax-cutting, born-again, cowboy in the white house you could have a beer with. He appealed to the values voters, the imperialists, the free market worshipers and finally, and most fittingly, the anti-intellectual. I happen to agree with that list and note that McCain does NOT represent all of those threads. Palin's selection was explicit in it's aim to round out the campaign touching all GOP-base corners, but she presented problems all her own, which is a convenience we shouldn't rely on. A VERY unimpressive ability to talk her way out of a wet paperbag, be it against Katie Couric or in describing the Vice President's role in the Constitution both come to mind most prominently. Her claiming the VP should have broad-sweeping powers in the debate against Biden dug up every bad memory WRT Cheney one could imagine. In honor of that --

*honorary mention* Repudiation of Cheney, or a rogue-agent of a VP with their own agenda.

Obama / Biden going against a fossil of a candidate who simply sided with the wrong side of the economy's health at the wrong time won them the swing vote, it did not win them any significant portion of the GOP base. Maybe there's an argument that the country is so stratified in it's partisanship that you'll never, as a Democrat or a Republican, get 4/10 of the votes because of the letter in front of your name indicating your party. While that very well may be true, and while I seriously don't see anyone in the GOP right now other than Arnold Schwarzenegger (who can't, yet, run) that can even think of challenging Obama in 2012, it doesn't mean future Democrats have it in hand, either.

To use a football analogy, the swing vote is between the 40's, and although it seems very much like Obama has all control in this part of the field, and will in 2012, barring an awful 4 years (which, if Republicans as the OPFOR party, play well, is within the realm of possibility, albeit the periphery) I'm not convinced this territory belongs to the Democratic Party. Show me a strong or at least competent Republican ticket versus a less-than-perfect Democrat one (not impossible to imagine, after Al "I won't be more of Clinton" Gore and John "on that was a joke, seriously!" Kerry) and I'll show you another Republican president.

[Medic]

Pseudo-edit and qualification: my claim, in short: McCain-Palin was a weak ticket and especially in contrast to Obama-Biden, a weak campaign and is not an indication of GOP insolvency at the Presidential level. This argument is stronger WRT the Presidency than every individual legislative seat, House and Senate.

Now the qualification -- to be obvious, if Obama has a good or great 4 years, is re-elected, and then has 4 more good or great years, it can cement Democratic gains in this election cycle. Also, the timing in 2008 is crucial. Demographic changes are simply inexorable and WASP is being cut into more and more every year. A successful Obama presidency COULD cement a generational shift, by tapping into non-WASP increases in the nation and electorate. The Right is certainly doing their damnedest to alienate every secular American til the Rapture, a slice of the demographic which is growing at Christianity's expense.

[CaptJodan]

Plus, the GOP has the fear card to play, which is always useful, especially if there is another terrorist attack.

Still, one thing you missed was the registration card Obama played. It doesn't kill the GOP, but it does make it much harder to gain victories if last Sunday's morning news broadcasts are to be believed.

In one of the round table segments, they described how young, recently registered voters tend to lean towards what they originally signed up to be. In the Reagan years, he was able to sign up new voters, many of which have remained fairly conservative throughout their voting careers. We've seen Obama's massive campaign to register new voters, and if that theoretical trend holds, we could see a lean from the current generation towards the democrats for several years to come.

As I said, it doesn't spell any death keels, but we could see the shock waves from this election cycle for a while.

[Medic]

snip

I would hope so.
I only warn against bean counting right now. It's not even January 20th! After 8 years of Bush, my expectations are low. Even amidst this win, we have Prop 8 passing, and similar proposals in Arizona and Florida, though obviously it's most disheartening in California.

[ArcturusMengsk]

I believe we are on the verge of a political realignment on the level of 1932 or 1980. I don't believe we've already undertaken it (had Obama been a charismatic white man, he'd have won upwards of 400 electoral votes), but this election is in every sense the Democratic equivalent of 1968, where the seeds of a new political alignment have been planted. But just as Nixon could not completely abolish the New Deal coalition - that required Reagan - so will Obama not get the Democratic Party fully there, but he has laid the foundation. I would not be surprised in coming years to see a future Democratic nominee win 40+ states.

[CmdrWilkens]

There are a couple things to keep in mind here and not any of them are simplistic:

1) Realignment: The basis for the discussion was about whether there is any form of realignment in where the middle of the nation falls. The big question is are we center right or center left (within our own terms. I know that as a nation we are center-right but the quesiton is within the American political framework). The argument for either side is strong but the repetitive problem is that everyone talks about it in a vacuum, the Kos crowd just as much as the RedState crowd. Yes Obama was elected with a popular vote mandate that no Democrat has achieved since Johnson swept up and kept the dixiecrats voting (D) and yes measures like Prop 8 and Prop 102 passed giving ammunition to both sides but nobody is stoping to look at whether these are data points in a larger trend. Take Prop 8 for instance, it got the yes vote by a roughly 52-48 margin while Obama won Califronia 61-37 which would seem to indicate a deep seated conservatism. Yet if one looks at Prop 22 in 2000 that measure passed 61-38 while Gore won 52.5-41, that would seem to indicate a distinct trend towards the left. I'm not saying it is universally applicable but looking at a limited data set, or only comparing this year to 2004/2006 is a poor basis for determining if there is a real realignmnet in this country which will neccessitate a shift in Republican politics.


2) Party politics: The next idea is that the current structure of neocons intermixing with neoliberal economists will no longer be able to rule a party that relies on the evangelical right for foot soldiers. Hoenstly this is something we won't be able to know until sometime after the 2010 midterms. That will be the deciding point in Republican circles as to whether the current system can win elections in the political environment (see above). Obviously an organization as the Rpeublican party is not likely to change rapidly or easily and inertia is liable to see the same coalition try to hold together for one more election. It will take a Congresisonal defeat when they aren't saddled with Bush for the existing power structure to lose its hold on the reigns of power.

3) Time: Everything is predicated now, as was the "permanent Republican majoirty" on extrapolating short term trends infinitely over the medium term. We have at least another 12 months before the mid terms will begin to shape up.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Take Prop 8 for instance, it got the yes vote by a roughly 52-48 margin while Obama won Califronia 61-37 which would seem to indicate a deep seated conservatism. Yet if one looks at Prop 22 in 2000 that measure passed 61-38 while Gore won 52.5-41, that would seem to indicate a distinct trend towards the left. I'm not saying it is universally applicable but looking at a limited data set, or only comparing this year to 2004/2006 is a poor basis for determining if there is a real realignmnet in this country which will neccessitate a shift in Republican politics.

I don't want to repeat myself, but this really makes me wonder what the 'zeitgeist', so to speak, was like in the late 60's, during the ascent of Nixon and the coming-of-age of 'values voters'. From what I've gathered in my studies of that election cycle, the Democrats were finding it harder to appeal to their traditional blue-collar worker base, and this makes me wonder: do realignments occur because one portion of a party base splits off? If so, then it's possible that the free-market disciples might find themselves in the cold because of the populism of people like Huckabee, and so might migrate over to the Democratic Party.

[Johonebesus]

Another factor that is being ignored is the Vast Right-Wing Propaganda Machine. The conservative revolution succeeded for twenty years because there was a huge noise machine putting out right wing talking points, facilitated by the cowed and bought mainstream media. The Democrats have moved to the right not so much because the people's positions on various issues moved right, but because the republicans successfully controlled the debate. If the Democrats get the courage to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and if the media conglomerates could be broken up, then we might see a major realignment. As of right now, I expect there will be jockeying between the neocons and the corporate powers, but I don't see the republican party falling apart as so many predict. At most, I expect that the moneyed interests behind the propaganda machine will force the rhetoric to tone down a little, for the demographic reasons mentioned above, and there might be a period of stress as the old propagandists like Hannity and Limbaugh struggle against a new "kinder and gentler" breed of conservative talking head, but as long as they are still able to control and define the debate, the republican party will thrive.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Are the powers that be in the GOP not dumb enough to avoid extinction?

Jindal could save them, but not until 2016 at the earliest (and even then he probably wouldn't win until 2020). Let's look at this from the racial realpolitik point of view that Republicans do: Republicans think that there's a small army of bleeding-heart liberals out there that vote for Obama "just 'cause he's black". Not being renowned as being especially original thinkers, these members of the right-wing would just love to try to duplicate that success, but they're smart enough to realize that, if their proposition is true, then running him in four years against Obama would be suicide: if these mythological "feel-good liberals" are given two non-white choices, nothing guarantees that they won't just vote for Obama again. The idea behind running Jindal is to appeal to these sorts of people, but they can't be had until Obama's no longer in the race.

At the same time, they have to look after their own, first. The Dixiecrat wing of the Republican Party wouldn't stand for it, and if it comes down to an Obama/Jindal race they'd almost certainly stay home. And if they wait until 2016 to run him, there are probably going to be a lot of racialist types who, after eight years of being governed by a black man, would probably vote Democratic if they're the only one with a Caucasian at the top of the ticket. Nominating Jindal would kill the Southern Strategy once and for all. The GOPers realize this. And so for this reason I wouldn't give Jindal any odds of being the Republican nominee for twelve years or so; he's young enough to wait.

I don't subscribe to this racial-oriented method of politicking, incidentally, but the Republicans do.

[Battlehymn Republic]

I think that everyone's missing the point here. The article isn't just talking about Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal, but rather the possible future factions in the GOP that may emerge.

The Huckabees: A group of "values voters" that are concerned about America losing its moral compass. However, they will eschew intolerance as antithetical to their principals. Traditional wedge issues will be softened by broadening their scope and appeal through redefining key terms. For example, "pro-life" will no longer refer to a simple opposition to a woman's right to choose an abortion, instead it will focus just as much on the quality of life as the quantity of life. To paraphrase an oft used line from Huckabee on the campaign trail "If we care more about unborn children than we do about children living in poverty or without healthcare or educational opportunity, then we have failed." I could also conceivably see a softening on same sex marriages as long as the term "marriage" was forever reserved for heterosexuals. This tribe will be for more populist on economic issues than the traditional GOP. Social programs will not automatically be seen as an evil. This tribe could appeal very much to religious Latinos, a group that is still very much up for grabs.

The Jindals: The Jindals are the more pragmatic offspring of the free market/ small government/anti-regulation conservatives typified by Grover Norquist. They will not talk about eliminating government, but rather about "right sizing" or even "smart sizing." They will advocate "smart regulation" over "no regulation." They will still be unapologetic supply siders in the macro sense, but they won't balk at the idea of progressive taxation or a little help for main street now and then.

[Cecelia5578]

The Jindals: The Jindals are the more pragmatic offspring of the free market/ small government/anti-regulation conservatives typified by Grover Norquist. They will not talk about eliminating government, but rather about "right sizing" or even "smart sizing." They will advocate "smart regulation" over "no regulation." They will still be unapologetic supply siders in the macro sense, but they won't balk at the idea of progressive taxation or a little help for main street now and then.

No, Jindal is mostly well known in pundit circles for his religious conservatism, not whatever WSJ editorial page tendencies he has.

[CmdrWilkens]

Either of those two factions, if they emerge fully formed, could become dominant. The problem is that neither faction is LIKELY to emerge fully formed in that manner. Both factions are currently small nuclei that have a limited set of governing priorities that they have not yet fully fleshed out in the manner of the Libertarian/neoliberal business wing, the neocon Hawk faction, or the the "theocon" social conservative wing. Each is trying to draw elemnts of the existing factions ( the "Hucakbees" principally from the theocons and the "Jindals" primarily from the Libertarians) but they are each trying to chart some middle course between those groups. The problem is that those gorups have, in the past, demanded rigid ideological adherence and playing one wing off the other is liable to result in some form of split which leaves the party leaderless for a cycle or two. This is why I don't see either of the two "new" factions emerging as players in a united Republican front, its going to take something a lot more groundbreaking and a lot more grass roots otherwise its just Bill Clinton trying to hold back the conservative tide by playing to the center only in reverse. The thing is if you play to center from the start then you risk losing your coalition after one victory because far too many folks who see you shifting will just jump to the other ship which is already sitting whre you look to be headed.

[mingo]

I don't want to repeat myself, but this really makes me wonder what the 'zeitgeist', so to speak, was like in the late 60's, during the ascent of Nixon and the coming-of-age of 'values voters'. From what I've gathered in my studies of that election cycle, the Democrats were finding it harder to appeal to their traditional blue-collar worker base, and this makes me wonder: do realignments occur because one portion of a party base splits off? If so, then it's possible that the free-market disciples might find themselves in the cold because of the populism of people like Huckabee, and so might migrate over to the Democratic Party.

I was just barely aware at that time, (I was 8 in 1968), but based on what little I remember and a whole lot of study of the social/political movements of the time, this is what I think has and is happening: The Reagan revolution was a backlash against civil rights, rock music, anti-war (read government) protests, bell bottoms, love beads and anything else those scary over educated baby boomers did or said. All of that ultra right wing, fundy stuff of the last 30 years was a 3 decade long spanking given by the winners of WWII to the boomers.

Trouble is, mom and dad got old and tired, and JR Bush just didn't understand what he was doing or why, and Cheny just wanted power for power's sake, no commitment to ideology. So our spanking is over. In the mean time the boomers have stopped flirting with Maoism, cut their hair, worked for a living for 30 years, raised kids of their own, put away the love beads, moved out of the commune and stopped going to encounter groups. What's left are people that still want REAL equality for all, that don't think they can spark a populist revolution in the streets and are able to REALLY move things from the ballot box. It's going to be interesting.

[ArcturusMengsk]

I don't want to repeat myself, but this really makes me wonder what the 'zeitgeist', so to speak, was like in the late 60's, during the ascent of Nixon and the coming-of-age of 'values voters'. From what I've gathered in my studies of that election cycle, the Democrats were finding it harder to appeal to their traditional blue-collar worker base, and this makes me wonder: do realignments occur because one portion of a party base splits off? If so, then it's possible that the free-market disciples might find themselves in the cold because of the populism of people like Huckabee, and so might migrate over to the Democratic Party.

I was just barely aware at that time, (I was 8 in 1968), but based on what little I remember and a whole lot of study of the social/political movements of the time, this is what I think has and is happening: The Reagan revolution was a backlash against civil rights, rock music, anti-war (read government) protests, bell bottoms, love beads and anything else those scary over educated baby boomers did or said. All of that ultra right wing, fundy stuff of the last 30 years was a 3 decade long spanking given by the winners of WWII to the boomers.

I can certainly agree with this. I was born during the tail end of the Reagan Revolution - January of '89 - and my earliest coherent political memories are of my grandfather crowding around his radio to listen to Rush Limbaugh snort like a hog and the media circus around the Bill Clinton impeachment (and there definitely seemed to be some sort of generational clash there - my father's parents were in favor of his being forced to resign, whereas my mother still adores Clinton). Bill was really the champion of the Boomers, whereas the Gingrich election cycle in '94 was the last hurrah of the 'Greatest Generation'. So basically, the past forty years of American political history has been a reaction to the fucking sixties, starting with the wave of resentment that Nixon rode to power on. And I can only hope that we experience a large enough die-off in the next couple of years for these useless goddamned kulturkampfs to come to an end. There are a lot of people my age who simply have no use for the social and identity-centric politics that have so dominated American discourse, and we're inclined to regard both of the currently-predominant generations as worthless fuckoffs who ought to go gently into that good night, for the sake of the nation. I have little doubt that this has to do with the aforementioned impeachment trial, and the endless self-righteous (and self-serving) monologues we were subjected to for months on end over television and radio broadcasts. I suspect that the culture war will come to an end just as soon as the present 18-30 year olds begin to get a firm grip on political power in America - and I hope that happens sometime in the next decade.

As it stands, the Baby Boomers as a group are a historical abortion. Let them rot.

[Darth Wong]

The Baby Boomers are merely self-interested, and always have been. Did they vehemently protest the Vietnam War because they were philosophical pacifists, or because they were afraid of being drafted? Since they have enthusiastically supported every single war since then, I think we can safely say that it was the latter.

Did they stampede to join the Reagan Revolution because they understood and agreed with his economic policies, or because he was charismatic, made them feel good about themselves, and promised them tax cuts? Since the average person still doesn't understand what Reagan did even twenty years after he left office (judging by the way most Republicans think the party should "return to the Reagan-era ideal of small government"), I think we can safely say it was the latter.

I am no fan of the Boomers, However, the so-called "values voters" who support people like Huckabee aren't doing so out of generational self-interest: that's just pure religion. And as much as the Internet has energized hardline groups like religious fundamentalists and white supremacists, it has also enabled voices of dissent to speak much more loudly against religion. That's probably the only reason religious arguments don't carry much weight among the younger generation today.

I'm still old enough to remember when they made us say the Christian prayer in school.

[mingo]

r So basically, the past forty years of American political history has been a reaction to the fucking sixties, starting with the wave of resentment that Nixon rode to power on. And I can only hope that we experience a large enough die-off in the next couple of years for these useless goddamned kulturkampfs to come to an end. There are a lot of people my age who simply have no use for the social and identity-centric politics that have so dominated American discourse, and we're inclined to regard both of the currently-predominant generations as worthless fuckoffs who ought to go gently into that good night, for the sake of the nation. I have little doubt that this has to do with the aforementioned impeachment trial, and the endless self-righteous (and self-serving) monologues we were subjected to for months on end over television and radio broadcasts. I suspect that the culture war will come to an end just as soon as the present 18-30 year olds begin to get a firm grip on political power in America - and I hope that happens sometime in the next decade.

As it stands, the Baby Boomers as a group are a historical abortion. Let them rot.

In the past I have written rather extensively about the attitude represented by that last sentence of yours, which frankly was also the attitude that the "Greatest generation" had about the boomers (they never got it that THEY were the parents of this generation and they couldn't ALL be genetically defective).

I stand somewhere on the border between the boomers and what I guess is still called gen X. I admit that boomers are terribly self absorbed and much too impressed with themselves, and their adolescence was a 2 decade long bad trip, but I do think they had some redeeming factors. In truth, although I sneer at the greatest generation at times, wining WWII was impressive (expecting to be deified for the rest of their lives afterwards wasn't). I guess my point is that each generation has it's feats and faults. I often remind the anti-rap music crusaders to remember what their parents said about Black Sabbath, or the Beatles or Elvis (as appropriate to the crusaders age) . Often times folks on both side of what used to be called the "generation gap" back in the late 60s, don't take a long view to see that this conflict is not unique to their own particular time. In an attempt to take my own advice, I try to give the boomer their due, and their lumps as I see them, and the same for all of the other generations has well. Gen Xers tend to less goofy as teens then their parents, but also depressingly cynical. The following generation is just coming to the fore, and I've yet to really get a sense of them as young adults, but I'm certain they will have a positive and a negative as well

[ArcturusMengsk]

The Baby Boomers are merely self-interested, and always have been. Did they vehemently protest the Vietnam War because they were philosophical pacifists, or because they were afraid of being drafted? Since they have enthusiastically supported every single war since then, I think we can safely say that it was the latter.

Did they stampede to join the Reagan Revolution because they understood and agreed with his economic policies, or because he was charismatic, made them feel good about themselves, and promised them tax cuts? Since the average person still doesn't understand what Reagan did even twenty years after he left office (judging by the way most Republicans think the party should "return to the Reagan-era ideal of small government"), I think we can safely say it was the latter.

That's exactly it, and that's the dichotomy between their words and their actions that confuse the hell out of a lot of historically and politically aware individuals my age. Our parents listen to "Sympathy for the Devil" and hang laminated pictographs of Bobby Kennedy from their walls, and then don three-piece suits and go to work for the World Bank. If they were liberal in their youth, you wouldn't know it from their lifestyles thirty years later. What the hell happened to the legions of doe-eyed idealistic youths that crowded Pennsylvania Avenue to shout a President out of the White House? They got jobs, and became dullards overnight. There is absolutely no consistency amongst them, only a tedious venality and an over-inflated sense of self-importance.

My mother's proper generation (the so-called 'late Boomers' born in the early 60's) are even worse, since they seem compulsively conservative, likely in overreaction to their parent's excesses. They're the ones who gave us George W. Bush, and there's no real regret amongst them over it. These are the ones who make up the rank-and-file of the 'Religious Right', as opposed to the Reaganite kleptocrats, who were mostly borne out of the self-interest of the early Boomers and will all be dead shortly, hallelujah. These people are somewhat better on economic issues, but they more than make up for it in religiosity (my mother just loves her some Huckabee). I call them 'squishy socons'. Fighting off these people for the next half-century will just be so much fun.

Of course, the younger generations can't be completely excepted from critique. I notice that a lot of younger people that came of age during the 90's, the Nirvana generation, actually seem more conservative, or at least more self-absorbed and self-interested, than do the Boomers. And there's also a schism between them and my own generation, who seem to trend towards a sort of technocratic liberalism.

Perhaps I'm reading too much of a generational gap into recent American history, but none of my immediate predecessors make me want to emulate them.

And as much as the Internet has energized hardline groups like religious fundamentalists and white supremacists, it has also enabled voices of dissent to speak much more loudly against religion. That's probably the only reason religious arguments don't carry much weight among the younger generation today.

Absolutely. That's why I'm excited to see people my age and a little older begin to work their way into the halls of power - the ideology of the youngest generations is much more technocratic, and above all much more egalitarian, than those of our antecessors, and more uniformly spread because of the leveling effect of the Internet. We grew up with technology, and so we're not inclined towards religious Ludditism, as some of our elders seem to be. And we certainly don't remember Ronald Reagan, and when we see him on the History Channel or watch a speech of his on YouTube he just seems like a gravel-voiced old man. I don't want to embellish and make us sound like we regard ourselves as the second coming of the Boomers, but I do think that as a generation the 18-24 year olds of today have the most idealistic outlook since them. Let us hope we don't turn out like them in the end.

At any rate, this is a pretty big derailment, so I'll try to tie it into the main thread: figures like Huckabee appeal to the late-Boomers, because he lets them remind the memories of their parents that one can be socially aware and 'have values' at the same time. I don't think that he's nearly as exciting to the older Boomers, who are mostly greedy and materialistic. I remain skeptical of Jindal, but Huckabee could be a political threat if he were to tap into the resentment shared by a lot of the fortysomethings against their ex-hippie parents. He gives them a sense of purpose (as opposed to their parents, who abandoned their youthful notions and became yuppies) while letting them remind their parents that they have more of a social sensibility than they did, making them hypocrites. I just wish we didn't have to be caught up in this perpetual squabble.