Kevin Phillips was on Democracy Now* talking about his new book, another one by Republicans upset at the path their party have taken with barely a decade of complete power under their belts. The book was also reviewed in the NYT Book Review, so we again have liberal/progressive leaning outlets using the other side, so to speak, to underline how bad things are going. His arguments seem relatively standard, with a bit more emphasis on their mixture of church and state, and you keep on hoping some tipping point would eventually be reached. After all, these people just KNOW how bad things are going ... but, the "reasonable" Republican/conservative is not in power now.**
KP has additional cache as a old guard commentator who spoke of a "new Republican majority" back in the late 1960s. But, on some level, he surely seems fairly mainstream. This is where the contrast comes in. Reagan, for instance, seemed pretty bad to many in the 1980s. But, in hindsight (though Bush II has cherry-picked some true believers, including perhaps Alito) there was some rationality there. Insiders spoke of this fact -- they were able to do their job without ideology interfering too much. I think this was less so in certain legal offices, but even there, there was some level-headness. And, fiscally, Reagan was less bad as his rhetoric implied. I guess we can say that he knew his limitations.
KP also basically called Bush a moron -- his disdain for the man is clear. (I shared the sentiment in 2000 and figured he would not win ... a thought that seemed right down to c. 9 P.M. on Election Day.) But, though this really is a serious problem -- akin to David Letterman's dumb guy being POTUS -- laying it on too thick probably turns some people off. He also went into the religious angle ... noting that in effect his base sees him as not only the leader of the Republican Party, but also of their religious leader. Now, this subject at times turns me off. For instance, much is sometimes made of the idea that Bush feels God speaks through him, telling him that he should be President or go to war with Afghanistan etc.
But, a felt religious mission is not necessarily a horrible thing. Some progressive sorts also are guided by something comparable. When people say something just felt "right" or they just "had" to do it, what does this mean, really? The problem really turns out to be his lack of humility, ignoring the imperfections of man, who over the years wrongly interpreted their own will to be God's own. Also, many note that certain sorts hope for Armageddon, and support Israel and the war for that reason. I really don't know if this is a significant factor -- though Left Behind books have a big enough readership to be a concern.
And, we support Israel for any number of reasons -- cultural (it is more "European" than other Middle Eastern countries, partly since many of its citizens came from Europe and even the U.S.), religious, balance of power concerns, and so forth. Rationally so too. The country truly is more democratic than others in the region, though the exceptions are surely worthy of note. For instance, it is by nature a Jewish state -- thus non-Jews are by design second class citizens. Putting aside the settlements and territory issues, this is a major problem. It is one that defenders of the country simply have a hard job confronting -- a true democracy pursuant to our understanding is one with equal citizenship. This simply is not possible there.
Anyway, when a chunk of your base is a certain religious group, one that wants to mix church with state, you have a problem. As KP notes, Republicans were helped in the past by a felt belief that the country was becoming too secular. Given the importance of religious leadership in the '60s and the beliefs of Jimmy Carter, I'm not sure exactly how this managed to occur. But, given the changes of the '60s, a period of re-entrenchment was fairly unsurprising. And, the modern age did have a secularist flavor in various respects. Anyway, now things are gone too far the other way.
[I'm a secularist myself, but don't find it too hard to respect religious belief in a way that some of my fellow travelers seem to find hard to do. Thus, I referenced a talk I had with a person who is morally against abortion, but deeply feels it should be a woman's choice. I respect such people a lot, even though her moral views on some things simply appalls me. Sneering at her, especially since deep down she is a moral person I surely can live with, is sort of what drives people to support some of the assholes in power today. Quid pro quo: respect my right to practice my moral beliefs too -- but ultimately, even many who are quite religious understand this basic American principle.]
I'm not sure how deep this whole thing is -- studies have shown, for instance, Bush really only received a relatively small (but given the closeness of the election, essential) push from religious believers in '04. But, forceful and energetic small groups -- just look at Christianity itself -- have been shown to be quite remarkable in forcing their views on society. And, with the rest of the party failing at its role as a restraining force -- bunch of bootlickers -- the religious faithful is able to have unbalanced power akin to Southern members of Congress in the past. The true believer nature of this class only makes it more dangerous.
Ultimately, KP argues for another shift of party control. He views impeachment as a no go, since it is deemed a sort of tit for tat matter (again, one abusive impeachment in between two presidents who well deserved it ruins it for everyone), but actually voiced a more radical approach: a sort of coalition government akin to the intra-war ones in Great Britain after WWI. I'm not sure how exactly we are to reach this point or where Bush would fit (is he forced to resign? maybe one has to read the book), but it does sound possible. At some point, perhaps if the Democrats win control back, parts of the Republican Party will discover the radical wing is just not for them ... or likely to lead to office in some areas.
And, perhaps, this would lead to a sort of 1850s situation, you know, when the modern Republican Party actually began. This is when the Whig Party truly fell apart, and the RP managed to rise from its ashes with various strands joining together, including anti-slavery Democrats. The Democratic Party itself ran into problems in the late 1960s, and in a sense, the resulting Republican majority was probably not the true end of the process. We did see, for instance, the Carter/Clinton Southern DLC wing of the party moving into the forefront ... and various Republicans are likely to be able to join with such individuals, if some major push is given.
Clinton is said to be the best Republican President we had in recent years. I think KP might be sympathetic to this sentiment and hopes for another such national leader to come to the forefront. With our population approaching the 300M mark, surely there are enough people to fill such roles -- and others of a more progressive flavor -- so that in '06 and '08 sanity can be regained. After all, even the Republicans often don't like their current leadership. Sheesh.
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* I really should watch more of this show, but have barely watched any sort of television news or news commentary for some time. I used to watch David Brinkley religiously (fittingly given its time slot), but perhaps the tenor of his replacements turned me off from that show some time ago. 60 Minutes never caught my fancy, nor did local news, which btw has an overly tacky three year anniversary segment on the war. I did used to watch some 20/20. Anyway, the show of course is shunted off to the 9400s educational block (Free Speech TV to be exact), while people like Media Matters have shown that Sunday talk shows are ridiculously biased against even a moderate left point of view.
C-SPAN does remain a good place to go for different viewpoints in three major ways, outside of its usual political reporting: the morning call-in shows, panel discussions/speeches, and book discussions on weekends. I have seen a bit too much of conservative leaning Stuart Taylor moderating legal panels, but even there some have addressed abuses of executive power and so forth.
Reference should also be made to last Saturday's America and the Courts segment [court of appeals oral argument segment -- again, the Supreme Court should allow this on a regular basis too] concerning keeping a torture victim repeatedly found worthy of asylum in custody for four years via evidence he could not confront. Two of the appellate judges (the other silent) were clearly on the side of the defendant, at times annoyed at the arguments of the government. I touch upon the case here.
** And, even the rational brigade is at times loathe to vote against their party, even though they know the current leadership is horrible. In 2002, I asked one such person why it would be so horror if merely the U.S. Senate would be in the control of Democrats, especially since the swing voters would be rather conservative. He referenced abortion as if total Republican control really changed that much on that front. [It has clear effect, though often negative for the life side of the mix, but much less than one might think.]
Later, in 2004, he -- to the rightful disgust/disappointment of some -- spoke of party loyalty. I really lost respect for him at that point. How many others basically sold their souls? Oh, McCain was his guy -- McCain has shown himself to be a Bush partisan, a fake maverick. The sort that you hope for, since he actually sounds like he knows reality, but deep down is (1) too conservative and (2) not really willing to risk too much to force the PTB to actually do anything special. This is why the whining about Feingold is annoying -- what exactly is the Democratic leadership doing that warrants care? Put up or shut up.