Are Republicans Hypocrites By Nature?
The fire-and-brimstone Christian Right bible-thumper who gets busted buying crack cocaine from a male prostitute, or the “family values” conservative who turns out to be a serial philanderer. These are now stock characters out of GOP central casting.
But other than the rather tedious accumulation of examples of self-righteous Republicans who want us to do as they say and not as they do, is there something about Republicanism itself that produces these double standards? Is hypocrisy, in short, endemic to conservatism?
That is what Washington Post liberal E.J. Dionne wants to know. In his column this week, Dionne says that hypocrisy – “the gap between ideology and practice” — has now reached a “crisis point” in American conservatism.
“This Republican presidential campaign is demonstrating conclusively that there is an unbridgeable divide between the philosophical commitments conservative candidates make before they are elected and what they will have to do when faced with the day-to-day demands of practical governance,” writes Dionne. “Conservatives in power have never been — and can never be — as anti-government as they are in a campaign.”
In an oft-quoted 2006 essay in Washington Monthly, “Why Conservatives Can’t Govern,” Boston College professor Alan Wolfe called contemporary conservatism “a walking contradiction” since conservatives were unable to shrink government but also unwilling to improve government and so ended up splitting the difference in ways that resulted in “not just bigger government, but more incompetent government.”
The problem begins, says Wolfe, when conservatives promise to shrink the size and reach of the federal government but find once in office they are “under constant pressure from constituents to use government to improve their lives.” And this, says Wolfe, “puts conservatives in the awkward position of managing government agencies whose missions — indeed, whose very existence — they believe to be illegitimate.”
To Dionne, this pulling in opposite directions is what inevitably makes conservatives hypocrites.
Why, for example, are so many conservatives anti-government while spending long careers drawing paychecks from the taxpayers? asks Dionne. Why also do conservatives “bash government largesse while seeking as much of it as they can get for their constituents and friendly interest groups?”
Why do conservatives criticize entitlements and big government yet promise their older, conservative base they will “never, ever to cut their Medicare or Social Security?”
And what about defense? Why do Republicans support the free market yet refuse to consider any cuts at all in the bloated Military Industrial Complex that takes taxpayer dollars and transforms them into private profits.
The list goes on. The reason our political system is so “broken,” says Dionne, is that conservatives are hypocrites who keep making “anti-government promises that they know perfectly well they are destined to break.”
Dionne’s criticisms are well taken. But he needs to dig deeper. It’s not just small-government conservatives who are hypocrites about the size and cost of government they are willing to support. It’s that conservatism itself, as a collection of ideas about organizing society, inevitably breeds hypocrisy.
Conservatives are sure to cry foul and will no doubt respond by producing a mountain of examples where liberals have behaved hypocritically. I am sure they can. But that’s beside the point. The real point is that liberals care about hypocrisy and conservatives don’t.
Here’s why: liberals want to build a larger community by weaving together the different threads in our society into a fuller and more varied tapestry. This multi-culturalism and promotion of diversity, in fact, is what conservatives hate most about liberals since conservatives want to defend the community they already have by keeping others out, and by using politics to do it.
Hypocrisy matters to liberals because the only way to build a larger community is by first building trust. And the only way to build trust is by treating everyone equally — by consistently and impartially applying the same universal principles to like individuals in like situations.
Hypocrisy is the unequal application of principle, producing an arbitrariness that eats like a cancer at the connective tissue of the ethnically, religiously, and demographically diverse communities liberal societies hope to create.
Hypocrisy matters to liberals like Rachel Maddow — a lot — as her long-time listeners well know. Nothing makes Maddow madder than when people say one thing and do another. The best parts of her show, in fact, are when she takes apart right wing hypocrites with prosecutorial precision, exposing Republicans who attack Obama’s “job-killing” stimulus program on Fox News while taking credit for the jobs actually created in their local newspapers back home.
When Republicans accused Democrats of destroying the American Republic by using budget “reconciliation” to pass the Affordable Health Care Act, you could see the glee (and contempt) in Maddow’s eye as Republican duplicity was exposed as she quietly sat there while example after example of Republicans using reconciliation when they were in charge scrolled endlessly across the screen.
I watch Maddow’s surgical dissection of Republicans and think they’ve got to be devastated. But then I listen afterward, dumbfounded, as their only takeaway from this embarrassing unmasking is that Maddow is a partisan hack.
But after all, why should a right wing conservative care if he’s ridiculed for applying one standard to one group and a different standard to his? Why should he care if he is called a hypocrite considering that his ultimate objective is to guarantee the supremacy of white, Christian, affluent males?
Or take a charlatan preacher like Franklin Graham, whose sole objective isn’t saving souls but electing other Republicans. Why should Graham care if his duplicity is called out on national TV when he insists it’s impossible for him to vouch for the authenticity of President Obama’s Christian devotion while Graham eagerly does just that for Rick Santorum or even the three-timing Newt Gingrich?
Man is moral but society is not, the liberal theologian Reinhold Niebuhr reminds us. Telling the truth and being true to our stated principles may be sovereign in our personal lives but can easily give way to the demands of our political commitments, as right wing conservatives know all too well.
Hypocrisy matters to liberals because the principles of equality and fair-dealing upon which our liberal way of life depends matter to liberals — and when those principles are impartially applied bridge the differences that creates a society greater than the sum of its parts.
Right wing conservatives do not share this vision of the Great Society and so are untroubled by hypocrisy because their first and only commitment is to their group.
We are a nation not of blood and soil but of ideas, President George W. Bush told us in his second inaugural. Liberals accept that belief implicitly. Right wing conservatives do not. To this new generation of radical conservatives, societies are still based on soil and blood. With the emphasis on blood.
By: Ted Frier, Open Salon, February 23, 2012
How To Argue With Right-Wing Relatives: Responding To Common Conservative Talking Points Without Losing Your Mind
There comes a time at most large family gatherings when a heated political argument breaks out. And by “heated political argument” what I mean is “someone just repeats something they heard on Hannity’s radio show that you know to be completely untrue.” You may be the lone liberal in a conservative family, or you may have one right-wing uncle in your left-wing family, but this will happen. What to do?
If you have a “smart phone,” just bookmark Snopes now. That’ll take care of the really weird stuff. (Well, not this level of weird, but “I read that airlines don’t pair Christian pilots and co-pilots in case The Rapture happens” weird.)
But a right-wing myth generally lives on forever, no many how many times it is debunked. You are powerless to prevent its spread. All you can do is perhaps convince one person that one talk radio meme is completely bogus. But you will probably have better luck simply changing the subject. (Suggestions: Whether or not Peyton Manning will be a Colt next season, “American Horror Story,” Jay-Z and Beyonce’s baby.)
If you insist on answering back, here are some suggestions.
Barack Obama’s illegal immigrant aunt is an illegal immigrant and so is his illegal immigrant uncle, and they must be deported.
First, the immigration status of Barack Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango (the half-sister of Obama’s father, from whom the president was estranged for much of his life) was leaked to the press just before the 2008 election. She eventually won asylum, because she is old and sick and Kenya has recently seen a rise in political violence. “Uncle Omar” is in the news because he was recently arrested for drunk driving, and it turns out he’s lived here since 1963 and been in violation of a deportation order since the early 1990s. Mitt Romney accidentally said he’d deport him, but then Romney sort of walked that back, because he’s Romney.
Just ask what exactly is moral or beneficial to American interests in sending an old woman who is related to the United States president to a nation where she could be a target of politically motivated violence. And whether or not an appropriate punishment for drunk driving is to be sent “back” to a foreign country that you haven’t lived in in half a century. Then add that these cases have nothing to do with the president beyond involving people he is distantly related to, because the White House has never sought special treatment for either of these people. Then ask your relative if they really want these two people to go have to live under SHARIAH LAW, because why not.
That probably won’t convince anyone so maybe now would be a good time to bring up your own family’s ethnic heritage, unless you all happen to be American Indians.
Food nazi Michelle Obama is forcing children to eat vegetables even though she herself is fat and enjoys hamburgers.
“Have you ever noticed that pretty much everyone with a creepy fixation on the first lady’s fitness is a fat old white guy?”
Excessive regulation/regulatory uncertainly is killing the recovery, that is why there are no jobs!
Look, you can print out some lame chart from Ezra Klein or memorize some “statistics” about Obama not issuing any more regulations than other presidents, but those won’t help, because numbers and charts lie about everything. This is basically just a stand-in for the entire incomprehensible right-wing narrative of the ongoing miserable economy. Your best bet is just to say that it’s criminal that no Wall Street executives went to jail for fraud (unless your familiarly includes lots of Wall Street executives, in which case my only advice is to steal the silver on your way out).
Barack Obama disrespected the U.K. by sending it the White House bust of Winston Churchill.
Sure, the “correct” answer is that presidents change the decor when they move into the White House, but I’d just say, “Winston Churchill was a raging racist drunk asshole,” because he was.
Barack Obama’s Christmas card is anti-Christmas.
Sarah Palin insinuated that the Obamas’ Christmas card — which features wrapped presents, poinsettias, garland and bows — is part of his secret Muslim plot to destroy Christmas, because the card featured Bo the dog rather than “family, faith and freedom.” I’m not sure what you say to this, actually, because at this point you’re dealing with a lunatic, but if there are Christmas cards from loved ones nearby, maybe go check and see how many of them explicitly feature “family, faith and freedom.”
Solyndra!
Solyndra was a solar company that got a loan guarantee from the government and then it went bankrupt. Conservatives say this means the government shouldn’t try to support things that it thinks are good ideas because the government is a lot worse at “picking winners and losers” than the private sector, which never loans money to companies that then go bankrupt. I dunno, the “scandal” here is pretty opaque. I’d recommend trying to get someone to explain, to you, what exactly happened that was so illegal or whatever. Basically, the review of this loan guarantee to this poorly managed solar company with political connections was rushed, and someone might have asked them not to lay everyone off until after the midterms, which is pretty stupid, but honestly much less stupid than spending $4 billion on subsidies for oil and gas.
Eric Holder must resign because of “Fast and Furious.”
“Fast and Furious” was such an epically stupid and awful idea that you shouldn’t bother trying to “defend” it (though if you care you could point out that there’s still no evidence that Eric Holder knew about it) — you should instead congratulate your relative on finally coming to his senses regarding the ridiculous counterproductive drug war. We can finally all agree that the government should find better things to do with our tax dollars!
The New Black Panther Party.
Tell your relatives that you have recently joined the New Black Panther Party. They will be too terrified to bring it up again!
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, December 25, 2011
“Divided And Undisciplined”: The GOP Circus Is In Town
Even Republicans have to be laughing at the circus sideshow the GOP presidential candidates are putting on. The Mitt-Rick-Herman act was so comical this week it looks concerted, almost like they collaborated with the Democratic National Committee. Team Obama is grinning so hard its ears are hurting, because 10 weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, the Republican Party is divided, the candidates are undisciplined and the voters don’t love any of them. Just in time for the real ugliness to begin a few weeks from now.
The marquee moment belongs to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, of course, indulging in birtherism on Monday night so that he could step on Tuesday’s rollout of his flat-tax plan. Sure, Perry tried to discount the birth-certificate controversy — sort of — while throwing some greasy scraps to the Trumpsters who still believe a U.S. president has actually released a fake certificate.
“I’m not really worried about the president’s birth certificate,” Perry said in an interview with CNBC. “It’s fun to poke at him a little bit and say, ‘Hey, how about, let’s see your grades and your birth certificate.’ ” Perry made sure to mention that Donald Trump recently said he didn’t think the birth certificate was real. And he said it’s “a good issue to keep alive.”
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney could have jumped all over that — if he hadn’t been busy shooting himself in the foot in the battleground state of Ohio. Yes, Romney decided a fresh flip-flop was in order, despite the fact that his critics are happy to savor his many others. While at a Republican call center in Ohio, he refused to comment on an Ohio law limiting collective bargaining that he had expressed support for months ago. After being pummeled by conservatives, Romney reiterated his, um, previous support.
Herman Cain, who tops the GOP field in a new CBS/New York Times poll, spent the last few days telling reporters who asked tough policy questions that he needed a little more time to think of an answer. He learned the hard way by saying on CNN that abortion is a family’s choice. Whoops — better to leave details out of this whole thing. Cain still can’t really be found on the campaign trail. No, the motivational speaker was in Texas selling books and giving a speech. And despite Perry’s attempt to beat Cain at his 9-9-9 game with a flat-tax plan, Cain-world still scored much buzz with a weirdo Web ad featuring his campaign manager Mark Block smoking into the camera. It already has more than 387,000 hits on YouTube.
With that kind of juice, who needs to endure the icy winds of the door-to-door campaigning Iowans demand of their caucus winners? If Cain continues to surge without leaving the book tour, then we will know that talking to voters in town-hall meetings and asking for their support is no longer necessary. In fact, perhaps televised debates aren’t, either. Perry told Bill O’Reilly in an interview on Fox News on Tuesday that while his debate performances have been disappointing, the debates themselves are a mistake. “If there was a mistake, it was probably ever doing one of the campaign [debates] when all they’re interested in is stirring up between the candidates instead of really talking about the issues that are important to the American people.” His campaign said Perry will attend one more in Michigan, but beyond that he might be a no-show.
That’s understandable. Questions at debates about serious policy matters — like what his response would be to the Taliban gaining control of Pakistani’s nuclear weapons — just aren’t Rick Perry’s idea of “fun.”
By: A. B. Stoddard, Associate Editor, The Hill, October 26, 2011
If Only GOP Lawmakers Were More Like GOP Voters
I imagine everyone has seen the bumper sticker that says, “Lord, protect us from your followers.” I have an idea for a related sticker that reads, “Republicans, protect us from your elected officials.”
In the existing political landscape, the real problem is not with GOP voters; it’s with GOP policymakers. This isn’t to let the party’s supporters off the hook entirely — they’re the ones who supported and elected the officeholders — but it’s hard to overstate how much more constructive the political process would be if Republican lawmakers in any way reflected the priorities of their own supporters.
Last week, a national poll found that Republican voters broadly support the Democratic jobs agenda — a payroll tax cut, jobs for teachers/first responders, infrastructure investments, and increased taxes on millionaires and billionaires — in some cases by wide margins. This week, Tim Noah noticed this observation can be applied even further.
I’m liking rank-and-file Republicans better and better. Earlier this month we learned that they favor Obama’s plan to tax the rich. Now we learn that a 55 percent majority of them think Wall Street bankers and brokers are “dishonest,” 69 percent think they’re “overpaid,” and 72 percent think they’re “greedy.” Fewer than half (47 percent) have an unfavorable view of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Thirty-three percent either favor them or have no opinion, and 20 percent haven’t heard of them. Also, a majority favor getting rid of the Electoral College and replacing it with a popular vote. After the 2000 election only 41 percent did. Now 53 percent do. How cool is that?
Every one of these positions puts the GOP rank-and-file at odds with their congressional leadership and field of presidential candidates.
I don’t want to exaggerate this too much. The fact remains that the Republican Party is dominated by conservative voters, especially those who participate in primaries and caucuses. I’m not suggesting for a moment that the party’s rank-and-file members are moving to the left.
But the recent poll results are also hard to miss — many if not most GOP voters are perfectly comfortable with plenty of progressive ideas, including tax increases on millionaires and billionaires. It’s starting to look like the party’s rank and file is made up of mainstream conservatives who want their party to help move the country forward.
And yet, when we look to Republican officials in Washington, how many GOP members of Congress are willing to endorse any of these popular measures? Zero. Literally, not even one Republican lawmaker has offered even tacit support for ideas that most GOP voters actually like. In the Senate, a united Republican caucus won’t even allow a vote — won’t even allow a debate — on popular job-creation ideas during a jobs crisis.
If the actions of GOP lawmakers in any way resembled the wishes of GOP voters, our political system wouldn’t be nearly as dysfunctional as it is now.
Congratulations, congressional Republicans. You’re far more extreme than your own supporters.
By: Steve Benen, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 25, 2011
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