Alex Nursall’s GOP-bashing article (“The craziest party that could ever be”) is an example of why the Republican Party’s future should be left up to conservatives. More a collection of stereotypes and clichés than substantial analysis, the article revealed all the worst extremes of modern North American liberalism: condescension towards common folk, suppression of intellectual difference, and dismissal of the ideological opposition. I was instantly reminded of why I crossed over to the Right in the first place.
Although my conservative colleagues have sufficiently demolished Nursall’s polemic in The Varsity’s comments section, I am compelled to make a few brief observations. In a cautionary sentence about how evangelicals are increasingly voting Democrat, Nursall writes, “The Republicans are losing their base, and if the trend continues, they’ll be nothing more than a party of fanatics, clutching at their guns and religious texts, weeping bitter tears for an America that never existed in the first place.” Given that evangelicals and social conservatives make up a large portion of the GOP base, this sentence is self-contradictory: if the base is eroding, the party should be left with anything but gun-toting church-goers. She laments that Mr. Obama was unfairly lumped together with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, but the two indeed served on the CAC board together and Ayers made a small contribution to Obama’s campaign. It was not hatred that motivated Mr. McCain to warn of this association, but concern about Mr. Obama’s judgment.
In any case, Nursall’s “hatred” theory for why the GOP lost the election doesn’t hold water in the face of a few facts. If Americans so resented conservative “intolerance” and had moved to the centre, why was it that Proposition 8—the California ballot initiative to ban gay marriage—passed by vast majorities in the country’s most liberal state? Why is it that the Democrats who beat out incumbents for congressional seats in both 2006 and 2008 were mostly socially conservative populists, like Virginia senator Jim Webb? There is indeed a looming problem for Republicans in the future, but hatred isn’t it. Instead, it is an inability to think and argue innovatively about the economic issues of today—globalization, health care, and education.
In the economic boom times—2002 and 2004—Republicans were able to tout their family values and national security credentials to an inherently conservative working class. But since then, economic hard times have convinced the Average Joe to place his checkbook above partisanship. These woes go beyond the inflation of early 2008 and the financial crisis of the summer. Dating back to the 2004 outsourcing scare, American workers have seen their wages stagnate while corporate profits skyrocket. This is not due to executive greed, as the Democrats assert, but simple economics: American workers have been facing increasing competition from cheaper foreign labour in the rising economic powers of China and India. Increase the global supply of unskilled labour, and the price of labour falls.
In 2008, the Democrats, with their natural big government and pro-union slant, offered an arsenal of solutions: universal healthcare, middle-class tax cuts, and tuition credits, all funded by higher taxes at the “top five per cent” of the income bracket. All the Republicans could come up with was a plethora of tax cuts at a time when marginal tax rates were historically low. They had no plan for education, and McCain’s healthcare plan, though fundamentally sound, was barely mentioned during the campaign. No wonder the working class picked handouts over trickle-down. The data resonates with this line of thought: CNN polls showed that in two swing states, Florida and Ohio, 62 and 61 per cent of voters cited the economy as their top priority, respectively. Of those voters, Mr. Obama beat Mr. McCain by a margin of 7 to 14 points.
If the Republican Party is to make any serious comeback in the future, it must come to grips with its economic problem. It’s correct on the fundamentals: tax cuts and free trade have served the U.S. well since Reagan’s time in power, delivering robust economic growth. But on class equality issues, the GOP must come up with alternatives that help the Average Joe without overweening government intervention.
