Moving To The Left

By Cernig

Shorter David Brooks - the only way the GOP will win an election in the three decades post Bush will be if they move to the left.

The British Conservative party spent decades in the wilderness after the excesses of that Bush-in-a-skirt, Margaret Thatcher, and have finally figured out that echoing Maggie T will never work again. She poisoned the far Right's electoral well in Britain and Bush has done the same for American Republicans.

Nedless to say, the American far Right doesn't want to know about it. But in a couple of decades - just as did those who kept crying that the Tories had to follow, follow Thatcher - they'll all have passed into bad memories and the party they poisoned will eventually get back on a more centrist track.

Comments

[1MaNLan]

I dunno, Cernig.

In the US, at least, I don't see democratic leaders (Pelosi et al) damning the travesty of the "Unitary Executive", calling for the restoration of checks and balances, committing to Iraq withdrawal, reaffirming posse comitatus, etc, ad nauseum. They are not even talking about that sort of thing...and the press ain't askin'. Certainly not Brooks and his ilk.

None of the dem preznit candidates will commit to withdrawal from Iraq unless some fuzzy and modifiable set of conditions is met. I could not call Hillary or Obama "left" in any meaningful sense and am not sure that it would matter if they were. The machinery of state, (that corporate/authoritarian beast) is rather bigger than a few, rare, leftish politicians, and supports a vast and insatiable military, an at least a 50 year history of bloody, global expansionism and, the ongong "modification" of personal liberties.

I just don't see the left 'round these parts. Perhaps (like Godot?) they are (not?) coming. Who knows? Maybe, in the end, American elections will usher in a new era on the domestic scene, and an equitable setlement of Irsraeli/Palestinian issues across the sea. Perhaps the system known as the State, which seems forever drifting to the right, and with ever greater momentum, will wake up one morning and break left.

As far as the US goes, perhaps Godot will come. I expect we will wait one more night...

[Steve Hynd]

Hi 1MaN,

I'm not talking about becoming Left, just moving leftward a bit. Brooks writes:
That means, first, moving beyond the Thatcherite tendency to put economics first. As Oliver Letwin, one of the leading Tory strategists put it: “Politics, once econo-centric, must now become socio-centric.”

Over at the Moderate Voice, paul Silver writes:
This could be as significant as the replacement of communism with capitalism and their realization that “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em”. What this means to me is that one model of the conservative movement may be evolving from “survival of the fittest” to accepting the aims of liberalism and focusing on the wellbeing of the unfortunate. Party distinctions may become more about tactics: big government solutions or small government solutions rather than about the class war of haves and have nots.
I wouldn't go quite that far - even the UK Tories still show their venal "I'm alright, Jack" side - but Brooks is advocating a movement towards making that an acceptable and electable conservative stance.

Regards, C