“those whom the gods wish to destroy …”

btw, insanity is not rational.

It might be best if President Bush does lose, even if it is to Hillary Clinton, for the reasons I give in my latest comment in the thread about his pandering to Moslems. Conservatives give him a pass for idiocies that would outrage them if perpetrated by Democrats. Bush is a liberal in camouflage, thus in some ways more dangerous than the overt kind conservatives are capable of recognizing as hostile. None of this is to endorse Democrats, who are mortal enemies of all that traditionalists hold dear, only to point out that “conservatives” of the Bush variety conserve nothing of value. Indeed, all they conserve is the destructive victories liberals have already won.

Bush’s problems as president may derive from something I suggested in an earlier post in that thread: that he is, as was his father, fundamentally an unserious president. He did not pursue the presidency because of a particular philosophy of government that he wanted to apply in office. There was an opportunity, through his family situation, first to become governor of Texas and then president. He squeaked in, and doesn’t really know why he is there. It is no surprise that he doesn’t really know what to do. While I believe that applies to his presidency as a whole, it certainly applies to his Middle East policy. HRS

Bush is a liberal in disguise. I hope he does lose. Im praying for it even as much as I hate the Democratic party. Both parties are traitors to the American people and everyone needs to wake up and vote both these parties out rather then have us exsist under this “lesser evil”, really no choice system. Bush will lose because the economy is in the toilet. Every Republican I know is beyond disgusted. The Right Wing Christians have realized he isnt really on their side. Course lets hope we get to have an election the way things or going or its one where the votes actually count. Somehow I doubt it.

I have to second Victoria. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000, but still favored him over Gore. But now I actively hope that Bush loses, and I say that even though the Democrats are evil crazy anti-American leftists who will do untold harm if they win. I hope Bush loses because, first, he deserves to lose as a result of his innumerable betrayals of fundamental principles, most importantly his endorsement of race preferences; and secondly, because it represents the only hope of reviving some kind of national conservative opposition to the left. Bush has completed the liberalization of the Republican party, and even to a large extent of the conservative movement itself. As long as a “conservative” is in the White House, the brain-dead, rah-rah conservatives will support him no matter how liberal he is. Therefore the only way to revive conservatism in this country is to have the openly evil, anti-American leftists running the government.

What this would mean for the war on terror and our national security is too awful to contemplate, but we CANNOT continue allowing our culture to be destroyed because, as John Podhoretz puts it, no other issues matter besides the war on terrorism.

He wrote recently that the culture war died on 9/11, and “good riddance.” And that reflects generally how neocons and mainstream conservatives think. We cannot continue down that road.

In this vein, remember the big GOP win in the 1994 off-year election? That came because Bush I had lost in 1992, bringing Clinton into the White House. With Bill Clinton in office doing what liberals do, a conservative resurgence was possible, though it didn’t last. Now, the Limbaugh type rah-rah conservatives cheer on everything GWB does, no matter how liberal. In the summer of 2001, Limbaugh was denying that Bush II was trying to legalize illegal aliens, even as our president was doing exactly that.

Furthermore, I believe Bush has gone farther in opening the borders than Gore would have. Gore would have worried about opposition from the Right. When Bush does it, the rah-rah conservatives support him. I believe that if Bush wins in 2004, he will amnesty every alien, more than a democrat would if elected. As we have seen, electing guilt-ridden liberal republicans is likely more disastrous than having an avowed liberal democrat in office.

I agree with most of the points made earlier, although it seems unlikely that Bush is a liberal in disguise. That assumes the man has, or can comprehend, genuine, if wrong-headed, principles. I am puzzled, however, as to why Lawrence Auster and many others seem to think it unlikely that he will lose the next election. The simple continuation of present trends, together with the incoherence of Bush and his advisers, would seem to guarantee that that will happen.
Alan Levine

To Mr. Levine,

Historically, incumbents running for re-election have only lost when they are completely “out of it” or some extraordinary circumstance has intervened. Consider the 20th century. Taft lost, but that was only because his predecessor TR ran as a third-party candidate. Hoover lost, because of his perceived total inability to deal with the Depression. Carter lost (big-time), because he was hopelessly out of it, a pathetic loser not up to the job. Bush 41 lost, because he had become an empty suit who gave the votes absolutely no reason to vote for him. Every other elected president since 1900 running for re-election has won in the general election: Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton. Also, every 20th century un-elected incumbent (except Ford) won election in his own right: TR, Coolidge, Truman, Johnson. (I notice the same thing in gubernatorial races; incumbents may get in trouble and have low poll ratings, but if they are at all competent, they get re-elected; incumbents only lose when there is something seriously wrong with them.)

President Bush is an active, canny, talented politician, he’s not at all like his father who simply lost any ambition after 1991. So I don’t see any resemblance between them in that way. However, where 43 does resemble 41 is in an almost genetic Bushite lack of principle and a need to stick it to conservatives. It was when Bush 41 signed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 that this voter turned against him, for example. The betrayals by Bush 43 are even greater, plus his leadership is really starting to seem incoherent. His conduct of the Mideast peace process suggests a man who is out of touch with reality.

So that is why, even though Bush 43 is not in the mold of the total loser, as Hoover, Carter, and Bush 41 were, I nevertheless see the possibility—against the patterns of history—that he might lose his re-election bid.

Our disagreement is very slight! It is of course true that incumbents — or should I say incrumbents — rarely lose. I simply do not see Bush 43 as a canny politician, and it seems to me that he is beginning to look like a “total loser” in the Carter mold. Indeed, if the economy continues to be bad, he may duplicate the Hoover pattern, although it seems unfair to mention a man as decent and intelligent as Hoover in the same paragraph as a Bush.
Alan Levine

Here are the plans. Plan A, the least likely to work (but still worthy), is getting a traditionalist third-party candidate that could be competitive in a general election. Plan B is getting an uncompetitive traditionalist to stay in for the general election to show there are large numbers of people willing to stand for something and perhaps to take enough voters away from Bush to deny Bush a victory. Plan C is getting the same Plan A candidate to throw his support to the Democratic candidate (and maybe get a little monetary support from the Democrats in return) at the last minute. The math makes a Plan C candidate very powerful and dangerous for Mr. Bush (and who still would not relent) in a close election. Plan C is based on the principle that a voter that votes for a candidate has more power than a voter that stays home or votes for someone that has no chance of winning. From the start, the Plan A candidate should imply but never admit (for legal reasons) he will throw his support to the Democrat in a close election. His reason would be a principled one: he could not let Mr. Bush destroy the Republican Party and America with a second term.

Yes, I’m sorry about sounding so hard on Hoover; that was the take on him that was inculcated in me in high school coming out. Still, when you look at the newsreel images, and see that magnificently confident FDR, and the put-upon, sour Hoover, you’re seeing a picture of a winner and a loser.

1980 was similar. Carter, who in 1976 had been “something new,” with his Christian glow and weird self-confidence (just as Hoover had been the boy wonder in his time), had morphed into a pinched, insecure, prematurely aged man. Then I saw Reagan give his acceptance speech at the GOP convention. He was large, presidential, embracing. I was still a Democrat at the time. But I saw he would be the next president.

David wrote,

” … I believe Bush has gone farther in opening the borders than Gore would have. Gore would have worried about opposition from the Right.”

This, which of course is conceivably true, is bad enough.

But wait. There’s more.

What David wrote next stopped me dead in my tracks and instantly made my blood run cold:

“I believe that if Bush wins in 2004, he will amnesty every alien, more than a democrat would if elected. As we have seen, electing guilt-ridden liberal republicans is likely more disastrous than having an avowed liberal democrat in office.”

David’s onto something here — something major. What if Bush wins, and his people take that victory as a mandate — an endorsement of everything he and Rove have been doing one-hundred-and-eighty degrees wrong? If he wins and they interpret it that way (as a mandate) you’ll see your very worst nightmares — definitely the very worst ones you ever had in your life — start to actually come true:

1) Completely unchecked third-world legal and illegal immigration into the U.S. will take off like a rocket, absolutely unslowable by any force on earth. If you think what was done to California happened fast, just wait ‘til you see how fast the rest of the country’ll go down the tubes to permanent third-worlddom if Bush wins and they take that as a mandate. Immigration’s hugely accelerated speed and vastly enlarged scope will make what happened to the Golden State look like the immigration rules that have been in force in Japan (and will all be done, of course, in order to please Bush’s Wall Street Backers whose dream is the importation of ultra-low-wage, extremely docile third-worlders to serve as the sole U.S. workforce, in order to boost their Wall Street’s profits);

2) Friends of Israel can kiss that country good-bye as the Road Map timetable gets prosecuted even more forcefully if Bush takes a successful re-election bid as a “mandate.” A more and more elderly and enfeebled Sharon will get pushed into acquiescing in a set-up guaranteed to set the stage for his country’s final disappearance, likely complete with a combined Arab-Jewish bloodbath of epic proportions.

If on the other hand a Dem is elected, at least someone will be able to make the case that Bush’s policies were disliked and rejected at the polls — which might just give Dems pause if they want to be re-elected in 2008. If Bush gets re-elected his people will only speed up the prosecution of every single one of his totally wrong policies.

“What if Bush wins, and his people take that victory as a mandate — an endorsement of everything he and Rove have been doing one-hundred-and-eighty degrees wrong? If he wins and they interpret it that way (as a mandate)”

“If on the other hand a Dem is elected, at least someone will be able to make the case that Bush’s policies were disliked and rejected at the polls — which might just give Dems pause if they want to be re-elected in 2008. If Bush gets re-elected his people will only speed up the prosecution of every single one of his totally wrong policies.”
Posted by: Unadorned on September 17, 2003 08:03 PM

you’re right, the republicans will take it as a mandate, and wrong if you think it might give the democrats pause.

it’s a lose - lose situation. you need look no further than abortion to see how it will play out.

While the situation is dire, it’s not exactly lose-lose. I agree with Unadorned’s logic, and it’s one of my main reasons for wanting Bush to lose. If he succeeds in being re-elected, after having sold out every conservative and Republican principle (except of course national defense and patriotism, which is the one thing that keeps all the “conservatives” supporting him despite his liberalism in every other area), then that will put the seal on his liberal transformation of the Republican party and the conservative movement. The GOP will have become a permanently liberal party, pro racial preferences, pro-big government, and so on. The only way to prevent that happening is for him to be defeated. The electoral discrediting of Bush’s betrayals and a subsequent recoil of the GOP away from Bushism would be a positive gain in itself, regardless of what the Dems do.

Of course, a Bush defeat doesn’t guarantee the result I’ve just described. The Republicans could very well conclude that Bush lost because he was not liberal enough! Nevertheless, the defeat of Bush at least opens the possibility of a GOP turn away from his liberal direction, while a Bush win eliminates that possibility.

“Of course, a Bush defeat doesn’t guarantee the result I’ve just described. The Republicans could very well conclude that Bush lost because he was not liberal enough!”
Posted by: Lawrence Auster on September 18, 2003 06:50 AM

i don’t think its the conclusions that matter, but what the establishment republicans want. and what they want is the u.s. to be is “pro racial preferences, pro-big government, and so on.”

the last big push, back when reagan was first elected, to move the republican party back to the right had as much impact as brer rabbit had on the tar baby. by choosing to use the republican party as the vehicle of change, every movement was gooed to a halt by embracing republican compromise. compromising untill all is lost, is not accidental to the republican party, it is in the very soul of the republican party.

if the democrats are the lecherous boy, then the republicans are the bottle always spinning and pointing at the thoughtless virgin, and always saying its your turn to compromise until all is just that, compromised.

If a Democrat should defeat Bush in 2004 (I believe a Clinton/Clark ticket could well do so, with grizzled warrior Clark counterbalancing open Leftist Hillary enough to attract a decisive number of white voters who have not yet figured out the Democrats’ racial racket), Democrats would claim - the truth notwithstanding - that they won not only because of their superior platform (!) but because Americans were disgusted by the “far Right” Bush administration. They would take it as a mandate to go farther Left.

What Republicans would do in defeat is a harder question. If electoral disaster (any defeat of Bush, given the advantages he enjoyed after September 11th, would be a disaster for the GOP) were to overtake the Republicans, the party likely would react in one of two ways. The standard Republican way would be to accept the Rovean response to defeat: that the party was not inclusive enough and did not try hard enough to “reach out” to people who do not vote Republican (i.e., did not sufficiently betray people who do), and veer farther Left themselves in pursuit of those elusive (and morally more worthy) non-white votes. The intelligent - thus less likely - way would be to sack the liberal temporizers who led the GOP to defeat, and turn the party decisively Right to become a true conservative party.

A Democratic victory in 2004 would be a disaster for traditional conservatism. The Bush administration and the current Republican Congress already are disasters for traditional conservatism, but most conservatives still haven’t figured that out (I’m using conservative in its generally accepted modern sense, not its VFR sense). I agree with those who say that the Bush administration must lose, paradoxical as seeming to embrace the resulting Democratic victory is. A re-elected Bush administration would move the Republican Party to the Left of where the Democratic Party was under Bill Clinton, with the Democrats moving farther Left still. Politically clueless conservatives would nevertheless still support Republicans, because of the mistaken assumption that Republicans are somehow conservative and because they aren’t Democrats. A defeated Bush administration might show conservatives how worthless the Republican Party is. An openly Leftist Democratic adminstration - especially a Clinton II administration - might motivate conservatives either to demand a genuinely conservative alternative party or (less likely) a truly conservative Republican Party. It is a slender hope for traditional conservatives, but in a decadent polity that’s as good as it gets. HRS

“I agree with those who say that the Bush administration must lose … ” — Howard Sutherland

” … [I]t’s one of my main reasons for wanting Bush to lose. … The only way to prevent [the GOP from becoming a permanently liberal party] is for him to be defeated.” — Lawrence Auster

“His reason would be a principled one: he could not let Mr. Bush destroy the Republican Party and America with a second term.” — Mr. Murgos

“I simply do not see Bush 43 as a canny politician, and it seems to me that he is beginning to look like a ‘total loser’ in the Carter mold. … [I]t seems unfair to mention a man as decent and intelligent as Hoover in the same paragraph as a Bush.” — Alan Levine

” … [I]f Bush wins in 2004, he will amnesty every alien, more than a democrat would if elected.” — David

” … I actively hope that Bush loses … ” — Lawrence Auster

“Bush is a liberal in disguise. I hope he does lose. I’m praying for it … ” — Victoria

“It might be best if President Bush does lose, even if it is to Hillary Clinton … ” — Howard Sutherland

“Lately the thought keeps popping into my head that—as wildly unlikely as it seems—Bush could lose in ‘04.” — Lawrence Auster

If any GOP higher-ups are reading this blog, I hope they take a good look at what’s being said among precisely those who would normally have been Bush’s natural and most loyal supporters. (As for me, I think my mind’s pretty well made up, as of yesterday: I’m voting for Howard Phillips again.)

It’s quite true that historically an incumbent president is likely to win. However, since 1976 Ford, Carter, and GHWB have been defeated. The incumbent is not as formidable in today’s more uncertain and volatile climate.

Zogby says we have a 50-50 America, the same as in 2000. This means it could go either way, another way of saying GWB could lose in 2004.

I will repeat: Bush will open the borders up if he is re-elected even more than he has so far. As Mr. Auster says, GWB has a need to stick it to conservatives as his father did. Supporting further “amnesties” will be his preferred way of doing so.

Bush may seem no better than the Democrats. However, they will always outpander Republicans.

Take a look at what the Democrats are proposing. 9Hell tak e a look at the bi-lingual debate!) They take more extreme positions than Bush. The only benefit of having the Democrats do this is that it makes it easier for Republicans to oppose it. On the other hand, look at the damage of the Clinton years. Can we do that again? Can we afford that during World War IV?
Look at the 10 Dhimmicrats, not at Bush. Do you want one of them as president?

Conservatives need to win in the local parties. Otherwise, we will simply get another Bush as the Republican nominee in 2008, regardless of who currently holds the office.

Ron writes:

“Look at the 10 Dhimmicrats, not at Bush. Do you want one of them as president?”

Ron, like all pro-Republicans, seems to assume that the Democrats must NEVER AGAIN occupy the White House because they are so awful. In the world of reality, of course, the Democrats will occupy the White House in the not distant future—if not in 2004, then in 2008 or 2012. Since that awful event must inevitably come sooner or later, why is it the end of the world if it happens in 2004 rather than in 2008 or 2012?

I have no illusions about this. I repeat that I regard the Dhimmicrats as lying, irrational, hate-filled, anti-American traitors. Yet paradoxically, the only hope I see for the appearance of some meaningful opposition to the Democrats and to the whole leftward drift of the country is that the Republicans lose the White House to them.

To David,

Let’s remember also that Bush 41 had Perot in the race, without whom (despite Bush’s complete lack of any campaign), Bush _still_ would have beat Clinton. As for Ford, he was not a normally elected incumbent or even an elected VP, so his example shouldn’t count here. That leaves Carter, a stunningly weak president who by 1980 appeared to many people to be simply not up to the job.

Thus, by historical precedents, we should certainly expect George W. to win. It did not appear that way in the first nine months of his presidency, when one could certainly have seen him as not up to the job. He seemed lost, barely able to improvise sentences in front of a microphone. Then he greatly improved after 9/11 and seemed invulnerable. But now there’s been another shift, with his unsettling changes of direction and his betrayals and his increasing incoherence. Not only do the Dems hate him, but many Republican voters are turning against him. And that is what makes him vulnerable.

The point is that conservative (make that non-liberal) Americans, especially white ones, must come to see that the Republican Party no longer represents their interests, if it ever really did. The Democrats are not deceiving conservative Americans. For politicians, they are sometimes surprisingly honest. They will not call themselves race-mongering socialists, it is true, but their actions and words are otherwise plain enough. They are the enemy and conservatives know them as such.

The Republicans are deceiving conservative Americans, although it is no credit to those Americans that most will not see it. The Republican Party of Bush, Hastert, Frist, Rove, et al., is a multiculturalist, diversity-mongering, pro-immigration enemy of the interests of ordinary Americans. It is not as virulently so as the Democrats, that is also true, but the Republican Party is a false friend to conservatives. As long as it is a successful electoral (if not truly political) opposition to those scary Democrats, the Republican Party will attract conservative votes.

As long as the Republican Party deprives a real conservative opposition to liberalism of non-liberal votes, there will be no powerful conservative voice in American electoral politics. To have any hope of having such a voice, today’s Republican Party must be broken. Traditionalist conservatives cannot do it alone, although they can help by refusing to vote for liberals running under false colors (like President Bush). The Democrats can do it, and in so doing might cause alarm among conservatives that the Republicans’ constant drift to the Left does not.

Ron is right: objectively Democrats are worse than Republicans, even if today’s Republicans are closing the gap. That does not matter: Democrats are no threat to conservatism, because they are easily seen for the enemies they are. The fake conservatism of the Republicans, who seduce real conservatives with promises of a share of power then spurn them once in power to pander to groups that will never support them anyway, hamstrings political opposition to liberalism and is much more dangerous to true conservatism.

“The fake conservatism of the Republicans, who seduce real conservatives with promises of a share of power then spurn them once in power to pander to groups that will never support them anyway, hamstrings political opposition to liberalism and is much more dangerous to true conservatism.”

Mr. Sutherland encapsulates very well here the reason for the frustration and heartbreak we’ve been living through with this Bush administration, and the potential for even further disaster for our side which looms ahead.

A correspondent writes about this thread:

“I agree with what you’re saying. But wouldn’t it be even more effective if some true conservative ran in the Republican primary to challenge Bush? Somebody who cared more about speaking the truth than winning? Who could do it? I’d back him.”

I would agree with Mr. Auster’s correspondent if the candidate was Congressman Tom Tancredo. But I have no idea whether he is considering it.

E-mail of the day:

I’m involved in conservative politics in __, and I am affiliated with the Republican Party. That said, I will not be voting for Bush, but will actively let fellow Party members know that we Republicans need a Goldwater like beating so we can rebuild the Party, and flush out the Neo-Cons, the Bush family,, and the RINOS. The Party as it’s currently constituted is just not working. Gore could never have caused the damage the Bush gang has. Republicans seem to work better on the defensive. Only by tearing the Party apart, for real, can we ever hope to make it a conservative vehicle.

It is a dubious strategy to promote disaster in the belief it will teach people a lesson and then things will improve. I say get active in your local GOP, get on candidate search committees, and exercise some leadership. Liberalism wins because conservatism fails to provide leadership. Also, you can only use the threat of conservative revolt if you are in the party, not if you have already left it.

For a long time I have been aware of the fact that there has been no traditionalist voice in U.S. national politics and extremely little voice locally.

It is mere wishful thinking that Hillary or some other leftist as president will revive a national conservative backlash. Discussions about Republicans/Democrats is like trying to decide which picture to hang on the wall of a house that’s on fire.

It is known that a drug addict is unlikely to spontaneously go clean without some sort of intervention: either psychological, physical, or spiritual. Without intervention, self-destruction is the likely course.

We cannot hold tight to the welfare state, political correctness, the Nightly News, entitlements, hedonism, and American pop culture and expect to return to our senses. Without intervention, national self-destruction is the likely course. The only consolation is that what is being destroyed isn’t the traditionalist America we love and subscribe to. And the evil that serves as Agent of Destruction will not escape being consumed as well. Do not be surprised that the physical dross must be consumed so the spiritual gold can be refined and liberated, individually and nationally.

What sort of intervention is Mr. Raymond speaking of? If there were a miracle and the intervention you say is necessary were to occur, what would it consist of? Even if only as an exercise, give us a scenario of how you imagine this might occur.

I don’t share the time-honored idea that it is best to work from inside a political party to effect change. Perhaps if there were a clear distinction between the parties, the idea would be sound. The American parties are so similar that the idea would result in fighting a war on two fronts. Divide and conquer. Take out the weakest foe first. The weakest, it seems to me, is the Republican Party. Moreover, people want clear distinctions; I don’t see how pretending to be Republicans is a way to distinguish us from them. Of course, it is best we not go around alienating everyone with our rhetoric.

Mr. Auster asked: What sort of intervention is Mr. Raymond speaking of? (9/20) If there were a miracle and the intervention you say is necessary were to occur, what would it consist of?

Yes, a miracle would do nicely, but divine intervention is not likely without national repentence. As I pointed out, Americans are addicted to the welfare state, pop culture, hedonism, political correctness, etc. Like an addict, they do not have the incentive to repent. As things get worse, they are likely to want to numb their fading awareness by retreating even further into their error. Therefore, without a repudiation of liberalism in all its forms, a miracle is extremely unlikely. Without a miracle (intervention), the country will follow its present course. The national repudiation of liberalism is highly unlikely.

I really don’t think any intervention will be forthcoming. With women taking the life of the baby in their wombs, with the Ten Commandments banned in public, and on and on, with no repentence, I’m afraid the Almighty has little incentive to perform a miracle. Why should we as a nation be saved to continue our self-destruction? I think we’re on our own now.

What scenario do I envision then? Our nation, like an addict, may have to hit bottom before awakening to its depraved condition. The most successful “graduates” of Alcoholic Anonymous are those who have hit bottom first. They finally realize that they are helpless against their addiction and throw themselves on the Higher Power for help.

The postings above indicate that such a point has not been reached.. The authors all advocate tweaking the political parties or electoral process as the means to save America. Either that or putting someone totally evil in charge of the country. Hillary as America’s unintentional Savior! Is that what we’ve come to?

Our nation is the reflection of our collective souls. Our nation is dying because our souls are dying. They, as well as the nation, have been severed from their Source. A picked flower may still look pretty for a while, but once picked, its destiny is set.

Traditionalist America stood for human freedom under God. It would be best to petition the Author of our freedoms for our national salvation.

I think Mr. Raymond somewhat misconstrues my position when he says that I see “putting someone totally evil in charge of the country” [e.g. Hillary] as “the means to save America.” When I say I want Bush to lose, I do not see that as a means to some positive end; I’m saying I see it as the only way to stop and discredit the leftward move of the GOP and the conservative movement. I do not have any assurance that that will happen. The GOP might just continue moving to the left anyway.

However, if Hillary did become president, wouldn’t that be the “hitting bottom” that Mr. Raymond says is necessary?

This discussion is like the conflict between the main characters in Atlas Shrugged: do we try to save the system, or do we take the position that the system is thoroughly evil and must be allowed to destroy itself, before anything positive can take its place? Mr. Raymond takes the latter position, and he may well be right.

But even if he is right, I still want Bush to lose.

It seems that traditionalists should not be arguing for abstracts and hypotheticals that are divorced from empirical evidence and the lessons of history. In order to avoid this trap, if we are going to argue that an exodus from the Republican party would wake up the party and bring it back to us, then we should be able to point to examples from history of such short-term disasters leading to long-term successes. Otherwise, we are advocating disaster based on subjective hypotheses, which is hardly what I would call “conservatism”.

So, what happened when parties had such internal divisions in the past, leading to their short-term defeats?

That’s a tall order. We would need to find an example of a modern, leftward-moving society in which a moderate conservative party kept yielding to the leftism until its more conservative members deserted it, leading to electoral disaster for that party, followed by its reconstitution as a more conservative party. I don’t know if there’s any such example.

However, we can say with a certainty that if Bush were to lose, his (leftward leading) leadership and philosophy _would_ be discredited. Isn’t that enough?

Also, Mr. Coleman is forgettng that parties win and parties lose. If the GOP doesn’t lose in 2004, then they’ll lose in 2008 or whenever. So we’re not speaking of armageddon here. My position is simply that _this_ president needs to be discredited, by his deserved loss of conservative support, and that that in itself would be a good thing.

The lack of such an event as Mr. Auster describes almost inspires me to be Fukuyamaian about the whole thing. Hegelian Rule of History #537: Liberal Democracies are always on a leftward course—the only question is how fast they are moving on it.

The idea that it would be a good idea for Bush to lose in order to force the republican party rightward is irresponsible. Having a democrat in office in the present circumstances has incalculable consequences, because it is clear that all the democrats have their heads in the sand on the war on terror, and just as they did nothing during the 1990’s to respond to repeated attacks, they would have done nothing after 9/11. The democrats have reached such a level of irresponsibility that the proposal is almost tantamount to suggesting that one should have supported the Bolsheviks in 1917 Russia to force the Mensheviks back to the right. It seems to me that Bush is someone who will not let himself be out - demagogued on domestic issues, and if this means being softer on spending issues than we would like, it is too bad. In fact, if one understands how the budget and economy work, what are actually relatively minor current adjustments to improve a projected deficit path are nonsense. Revenues (and entitlement spending) are so sensitive to slight changes in the economic rate of growth, that it is better to stimulate the economy by going ahead with tax cuts even if they create large projected deficits, because the projections will be completely reversed by a very slight upward change in the projected growth rate. The democrats on the other hand, are trying to use the projections 1) to preclude any tax cut, thus turning the system into a perpetual upward ratchet, and 2) preclude economic recovery, thus increasing their chances of electoral success. All that said, however, I do think Bush and the congressional republicans have been way too soft on the spending side.

I don’t dismiss what Thucydides says. Having the Democrats in their present crazed condition run the country would put us all in danger. So it makes sense that people would be horrified by my idea that Bush should lose. Nevertheless, it’s the way I see it. Part of it is that conservatives have used the awfulness of the Democrats as a club to crush any conservative criticism of Bush and the Republicans, no matter how far left they go. Neoconservatives such Horowitz and John Podhoretz and many others basically say that no domestic issues matter any longer, that the leftist takeover of our culture, our judiciary, our social policies, don’t matter, only terrorism matters. So they keep selling us out. And I’m not willing to go along with that.