|
Is Steele’s election to head the GOP a problem?
(Note: This entry has developed into a lengthy discussion about how conservatives can make a come-back.)
A reader sent me the news that Michael Steele, the black former lieutenant governor of Maryland and unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate, has been made chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Mark A. writes:
I assume you have seen this. I’m speechless. I can’t even offer a comment at this time. I need to go take my hypertension medication.
I replied
I don’t understand why this is a big deal. Steele has been a prominent, touted figure, considered a good conservative, for years, hasn’t he? (Not that I know much about him.)
Mark A. replies:
I just don’t believe for a minute that they aren’t doing this because Obama is president. I know, I know. Doesn’t that mean that if any black man were given this position it would result in comments such as the one I am making? Perhaps. I just feel there is something symbolic about this. I think it’s tied into the leftist victim mentality. Only the oppressed can lead us forward. What now? Can there be another white male Republican? Or is that not good for PR?
Perhaps I am reading too much into this. The timing is just very suspect.
LA replies:
I just don’t see this, by itself, as a big deal. Let’s say that Obama were not president, and Steele became RNC chair. Would you have thought twice about it?
If Steele’s appointment by itself would not be an issue or a problem, then I don’t see how Steele’s appointment in conjunction with Obama’s being president is an issue or a problem.
Also, frankly, RNC chairmen have been so mediocre that I guess I attach very little importance to the post and expect very little of it. The only RNC chairman I ever liked was Haley Barbour, and that was, what, 15 years ago. RNC chairmen come and go, talking of Busherino.
However, maybe I am being naive and your initial gut reaction is correct.
Mark A. replies:
Perhaps you’re right. But I fear that the Republicans will continue to be Democrat-Lite going forward. Always trying to one up them with the gender or race card, while accomplishing nothing. (Much like the Sarah Palin nomination backfired in its attempt to win over Hillary supporters.)
LA continues:
However, this comment by Steele would tend to confirm your darker view of his choice as chairman:
He wasted no time in making clear that he has the new president personally in his sights, saying he would torpedo the public perception that the Republicans are “a party unconcerned about minorities, a party that’s unconcerned about the lives and dreams of average Americans.” Mr Obama was politely dismissive of Mr Steele when he ran unsuccessfully for the senate in 2006. Asked what he would say to Mr Obama now, Mr Steele said: “I would say to the new president, congratulations. It is going to be an honour to spar with him. And I would follow that up with: How do you like me now?”
We all know of the Republicans’ desperate, and unsuccessful attempts to increase minority support over the last eight years, starting with the three day black and Hispanic show at the GOP convention in 2000 and their nomination of a candidate who was famously comfortable among Hispanics and had done very well among them in Texas. We know of the constant efforts by Republicans in this area. For Steele to suggest that there’s anything the party can do to increase minority support, for him to ignore all those past efforts, for him to ignore that the party nominated in 2008 an open borders supporter yet was crushed among Hispanics, suggests he is a fool and suggests that his leadership is going to be about further pathetic self-defeating Republican efforts to win over minorities.
Terry Morris writes:
You wrote:
If Steele’s appointment by itself would not be an issue or a problem, then I don’t see how Steele’s appointment in conjunction with Obama’s being president is an issue or a problem.
C’mon, LA, you’re not denying that a bunch of RNC execs got together in a smoke-filled room, so to speak, and came to the realization that a white guy to chair the RNC during the Obama administration would be unthinkable, are you? We’re talking about the RNC here; the same bunch that twice during President Bush’s administration sent out a questionaire to registered Republicans asking whether we thought faith based organizations ought to be allowed to help people, among other questions equally idiotic.
Bill Carpenter writes:
Michael Steele has made himself 100 time better known than his competitors by substituting for Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett on their respective radio programs. During the primary season, he was good on immigration, though I can’t remember the specifics. I believe he got clobbered with respect to the black vote when he ran for Senate. That indicates he is not a racial panderer. I hope he is true to himself in his new post.
Terry Morris writes:
“saying he would torpedo the public perception that the Republicans are ‘a party unconcerned about minorities, a party that’s unconcerned about the lives and dreams of average Americans.”
Torpedo, eh? As in take a tactical position stealthily and blow public [minority] perceptions of the Republican party to smithereens. Yeah, how’s that workin’ out for him, the steath part? Good to hear, though, that compassionate conservatism is equipped with at least one torpedo and a skipper willing to use it.
Mark P. writes:
Given that the Republican Party is ruled by Democrat rejects, it is not surprising that they would choose someone like Michael Steele. Republicans still do not understand that the reason why Democrats do well among minorities is that the Democrat Party is an ethnic nationilst party. Its agenda is to promote non-whites at the expense of whites. That is the whole point of the Democrat focus on taxes, affirmative action, immigration: the dispossession of the property, rights and, eventually, lives, of white people.
The good thing about Michael Steele is that he will fail as an RNC chairman. Neither he nor Bobby Jindal will make any inroads in the minority population given the reasons above. His failure will be another roadblock lifted from the Republican Party before it becomes a white nationalist party.
LA writes:
Here is the New York Times’ story on Steele’s election.
Terry Morris writes:
Here’s the AP story on Steele’s election.
Excerpts:
GOP delegates erupted in cheers and applause when his victory was announced, but it took six ballots to get there. He’ll serve a two-year term.
Steele, an attorney, is a conservative, but he was considered the most moderate of the five candidates running.
He was also considered an outsider because he’s not a member of the Republican National Committee. But the 168-member RNC clearly signaled it wanted a change after eight years of Bush largely dictating its every move as the party’s standard-bearer. (emphasis mine)
Sage McLaughlin writes:
Bill Carpenter writes that, “I believe he got clobbered with respect to the black vote when he ran for Senate. That indicates he is not a racial panderer.” No it doesnt. This is a non-sequitir. Do George W. BUsh’s and John McCain’s relatively dismal general election performance among minorities indicate that they too are not a racial panderers? Of course not, because he and Busheron are panderers extraordinaire. What these electoral results really indicate is that racial pandering by Republicans—even by minority Republicans like Steele—does not and will not work.
Which is sort of the point of this whole discussion.
Mark A. write:
Excellent comment by Mark P. Of course, I fear the Republican Party won’t become a white nationalist party anytime soon solely due to the problem of the SWFV (Single White Female Voter). They are the real power behind the Democratic Party because they have money, jobs, and they vote. Sure the Democratic Party is giving away the store to minorities, but the minorities themselves don’t have the numbers and organization that white women do. If you look at the “useful idiots” behind almost every Lefty program (subsidized day-care, public schools, gun control, anti-smoking, anti-drinking) it’s almost always a group of angry white Democratic women with a college education in something akin to underwater fire prevention. This is the real key to Democratic power. If we can’t wrestle white women away from the left, we’re doomed. Just look at the numbers—only 66 percent of America is white, but only 33 percent of America is white male. The RNC is out of its mind. It’s completely outgunned on the battlefield and it’s going after what? Black votes? Absurd. Blacks are 12 percent of the population and perhaps one out of a 100 will vote Republican these days. The RNC needs to go after white women at 33 percent of the population. How to do this? I have absolutely no clue.
Mark P. writes:
This is aimed at addressing Mark A.’s comment that the real power behind the Democratic Party is the single white female voter, somehow representing 33 percent of the white population. To quibble about statisics, this percentage is about half as large. Single white women account for roughly half that amount, which is a little more than 16.5 percent. Married women tend to vote Republican because of their necessary investment in their husbands. Single women vote Democrat because of their dependence on the government.
Now 16-17 percent is very large and it is certainly a problem for the GOP. But these single white women face the same problem that every white liberal faces in the Democratic Party: whatever demographic changes happen in America will happen in the Democratic Party first. It is white liberals, including white single women, who will become minorities in their own party, eventually pushed out of power by the rising tide of ethnocentric browns who have been nursing grievances against whites for 50 years. It is not going to be fun being a Democrat in, say, a big city when you are no longer calling the shots. Single white women face the added problem of being easily victimized by the non-liberal, Third World men women’s policies imported. Their problem will get worse as they get older. In other words, the conversion of the Republican Party to a white nationalist party will actually be led by former white liberals fleeing the Democratic Party.
This, of course, does not mean the Republican Party has to sit idly by. I would like the Republicans to attack the litany of left-wing commercial interests using a type of liberal jiu-jitsu. For example, if universities are too liberal, then you attack them by imposing tuition-price controls. Say you are doing it to make education more affordable, that you are challenging the greed of the universities, but what you are really doing is starving the university system of funds. If non-profits are too liberal, then challenge their tax-exempt status. If any business entity leans left, then create regulations that put that entity out of business (like Napster in relation to Hollywood.) Much of this will affect the ability of white liberal women to earn a living, but it will do so under the principles that liberals advocate.
If you deprive the opposing side of their ability to make a living, or if making a living becomes that much harder, then they will have no time to engage in politics and to create all of these stupid programs.
Mark Jaws writes:
Excellent comments by Mark A and Mark P. I had been thinking along those lines as well. We know that the failure of Steele to bring in the minority vote will end those cries once and for all that “the GOP needs to do more to reach out for minorities.” To me, Steele is a God-send.
As far as winning the white female vote and pushing the GOP to become a white nationalist party, I think we need to attack on two axes. One is to talk about black-on-white crime and how the social spending pushed by the left has decimated the black family and turned black males into predators. The second is to push for ending welfare and promoting marriage. When white females marry, their support for the Democratic Party falls.
Mark A. writes:
Mark P. brings up a good point—the 33 percent is too high. I don’t want to quibble over statistics, however. With regard to Mark Jaws’s comment: I would like to add another God-send in addition to Steele: Bill Clinton’s signing of the Section 8 housing law in 1998. I have spent almost half of my life living in black cities. Without this experience, my judgment and will with respect to minorities would not be as hardened as it is today. Despite our love of intellectual abstractions, the human race remains largely empirical. Thus, the Section 8 housing law is one of the biggest mistakes the left has ever made. Maintaining a welfare state of hostile negroes is quite easy when they are contained in large scale housing projects well within inner-city hell-holes that whites avoided like the plague. In 2008, however, they housed in the suburbs virtually free of charge. You can no longer work hard and escape them, they are brought to you! The seething hostility of white homeowners to this policy is one of the largest unspoken issues of our day. Section 8 housing plus illegal immigration plus the possible bankruptcy of the federal government will make for interesting times indeed. I think these things more than anything else will bring us closer to Mark P’s (and mine) dream. Unfortunately, I fear that Mark P.’s desire to use government as a tool against the left is misplaced. The government is the left in the United States. They would never attack their own. Look at how the IRS is treating Tim Geithner—he gets to pay back his money without penalty! Amazing! The day the IRS removes 501(c)(3) and 170 tax deductible status from left-wing non-profits is the day pigs fly and dogs and cats live in harmony.
Let me add that Mark P.’s idea is great and I would love for it to come to fruition; however, how is it possible when much of the federal bureaucracy is unelected and accountable only to themselves?
Mark P. writes:
I love these lazy Saturday afternoons.
In reponse to Mark A’s comments, particularly about the government being the left and how things will come to fruition.
First, Mark, you need to understand that the “the government” is the left because of a conscious choice by both Republicans and Democrats. Democrats willingly and ruthlessly pursued government power at all costs; Republicans let them. Republicans hampered themselves with a small government, laissez-faire ideology (rather than actuality) that made them squeamish and hesitant about the pursuit of conservative power; the Democrats didn’t. Thus, we have the current status quo…none of which is permanent. Pursue a different agenda, and the Republicans will reap a different result.
Second, it is true that the Federal bureaucracy is unaccountable and unelected. What’s missing is that the Republicans control the most powerful bureaucracy of all: the US military. Once the Republicans control the government from the top down, they can use the military to enforce their edicts from the bottom up.
Basically, what I am looking for the Republicans to do is replicate the stewardship of America under Andrew Jackson.
So, what should the Republicans do?
1) They should end all offshore outsourcing and mass immigration (not just illegal immigration.)
2) They should impose tuition-price controls on all universities receiving Federal funds, even private ones. Those who refuse such controls lose their Federal funding. The same price controls should be put on the textbook and publishing industry.
3) They should impose import tariffs on foreign products. The amount can vary depending on the goal.
4) They should pursue tuition forgiveness for newly-minted US college graduates who are US citizens, going back at least 5 years.
5) They should not allow non-US citizens to study in American universities.
6) They should nullify Hollywood’s ability to sue people for sharing Hollywood’s intellectual property.
7) They should sue Google and the commercial software industry under public accommodation laws.
8) They should fight against affirmative action.
9) They should overhaul the tax code (though not right away).
10) They should support a robust military-industrial complex with not only national security as a major focus, but also in terms of “exercising” the military when necessary.
I can add to the list but this should suffice for now.
Notice how much of what I offer is actually fresh. It combines nationalist and populist elements. It puts the Democrats on the defensive. It offers lots of benefits to just the right kind of people.
Mark A. writes:
Yes, Mark. Indeed those are all nice things. I support every one of your propositions. However, I don’t view the Republican party in the way that you do. The Republican party is anything but laissez-faire. They are knee deep in big government. It’s just a different big government that the one the Dems push. My father taught me the most important lesson about politics that I have ever learned. With regard to government, he summed it up in one sentence: “Son, the government is about taking your money and giving it to their friends.”
You must ask yourself the following question: We had a Republican Congress and a Republican President during most of the Bush years. None of your proposals happened. Why is that?
I believe that the true path towards the party that you seek is through social unrest in the suburbs. Section 8 housing, crime, unemployment, and affirmative action are stoking the flames. I believe these plus a global financial meltdown give the white nationalist movement the most power. We must focus on reminding our neighbors just how the welfare bums down the street are affording that house. We must remind our neighbors just why Johnny couldn’t get into the state university but Raewkon did. This is essentially the reverse of what the Dems do. (Which I believe you support.) The Dems say the same thing: Why does that white man run XYZ Corp.? Why is that white man driving that fancy car? We need to do the reverse. Fight fire with fire.
Mark P. writes:
This is a response to Mark A.
You wrote:
I don’t view the Republican party in the way that you do. The Republican party is anything but laissez-faire. They are knee deep in big government. It’s just a different big government that the one the Dems push. My father taught me the most important lesson about politics that I have ever learned. With regard to government, he summed it up in one sentence: “Son, the government is about taking your money and giving it to their friends.”
What I wrote was that the government is dominated by a laissez-faire, small government ideology but not in actuality. The Republicans practice an unprincipled exception that combines the worst of all possible worlds: it increases the size and power of government without actually using that power to pursue agendas that benefit either conservatives or Republicans. Look at what Bush actually did. His big government approach was to hand power over to liberal Federal bureaucracies (what else did “no child left behind” and the “prescription drug benefit” do?) None of it actually went toward establishing a conservative society. What your father says is true, but it is also trivially true. We are not in a position anymore of deciding whether government should be small or large. The only choice for now is a choice between different kinds of government stewardship or deciding what form of stewardship we want government to take. I have an economics degree from the University of Chicago and I am a huge fan of Friedrich Hayek (having read most of his catalog), but I’ve come to the realization that a Hayekian/Friedman-esque society is not possible in the near term. Using government power is necessary to re-align the ship of state. You wrote:
You must ask yourself the following question: We had a Republican Congress and a Republican President during most of the Bush years. None of your proposals happened. Why is that?
Simple. None of my proposals happened because the Republican Party is an essentially liberal party, for all of the reasons we read at VFR. Being a Democrat is simply the gold standard of political belief. If you want to be thought of as a hip, cool, kind, decent, intelligent, thoughtful person, then you have no choice but to be a Democrat. This gives the Democrat Party carte blanche to move along the liberal continuum as much as it wants. Inevitably, it loses people. Certain Democrat leaders no longer have the constituency to remain Democrats, so they migrate over to other political parties in an attempt to maintain their careers. They don’t, however, abandon their Democrat beliefs. This is why the Republican Party has so many liberal leaders. A guy like John McCain would be perfectly at home as a Reagan-Democrat, but the Democrat’s black and ethnocentric ideology means McCain has no constituency. He then migrates over to the Republican party but acts as a maverick because he cannot abandon his Democrat beliefs. You wrote:
I believe that the true path towards the party that you seek is through social unrest in the suburbs. Section 8 housing, crime, unemployment, and affirmative action are stoking the flames.
Oh, absolutely. And I second the rest of your paragraph. Change will certainly not come from the Republican Party reforming itself. The Republican Party will reform itself from a combination of failure in the electoral market and from grassroot, populist changes you illustrate. I’m counting that the two will likely form a pincer attack that will squeeze liberalism right out of this society.
Mark A. writes: I agree with Mark P.’s assessment. Mark: Do you believe that we will have the demographics necessary for this change going forward? I know that I’m probably venturing too far off topic, but I wonder what the 2010 census will bring. Do we even have 66% of the country at this point? I sometimes fear that the government cooks the demographic books. Supposedly, blacks are 12% of the population, but it seems like a lot more than that to me…
Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 31, 2009 12:04 AM | Send
|