Thursday, July 01, 2004
Andrew Sullivan on the coming GOP crackup
Andrew Sullivan makes a useful observation about the the Republicans this morning that bears reproduction here:
I think I agree with him -- the Republican coalition can survive only as long as the libertarian conservatives do not think that the religious right can actually achieve its objectives. If the Democrats did not have the same problem with their own ideologues -- the social engineers who cannot distinguish between permitting an activity and subsidizing it -- the GOP would be in serious trouble already.
The current tussle in the Congress over the budget is just a precursor to what I think will be outright Republican civil war after this election. If Bush wins, it will cripple his ability to get anything done. If he loses, the recriminations will get vicious. The fiscal conservatives will be fighting the "deficits-don't-matter" crowd. The realists will be out to topple the neocons. The Santorum-Ashcroft axis will continue to wage war on any Republicans not interested in legislating either the Old Testament or the dictates of the Vatican. (The FMA battle now looks more and more like an attempt by Santorum to identify Republican social moderates so he can use primary hardliners to challenge them in the future.) The battle lines are deep and sharp - and the future of American conservatism is at stake. Bush has proven himself unable to unite a party that includes Tom DeLay as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain and Bill Frist. Whether the coming civil war is about who lost the election, or who will exploit the victory, it's going to be nasty and enduring. No single party can be both for individual liberty and for theologically-based social policy; both for fiscal balance and drunken-sailor spending; both for interventionism abroad and against moralism in foreign policy. The incoherence is just too deep, the tensions too strained. And with the war on terror itself a point of contention among conservatives, geo-politics will not be able to keep the coalition in one piece.
I think I agree with him -- the Republican coalition can survive only as long as the libertarian conservatives do not think that the religious right can actually achieve its objectives. If the Democrats did not have the same problem with their own ideologues -- the social engineers who cannot distinguish between permitting an activity and subsidizing it -- the GOP would be in serious trouble already.
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