I do not see why they all can not be true. Even the last one. They hate America as it changes and white men are loosing control. They absolutely hate that.

I just think it is good politics.

Either Obama's (and Bush's current) policies are going to work or they won't.

Choice 1) They work and Obama gets the credit.

Choice 2) They don't work and the people who opposed them can say that we should have listened to them.

So it helps the Republicans to advocate a policy that is very different from the one that will be passed. It is just smart politics.

As long as we are presenting possibilities...

They are trying to weaken us in preparation for an alien (ET) attack!

cheflovesbeer may be right about all of them being true, but I think strategic sabotage comes out ahead.

The moral and benefactor explanations require a level of rational thought that this year proved is far beyond repug capability.

Illiterate certainly fits the repug pattern, except for a tell-tale lack of viciousness.

Manchurian, I'm afraid, fails on the count that it would destroy the entire economy, rather than just returning it to thefeudal state that repugs want and need.

Strategic sabotage, for sure.

I think calling a complete failure to understand history "The Illiterate Explanation" is a bit too kind. It should be called the "Dumb as a Box of Hair" explanation.

And I vote for "All of the Above." People spent way too much time during the Bush years pondering the "Evil or Stupid?" question, when clearly it was both.

I'm with the TPM reader. They see Kennedy's cooperation on NCLB as a victory for Bush. The Republican party is essentially a rich man's tool preying on the uninformed and distrustful voters for self-enrichment. In this case they will use the Moral and Benefactor rhetoric, but their goal is power and wealth.

The other thing to look at is elections that ousted Chaffee and Chris Shays. There will be tremendous pressure on moderate Reps to stay unified. My hope is that the electorate has paid more attention this year, and sees the obstruction for what it is.

Isn't "cutting taxes" their prescription for every situation? If so, then the recent election can and must be seen as a rejection of this position by voters. Until Repubs can deal with the fact that Americans want their government to work, and to do so it must be paid for, they will remain in the wilderness.

I just think it is good politics.

Either Obama's (and Bush's current) policies are going to work or they won't.

The problem is - it could backfire on them in a big way. The setup that you have is contingent on Obama's policies getting past the Congress. If the Republicans obstruct everything - especially through filibuster - then policies don't get put into place. And when people are on the campaign trail talking about how bad things are in 2 years they're going to point to "Republican Obstructionism" and insist that the only way things are going to get better is if we eliminate the blockage by removing the obstructionists.

OTOH, moderate Republicans (e.g. Voinivich, Specter, etc.) who play nice and wrangle a couple of concessions for their votes can point to improvements for their states and insist that they're working to fix things and not just block things. People here in Ohio generally like Voinivich because he's not perceived as being terribly partisan - if he looks like he's become part of the problem he will be out on his ass in the next election. We have our political nutters here in Ohio, but in general what we want are people who have practical approaches to fixing problems - which is why Voinivich remains so highly regarded.

(Of course Voinivich and Specter are going to be in trouble in 2010 anyway - if they don't toe the line they'll get primaried against by Club For Growth nutters and may even lose their primaries - Specter was close last year and there seems to be a lot of anti-Voinivich sentiment among the anti-tax nutters here in Ohio recently. If they DO toe the line, their states are likely to can their asses for being part of the problem instead of part of the solution. I'd feel bad, except the two of them were two of the whiniest moderate enablers of Bush for the last 8 years so instead I'll just shake my head in disgust.)

Don't forget The Religious Explanation: As I've said before, conservatives will proclaim, with the same fervor that a Muslim will declare There is no god buy Allah and Mohammed is His Prophet, that There is no faith but Supply-side and Ronald Reagan is it's prophet.

(Cue the Python-esque falsetto saying, Because it's written, that's why!)

Evidence and previous history mean nothing. Conservatives are like a faith healer, who is sure that if he just prays hard enough and uses the correct form then his patient will get better. The sicker the patient gets, the more indignant the faith healer becomes -- hence Phil Gramm's "nation of whiners" comment.

But there is also The Benefactor Explanation at play. For Republicans, any taxpayer money that benefits someone other than millionaires and corporations is, by definition, wasteful spending. They are smart enough to realize, however, that they need to allow just enough social spending to keep themselves out of the tumbrels. They still feel obligated to feel indignant about it.

I'm with the sabotage option. They need to work up something to be the victims of.

Either way, they are damned if it works and damned if it does not. Their life after death is hell or hell.

Perhaps they are right? Maybe the government borrowing money to give to failing companies is bad policy. Maybe the lessons of the Great Depression are that the government can't spend itself out of recession, and might make things worse by directing resources away from where they would be most productive. I'm sure this sounds greek to this audience, but it could be food for thought.

Part of the appeal of the Benefactor approach....

Very high unemployment may produce very unusual conditions where people forced to beg are persuaded to do things they might never do out of sheer desperation. What a wondrous circus the wealthy could produce for themselves.

The movie "Indecent Proposal" en masse starts to get at the hedonistic ego trip I think some of these modern day plutocratic monarchs envision for themselves. Total domination of the masses. Company store style capitalism. People all but owned.

If only they could rig elections through paperless voting, I could see it working. As is, they'll scream bloody murder as the massive spending drops the value of a dollar making imports like Mercedes really hurt. OR big tax increases on those making the 250k or more as the recovery begins and Obama gets the deficit/debt under control.

"Class warfare!" "Wealth Redistribution!"

The proper reply to these outcries is a smirk and a matter-of-fact: "Damn straight."

Economies where 1% of the population can afford to buy goods and services is a broken economy for 99% of us. The 1% may be perfectly fine with that.

They often own media outlets that will agree with them.

Obstructionists will be voted out of office!

America should move toward a strong, sensible middle class, a strong manufacturing base, and a strong environmental-based economy. President-elect Obama knows this, and we know this, but some vested Republican interests haven't been paying attention.

We will be looking for the obstructionists to offer their sensible alternative policies - absent any substantive engagement of viable policy options, this post-Change '08 Republican party may find itself obstructing its own political life! -Kevo

Voinivich and Specter are going to be in trouble in 2010 anyway NonyNony

If they want to market themselves as pragmatists in order to get reelected, I would suggest they switch parties like Lieberman. I only hope the Dems wouldn't give up chairmanships to either.

Republicans see wealth as a game and accumulating wealth as a way to exert power over other people. They want to maintain a large income gap between themselves and the peons. They do not care about making life better for everyone. Basically, they want to return to the plantation economy.

These people are social parasites

The moral explanation is the more important one. This matches well with the fundamentalist leaning base, which is numerically larger than the fat cat. And it is pure Austrian school of economics. The latter has adherents primarily because it resonates with moralist thinking, than because actual data support it. But, gut feelings, of it ought to be thus, always carry more weight than facts with these folks.

And, there is at least a half truth buried there. This long economic cycle is guided by the gradual erosion of societal attitudes, towards debt, and getting something for nothing. It takes some sort of prolonged catastrophe to reteach these lessons (roughly once per human lifespan), and we are in the early phase of relearning thrift right now. Of course the part about using institutions and regulations to control the effects of greed are lost on the party, but they do get the moral part in spades. What we need to be doing -as well as rebuilding the economy, is how to get people to learn the lesson, in the least painful way. Its not about the pain, but about the lesson learned.

"rich man's tool preying.."

Don't know which part of the Repug Party is worse, the preying or the praying wing.

Not much different from Nader's wish in 2000 to see the Democratic Party spanked for not selecting him. But, this, also, reminds me of a scene from the original "Dick and Jane" - Jane Fonda's character, finally, had to ask her very conservative father for a loan, to which, he slapped his knee, laughed, and spoke about how much he wished he could be young again and be in Dick and Jane's predicament. Ah, to be able to prove one's mettle. To show one's backbone. Of course, he never gave her a dime.

The Repugs have ordered Bootstraps for the hoi polloi from China. Delivery date is early 2013.

It's so cute to see you bloggers poke at each other-- like when Stephan Pastis and Darby Conley and Bill Amend have their fake spats in the comics.

"The right, in other words, wants to see everyone taught a moral lesson about excesses."

Ummm, the rich financial banking Republican bastards and their corroborating rich anit-regulation Republican politicians are the ones primarily responsible for this mess. Why the F*ck does "everyone" need to be taught a lesson. I lived within my means, yet this shitty economy will surely affect me.

Most likely republicans are just opposing Obama and dems, not out of theory or policy or morality, but just because sabotage is their only hope of being relevant after the Bush debacle.

The day after the election the right wing talk radio crowd (that would be all of talk radio) began blaming Obama for the current economic crisis. According to their reasoning the downturn was a reaction to the forecast Obama tax policies. Of course this is all bullshit, but for the millions of economically ignorant listeners it quickly became the gospel. The world's current economic mess is not the result of years of years of mismanagement and greed in the financial sector, but rather the reaction to a single event, the 2008 U S presidential election. That explanation is much easier for the simple minded to grasp, sort of like trotting out Joe the Plumber as an informed voice to explain the virtues of McCain's economic plan. The groundwork is being laid to blame the Obama administration for the economic crisis and this will be the singular goal of the republicans remaining in congress--provide a simple minded explanation to appeal to a simple minded base. As a last resort explain the crumbling economy as God's punishment for our sinful ways--that'll appeal to a few diehards too.

Maybe the lessons of the Great Depression are that the government can't spend itself out of recession, ...

This is another odd Repub talking point which, when drawn out goes like this:

"Deficit spending of money on bridges and dams didn't work; no, it was WWII with its deficit spending on tanks and guns that worked to end the depression."

It's never made the least bit of sense; other than yet one more example of how Republicans believe that anything spent on actual people is bad.

It is the Bill Clinton theory. Remember Bill under whom federal government fell from 22% to 18% and we had the longest boom in history right after the 1974 recession?

I recall lots of resources released to the private sector from the government sector at the time. People had cheaper goods when government was not consuming it all.

If Bill was right and Obama wrong, then we should see continued drop in economic activity as Obama has federal government share increasing. Maybe that is what we are seeing now. They call it Ricardo equivalence. The economy knows it is government bubble time so the private sector sits it out while government spending booms.

The Moral Explanation: ... The right, in other words, wants to see everyone taught a moral lesson about excesses."

Yeah, the right is really great about moderation for the projects they believe in. Military spending is out of control.

I think it's a little early to speculate on how most Republicans are going to play this recession. But the attitude that people should just suffer through it is so callous and crude, if not cruel, that these guys need to be cut down. I don't mind the top 1% having to "tough" it out, losing maybe 50% of their whopping, unearned and deserved paper fortunes, but for the bottom half this downturn is really going to hurt. These people are not guilty of conspicuous consumption by any stretch.

But there is a kernel of truth to what they say - our economy is far too dependent on current consumption, too lean on long term investment, and moving in the wrong direction, as we lose our manufacturing base. What do we actually produce, that has real tangible value to the rest of the world? Financial services?

You have to wonder how long the Chinese are going to prop up this paper tiger of an economy of ours.
And you have to wonder how bailing ourselves out with just plain money is going to work for the long term. For this money is coming from the Chinese in terms of more and more debt, not from a robust economy. If we get out of this, but continue the trend we've been on, the "big one" is going to hit us, if not this time, then next time.

We have to start doing real things, not phony Wall Street things in this country. We really have the tail wagging the dog now.

Excellent analysis, Steve.

I do, however, have a quibble.

I don't know whether the Illiterate Explanation is quite accurate. It implies the conservatives are stupid, which I don't think is generally true.

I think you need to consider that they are social individuals who consider the social class they belong to as the properly dominant one, and they don't want to help the enemy classes. That would be the Class War Explanation. Bush belongs to this group. Since this choice is based on wanting to belong to a group, it explains how conservatives reacting from this motivation can use completely contradictory explanations for political and economic events depending on who benefits and on what the conservative authorities prescribe. They can even change overnight and see no inconsistency.

Related, but not quite the same would be the Ideological Explanation. This differs from the Illiterate explanation because it does not require the Republicans to be stupid. Blind to reality, yes, but not stupid. Being ideologically blind to reality is a choice that is made by otherwise intelligent individuals. Actually it is more difficult to correct that the Illiterate Explanation. Most illiterate individuals are merely ignorant and can learn. An ideologically blind individual refuses to learn and in fact chooses to avoid it when it is possible.

If we are discussing the Republican political leaders in Congress, however, I think the Strategic Explanation fits most of them best. As for the The Manchurian Explanation, whether it is all that unlikely depends on how the specific individuals define "the United States." I think that a large number of conservative Republicans have an image of the United States that most of us here would be shocked at, and they consider large groups who live here to be "Unamerican." They see their job as either converting the members of those Unamerican groups or getting rid of them somehow.

I also don't see any of the descriptions as creating categories that are exclusive of any of the others. It would be interesting to set up a questionnaire with questions based on these categories, getting a broad group of conservatives to fill it out, then run a factor analysis of the results.

I'd go with the strategic with a little dose of the illiterate. Remember supply side economics are an article of faith at every level in the conservative movement. It's failed twice but they still believe. That said the more sophisticated Republicans know that if Obama succeeds brilliantly they are gone for a long time. Hence the wish to see Detroit fail and cause an economic cataclysm.

The reply to the class warfare call is not "Damn Straight", it's "You greedy thieving robber-baron bastard, have you no shame" followed by an appeal to the crowd "this guy wants to keep the billions he made off your efforts, while you all starve!".

It's all the auguments except the manchurian one.

Neo-Hooverism: Because it Works on So Many Levels

I'm with ALL the listed explanations. Why sweat trying to pick one? Or two? The beauty of neo-Hooverism is that there are SO MANY plausible justifications, both moral-religeous, pseudo-economic, and political. Take them all! Emphasize different ones for each different audience! And don't worry about consistency or contradictions.

It's how the GOP has been wowing its disparate base of bankers, snake handlers, KKKers, and Joe 6-pack for the last several decades. It's too bad that the Democratic Party has become so enamoured of consistency and logic, over emotional appeals, that it's been unable to mount a similar campaign in favor of its ideals. Even with facts on its side...

The Manchurian Explanation works best if you consider it the Revenge Explanation: a visceral, revenge-based reaction that they know will be against their best interests and will incur personal costs, but will teach the American people a lesson: "don't vote against us."

It's at least possible that Republicans like Sanford, Boehner, and Thompson oppose economic stimulus because they have no grounding in basic economics.

It's a certainty that they oppose it because it's going to cost them money. Their taxes will be raised.

Self-interest before the national interest. It's Conservatism 101.

The Machurian Explanation: A slightly more callous version of the Strategic Explanation, it's possible that GOP officials secretly hate the United States and are actively trying to destroy us from within.

Given that the GOP is now the party of Southern Treason, this is probably right.

This is another odd Repub talking point which, when drawn out goes like this:

"Deficit spending of money on bridges and dams didn't work; no, it was WWII with its deficit spending on tanks and guns that worked to end the depression."

It's never made the least bit of sense;

It especially doesn't make sense if you note that the first (1929) recession of the Great Depression ended and a strong recovery (given the starting conditions) began in 1933, and the bounce back from the second, smaller recession (of 1937) also began before the US involvement in WWII.

I think what hardcore fiscal conservatives want is economic darwinism. Brutal economic competition that will destroy companies under sub-par management, or with any sort of system in place that impedes the company's success.

More fiscal conservatives are willing to push much harder for this when they are out of power (because it is painful and beneficial, and because the party in leadership will be blamed for the pain.)

Fiscal conservatives believe that unions are paying off congress in order to keep the UAW-crippled automakers on life support, so that the UAW can continue to feed off their diseased bloated corpses. In their mind, the faster the big three fail, the faster competent successful companies can revitalize the entire manufacturing industry, even though this will probably mean the long-term demise of Detroit, the city that already lives in hell.

Having worked at GM for several years, I agree. The UAW is a plague and pox on the nation. GM is beyond crippled in everything they do by the union. They can't even pretend to compete. The big 3 will never be able to compete unless the UAW nearly universally reduces its grip.

GM even turned off the lights off in our building during business hours to save costs, but if I wanted to move my computer keyboard to the next cubicle, it required a negotiation with the union rep, and ended up being billed at $250. UN-F-ING BELIEVABLE. The foodless cafeterias were packed full of union workers all day long playing board games, because the job bank forced GM to pay full salary if they let someone go (EVEN IF THEY GOT ANOTHER JOB!!!).

Someone in the warehouse sexually assaulted his supervisor. Local management was forced to reprimand him with a two-week suspension by the
legal department. All work in the parts warehouse stopped, and two-weeks of sabotage ensued during his suspension, resulting in over $20 million in damages.

The unions purpose was served 100 years ago. They exist now to feed only themselves, at the expense of the workers, the investors, the economy, and the consumers. They have a deathlock on GM and the others, and they won't die until the big-3 die. Why are they even called the big-3? They aren't. Toyota is the biggest. They should be called the UAW-3. The crippled and diseased 3. The dysfunctional 3. And now they are going to submit a plan to congress promising to build green cars when gas prices are going to be $1 a gallon next year??? Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai are going to crucify them by selling big trucks and SUV's while GM produces more unsold inventory that it can't move with taxpayer dollars, so that the self-serving UAW can continue to exist for a few more years.

I may not agree with sanford and pawlenty that economic stimulous is bad, but I think I agree with most Americans when I say... "UAW, its time to die", and if your deathgrip is so intense that you will never let go, then I guess its time for GM America to die too. GM Europe and GM Asia will continue to be very successful, becaue the UAW can't touch them.

Maybe the lessons of the Great Depression are that the government can't spend itself out of recession, and might make things worse by directing resources away from where they would be most productive. I'm sure this sounds greek to this audience, but it could be food for thought.

Or maybe we could pay attention to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman when he presents us with actual facts and statistics instead of speculating without information.

Just an idea.

All we have here(again) is a bunch of OLD MEN still living in the 20th century. Dummies just do not get it. Your plan DID NOT WORK before and it is not going to work this time around either. It is going to take more the cutting spending(thanks to your current boss) or cutting taxes of the 'already' rich...........

Some people just do not learn.

The Credit Default Swap market is a $50,000,000,000,000 (yes, that's 50 Trillion) bet that the Economy will TANK, for which the bettors put down just 3 Trillion dollars.

The only way they can get that 3 Trillion back is for companies to fail. But the upside is, if all the companies fail, they get the 50 Trillion.

As the Big 3 pointed out, if they go down, the financial institutions are going to own up to 2 Trillion dollars in CDS and other instruments.

Steve, the reason is GREED.

I believe in Markets. I believe that if you create a 50 Trillion dollar market in economic failure you are going to see economic failure. That's why I believe you should regulate the markets so you don't have a Market in Failure.

Notice, they (Paulson and Bernankie) let Lehman fail but they bankrolled AIG's Credit Default Swaps on Lehman. They want the Big 3 to fail. Are they going to bankroll (with our tax dollars) the 2 Trillion dollars to cover those failures?

That last one seems unlikely, but I'm just presenting the possibilities.

That's kind and generous of you. Other people may not be so generous. In the real world, one looks at the data and makes judgments from that.

Being kind and generous has no place in an analysis of the data, and conclusions are drawn based on the simplist explanation that accounts for all the data. When you analyze the data by scientific principles, you come to the conclusion that these people actually run the gamut from "don't give a flip" to "hate America with a passion." Since these people are not stupid, there can be no other reason why they advocate the policies that they do.

The right, in other words, wants to see everyone taught a moral lesson about excesses.

If the one's being taught a lesson were the one's who deserved it (the CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers, tax-cutting politicians) I'd agree.

One thing for sure...Republicans stand for protecting the holdings of the wealthy and deregulating their activities. This is how they view the purpose of the economy. They hate unions or any organization where the rights of individuals are protected above their desire to profiteer.

As a party they have demonstrated they are an obstructionist organization placing political gain above the good of the nation. They have shown their willingness to lie, steal and cheat just to win elections. They do not believe in partisanship or even the good of the people but only what's good for republican people. And now they have been invaded by Paliens, willing to say or do anything that gets them ahead and makes them feel superior.

20 minutes writing this comment and political animal just disappears and won't come back up. Had to completely reload page to get it back up. All that effort...I'm so angry.

Mostly at this bullshit: Posted by: UBreaker on December 5, 2008 at 1:14 PM

He cherry picks the worst incidences of union activities and happenings to condemn the entire union. Not once recognizing the amazing progress labor has made due to unions. He would rather be in a marketplace with a ruling class and the rest of us just peasants. All the retirees with union protected and obtained pensions swept into the streets by his type of rationality as soon as they became un-useful to the 80/hr child involved work weeks without healthcare, vacations, sick leave or livable wages. Too bad a heavy ceinling light didn't fall into your cubicle and bash in your head. Then without a union you'd just hear, "Next...and somebody get this guy out of here".

Unions have set a standard for all labor to bargain with employers. You write about unusual and rare incidents to smear unions as a whole. Especially now when so many wealthy elites are trying to blame unions for auto maker's failures when financial services without unions failed just as miserably from mismanagement and greed from CEOs. Unions are responsible for us even having a middle class and despite your bullshit unsupported stories are the backbone of American labor rights.

bakho is certainly right about the Republicans. It's just about the same here in Canada with Harper's conservatives

On another note: It makes more sense for Barak Obama to recommend fixing the infrastrucure,like roads, overpasses and Bridges which badly need attention. If merely taxes were cut, some might benefit(mostly people who are rich enough already) ,but! but! the roads wouldn't be fixed atall !!!

bakho is certainly right about the Republicans. It's just about the same here in Canada with Harper's conservatives

On another note: It makes more sense for Barak Obama to recommend fixing the infrastrucure,like roads, overpasses and Bridges which badly need attention. If merely taxes were cut, some might benefit(mostly people who are rich enough already) ,but! but! the roads wouldn't be fixed atall !!!

I love it when people take Econ 101 and internalize dogma, never again able to think outside the box and analyze what is going on.

Recession--> Stimulus, awk, polly wanna cracker, awk.