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Over the weekend, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) reflected on his party’s ideological bearings. “I think what you’re seeing is the Republican Party going back to its conservative roots and, yes, going back to its core principles and I think that’s a good thing. I would argue that we did lose our way for a while.”
It’s not exactly a mystery what period of time “a while” represents.
Republicans head into 2012 united in their disdain for an unpopular, big government-loving, internationalist president.
The name of that president: George W. Bush.
From Capitol Hill to the statehouses to the presidential primary, Republicans are turning their back on almost every important accomplishment of the Bush administration.
Bush’s attempt to reposition the GOP to the center-right has been rejected in favor of an unmodified brand of conservatism that would rather leave people alone than lift them up with any “armies of compassion.” Many of Bush’s distinctive policy ideas have fallen by the wayside, replaced by a nearly single-minded focus on reducing the size of government.
Now, it’s tempting to think Republicans would be distancing themselves from Bush and his legacy because he failed so spectacularly, and the GOP wants to avoid the stench of the eight-year fiasco.
But that’s not what this is about. Rather, party officials and activists are looking back at the Bush/Cheney era and rejecting the policies of the Republican administration on ideological grounds.
For the GOP, Bush was wrong about everything from education (NCLB) to health care (Medicare Part D), immigration (comprehensive reform) to international aid (PEPFAR), national service (AmeriCorps, USA Freedom Corp) to foreign policy (growing Republican skepticism about Afghanistan).
Even on taxes, Republican presidential hopefuls are inclined to make Bush look like Robin Hood, with new measures that would cost more and be tilted more dramatically in favor of the rich.
Never mind that Republicans supported nearly all of Bush’s agenda when he was actually in office — they’ve now decided to go in a new direction.
Consider the Republican debate last week in New Hampshire. The candidates spoke almost entirely in boilerplate conservative terms, endorsing spending cuts, tax cuts, sweeping regulatory rollbacks, a crackdown on illegal immigration and devolving as much power as possible back to the states.
That’s a far cry from the agenda Bush ran on in 2000, and it’s not enough to satisfy some Bush alums who remain convinced the party needs a “robust domestic agenda,” as former Freedom Corps Director John Bridgeland put it.
But even more interesting to me is the implicit message the Republican Party is bringing to voters: vote GOP in 2012 because the party now believes George W. Bush was a big liberal.
I’m skeptical this will work. As Bush left office, I suspect the number of Americans thinking, “Bush would have been a better president if only he wasn’t such a left-winger” was fairly small.
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Okie on June 20, 2011 10:46 AM:
Perhaps it was Bush's compassion that alienated today's Republicans.
I've been wondering if Bush II will be invited to the 2012 Republican convention. You can be sure that Bill Clinton will be at the Democratic convention.
Jim7 on June 20, 2011 10:49 AM:
If Obama insists on continuing Bush's tax breaks and expanding Bush's wars, where else can true Republicans run?
c u n d gulag on June 20, 2011 10:50 AM:
Poor Little Boots...
Hung out to dry.
And by the same people who loved him, voted for him, egged him on, called opponenets treasonous traitors, and demanded total allegience for their 'Great Leader,' and wholly supported him right up until the second the country went off a f*cking cliff.
He was "The Golden Boy" right up until he wasn't!
Little Boots forgot that when you're a failure, it isn't because Conservatism is a failure or failed philosophy, it's because you weren't sufficiently Conservative enough.
PS: I keep telling people that "Idiocracy" is a documentary, not fiction.
Alli on June 20, 2011 10:51 AM:
The true conservative republican party would not recognize the whacko's of today so I don't know what Jindal is referring to.
Danp on June 20, 2011 11:03 AM:
they’ve now decided to go in a new direction.
No. They've now decided to wish away Bush's failures by rebranding themselves as more pure. Once they reach that theoretical utopia where disagreement doesn't exist in the world, what can go wrong? That's the hope they pretend to believe in.
Grumpy on June 20, 2011 11:03 AM:
This isn't new. Bush's approval rating collapsed at the end of his term largely because of a backlash from the right. However, I agree with Alli that the GOP is not "going back to its conservative roots" so much as they are concocting a new variety of conservatism -- most likely calibrated to stay one step rightward of the Dems' attempt to appeal to the center.
Gummitch on June 20, 2011 11:14 AM:
In truth, I don't see how the GOP has an option. The general economic belief system they propose now is no different than it ever has been, but they cannot escape the reality that it failed miserably over the Bush years. "Lower taxes bring more jobs" is difficult to assert in the face of the Bush tax cuts. The only direction they can take is farther to the Right: tax cuts would have worked if only they'd been done right.
Al B Tross on June 20, 2011 11:14 AM:
The contradiction in their arguments, the level of denial that they did support and encourage Mr. Bush and his policies, is just more proof that we are dealing with a very strong Authoritarian presence. According to a 30 year empirical study done by Dr. Bob Altemeyer, these behavioral traits alone are evidence that this is not about ideology, but about social and political Domination.
This is the most serious attempt since WW2 to establish a Totalitarian, Fascist state in what was the worlds greatest Democracy.
They are attempting to crush Democracy, humiliate liberal thought, and punish anyone, and everyone whom has ever opposed Corporate Authoritarian Domination.
The truly sad thing is, it's working.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
bigtuna on June 20, 2011 11:18 AM:
SO which republican presidency to they want to return to?
If Bush II is out, so is Bush I. While they all love Reagan, how many tax increases do they like?
Nixon? He of the EPA? Not to mention obvious ethical issues.
Ok, Eisenhower? Well, he seems pretty reasonable as a mid road dem today.
SO, then what? Hooverism? Coolidgism? Harding?
howard on June 20, 2011 11:21 AM:
jessica, surely you aren't claiming that your 11:10 piffle constitutes the work of a "rational" observer? given that basically every sentence in it is irrational....
it has taken the gop roughly 50 years to get to this point, where "hatred of liberals" is the dominant mode of thought, and it's hard to see what makes it turn away.
SYSPROG on June 20, 2011 11:24 AM:
This is such BS...which 'roots' are they going BACK to? Barry Goldwater? HE was never president. They certainly aren't going 'back' to Reagan...he is MUCH too liberal for them. Nixon? C'mon he's a bleeding heart. Eisenhower? Geez he built highways...the only thing they are going 'back' to is talking points. They are rejecting Bush NOT because they hate him and didn't just LOVE the secrecy but because the Bush name doesn't play well with the great unwashed. Can you spell WISCONSIN, OHIO, KANSAS????????
Alex on June 20, 2011 11:25 AM:
I agree with Grumpy, it ISN'T new. In response to Jon Stewart being on Fox this weekend I spoke to someone about his opinion that "Jon Stewart can go on Fox, but they don't book conservatives on his show" (he also referenced a video from a Fox guy named Crowder as proof) when I listed Tea Party People, GOP presidential nominees, Fox employees have all been on the Daily Show, he said, "They aren't conservative, just Republican, big difference."
They aren't going to their roots, they're going to a perfect ideology, no federal government other than a military. Let the state make all the laws, which would be based on Christianity:
So killing prisoners (eye for an eye) is ok, but abortion "killing" isn't ok. Violence is ok, let EVERYONE buy guns (even people on terror watch lists) but anything having to do with the human body is inappropriate. Abstinence is the ONLY way, AND if they kids do happen to have sex, or get raped, they have to keep the baby, "but what about pregnancy prevention, contraception?" NO!!! the Pill KILLS! Screw the world and it's climate, give me oil. Corporate profits are a must, so send all the jobs to those camel jockey and towel head countries, but I'm still going to complain about how they can't speak good english when I call customer service!
Jessica Zembala is wrong to say "little dissent" and "messiah" there's been plenty of dissent for those things which the left feel are continuations of Bush policy. AND, the policies in question are military decisions, so maybe, just maybe, there's A LOT of military intelligence that we don't know and candidate Obama didn't know. When he got voted in his advisers made it clear that the policies had to continue because of x or y.
The rest of his policy isn't Bush-like, and tilts the balance back in favor of the lefts' graces.
jTh on June 20, 2011 11:26 AM:
Um, Jessica, what about all of us who hated Bush for the five years before the media even dared to question him?
As for danp, "Once they reach that theoretical utopia where disagreement doesn't exist in the world, what can go wrong?," you know that Orwell wrote a book about that, right?
(As for Captcha, if it is humanly impossible to discern between two possible letters, you know that's completely missing your point, right?)
Zorro on June 20, 2011 11:30 AM:
I suspect that one major thing about Bush really galls much of the GOP today: his clear insistence that the US was not at war w/Islam. Today, any GOoPer who as much as suggests that the US isn't engaged in a Crusade (reference intentional) against Islam is branded as some kind of librul-communist-fascist-muslim-Marxist-hippie-Kenyan.
-Z
T2 on June 20, 2011 11:33 AM:
bigtuna asks "SO which republican presidency to they want to return to?"
answer: Whoever was president of the Confederate States of America
dalloway on June 20, 2011 11:38 AM:
It's really pretty simple. As ignorant of politics as most citizens are, they know Bush really screwed up the country. To escape their own culpability (their favorite sport) the right has to paint Bush as a wussy, sellout, fake conservative, ie. a liberal. That way they can continue to blame all the country's problems on... liberals!
Joe Friday on June 20, 2011 12:10 PM:
But even more interesting to me is the implicit message the Republican Party is bringing to voters: vote GOP in 2012 because the party now believes George W. Bush was a big liberal.
As I previously posted, this is akin to thinking that the problem is not that you are hitting yourself over the head with a hammer, but instead thinking the problem is that you are not hitting yourself over the head with a hammer hard enough.
xpatriate on June 20, 2011 12:59 PM:
bigtuna, boy this is a dilemma, eh? Let's see, Hoover is out. Too interventionist and too big gubnment, according to Shlaes and other neoconservatives. Harding? Nah, pardoned Eugene Debs and then there are those scandal thingies. OK, keep cool with Coolidge, otherwise we'll have to go back to McKinley after skipping that bomb thrower TR. But, Coolidge used to relax by having Vaseline rubbed on his head. Hmmm. McKinley did rescue the gold standard and start (albeit, reluctantly) an unnecessary war, so maybe they'll have to go back to the end of the first Gilded Age for ideological purity. Seems fitting somehow.
H-Bob on June 20, 2011 3:41 PM:
"I've been wondering if Bush II will be invited to the 2012 Republican convention" -- Colbert observed that Bush only appeared by video at the 2008 Republican convention and opined that Bush not attending was like "having a USC reunion and OJ is a no-show" !
Mark D on June 20, 2011 5:34 PM:
Jessica is further proof that conservatives aren't even trying any more. They just toss out a bunch of word salad, include the key talking point(s) of the week (in this case, "The media is why everyone hated Bush!" and "No one on the left has criticized Obama about anything, ever!") and hope that no one actually checks to see if what they said is true (which, with the media, is probably a good bet).
I mean, there was a time when they at least pretended to care about things like policy, facts, and even basic reality.
But they are getting so close to Peak Wingnut that ... well, it's sad, really. It's as if millions of people are going through some sort of mental illness* or have joined a cult -- in which being willfully ignorant is a positive character trait, greed is at the heart of Jesus' teachings, and anything they do wrong is immediately projected onto those they don't like.
It'd damn near be comical if it weren't so destructive for the future of our nation.
(*No offense to those actually suffering from true mental illness.)
MKS on June 21, 2011 9:55 AM:
President Bush often worked with Democrats - even with Senator Kennedy.
At this point, many Republicans - including myself - do not want a President who will work with Democrats. We want a President who will diligently work toward consigning the Democratic Party to history, along with the Federalist Party and the Whig Party.
Libertarian, Constitutionalist, conservative Republican - whatever - do not elect another Democrat. The Democratic Party is the party of Cherokee Relocation, Slavery, Jim Crow, and Abortion. Their human rights record has been, and continues to be, dismal.