Re: A Reactionary Party

Chris, I fear, has read too much into my use of the word “reactionary.” I meant only to suggest that Republicans have gone with libertarianism over, say, Huckabee-ism or Olympia Snowe-ism, because they are reacting to Obama’s ambitious economic progressivism. This is exactly what we would expect from a minority party: the majority gets to lay out its agenda first, and the minority is forced to react. It really was a dull point that I was making, but I was responding to Nate Silver, who seemed not to have hit upon this rather simple explanation for the Republicans’ particular oppositional stance.
As for the substance of his post, I have a few things to say. First, the Republicans are not responding to Obama’s agenda by saying “hey, let’s just stand here and wait.” No, they’re saying, “let’s do more of what we did for the last eight years.” Just look at their alternative budget: tax cuts for the wealthy and a spending freeze. The Republican leadership does not want to be worked with. They don’t want to compromise. They give every impression of wanting to be the permanent opposition. This is what I mean by reactionary: they just want us to know what they “would” do, but they never actually do anything except raise a ruckus. Which is well within their right, but let’s not pretend that their inspiration is Edmund Burke, rather than Joe the Plumber.
As for Chris’ point #2, I think he is basically right: on the national stage, there really is no intra-GOP disagreement on economic issues. I say “on the national stage” because many Republicans who are actually, you know, governing have very different ideas. Notice that Republican governors without national ambitions (like Gov. Terminator) accepted their states’ stimulus money, while those who plan on running for president (Palin, Jindal, Sanford) all made a big show of refusing, or pretending to refuse, the federal largesse. Again, this is what I mean by reactionary: it’s all about opposing whatever the Democrats do, just because the Democrats are doing it, in order to curry favor with the tea-partying base.
Finally, on point #3, I think Chris pulls a fast one in suggesting that Corzine and Dodd’s unpopularity has anything to do with the “relationship between state and private enterprise.” Look, Corzine is unpopular because New Jersey’s budget has been a tragic joke for decades, and he’s had to do unpopular things in order to try to fix it. It probably doesn’t help that he used to work for Goldman Sachs, that he doesn’t wear his seatbelt, and that New Jersey Republicans seem to have finally, finally, found one among their number who doesn’t smell worse than the Meadowlands. And yes, Dodd has been marred by scandal, but Connecticut is one of the most liberal states in the country, so this isn’t about Nutmeg Staters not liking taxes and regulation. It’s about their not liking politicians who play by their own rules.
So let’s not generalize about those two cases. Instead, I’ll point out that President Obama has a 64% approval rating (all of his losses are among Republicans, which is exactly what you would expect given the Republicans’ oppositional strategy), and, for the first time in half a decade, a plurality of the country thinks we are headed on the right track.