Chait on GOP Nihilism

Jonathan Chait writes in The New Republic that modern Republicans are out of ideas to address current problems and have resorted to lockstep obstruction out of ideological rigidity.

In the days following the 2008 election, some Republicans predicted that the party would retool itself in response to reality--not just political reality but the actuality of policy challenges. “Republicans,” wrote conservative Ramesh Ponnuru in Time, “will have to devise an agenda that speaks to a country where more people feel the bite of payroll taxes than income taxes, where health-care costs eat up raises even in good times, where the length of the daily commute is a bigger irritant than are earmarks.” Nothing like that rethinking has happened or will happen.

Whatever the merits of President Obama’s agenda, it is clearly a response to objectively large problems facing the country. The administration has selected three main issues as the focus of its domestic agenda: the economic crisis, climate change, and health care reform...In all three areas, the Republican Party has adopted a stance of total opposition, not merely because it disagrees with aspects of Obama’s solutions, but because it cannot come to grips with the very nature of the problems of modern American politics.

As an example, conservative blogger David Frum recently described speaking to a group of young conservatives who took issue with his argument for the necessity of some form of government intervention in last year's financial crisis.

The dominant view in the conservative world rejects the decisions of last year, and even questions whether conditions were really so very dangerous after all. One attendee said something very thought-provoking. “Maybe it was a good thing we weren’t in power then – because our principles don’t allow us to respond to a crisis like this.” My answer: If your principles don’t allow you to save your country when it needs to be be saved, then there’s something wrong with those principles.

--Ballard Burgher