{"id":3179,"date":"2010-11-09T13:00:38","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T18:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3179"},"modified":"2010-11-10T12:41:16","modified_gmt":"2010-11-10T17:41:16","slug":"apres-le-deluge-republican-quoi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/11\/09\/apres-le-deluge-republican-quoi\/","title":{"rendered":"Apres le deluge Republican, quoi?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Admit it.\u00a0 Only in public radio would we dare<\/em> to launch a critical think-piece about the Republican Party in the language of the Land of Freedom Fries.<\/p>\n

Ribbing aside, the question is real:\u00a0 What next for the Republican Party, now that it possesses real power?<\/p>\n

Here’s the conundrum for the GOP.\u00a0 The defining philosophical conceit of the modern conservative movement was summed up by Ronald Reagan in his famous bon mot<\/em> (see, there I go again).<\/p>\n

“Government is not a solution to our problem,” he argued.\u00a0 “Government is the problem.”<\/p>\n

The trick, though, is that Reagan was wrong, at least a lot of the time.\u00a0 If 9\/11 taught us anything, it’s that big problems come torpedoing at our society all the time that have nothing to do with government.<\/p>\n

Remember Hurricane Katrina?\u00a0 That wasn’t a gray-faced government bureaucrat causing all the trouble.\u00a0 It was a charging rhino of a storm that blasted a great American city.<\/p>\n

And we expected Washington to be up to the task of responding.<\/p>\n

These aren’t rare events.\u00a0 A couple of weeks ago, when Muslim extremists tried to ship bombs on cargo flights, no one suggested that we find a laissez-faire, de-regulated, market-driven solution.<\/p>\n

The second trick is that even the vast majority of Americans who vote Republican also want (read:\u00a0 demand, in no uncertain terms) a lot of government services.<\/p>\n

With the exception of school-age children, all those conservative-tilting seniors use more government programs and receive more government dollars in direct payments than anyone else.<\/p>\n

In New York’s 20th district race, one of Chris Gibson’s TV ads featured an elderly voter praising the Republican for promising to protect that most Rooseveltian of programs, Social Security.<\/p>\n

Voters also want something done immediately about jobs.\u00a0 And they don’t want Bill Gates or Warren Buffet to do it.\u00a0 They want Washington to make it happen.<\/p>\n

Republicans, giddy from last Tuesday, have only begun to wrestle with this challenge<\/p>\n

Consider health care.\u00a0 If Republicans succeed in repealing or de-funding healthcare reform, tens of millions of Americans will once again be on the outs, stuck without dependable, reliable insurance.<\/p>\n

They talk in vague terms about “repealing and replacing” the current reform package.\u00a0 They offer what amount to symbolic ideas, including tort reform, as an alternative.<\/p>\n

Yes, some kind of significant tort reform is a good idea.\u00a0 But no, it won’t seriously change the cost of delivering health care to Americans, or extend care to a lot of additional people.<\/p>\n

Being the party of Non<\/em>! was a great political strategy for a party that was truly on the outside looking in.<\/p>\n

The GOP succeeded in appropriating and leveraging America’s anger at the economic status quo.\u00a0 But that’s not good enough anymore.<\/p>\n

Now Republicans will need to govern, to legislate, and to come up with smart new policy ideas that solve real-world problems.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With the economy still teetering, gridlock and finger-pointing and campaign catch-phrases won’t satisfy voters.<\/p>\n

We’ve had two whiplash elections in a row.\u00a0 Unless Republicans pivot quickly and get down to business, look for more to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Admit it.\u00a0 Only in public radio would we dare to launch a critical think-piece about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[886,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3188,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions\/3188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}