The last few years, I’ve written occasionally about the trials, triumphs and reinventions of America’s conservative moment.\u00a0 It is a dramatic story, in many ways far more dynamic and dramatic than Barack Obama’s historic election in 2008.<\/p>\n
The GOP stumbled into an electoral abyss three years ago.<\/p>\n
Rather than seek the middle or try to find a moderate message that would give them new traction — the strategy adopted by conservatives in Britain and Canada — Republicans pivoted hard to the right.<\/p>\n
This transformation of one of America’s two great parties has once again redefined our national politics and it is the single key factor shaping the current debt-ceiling debate in Washington.<\/p>\n
To their credit, Republicans are no longer particularly shy about trumpeting the triumph of their right wing.<\/p>\n
Once upon a time, the GOP found it necessary to talk about “fringe” ideas such as re-adopting the gold standard, ending Social Security, or defaulting on our national debt in code language.<\/p>\n
They spoke with some ambiguity about their desire to roll back reforms in American society — from the existence of a sturdy social safety net to the creation of an Environmental Protection Agency — that were once bipartisan accomplishments, considered mainstream for decades.<\/p>\n
Indeed, not since the days of Barry Goldwater has the right felt so comfortable trumpeting their clear, unambiguous message, even when polls clearly show that voters want something different.<\/p>\n
Eighty percent of Americans want tax hikes to be part of a budget balancing effort?\u00a0 It doesn’t matter.\u00a0 Revenue increases are off the table, period.<\/p>\n
Whatever you think of the GOP’s ideas, you have to admire the fact that this is a party driven by faction with a clear message, a distinct vision.<\/p>\n
Which is why it’s so troubling that so many reporters and editorial writers have taken such pains to suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n
Article after article frames this conflict as if it were playing out between a traditional center-left Democratic Party and a traditional center-right Republican Party.<\/p>\n
That simply isn’t factually true any more.<\/p>\n
For proof, one need only look to the statements of Republican leaders themselves.<\/p>\n
Sen. John McCain was the GOP’s presidential standard bearer just three years ago.\u00a0 He felt called upon this week to describe the conservative movement’s ideological stance as “worse than foolish” and “deceiving.”<\/p>\n
“It’s unfair,” McCain said on the Senate floor.\u00a0 “It’s bizarro.”<\/p>\n
On an interview program Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner said that a lot of conservatives in his own ranks are refusing to compromise on budget talks because they “believe that if we get past August the second and we have enough chaos, we could force the Senate and the White House to accept a balanced budget amendment.”<\/p>\n
The old GOP, which generally drifted in an ideological range between Dwight Eisenhower on the left and and Ronald Reagan on the right, would never have used the threat of economic chaos as a lever to advance their agenda.<\/p>\n
The idea is unthinkable.<\/p>\n
This acknowledgment that the new Republican Party is a very different animal from the old Republican Party isn’t new within the GOP.<\/p>\n
A couple of months ago, no less perceptive a political observer than Newt Gingrich blasted conservatives for rallying around budget proposals that represent “right wing social engineering.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate,” Gingrich said, during an appearance on Meet the Press.<\/p>\n
In the end it was Gingrich, not the right-wing faction of his party, who was forced to recant and apologize.\u00a0 A man who defined the Republican Revolution a generation ago, has now been left behind as the party trends more and more conservative.<\/p>\n
It’s time for journalists to simply accept this version Republican Party at face value and quite trying to shoehorn it into a suit of clothes that hasn’t fit for a very long time.<\/p>\n
That doesn’t require them to be biased, or ideological in their coverage.\u00a0 It simply requires them to report factually, accurately and straight-forwardly about the GOP’s agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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