Home > Alex Massie

Tuesday 9 February 2010

The View from Inside the Cocoon

Monday, 2nd March 2009

It can be dangerous to be more catholic than the Pope. That was my immediate reaction to John O'Sullivan's piece on David Cameron in the latest issue of National Review. O'Sullivan dismisses the notion that there's anything the Republican party can, let alone should, learn from the Cameronian Makeover.

O'Sullivan is hardly alone in thinking this. That is, British conservatives exiled in Washington tend to disdain Toryism. From their comfortable berths at Heritage, AEI or National Review they tend to think British conservatism is fatally muddied by compromise and lacking the appealing clarity of the dominant strands in American conservatism. They dislike the uncomfortable truth that Britain is not an ideological country and forget that Thatcherism was a minority pursuit even within the Conservative party. They join American conservatives in worshipping at the altar of Ronnie and Maggie, forgetting that times change and so do voters.

Danny Finkelstein simply demolishes O'Sullivan's argument that the extent of the Tory collapse has been exaggerated and that, subsequently, any lack of enthusiasm for Cameron is the product of his moderation and willingness to "appease" voters who deserted the party. O'Sullivan writes, for instance, that:

"The incautious reader might imagine that the Tories stuck to right-wing “traditionalist” policies after 1997. But certain standard phrases in the narrative, including “after a short flirtation with modernizing” and “they retreated to their comfort zone,” give the game away. In reality, after each defeat the Tory leadership, far from banging on about taxes and immigration, adopted the modernizers’ progressive but vague agenda of diversity, inclusiveness, etc. These ideological gestures, in addition to failing to win over targeted centrist voters, minimized bedrock Tory support. Facing imminent catastrophe at the polls, the Tory leaders then switched to more traditional policies — too late to win the election but just in time to save the modernizers from blame for the defeat."

Now it's true that in comparison to Britain, lower (historically) turnouts in the United States increase the value of turning out the base as opposed to appealing to less-motivated swing voters. Nonetheless, the notion that it was the "modernisers" who were responsible for the Tories' failure to make real advances in 2001 and 2005 suffers from the fact that it's just not true. The public wanted the Tories to change and made it quite clear that the party could not return to power until it had done so.

Elections are really twin referenda: First, do we want to give the current mob another chance? And secondly, have the other lot done enough to deserve a go themselves? In 2005 the answers were "Not really" and "No". That is, the public, aided by the Iraq War, didn't much care for Labour but didn't think the Tories were ready for government either. So the party had to adapt.

The GOP faces a choice: real reform or pretending that nothing has changed. O'Sullivan recommends the latter. The notion seems to be that all that is needed is some kind of return to "core" principles. A Back to Basics agenda, if you like. Much of the American conservative movement now sees George W Bush as a sell-out. Bush wasn't a real conservative, they say. There's some truth to this, but it ignores the inconvenient fact that the public regarded Bush, and the GOP, as conservatives and didn't much care for what it saw.

Equally, if a return to "true" conservatism is all that is needed for victory, why is it that, by the conservative movement's own strict standards, there has been only one truly conservative president since the Second World War? Reagan is the only Republican president who hasn't been written out the movement. This suggests that, far from being a guarantee of electoral success, Reaganism might better be viewed as an outlier, not a reliable template for future victories. The United States may well be, by international standards, a centre-right nation, but common sense dictates that the "centre" bit matters just as much as the "right".

Just as importantly, 1980 was a long time ago. If the electorate looked the same in 2008 as it did in 1980 McCain would have defeated Obama. But it doesn't, does it? By 2012 many voters who would, on balance, be more likely to vote Republican than Democrat will have died and been replaced by younger voters more likely to vote for the Donkey than the Elephant. And at some point the United States will become a "majority minority" nation, ensuring that the GOP, if current voting trends remain constant, will have to win ever-greater majorities from its traditional demographic strongholds just to maintain parity with the Democrats.

Alternatively, of course, they could think anew. But that means rejecting the Rush Limbaugh view that "policies don't matter". O'Sullivan rejects this and, rather astonishingly, thinks the Tories - and by extension the GOP - would be better placed if they tacked sharply to the right:

"And what should reform-minded Republicans conclude from the Cameron experiment? My own advice would be as follows: Don’t waste time thinking of being a reformer."

Bizarrely, then, O'Sullivan argues that the Tories drew the wrong lessons from their calamitous defeats and that there is nothing worth learning from a Tory victory either. When George W Bush won, conservatives liked to chuckle that "elections have consequences". And so they do. Especially for the losing side. Those that deny that there are lessons to be learnt are, of course, unlikely to learn them. Instead they will drive their party into the wilderness for a decade or more. That's a comfortable place for true believers, but it's not a road that leads to electoral recovery and, in the end, victory.

Filed under: GOP (153 more articles) , Tories (104 more articles)

Previous Back to Alex Massie Next

Blogs: Martin Bright | Susan Hill | Melanie Phillips | Coffee House | Faith Based

Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (10)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

Rhoda Klapp

March 2nd, 2009 4:39pm Report this comment

A forced analysis which comes conveniently to confirm the prejudices of the writer. In fact, the tories are not the GOP. Different things play differently here and there, and differently over time too.

The tories have been out of power so long because they were out of fashion. Because the media and the country fell for the Blair schtick and adhered to it for too long. It has only recently become OK to say you would vote Tory. Cameron is the beneficiary, but he may not be the reason. Of course, Brown is not Blair, and fashion has swung against him. It hasn't really swung to the tories yet except as the main alternative. A Tory who thinks Cameron is popular per se may be getting it wrong. I don't propose to say if only he supported the right-wing policies I prefer he'd be on to a winner. It may not be true. But the policies are not all that relevant, it's the time for a change.

The GOP are going to have to ride out the Obama wave until it's time for a change. It doesn't matter what they do now, things must turn against Obama for them to succeed. It doesn't look like the US media or the electorate are about to abandon their investment in Obama for some time no matter what. He'd have to seriously mess up to lose popularity. The GOP need to wait. They do not need to tear themselves apart, or commit to anything that would be hard to drop in a year or three. Or eight.

porkbelly

March 2nd, 2009 5:06pm Report this comment

Surely if any president is an outlier it is the current one - can you think of a more left-wing occupant of 1600 since FDR?

There has always been a slope-shouldered, heavily-sighing wing of the Republican (and the Conservative) Party that deep down believes the left are on the side of history; that the best we can do is fight a rear-guard action to slow the inevitable advance. They are convinced that whatever the party stood for before, that was long ago and far away in the time of mustache wax and buggy whips, that today's voters want up-to-the-minute things like 1930's-style state socialism, perhaps with a little Scandinavian cachet (is it me or are we being constantly reminded of Sweden's perfection these days?).

The United States, unlike most other nations, was founded on a set of ideas until last year had held up pretty well. Some of these ideas clash with others - equality versus opportunity, for instance - and that can lead to electoral cycles as the voters swing left or right, but there has always been a basic desire for liberty and self-determination. Now we are told the American people want only to be herded by wise shepherds to greener socialist pastures, that we have been on the wrong path for the last 230 years but now, at last, have found our true master who will not permit us to stray again.

Perhaps. But I would venture that once the current desperate pro-Obama hysteria has faded and the true nature of his rule becomes apparent in our everyday lives the pendulum will swing back towards the center - not the New York Times/Atlantic Monthly center, the real center - and those who advocate for the absence of the government jackboot on the neck will begin to draw crowds again.

But perhaps I should start learning Swedish just in case...

Demetrius

March 2nd, 2009 5:44pm Report this comment

Surely a Scot should know to use the word "Cameronian" with a great deal of care. It has historical (and regimental) resonances that need to be taken account of.

David

March 2nd, 2009 6:55pm Report this comment

Good analysis,Alex.

TrevorsDen

March 2nd, 2009 8:07pm Report this comment

Well said Alex - the critics here are loopy.

I made a similar point (more briefly) where the issue was raised on EU Referendum - which has i am afraid descended into self parody, this despite the valid points it covers.

Elf

March 2nd, 2009 8:14pm Report this comment

The GOP needs to find some way of reaching out to young people. They are the future and right now they are solid Obama. One of the reasons Cameron's modernisation has worked is that it de-fossilized the Tories.

Ray

March 2nd, 2009 9:53pm Report this comment

On issues like crime, immigration and taxation the Conservatives were usually ahead of Labour in the polls in 2001 and 2005. The one key area where Labour retained its lead was on the economy, and until such time as the economy turned that was unlikely to change. After all, "it's the economy, stupid" decides most elections.

Now that the boom has turned to bust it is no longer unfashionable to vote Conservative. Hence, the Tory 'modernisers' were wrong: in the end what has transformed their party's fortunes has not been glitzy, politically-correct posturing but rather the electorate finally seeing through the hollow sham of the New Labour project. In a nutshell, the Tories no longer need to chase the electorate; the electorate are now turning back to them in the search for answers.

The proof of this is that David Cameron himself has put away talk of melting glaciers and gay marriage and is instead confident enough to start preparing the voters for a welcome dose of fiscal conservatism.

Jamie

March 2nd, 2009 10:32pm Report this comment

"The United States, unlike most other nations, was founded on a set of ideas until last year had held up pretty well. [...] those who advocate for the absence of the government jackboot on the neck will begin to draw crowds again."

As long as the typical American conservative regards the restoration of the 1998 income tax brackets as "Socialism," and the election of Barack Obama a betrayal of 230 years of American history by a fanatical mob, I'm not sure many people will take the typical American Conservative very seriously.

Ben

March 3rd, 2009 8:02am Report this comment

Nice article, though Porkbelly is in my opinion near the mark with Obama. Most importantly, the correct plural "referenda". First time I've seen it in ages.