Right wing populism

[oldfart]

I can't think of one populist idea they have that is appealing to people other than complaining about taxes, which we all do, though what separates the adults from the children on this issue is the understanding that taxation has given us civilization.

I guess that my problem is that I have a longing to see a GOP (and conservative movement) that offers a platform that is attractive to a populist sentiment. Think Eisenhower Republican. Hell, think Reagan Republican (the actual man, not the myth). I have no great love for the middle, but an unrealistic right that cannot work for the good of America both improves the prospects for a far left electoral victory (which of course would be fine with me) but also of a punishing gridlock which is destroying America.

The good fight can continue to be fought with social conservatives, but the dedication to carrying water for the very wealthy has me puzzled. The GOP when successful has usually had some strong populist economic support. It seems to me that there is room for a populist conservative approach to immigration reform, fiscal stimulus, unemployment policy, medical financing, defense spending, and a cornucopia of other issues. I just wonder why they don't seize the opportunity. Is it really all about the donor money?

 

[oldfart]

The GOP does not have to support the things you mentioned in the form they currently exist. They can develop other approaches.

As an example, I've never seen a clear definition of our "health care issue". The GOP really let this conversation get away from them.

Agreed. Could you take any issue and create an illustrative policy statement? This is what I see missing.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

A recent interview in which Rick Santorum expressed support for increases in the minimum wage sparked a thought in my mind. For those of us on the left, it has always seemed odd that the populist right would continue to carry water for narrow business interests.

So why can't people like Santorum support things like increasing the minimum wage and those provisions of the Affordable Care Act (which is most of them) that are popular? It shouldn't be the kiss of death, like supporting abortion or same sex marriage, with their base. They could even advocate these measures as reducing the deficit (obviously raising the minimum wage cuts welfare).

My question is whether such populist positions could be combined with fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, with or better without the neo-con foreign policy, producing a platform that could actually challenge democrats in 2016.

Is the barrier that Republicans are dependent on big business for funding and the tea party base will not financially support a political operation? Or is there another reason the GOP cannot adopt any populist positions?

How can you say ACA is popular when the majority of Americans don't like it?

The majority of Americans aren't even participating in Obamacare because they have their own insurance already, so the polls are a logical fallacy.

Anyone who's been able to sign up for insurance now is in favor of it by virtue of finally not being discriminated against for having a pre-existing condition.

More than 50% of the public now supports the idea of making the ACA work, not scrapping it.

It's the law, it works, and Republicans are yet again on the wrong side of history.

I can't think of one populist idea they have that is appealing to people other than complaining about taxes, which we all do, though what separates the adults from the children on this issue is the understanding that taxation has given us civilization.

So their opinions don't count?

 

[Listening]

The GOP does not have to support the things you mentioned in the form they currently exist. They can develop other approaches.

As an example, I've never seen a clear definition of our "health care issue". The GOP really let this conversation get away from them.

Agreed. Could you take any issue and create an illustrative policy statement? This is what I see missing.

Absolutely.

And Articulation of that policy statement would be a powerful force in swaying people if there was loyalty to it and it came across as saying we are going to address people's issues (even if it means keeping government out of it).

 

[hadit]

The only thing you need to know about whether ObamaCare is popular or not is how those whose careers depend on being on the right side of the issues with the people react. IOW, how are the democrats who voted for it acting during this election cycle? Are they:

A. Touting ObamaCare as a great success and their support for it a great reason to vote for them?
B. Not saying anything about it and hoping no one mentions it?
C. Trying desperately to find a "fake rape" type of comment they can use to deflect attention away from it?

I would consider ObamaCare to be a great success and popular if democrats were crowing about their support for it and riding it to victory. I don't see that happening.

 

[initforme]

The fact that we can't come up with a workable plan that both sides can agree on says something. The current system leaves way too many people uninsured. Why is this so difficult?

 

[Listening]

The fact that we can't come up with a workable plan that both sides can agree on says something. The current system leaves way too many people uninsured. Why is this so difficult?

This is not about Health Insurance.

The original question was really about packaging and the GOP's failure to articulate something meaningful that would convince people to put them in power.

I am not sure what anything says other than (currently), the system is broken.

 

[Mathbud1]

The majority of Americans that get their information from fox news and right wing radio anyway.

Sorry but when I ask around with even my liberal Democrat friends,
they are waiting and counting on the ACA to be reformed before they have to pay for it.

Nobody I know supports paying for insurance mandates, and my liberal friends who tolerate ACA are pushing for Singlepayer in place of it. Some are honest that it is just a transition to get closer to reforms they wanted; some are opposed but refuse to align with the right and are content to let them get the flack for fighting it "for them" while remaining silent; some keep pushing it, either sincerely to push for health care or to wave ACA as a "head on a stick" to incite Conservatives they know are outraged.

I think this is cruel, because I believe ACA is unlawful by the Constitution:
* either directly by requiring an Amendment BEFORE passing such legislation;
* by requiring consent and representation of the people before imposing a tax that requires a business purchase from private industry under federal terms or face penalties that the citizens did not directly vote on;
* and/or by the nature of Constitutional beliefs in limited federal govt and in civil liberties and states' rights being "religious creed" protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments from govt infringement, penalty, or discrimination. (also the exemptions and regulations basically discriminate on the basis of religion and creed by penalizing citizens not affiliated with select beliefs or groups that are exempted). I believe it is a form of
religious harassment to impose the penalties/mandates and to abuse it to taunt and bully.

If Muslims were taunted this way by pushing pork in their faces,
or Hindus with beef, or Atheists with Crosses, people would be outraged.

But because of political discrimination against Conservatives and Christians, it is "okay" to push these unconstitutional mandates and then blame the opposition for their own outrage in response. Abusing that to insult their intent trying to profit politically from this wrong.

I tried in the OP to ask a straightforward question in a non-ideological fashion: "Why is there not more inclination on the right to embrace popular (and populist) ideas?" In the course of this I used the example of ideas in the ACA that poll in the 70% range among voters of all political affiliations. Do you have an on-topic response, or do you just jump every opportunity to hijack a thread to go off on the ACA?

What this thread seems to demonstrate is that again there is no one from the right on this board who seems capable of addressing any issue with any real argument, substituting vitriol for reasoning. And then the right whines about no one paying attention to their arguments. What arguments?

On another thread, the OP spent a great deal of time chastising posters from the left for not abiding by his rules in discussing Reaganomics. That thread also failed to engage. If you want real discussion folks, you can't act like trolls all of the time, in every forum, on every thread. You have to post real content from time to time.

Seems like part of your problem with finding good conversation on this forum is that people here have short attention spans. They can't read a post without getting distracted by the facets of the post. Take this post for example. Here I am talking about a side point you made in your post instead of talking about the real message or question of the thread. Other people in the thread are getting side tracked by your mention of OCare. I get the same thing from people on the left. If you use an example or make an aside, small minded people like me get distracted by the... SQUIRREL!

To your point. I don't know. I would guess that there would have to be some popular policies that republicans could leverage. Then you have to determine what actually is popular though. "Polls say..." is questionable. The methodology of the poll matters so much in determining the outcome. If the poll is skewed one way or the other, the result will be skewed as well. So which polls do you trust to give you the right answer about what is popular? Do you have to create your own polls to get a clearer picture? If you do, how do you avoid unintentionally skewing the poll yourself?

Why do we trust polls in the first place? The idea of taking a "random" slice of the population and extrapolating it to the whole seems suspect to me. Of course, I am a statistical idiot (yes I am statistically an idiot and yes I am an idiot at statistics. )

 

[oldfart]

The fact that we can't come up with a workable plan that both sides can agree on says something. The current system leaves way too many people uninsured. Why is this so difficult?

I was really trying to not make this another thread about the ACA, but you bring up a good point. The ACA IS the conservative solution to health care financing. Originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation, it was the basis of the Massachusetts plan under Romney. The progressive solutions were single payer (like Medicare) or direct provider (like the VA). It passed by an eyelash because of deals cut with big Pharma and various medical industries which guaranteed their profitability at the expense of patients and and small medical providers.

The GOP is now trying to move from repeal to replace as the main theme. But there is nothing to the right to move to, as the starting position is the conservative solution to begin with. They don't want to move to the left, so that doesn't leave any room to negotiate. The GOP is effectively trapped by their own rhetoric demonizing ACA with no obvious strategy to propose for an improvement.

 

[Listening]

The fact that we can't come up with a workable plan that both sides can agree on says something. The current system leaves way too many people uninsured. Why is this so difficult?

I was really trying to not make this another thread about the ACA, but you bring up a good point. The ACA IS the conservative solution to health care financing. Originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation, it was the basis of the Massachusetts plan under Romney. The progressive solutions were single payer (like Medicare) or direct provider (like the VA). It passed by an eyelash because of deals cut with big Pharma and various medical industries which guaranteed their profitability at the expense of patients and and small medical providers.

The GOP is now trying to move from repeal to replace as the main theme. But there is nothing to the right to move to, as the starting position is the conservative solution to begin with. They don't want to move to the left, so that doesn't leave any room to negotiate. The GOP is effectively trapped by their own rhetoric demonizing ACA with no obvious strategy to propose for an improvement.

Once again, I'll say that the problem has never been properly defined. And there will be a large disagreement over that definition.

Once the problem has been defined by the GOP (or they say what they see as the problem), then they can put together some populist type solutions that could be very meaningful.

Those solutions don't have to include anything on government other than backing it out of the process to the extent it's role meets what is good to solve the problem (as they've defined it).

Hence, I disagree with your post. I think there is plenty of room.

However, until they define the issue.....

 

[oldfart]

Seems like part of your problem with finding good conversation on this forum is that people here have short attention spans. They can't read a post without getting distracted by the facets of the post. Take this post for example. Here I am talking about a side point you made in your post instead of talking about the real message or question of the thread. Other people in the thread are getting side tracked by your mention of OCare. I get the same thing from people on the left. If you use an example or make an aside, small minded people like me get distracted by the... SQUIRREL!

First, thanks for a well thought out reply. I agree that mentioning Obamacare as an example is a mistake, as a lot of posters seize on that and get distracted.

To your point. I don't know. I would guess that there would have to be some popular policies that republicans could leverage. Then you have to determine what actually is popular though.

I think the polling/popularity issue obscures a deeper problem. The American people want their government to work well at all levels for them. They don't like waste and they don't like cronyism. American politics has usually had a strong pragmatic streak in both major parties that recognized that in the long run only those who made government work would remain in power. The opposition has always rallied to "Throw the rascals out!"

But the working assumption has always been that the cure for bad government is good government, not no government. Despite the rhetoric, this is exactly what Reagan did. Most Americans were willing to believe that some government agencies might outlive their usefulness, or become too unresponsive, and therefore were targets to be disbanded, replaced, or reformed. That pragmatism is still a long way from the current hostility to the concept of government we see often today.

I'm not sure how you try to govern with a majority dedicated to non-government, but we may see the attempt.

"Polls say..." is questionable. The methodology of the poll matters so much in determining the outcome. If the poll is skewed one way or the other, the result will be skewed as well. So which polls do you trust to give you the right answer about what is popular? Do you have to create your own polls to get a clearer picture? If you do, how do you avoid unintentionally skewing the poll yourself?

Why do we trust polls in the first place? The idea of taking a "random" slice of the population and extrapolating it to the whole seems suspect to me. Of course, I am a statistical idiot (yes I am statistically an idiot and yes I am an idiot at statistics. )

As an economist, I got to take a lot of shots at political polling. There is a lot of schlock out there. But there is a lot of information also about what people expect and want from government. I don't see anyway to avoid looking at poll data and calling bullshit when it is badly designed or "loaded", and paying attention to what people seem to be saying. I also like to check poll results at the local bar to factor in what people really mean when they talk to pollsters!

 

[bedowin62]

XXXXX

RECORD WELFARE AND FOOD STAMPS is the Progressive legacy under obama

XXXXX

FACTS ARE; the rich and ONLY THE RICHEST have gotten richer under obama; while the poor and middle class has gotten poorer

now who is carrying water for whom?

 

[oldfart]

Once again, I'll say that the problem has never been properly defined. And there will be a large disagreement over that definition.

Once the problem has been defined by the GOP (or they say what they see as the problem), then they can put together some populist type solutions that could be very meaningful.

Those solutions don't have to include anything on government other than backing it out of the process to the extent it's role meets what is good to solve the problem (as they've defined it).

Hence, I disagree with your post. I think there is plenty of room.

However, until they define the issue.....

I agree with you that the GOP has been reactive and evasive about defining a problem with the health care financing system in America. While I obviously don't speak for the GOP, I would think that the following is a good list of problems to be addressed:

1. Health care is too expensive in the United States, about double the per capita cost of any other country in the world.

2. The medical outcomes of our health care system are often inferior to other advanced countries.

3. The cost of uncompensated care is driving many hospitals and providers to closing.

4. Our medical delivery system is rapidly deteriorating due to drug shortages emerging in the last five years.

5. The pipeline of drugs, devices, medical procedures, and basic research coming to market is drying up.

6. We are the only advanced country in the world where lack of health insurance distorts our labor markets and economy and is the leading cause of bankruptcy and financial failure.

Obviously these are interrelated, and many are the unintended byproducts of government policies. I doubt that the entire system can be improved by just reducing the role of government, but I think that is part of the solution which cannot be ignored.

 

[Mathbud1]

Seems like part of your problem with finding good conversation on this forum is that people here have short attention spans. They can't read a post without getting distracted by the facets of the post. Take this post for example. Here I am talking about a side point you made in your post instead of talking about the real message or question of the thread. Other people in the thread are getting side tracked by your mention of OCare. I get the same thing from people on the left. If you use an example or make an aside, small minded people like me get distracted by the... SQUIRREL!

First, thanks for a well thought out reply. I agree that mentioning Obamacare as an example is a mistake, as a lot of posters seize on that and get distracted.

To your point. I don't know. I would guess that there would have to be some popular policies that republicans could leverage. Then you have to determine what actually is popular though.

I think the polling/popularity issue obscures a deeper problem. The American people want their government to work well at all levels for them. They don't like waste and they don't like cronyism. American politics has usually had a strong pragmatic streak in both major parties that recognized that in the long run only those who made government work would remain in power. The opposition has always rallied to "Throw the rascals out!"

But the working assumption has always been that the cure for bad government is good government, not no government. Despite the rhetoric, this is exactly what Reagan did. Most Americans were willing to believe that some government agencies might outlive their usefulness, or become too unresponsive, and therefore were targets to be disbanded, replaced, or reformed. That pragmatism is still a long way from the current hostility to the concept of government we see often today.

I'm not sure how you try to govern with a majority dedicated to non-government, but we may see the attempt.

"Polls say..." is questionable. The methodology of the poll matters so much in determining the outcome. If the poll is skewed one way or the other, the result will be skewed as well. So which polls do you trust to give you the right answer about what is popular? Do you have to create your own polls to get a clearer picture? If you do, how do you avoid unintentionally skewing the poll yourself?

Why do we trust polls in the first place? The idea of taking a "random" slice of the population and extrapolating it to the whole seems suspect to me. Of course, I am a statistical idiot (yes I am statistically an idiot and yes I am an idiot at statistics. )

As an economist, I got to take a lot of shots at political polling. There is a lot of schlock out there. But there is a lot of information also about what people expect and want from government. I don't see anyway to avoid looking at poll data and calling bullshit when it is badly designed or "loaded", and paying attention to what people seem to be saying. I also like to check poll results at the local bar to factor in what people really mean when they talk to pollsters!

I don't necessarily think it was a bad idea to bring up ObamaCare. It's a big issue in the country right now, and a lot of conversations are going on about it. It makes sense to use something that is out there and in your face as an example. But with the good example you take the risks of derailment. C'est la vie.

You are right that you would have to look at the poll data and take what you can get from it. At the very least you might get a clearer view of what some people are thinking. And I suppose ignoring the polls because they might be wrong isn't really good either. By listening to the polls you can, if nothing else, give the impression that you care what people think. Giving at least the superficial impression that you are listening to the people can't hurt right?

 

[HackinJack]

o.k.

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

A recent interview in which Rick Santorum expressed support for increases in the minimum wage sparked a thought in my mind. For those of us on the left, it has always seemed odd that the populist right would continue to carry water for narrow business interests.

So why can't people like Santorum support things like increasing the minimum wage and those provisions of the Affordable Care Act (which is most of them) that are popular? It shouldn't be the kiss of death, like supporting abortion or same sex marriage, with their base. They could even advocate these measures as reducing the deficit (obviously raising the minimum wage cuts welfare).

My question is whether such populist positions could be combined with fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, with or better without the neo-con foreign policy, producing a platform that could actually challenge democrats in 2016.

Is the barrier that Republicans are dependent on big business for funding and the tea party base will not financially support a political operation? Or is there another reason the GOP cannot adopt any populist positions?

Like the Democratic Party, the GOP is a "big tent" party.

You have activists like Grover Norquist and his Taxpayer Protection Pledge. There's this great quote from George Herbert Walker Bush on that subject.
“The rigidity of those pledges is something I don’t like. The circumstances change and you can’t be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist. It’s -- who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?”

The supporters of the tax pledge clearly oppose any tax increase of any kind.

Then there are the pro-life activists, the 2nd amendment activists, the pro-death penalty activists (not the same, necessarily, as the pro-life activists), etc... etc..

Also, there is no one Tea Party. There are multiple Tea Parties all over the country, and the Tea Parties don't always agree. Relatively recently the letters TEA have been used to form the backronym Taxed Enough Already. When I first heard that backronym, the person telling me about it didn't use the term "backronym" but rather explained the acronym as if it had been there all along. And I think from that person's perspective it had.

GOP candidates have a lot of small disparate groups to please, just like Democratic Party candidates. What the two parties also have in common is the ever increasing level of demonization of the opposing party's leadership. And this, I think, answers your question:
Why can't Rick Santorum express support for the Affordable Care Act? Because that act is more widely known as "ObamaCare." This fact precludes any republican support, at least in the near term.

 

[The Rabbi]

Why can't Rick Santorum express support for the Affordable Care Act? Because that act is more widely known as "ObamaCare." This fact precludes any republican support, at least in the near term.

Actually it's the fact that it's worst domestic program ever enacted and a person would be a total idiot to support it. Even liberals don't support it.

 

[gnarlylove]

A recent interview in which Rick Santorum expressed support for increases in the minimum wage sparked a thought in my mind. For those of us on the left, it has always seemed odd that the populist right would continue to carry water for narrow business interests.

So why can't people like Santorum support things like increasing the minimum wage and those provisions of the Affordable Care Act (which is most of them) that are popular? It shouldn't be the kiss of death, like supporting abortion or same sex marriage, with their base. They could even advocate these measures as reducing the deficit (obviously raising the minimum wage cuts welfare).

My question is whether such populist positions could be combined with fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, with or better without the neo-con foreign policy, producing a platform that could actually challenge democrats in 2016.

Is the barrier that Republicans are dependent on big business for funding and the tea party base will not financially support a political operation? Or is there another reason the GOP cannot adopt any populist positions?

Like the Democratic Party, the GOP is a "big tent" party.

You have activists like Grover Norquist and his Taxpayer Protection Pledge. There's this great quote from George Herbert Walker Bush on that subject.
“The rigidity of those pledges is something I don’t like. The circumstances change and you can’t be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist. It’s -- who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?”

The supporters of the tax pledge clearly oppose any tax increase of any kind.

Then there are the pro-life activists, the 2nd amendment activists, the pro-death penalty activists (not the same, necessarily, as the pro-life activists), etc... etc..

Also, there is no one Tea Party. There are multiple Tea Parties all over the country, and the Tea Parties don't always agree. Relatively recently the letters TEA have been used to form the backronym Taxed Enough Already. When I first heard that backronym, the person telling me about it didn't use the term "backronym" but rather explained the acronym as if it had been there all along. And I think from that person's perspective it had.

GOP candidates have a lot of small disparate groups to please, just like Democratic Party candidates. What the two parties also have in common is the ever increasing level of demonization of the opposing party's leadership. And this, I think, answers your question:
Why can't Rick Santorum express support for the Affordable Care Act? Because that act is more widely known as "ObamaCare." This fact precludes any republican support, at least in the near term.

This is why Democratic processes are such a drag to the main parties. They must appeal to a variegated multitude (57% of 320 million) as you broke down for us. Thus, most appeals are based on locale, not strictly reason. But appealing to the mass cannot exist without the narrow support of a small group of wealthy donors since wealth is so highly concentrated. If a candidate fails to appeal to these donors, they don't get elected, period.

So this narrow sector becomes central to the alleged Democratic process. But when an elite group if you will, supply the candidates, it's no wonder they represent elite interests in policy. That's why Republicans have a harder time making the appeal because they openly endorse policies the elite prefer and design. But Democrats also have a hard time because their appeal to the working class is a known lie since they also rely on elite donors. So Democracy operating by elite interests makes politics and getting elected tricky. Appeals to contradictory policy must exist in order to capture voters.

The issue in a Democracy when the elites control is how to get the voters to continue accepting policy that harms them. So in order to get the voters to vote the right way, we must design elaborate propaganda and advertisement that restricts thinkable thought within a tolerable range for the elite.

 

[kylelavito]

the uspopulation doesnt get paid enough

 

[sameech]

A recent interview in which Rick Santorum expressed support for increases in the minimum wage sparked a thought in my mind. For those of us on the left, it has always seemed odd that the populist right would continue to carry water for narrow business interests.

So why can't people like Santorum support things like increasing the minimum wage and those provisions of the Affordable Care Act (which is most of them) that are popular? It shouldn't be the kiss of death, like supporting abortion or same sex marriage, with their base. They could even advocate these measures as reducing the deficit (obviously raising the minimum wage cuts welfare).

My question is whether such populist positions could be combined with fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, with or better without the neo-con foreign policy, producing a platform that could actually challenge democrats in 2016.

Is the barrier that Republicans are dependent on big business for funding and the tea party base will not financially support a political operation? Or is there another reason the GOP cannot adopt any populist positions?

I think the flaw in your analysis is that the GOP does present populist positions--they are just populist for their Congressional Districts or states, not national populism. There is zero reason for a representative from South Carolina to put the wants of LA or NYC above the wants of his/her constituency. The GOP is more grass roots on issues than the DNC IMO.