| Reagan was right |
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Reagan was right, conservatives win with addition, not subtraction When discussing a possible Republican revival, most conservative commentators let their ideological bias obscure the obvious. They miss the forest for the trees. Reviewing the many post-mortems of the electoral thrashing the GOP received last November, one generally finds two schools of thought. One says the party must jettison the social conservative agenda it has been associated with since the Reagan era. In the eyes of these pundits, Republicans should get back to basics and focus on their core economic issues of fiscal discipline (remember that?) and lowering the tax burden, and dispense with the old "family values" social issues that, so it is said, alienate untold numbers of moderate voters. In this analysis, the GOP can save itself only by abandoning the "culture wars," a "war" that appeals only to an aging and diminishing demographic. The party instead should recast itself as a modern, big-tent party, united by its opposition to the socialization of the economy and the explosive growth of government. The opposing view insists that the GOP base, the values voters who care deeply about family disintegration and moral decline, jumped ship because the Bush administration turned a cold shoulder to their agenda, and because they were ignored by the McCain campaign's tin ear when it came to addressing social conservative issues. According to this camp, the GOP need only follow through on its election-year social conservative rhetoric and actually put family-value issues high on their agenda once in power, instead of relegating them to the back of the bus when the campaign is over. Both of these camps within the GOP seem to have forgotten one of Ronald Reagan's central insights: the only winning coalition for the modern Republican party is one that includes both economic and social conservatives. The economic conservative and the social conservative, far from being in opposition to each other, are natural allies. One cannot do without the other. But we must recast the argument in support of this winning coalition so that it resonates with voters' concerns today. Clearly, we Republicans are not going to regain power by repeating old arguments and dredging up talking points from the 1980s. The pressing issues of the day are different than they were in years gone by. A different policy approach-as well as a different way of addressing the issues-is necessary if we Republicans are to remain relevant. Today, there is a growing alarm at the rapid growth of government in response to our financial crisis. More and more people across the country are becoming deeply apprehensive about the burgeoning federal budget, the exploding federal debt and the intrusive-and seemingly arbitrary-regulation of business, and the expanding reach of federal authority into every detail of our private and community life. In short, an increasing awareness of creeping socialism raises fear that our founding principles of limited government are being tossed to the winds. To this, Republicans must say what Americans know in their bones to be true: government grows big when families and communities fail. The efforts of economic conservatives to restrain the growth of government will be ineffective if they cannot recognize that the expansion of government-and the loss of freedom that goes with it-is inevitable without the strong families and communities social conservation supports. When the indispensible mediating institutions of family and community decline, the demand increases for government to step into the breach to address the resulting social and economic problems. We have reached a point when policies designed to contain spending and strengthen families and communities should be the basis of a new, pragmatic consensus that reaches across factional GOP lines. There is actually something of a broad consensus on this, and not just among conservatives. The recognition that the breakdown of families and communities is at the root of many of our social problems-crime, illegitimacy, poverty, and low academic achievement-is greater now than ever before among sociologists. The evidence is in: stable families and stable communities are the great bulwark against these and a host of other problems that afflict our society and culture. These are the very problems that increase the demand for government to step into the void and address them. The new consensus even reaches into the world of politics. "Family values" has, up to this point, been a notion exclusively associated with the "religious right." Now we have an African-American president who speaks with authority to the black community about success and commitment to family in a way that has never been possible before. But we must go beyond rhetoric and put our money where our mouth is. We need real pro-family policies that address the real issues our families and communities are facing today. Most importantly, we have to make raising and maintaining a family more affordable. Instead of increasing the tax burden on America's families in the name of addressing an economic crisis, we must reduce that burden. Families are the engine of our economy: at once the most prodigious consumers of goods, and at the same time the biggest contributors to economic growth through their investment in having and raising their children. Republican fortunes will revive in the coming years only to the extent that we remember that a family-values agenda and a pro-growth agenda that will limit the growth of government are not opposed. In fact, they have always formed the basis of our winning coalition. |
