These new thinkers on the Right seem fairly disengaged with the machinery and centers of power within their party

Except for the fact that they all have been birthed by the machinery and centers of power within the party.

http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2008/06/those-fiercely-independent-young.html

None of these people are thinkers. They are "pundits," which is almost the exact opposite of thinker.

Klein: "I'm still waiting, however, for the dedicated and cynical reformers."

it'll happen after President Obama leaves the White House in 2016 with 70% approval ratings, and not a second before

the modern Republican Party is a cancer on the body politic that must be destroyed before it can be saved

Ezra,

brewmn says:

None of these people are thinkers. They are "pundits," which is almost the exact opposite of thinker."

Oh, say something already. You just gonna let that slide?

I can speak for some of them but being a regular reader of Will, Megan and sometimes Julian, I find brew's comment simply preposterous...and I would think you do too. Don't you?

This column is so fucking typical of Brooks. He doesn't give a shit about policy except what it allegedly reveals about someone's character, as far as I can tell. Does he mention what the policy ideas in "Grand New Party" are? No, the important thing is that they're "a series of policy ideas to help working-class families cope with economic, health care, neighborhood and family insecurity." Good ones? Will they work? Who cares? They're meant the right way, so they reveal the right things about the authors' characters, and if they're adopted by the party, they'll reveal the right things about the party's character, and electoral success will follow. "Gaps are opening between the educated and less educated. Working-class divorce rates remain high, while the mostly upper-middle-class parents of Ivy Leaguers have divorce rates of only 10 percent. Working-class kids are unlikely to complete college, affluent kids usually do." Opening? That's a snapshot, not a trend, so his conclusion doesn't follow from his evidence, and that's just one example. Why anyone ever took him seriously is 100% beyond me, I don't care how pithy his observations about Whole Foods are.

I may just be suffering from After-5pm-Friday syndrome, but I'm still having trouble figuring how Ezra doesn't consider Ramesh Ponnuru a Republican.

Okay, here's the skinny. No matter how hard the regressives try, they will be boxed in by their own idealogy. I have not read the book, but from what Ezra describes, it sounds like nothing really new. Essentially, it sounds like what these hacks are saying is that they just need to market their tripe to the "rabble" better. And that's just it. No matter how hard they try, they cannot paper over the fact that the policies that they advocate are not meant to empower middle and working class citizens, but to make the rich richer. Actually at the expense of the middle and working class. Hell David Frum just recently came out with something along these lines recently. Bottom line is that the regressives have had superior marketing and politics for the last 40 years, and now the reality of what their true goals are and were are now coming to light. In Obama we seem to finally have a politician who can actually out-politic these hacks with superior schematics and usage of new technology

What the pundits or the thinkers do not want to admit is that there is no salvation for a conservative party in the U.S. The failures of the Bush Administration will ensure that there is not short term recovery and demographic changes will ensure that there is not long term recovery.

Appeal to blue collar whites is stupid considering they are being buried under the demographic avalanche of Hispanics and blacks.

A much better question is how will the U.S function as a one party state much like most large urban areas function today.

As soon as the elite white pundits begin to think aout the long term demographic trends in the U.S. , then a real discussion of the future of politics can begin.

I don't really get why you and Chotiner are so flummoxed by this Brooks article. He's basically admitting it's time to not look to Newt Gingrich for the answers anymore and that non-establishment conservatives are the only people with ideas. He certainly could have laid that concept out more explicitly, but it seems he is implicitly admitting that the Republican Party is screwed and needs new ideas. This is not new.

Well let me repeat Brewman's comments -- these people are "thinkers?" In what fucking universe? Callow gliberterians with no life experience and less empathy. Jesus Christ.

And the notion that Douhat and friend have something to offer to the working class in terms of economics -- bloggah please!

and Reihan Salam (Reihan Salam).

LOL. brown represent!

Save for Matt Continetti (edit -- and Ponnuru, come to think of it), what you couldn't comfortably say about any of these thinkers is that they're Republicans.

How did they vote in 2000? 2004? 2006? 1988? How do they remember Reagan? Where do they stand on torture? On the prosecution of torture?

The 'old' GOP (Reagan/Bush style) still grasps at beliefs that doom a long term future - such was the case before the Goldwater revolt (and crushing defeat - followed by the Reagan Brand revival). Whether the GOP can bury its past of racist, nativist, corporatist, paleo-religionist, war-mongerish, policies and creeds is still and open question. They'd pretty much have to start from zero again. Sometimes parties just die (Whigs! Perot! CPUSA! etc.)

We won't end up with a single long-term party in dominion, and we've never really had that. The post-WWII Democratic Party was at least two parties under on loose label, and the Dem. party today is clearly split between progressives/liberals on one hand and blue dog Dems on the other.

My guess is that a split in the Dem. party into right-center and left-center is more likely than a reborn GOP.

It's too soon to pronounce the GOP dead, but the 08/10 elections may be the gravestones. The Dem. split will be much more obvious by '10/12 as well. So, look to 2112/2116 as the potential realignment/relabeling/reorientation of the two parties into a new configuration. It may take longer, but the map is on the wall.

I'd guess, further, that the remnant of the GOP plush the blue dog Dems is the basis for a new right party, but sans the racism, war-mongering, know-nothingism (especially on science), and state-power seeking religious fundies (the change in thinking of the evangelicals is becoming more obvious day by day - the Dobson/Robertson/et.al. era is essentially over).

What new young Republicans believe in and act on: Louisana governor Bobby Jindal: creationism and castration--oh, and in the case of post-Katrina oil spills, denial of reallity. That ought to make a good future program.

Charles

JimPortlandOR

A far left progressive party would be as white as the current Republican Party and would face the same demographic problems that the current Republcian Party faces.

It is much more likely that the U.S. will end up as a one party state where the Democratic Primary is the real election. Such a set up will require a massive increase in government spending to keep so many groups happy.

Your scenrio requires the Hispanic and black vote to split. since that is not goign to happen and no white bloc can afford to be on the opposite side of an issue from the growing black and Hipsanic blocs, the U.S. will have to be a one party state in order to function.

superdestroyer-
I've seen you repeat your meme for almost a year now. It is utter hogwash.

There is no demographic avalanche of african americans.

Whatever hispanic demographic avalanche that may (or may not) be occuring, there is definitely no inevitablity of the hispanic vote being monolithic. It's not monolithic now. The appropiate historical analog is the Irish 'avalanche' of a century and a half ago, and eastern/southern european one of century ago. Both were monolithic for a few generations, (until ww2), but obviously did not create a one party state.

See the indispensable tbogg on this:

http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2008/06/27/the-kids-are-all-right/

As Ross said at a book event the other day, this is a decades-long project. But for now, it is entirely an intellectual one.

I'd say it's a centuries-long project given current realities within the Republican party. Because the thing is, even the most well thought-out, market-friendly public sector policies require -- horror of horrors -- public sector revenues. And that translates into higher taxes. And, that, in turn, violates probably the strictest of the GOP litmus tests.

I think the Republicans rather need a cycle or two (or more) in the wilderness.

Future of conservatism? Isn't that like the dryness of the ocean, or something?

They want the future to be just like the past - that's what defines them as conservative. Adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried.

Worshiping tradition doesn't leave much room for planning for the future. Their plan for the future *literally is* to do things the way they've traditionally been done and have faith that it will work. That's why the future just kind of clobbers them over the head every so often.

(P.S. This post started out as snark, but I think I may have stumbled on a real truth about conservatism...)

Will Wilkinson was brought up on wing nut welfare. As far as the rest, Brooks is whistling past the graveyard.

How is Douthat not a Republican? This is a man who says he believes personal morality is important in a politician, but would still hold his nose and vote for Vitter. Douthat's 'thinking' = IOKIYAR.

Kolohe

The black birthrate is much higher than the white birthrate. Blacks are now beginning to vote the same levels as whites. Any district that is at least 40% black is a lock for the Democratic Party and a lost cause Republicans. In the future there will be more district like that

The U.S. put a hold on immigration during WW I and did not resume it until the 1960's. The Irish demographic did not get the constant reinforcement that the Hispanic demographic is getting today and will be accelerated under an Obama administration.

Also, italians and irish did not have the Civil Rights Amendment to give then a certain number of seats in Congress and in state races. The Civil Rights Act gaurantees that Hispanics and Blacks will bote overwhelmingly Democratic in the future. Every ten Hispanic immigrants will eventually produce 7 to 8 Democratic voters and maybe 1 Republican voter. The Republican Party (or any conservative party) cannot surivie such demographic changes.

Considering that less than half the children in kindergarten are white, there is no future for Republican, conservatives, or limited government.

I don't have the shelf space, physically or psychically, for another GOP manifesto, and couldn't endure more than six minutes of Douthat's & Salam's mutual self-congrats fest on bloggingheads.tv. So when you finish "Grand New Party," will you tell us:

- How the authors propose to reconcile the conflicting agendas of corporatists and populists? (Surely they don't think middle-class and downscale voters will bankroll the GOP of the future.)

- Do their "policy ideas to help working-class families cope with economic, health care, neighborhood and family insecurity" amount to more than shifting the tax burden to singles and non-nuclear families?

I won't ask how they confront the ill-disguised racism and xenophobia of modern Republicanism, because if they did that they would become Democrats.

"Interesting thinkers are interesting thinkers"

Would some smart person (I'm looking at you, Ezra) tell me how Megan McArdle, who is neither interesting nor a thinker, got on to a list like that. There is a lesson here, but I can't figure out what it is.

P.S. the quote with which I led looks circular, but isn't.