Live from La Farine: David Brooks wants Republicans to go back in time to 1993 and support Bill Clinton's ideas for "a government that will help the little guy... [not] incompetent [or] corrupt... [one] which would actually provide concrete policy ideas to help the working class... offer[ing] people a secure financial base and a steady hand up so they can welcome global capitalism with hope and a sense of opportunity..."
In one sense, that ship has sailed.
In another, nothing is stopping them from signing on with Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign--same philosophy of what government should do, same technocratic commitment to policies that actually work. Admittedly, HRC comes with the dreaded "liberal social values". But once you've abandoned the Goldwater-Nixon-Reagan strategy of "intentionally alienating every person of color", you are already more than halfway there...
: Time for a Republican Conspiracy!: "Members of the Republican governing class are like cowering freshmen at halftime...
...Rarely has a party so passively accepted its own self-destruction.... The Tea Party, Ted Cruz’s natural vehicle, has 17 percent popular support, according to Gallup. The idea that most women, independents or mainstream order-craving suburbanites would back a guy who declares his admiration for Vladimir Putin is a mirage. The idea that the G.O.P. can march into the 21st century intentionally alienating every person of color is borderline insane. Worse is the prospect that one of them might somehow win. Very few presidents are so terrible that they genuinely endanger their own nation, but Trump and Cruz would go there and beyond....
So maybe it’s time for governing Republicans to actually do something. Yes, I’m talking to you state legislators, or local committeepersons, or members of Congress and all your networks.... If MoveOn can organize, if the Tea Party can organize, if Justin Bieber can build a gigantic social media movement, why are you incapable of any collective action at all? What’s needed is a grass-roots movement that stands for governing conservatism.... Given the current strains on middle- and working-class families, many Republican voters want a government that will help the little guy; they just don’t want one that is incompetent, corrupt or infused with liberal social values....
Years ago, reform conservatives were proposing a Sam’s Club Republicanism, which would actually provide concrete policy ideas to help the working class.... Maybe it’s time a center-right movement actually offered that agenda.... Governing conservatism has to offer people a secure financial base and a steady hand up so they can welcome global capitalism with hope and a sense of opportunity.... There’s a silent majority of hopeful, practical, programmatic Republicans. You know who you are. Please don’t go quietly and pathetically into the night.
