End of the Conservative Ascendency

In a recent post, The Utter Bankruptcy of Today's Republican Party, I argued

As I have written so many times before on this blog, the modern Republican Party ceased being a serious Party when Bush took office. Their leadership and government left America weaker today than it has been since before World War II. They failed to tackle critical challenges on their watch, and ignored warning signs of dangers to come. They have dug a very deep hole for the nation, and today they turned their backs, hard, on a popular President trying to begin cleaning up the mess they made, and do the right thing for a nation in need.

I listened to Republicans over the last couple of days, trying hard to understand the rationale for their opposition. I heard references to a CBO report that had already been proven not to exist. I heard about pork but they offered few specifics. I heard the refrain again and again that tax cuts are the best way to create jobs - an assertion that was disproven by the economic experience of the Bush era. We had historic tax cuts under Bush; job creation was anemic, and incomes for average people actually fell. The tax-cut strategy didn't work. For eight years the Bush Presidency confused cutting taxes with offering a broad economic strategy that would help prepare the nation for the great challenges of this emerging century - and we are all paying the price today. Massive structural budget deficits, ready to grow worse with the retirement of the baby boom. Aging infrastructure. Years of flat wages and declining incomes. Record home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies. 2nd tier rates of broadband penetration. Rising rates of poverty and those without health insurance. A terribly broken immigration system. A global round of economic liberalization unfinished. A badly bungled TARP. But of course one big thing did get done during this period - those massive set of tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans.

In his CEO pay announcement today (a set of remarks that I feel somehow will be studied for a long long time) Obama took off after the failed economic theories of the age of Bush in ways we have not heard often since the election: 

Now, in the past few days I've heard criticisms of this plan that echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis - the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject that theory, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. So I urge members of Congress to act without delay. No plan is perfect, and we should work to make it stronger. But let's not make the perfect the enemy of the essential. Let's show people all over our country who are looking for leadership in this difficult time that we are equal to the task.

Our good President is showing that while he will work to engage and bring Repubicans on board, he will also be making every effort to defeat their anachronistic and discredited arguments that did so much harm to the nation he now leads.  And it is critical that he keep this tact up in the days ahead for to understand where we need to go we need to know where we have been.  And where we have been has been a conservative-led disaster, of awol leadership, important roads not taken, problems badly bungled.  As the right looks to reassert themselves in this debate it is critical, essential, that our President remind the country what their time in power and their vision brought.  For part of his job will  be to accomodate Republicans themselves while strenously resisting accomodation of their failed approach to governing. 

Of course pulling that off will be no easy task - but no one said this was to be an easy job.

NDN has been writing and talking about the state of the conservative movement and the deterioration of the Republican Party for many years. With the House's passage of the stimulus bill without a single GOP vote this week, and today's RNC Chair election that will decide the GOP's future path, we would like to highlight some of our writings on the state of the modern conservative movement and the end of the conservative ascendancy.

• The Utter Bankruptcy of Today’s Republican Party, Simon Rosenberg, 1/29/09
  The Republican Party is neither honest nor competent, and is running out of chances to play a constructive role in our government.

• The GOP and Magic Negroes, Simon Rosenberg, 12/30/08
  The song “Barack the Magic Negro,” promoted by RNC chair candidate Chip Saltsman, is indicative of the troubles the Republican party finds itself in today.

• The Long Road Back, Simon Rosenberg, 11/18/08
  Barring major mistakes by the Democrats in the coming few years, Republicans are likely looking at a very long road back to power. 

• On Obama, Race, and the End of the Southern Strategy, Simon Rosenberg, 1/4/08
  By looking to younger voters, minority voters, and Western voters, the Democratic Party can move beyond the southern strategy that, for so long, has been the only way Democrats knew how to win.

• Repudiating the Bush Era, Simon Rosenberg, 2/18/07
  Politics over the past several years has been driven by a widespread rejection of the disastrous Bush era.

• "The 50-year Strategy: A New Progressive Era," in Mother Jones, Simon Rosenberg, 11/1/07
  With a fresh argument and a strong, diverse coalition, the stage has been set for a lasting progressive majority. 

• The End of the Conservative Ascendancy, Simon Rosenberg, 11/12/06
  The forty-year era of conservative ascendancy is ending.

• A Day of Reckoning for the Conservative Movement, Simon Rosenberg, 11/7/06
  The 2006 elections marked the end of conservative ascendancy. These essays look at how this shift can be explained by historical trends, hard electoral data, and recent decisions made by leaders of both parties (more here and here).

Also, please check out this recent video about how "What Race Means in America Is Changing":

With debate over the recent vote in Congress on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) largely turning into a debate on immigration, we present much of NDN's key work on comprehensive immigration reform, the changing demographic realities of 21st century America and Hispanic electoral trends.

• The Star Spanglish Banner, Melissa Merz, January 29, 2009
• Weekly Immigration Update, and Outlook for 2009, Zuraya Tapia, January 2009
• Immigration Remains Top Priority for Hispanics, Evidence of Bipartisan Support, Zuraya Tapia, January 26, 2009
• What Race Means in America Is Changing, Simon Rosenberg, January 19, 2009
• Congress, SCHIP, and Immigration Reform, Simon Rosenberg, January 13, 2009
• The GOP and Magic Negros, Simon Rosenberg, December 30, 2008
• A New Coalition and a New Map, NDN Event, December 12, 2008
• The Economy and Immigration, DHS Targets "Engine of Our Economy", The Economy and Immigration Reform, 2008-2009
• What World Does the Republican Party Live In?,  Zuraya Tapia, December 12, 2008
• An Updated Analysis of the Hispanic Vote, 2008, Andres Ramirez, November 15, 2008
• New NDN Polls Find Overwhelming Public Support for Comprehensive Immigration Reform in Key Battleground States, September 10, 2008
• Words Have Consequences, Zuraya Tapia, August 7, 2008 and November 20, 2008
• Hispanics Rising II, May 30, 2008
• The 50-Year Strategy, Simon Rosenberg and Peter Leyden, Mother Jones, Winter 2007
• 1%, 62% and the Failure of Tancredoism,Simon Rosenberg, December 20, 2007
• Can Democrats Seize the Opportunity The Immigration Debate Offers Them, Simon Rosenberg, December 11, 2007
• Immigration, Once Again, Despite Huge GOP Investments, Does Not Perform for the GOP, Simon Rosenberg, November 7, 2007

Steve Lohr has a very worthwhile story in the NYTimes today taking a hard look at the true economic legacy of FDR.  Titled "F.D.R's Example Offers Obama Cautionary Lessons, " it begins:

In 1933, as today, a new president stepped into the White House,
vowing change and decisive action at a time when a banking crisis posed
a grave threat to the nation’s economy.

The economic morass that confronted Franklin D. Roosevelt 76 years ago was undeniably deeper and more ominous than the trouble President Obama
is facing. Yet, according to economists and historians, there are also
some telling similarities and cautionary lessons to be drawn from the
experience of the Roosevelt years in the 1930s.

Roosevelt had his triumphs. He stemmed panic and stabilized the
banking system with a combination of deposit insurance, government
investment in banks, restrictions on banking practices and his
“fireside chat” radio addresses, which repeatedly steadied the national
mood and bought Roosevelt time to make changes.

Still, even after the government assistance, the surviving banks
were shaken and lending remained anemic — much as the nation’s banks
today are reluctant to make loans again, despite receiving more than
$300 billion of taxpayers’ money in Round 1 of the federal banking
bailout.

So, throughout the 1930s, economic recovery remained frustratingly
elusive and arrived only with the buildup for World War II in the 1940s.

The shorthand verdict on Roosevelt, economists and historians say,
is that he was an eloquent and skillful politician, and an innovator in
jobs programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and in regulatory
steps like the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission to
police Wall Street. But Roosevelt, they say, while brilliant in many
ways, did not have a sure grasp of how to guide the economy as a whole.

“Roosevelt had some successes, but we hope that Obama is going to do
better,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard. “Otherwise, we’re in trouble.” 

I've been a little suprised that so much of the discussion in recent months on FDR's legacy has focused on his first 100 days, or some of the jobs programs which had marginal impact on the economy at the time.  A truer read of his legacy would show that America remained in an economic slow down until we went to war; that perhaps his most lasting legacy was not domestic but international, in defeating fascism and in fashioning a new liberal international order that has kept the world peaceful and prosperous for 60 years; and that of all of this was done over time, a long time - the FDR-Truman Administrations were in power for 20 years. 

As I wrote in a recent essay, Progress Not Motion, those in power now have to start coming to terms with the most challenging part of the FDR legacy - the unpleasant reality that solving the great challenges in front of us will certainly take more than the 2 years before the next election and the 4 years before the President's reelection.   There is a very real chance that the economy will still be in recession in 2010, and even 2012.  To me what this means is that our leaders need to stop raising expectations that things will get better quickly; to stop suggesting that there is no time to waste; to resist short term fixes that will not hasten the transition of America into the new economy of the 21st century.   As our new President said in his Inaugural speech last week this is a time for us to act responsibly, which means many things but certainly it means that we cannot confuse motion and progress in these vital days ahead.  It is more important at this critical time for our leaders to be right than fast - and to make it clear to the American people that the messes left behind by our recent era of terrible leadership will take many years, a lot of money, a great deal of effort and a lot of patience to fix. 

Yesterday's proceedings were an historic landmark in many ways, representing a momentous step forward in race relations in America and a dramatic shift in governing philosophy and ideology. 

But President Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States of America was historic in other ways as well -- NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais helped to provide some context and insight into the generational implications of this inauguration in the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes, the Palm Beach Post, and the Orlando Sentinel. From the Chronicle piece:

"This is our moment," says Jonah Khandros, 23, of Orinda, a Democratic political activist who worked on Obama's campaign and traveled to the nation's capital this week. He plans to celebrate the inauguration by uniting with dozens of friends from high school and college who have scattered around the country. "We've waited for this; a lot of us worked for it," he said. "But even if your only contribution was talking to your mom and dad and convincing them to vote for Obama, we feel our generation gets a lot of credit."

Morley Winograd, an author and a fellow at NDN, a progressive think tank and advocacy organization, says the Woodstock comparison is entirely appropriate. "This is their moment to demonstrate to America what they think America's future should be like," said Winograd. "They are going to celebrate that and underline it for all of America. Of course, the race relations breakthrough is huge, and the media will be focused on it ... but the generational difference, the moment the generational shift takes place, is also an important story."

...NDN Fellow Michael Hais, who co-authored "Millennial Makeover: My Space, YouTube and the Future of American Politics" with Winograd, said that the Millennial generation's overwhelming and early support of Obama means Millennials are poised to watch his swearing-in with a high level of connection. A recent Rasmussen poll, he said, showed they are expected to tune in to today's events at more than twice the level of other generations.

And another quote, this one from the Mercury News article:

Obama's campaign mobilized a new generation of voters, and the turnout of about 1.5 million in Washington was a testament to his wide appeal. The new 47-year-old president claimed a mandate for bold action, despite the doubts of many.

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply," he said.

Morley Winograd, author of "Millennial Makeover" with Michael Hais, said Obama "was elaborating on the theme of generational change, that we are getting past ideological division, that we need government action and to rebuild our image abroad."

Simon was quoted in the Financial Times and the Boston Globe (and its sister papers) on the challenges facing our new president. From the Globe:

Obama begins his term with a long list of national troubles to address: an economic recession, massive home foreclosures, high unemployment, two wars, a healthcare crisis, and a damaged US image abroad - any one of which could derail his presidency in the first year.

But Obama also starts with a deep reservoir of good will among the public and elected officials in both parties. Recent polls have found that Obama is the most popular incoming president in a generation, with 80 percent of Americans in a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday saying they approved of the way Obama handled the transition. Further, 71 percent said Obama had earned a mandate to work for major new social and economic programs.

"These are happy times for our politics, but a very tough time for the country," said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a progressive think tank. "There's both tremendous hope and a great deal of sobriety. People are having both of these feelings at the same time."

Simon was also featured in the New York Times blog talking about immigration reform.

Finally, Michael Moynihan was featured in the Los Angeles Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Obama's climate change challenge. From the LA Times feature:

"Before you spend billions of dollars on new lines, you have to spend millions of dollars on design work," said Michael Moynihan, the green project director of the liberal think tank NDN in Washington, who has worked extensively on green infrastructure and the stimulus. "Nobody had been thinking about this much money [becoming available]. So the planning just has not been done."

In a special pre-Inaugural video, Simon reflects on the confluence of forces that led to the election of Barack Obama and the dawning of a new political era:

For more of NDN's thinking on these historic changes now taking place before our eyes, please see:

The Long Road Back - 11/18/08

Obama to Reinvent the Presidency - 11/7/08

More Evidence of a Sustained Progressive Revival - 8/15/08

Hispanics Rising, 2 - 5/30/08

$55 million and the emergence of "a virtuous cycle of participation" - 3/6/08

On Obama, Race, and the End of the Southern Strategy - 1/4/08

"The 50-Year Strategy" - Mother Jones, 10/30/07

"The Democratic Opportunity" - Politico, 4/11/07

The End of the Conservative Ascendancy - 11/12/06

A Day of Reckoning for the Conservative Movement - 11/7/06

Foreward to Crashing the Gate - 3/7/06

Thoughts on the Internet, Politics and Participation - 12/03

NDN President Simon Rosenberg and NDN Vice President for Hispanic Programs Andres Ramirez today said President-elect Barack Obama's meeting with Mexico President Felipe Calderón this afternoon signifies more than long-standing protocol; it also reflects the realities of deeply rooted economic, cultural and political ties betweenthe two countries.

"Never before has a U.S. President been elected by such an overwhelming number of Hispanics in the United States," Rosenberg said. "The United States now has the third largest Latin population in the Americas and the futures of the United States and Mexico are bound together as never before. Hemispheric relations have taken a backseat for too long. Today's meeting is the first step to a genuine and sustained partnership that addresses pressing regional and global challenges. It  is the start of a new day for U.S.-Mexico relations."

"This meeting follows the commitment expressed by President-elect Obama and his advisors throughout the 2008 presidential campaign and during the presidential debates to make it a priority to build a more profound and engaged bilateral relationship with Mexico," Ramirez said. "This meeting also occurs at a time when Mexico is better positioned as a partner of the United States. Since the 2000 election in Mexico, that country has demonstrated major progress in governance, in its democratic institutions and it has developed increasingly diverse international economic and political relations."

Click here for additional background information on NDN's work in studying Latin America foreign policy.

NDN had some great mentions in the media this week. Simon was quoted in the cover story of  New York Magazine, "A Party of One," on the unique character of this election and its implications for the future. From the exellent New York Magazine piece by John Heilemann, which echoes many of NDN's most important arguments:

Obama is difficult to pigeonhole not simply because he’s new but because of the newness of the moment that he—and we—inhabit. It’s a moment dominated by an economic crisis that’s shaken bedrock beliefs about the infallibility of free markets. A moment when a revised architecture of power is arising globally, challenging America’s status as an unrivaled superpower. When the networked age has finally arrived, inciting the implosion of the broadcast paradigm that governed politics in the Industrial Age. When the country is being transfigured demographically, hurtling toward becoming a majority-minority nation.

This crescendo of forces produced Obama, made his ascension possible. Now he has a chance to shape the new era, to leave his stamp on it. “This really is the first presidency of the 21st century,” says Simon Rosenberg, head of the Democratic advocacy group NDN. “Those who try to hold on to twentieth-century descriptions of politics are going to be disappointed and frustrated by what’s about to emerge in the new administration, because American politics no longer fits into the old boxes—and neither does Obama. For better or worse, what he is doing is building a new box.”

Simon was also quoted in The Washington Times, and his essay on the need for "Progress, Not Motion" was featured in The Hill.

Rob was quoted in The National Journal, Washington Post Global, and The Street, and received a great shout-out from Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne in ECommerce Journal. From the National Journal article:

For Obama, who is in no position to tighten fiscal policy, trade liberalization is today's best analog to Clinton's gamble. "If Obama thinks that Doha could contribute to an economic recovery and expansion that will be in full flight as he's running for re-election, he'll do it," says Robert Shapiro, a Washington-based economic consultant and a veteran of the Clinton administration's Commerce Department. "Just like Bill Clinton raised taxes because he was convinced that would be the effect."

In 2007, Shapiro notes, almost one-third of everything produced in the world was exported across a border, up from less than one-fifth as recently as 1990. America, he adds, is one of the world's two most globalized countries (the other is China). Like it or not, globalization, meaning cross-border commerce, now drives the world's economic growth.

Finally, new NDN fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais were featured in the USA Today on the realigning character of this election. From the article, by Chuck Raasch:

And so, a 30-year era is ending, an era in which one political party, the Republicans, saw government as the problem. Whether or not it is smart to run $1.2 trillion deficits and massively expand government's control over private enterprise, the course has been set.

Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, co-authors of "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, You Tube, and the Future of American Politics," say the United States is undergoing the sixth major political realignment in its history. The nation is transforming, they say, from the worn-out arguments of an idealistic but fractured baby boom generation to a more civic consciousness exemplified by "millennials" born between 1982 and 2003. Civic generations, Hais and Winograd say, are primarily interested in strengthening government and political institutions.

On Monday, the U.S. Census Bureau released its estimates of state-by-state population, which show a decades-long pattern continuing apace: growth in the country's Southern and Western states continues to out-pace that in the states of the Northeast and Midwest.  Sound familiar? Yes, that's because you heard it here first.  Since NDN began its analysis of the Hispanic electorate and the demographic trends nationwide, we concluded that our nation is becoming:

Some have criticized President-elect Obama for having a Western-heavy cabinet and administration, and while this might not have been intentional, it does reflect the demographic trends of the nation.  Finally, the Census data is important because it provides our first clues as to re-districting based on the 2010 Census - for example, Texas is expected to gain three House seats, Nevada will most likely gain at least one. Stay tuned as NDN continues its demographic analysis during 2009, in preparation for re-districting analysis. 

NDN got some fun attention over at Townhall today, where Don Lambro gnawed on Simon's argument (originally posted here, and featured in The Hill yesterday) that the GOP is looking at a long road back to anything resembling power. Townhall, for the uninitiated, is one of the leading right-wing news sites-- something like a conservative answer to the Huffington Post.

Lambro accused Simon of "irrational exuberance," brushing off geographic, demographic, and hard electoral realities, and falls back on the old saw that "we still live in a center-right nation." To Lambro, I say, quit falling back on your saw, and fall on your sword, instead!

The simple fact is that, compared to Republicans, Democrats are playing on a field that is much larger-- and growing.

The GOP is seriously limited by geography-- they are increasingly competitive only in the South and upper Rockies.  In the next Congress, three-fifths of Senate Republicans will come from those two areas. Obama proved that Democrats can win without winning the Deep South, while picking up three states in the new progressive south-- Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina.  The GOP will need to find a new part of the country to win, and it's not looking good for them anywhere.

Even more ominously, Democrats represent a large, diverse, and growing demographic coalition, while the Republican coalition is homogenous and shrinking. In particular, Hispanics and Millenials both voted for Obama by a 2:1 margin this year. Neither of these demographic groups carried any electoral significance 25 years ago (we Millenials weren't even born!), and are positioned to become serious political forces in the 21st century.

Lambro also marshals historical references to shore up his argument, but his analogies are bogus. While some have compared 2008 to 1964, it seems far more appropriate, given the current state of the economy, to compare this election to 1932.  And if I may, I'll call Lambro's attention to the congressional election of 1934, when the Democrats picked up nine seats in the House and ten in the Senate. In 1936, Dems sealed the deal as they maintained their majorities in congress, and Roosevelt won all but two states. En garde!

And as for Lambro's favorite old saw, I'll pass that question to Hoover Institution fellow Tod Lindberg. Says Lindberg, the idea that we live in a center-right nation is dead. Welcome to a center-left America. 

Of course, events could change these patterns and shift these trends, but the way things are going, Simon's "coroner's report" was anything but irrational exuberance.

Thanks to Mike Hais and Morley Winograd for their help in putting this together!