By Request: The Reformed Right-Wing Coalition

Frequent interlocutor philosopher asks, “what will — or should — the coalition look like on the American political right, to replace/displace the one that is in the process of completely melting down?”
How timely, as the New York Times just ran an article name-checking a bunch of conservatives agreeing that the coalition needs to be reinvented. To reiterate, the post-WWII right has been comprised of foreign policy hawks, social conservatives, and fiscal conservatives. These groups ended up on the Right in reaction to the development of the Left, and in such a position of opposition, they found strength. Once in power, they strayed too far from their strongest arguments, a devolution I examined in a previous post.

Among the foreign policy crowd, the so-called neo-conservatives and ‘National Greatness’ conservatives captured the ear of George W. Bush. The foreign policy realists were marginalized, and the Republicans in Congress, think tanks, and the media fell into lockstep. It’s obvious how well this has worked out. The nomination of John McCain extends their grip on the party’s foreign policy, but there is hope that this will not last beyond November. For starters, the power of the neo-conservatives within the Bush Administration has waned, and it looks like the realists are pushing foreign policy back into the “sane” category. Given a few more election cycles, and, probably, a hapless Democratic foreign policy that begs for the kind of rhetoric George Bush threw around in 2000, the realists might once again be calling the shots. Given how pliable members of the party and the punditry are, I don’t think it will be a huge leap to convince everyone in the coalition that we have always been at war with Eastasia, not Eurasia it is ok to build our foreign policy on something other than wishful thinking. Unfortunately, I believe the whole concept of the GWOT, a conceit at odds with reality, is too popular to be dropped; it will continue to pervert American foreign policy.
Social conservatives will still be a player in the coalition, but I think their role will be greatly reduced. I’m sympathetic to the arguments that they never held much real influence. The establishment GOP could get away with pandering to them and occasionally providing large, symbolic acts (e.g., Terri Schiavo), but never let them too close to the levers of power. As the country grows less socially conservative, they will be fewer in number, with all that that implies. They have also grown more fragmented, with some social conservatives wanting to tackle novel issues like global poverty and the environment. The right-wing coalition may either adapt to these desires or sacrifice members.
Fiscal conservatives are poised for a renaissance. Having powered welfare reform and tax-cuts, they have since stripped their gears grinding against spending. Only the pitiful and misguided Porkbusters whir on. With the coming election, we are likely to see a huge expansion in wasteful and, more importantly, ultimately unpopular spending. I’m thinking in particular of national healthcare. Without disputing the wisdom of any particular scheme, I’ll retreat to the safer ground of predicting that whatever comes out of the Democratic sausage-factory is unlikely to be as efficient and desirable as what liberals like to point to in other countries. As usual, government is going to screw this up. And when they do, it will be left to fiscal conservatives to come up with the solutions. Which is not to say that these solutions will be implemented, only that this will give fiscal conservatives a seat at the right-wing table. Currently, they don’t seem to be too welcome; once the crisis has passed, they may be disdained of again.
The reformed right-wing coalition will still include the same three broad categories of conservatives, but the content and emphases within those categories will change. The coalition will be, as it was during its latter-20th-Century ascendance, more reactionary. I’m not convinced by various proposals to restock the GOP policy cabinet with sober, centrist issues. These are issues for which there are either existing Democratic constituencies or for which there are no constituencies at all. The Right is stuck with the same three-legged stool.