Guy Benson’s recent report about a lifelong New Jersey Democrat who already is so fed up with Obama-Pelosi-Reid shenanigans that she pulled the lever for Chris Christie is one pebble in the avalanche of opinion holding that Republicans are due for a big year in 2010. Maybe the Republican optimists are right: I’m no good at electoral prognosticating, so I’ll defer here to the psephological gurus. I don’t know whether the Republicans will win big in the next couple of elections. But I am sure that they have not convinced me they deserve to. Former senator Alan Simpson’s famous description of our two-party system — the Evil Party vs. the Stupid Party — remains appallingly apt: The Democrats’ cynical enthusiasm for implicating all American taxpayers in the absolute evil of abortion suggests that the Evil Party is still living up to its billing, evilly engaged in the evil business. Are the Republicans still the Stupid Party?
When I read Benson’s Media Blog post, I thought: Sure, the Republicans might win — but what makes us think they’re going to do any better this time around? But maybe the Republican leadership has cooked up some ingenious new ideas that I’ve somehow missed. So I trucked on over to John Boehner’s web site to see what the top Republican in Congress wants Joe Public to know about his agenda: I clicked on Issues, and I clicked on Border Security, the first item. Press release: June 26, 2008. One of the great things about the web is that it allows instantaneous, continuous, unmediated communication, empowering Republican political leaders to make an end run around the bias-ridden mainstream media and bring potential voters press releases older than Sarah Palin’s national reputation. Seriously: June 26, 2008? Way to be at the top of your game, guys.
So, what fresh ideas are the Republicans offering to conservatives — or at least to potential voters energized enough to bother looking up John Boehner to find out what he thinks — in this musty, antique communiqué? What’s the cutting-edge Republican thinking about border security, an issue that Republicans ought to own the way Democrats own welfare checks? Item 1: “We will lower gas prices and move America away from its dangerous dependence on foreign oil through an ‘all of the above’ energy reform strategy.”
No, you won’t. Unless there’s an economic cataclysm that sends the United States back to the 19th century, we’re probably going to be a net importer of energy for the foreseeable future. The largest share of our “foreign oil” comes from those perfidious Canadians, not from the perfidious Arabs. Our dependence on imported oil is no more dangerous than our dependence on imported steel, sneakers, taxi drivers, microchips, capital (thanks, Beijing!), or cheap T-shirts from Vietnam. Capital is fungible, and that’s a good thing, though I confess I would enjoy a Republican campaign against “our dangerous dependence on foreign bond investors” to finance congressional borrowing, with the serious goal of a balanced budget replacing the fraudulent goal of “energy independence.”
“Foreign oil” alarmism is one of the dumbest themes in American politics, a yardstick of stupidity. Our relationship with the petro-emirates is a bigger problem for them than it is for us: There are lots of market players who want to sell us oil, but no other player in the market is positioned to replace American demand. If Americans stop buying as much oil, the Saudis are in a world of hurt. If the Saudis stop selling us oil, the Kuwaitis or the Norwegians or the Mexicans will be thrilled to take up the slack. And oil touches terrorism only tangentially: Box-cutters and underpants-bombing misfits are not expensive. The ritual denunciations of “foreign oil” are a cynical appeal to public stupidity.
What else have Republicans got? The next item on Boehner’s list is: “We will continue to fight for a more democratic, stable, and secure world by preemptively combating terrorism, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and isolating rogue nation states.” No. You. Won’t. Tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan with missions that are increasingly humanitarian in character, having less and less to do with direct questions of American national security, we are not preemptively combating terrorism or nuclear proliferation inside North Korea, Iran, or, to any great extent, Pakistan. At best, we’re in spooks-and-drones mode, not boots-on-the-ground. (And that’s probably a good thing.) As for “democratic, stable, and secure” — one of these things is not like the others, at least not necessarily. There is good reason to suspect that a much more robustly democratic Iraq or Pakistan would be as much a source of instability and insecurity as the opposite. Our efforts against nuclear proliferation are not only ineffectual, they are, arguably, counterproductive: One of George W. Bush’s great diplomatic successes was abetting the proliferation of nuclear weapons in India, which is now firmly ensconced in the atomic elite, providing a nice counterbalance to China. So none of this political boilerplate is rooted in reality. The Stupid Party rides again.
So, what’s the rest of the agenda, in the Gospel According to Boehner? Support the troops, take care of veterans, and lock up child molesters. Really. I’m guessing the Democrats are not going to run on a hate-the-troops, hose-the-veterans, molest-the-children platform. Perhaps the Republicans can develop a wedge on the hot-button issues of mom and apple pie.
Note that all of this is listed under the heading of “Border Security.” Federally funded gang task forces in Des Moines, better dental care at the VA hospitals, “cybercrime” programs . . . but what about the border? As in “border security.” As in “securing the border.” Well, get this: The Republicans promise to develop programs “securing our borders and ports.” How? Through typography, apparently: To show that they really mean it, they underline “securing our borders and ports.” Underlined! But how? Read on, conservative: “Secure our borders to prevent illegal entry.” That’s it. Build a wall? Install catapults to send illegals back over the river? Sharks with frickin’ lasers? Knights with jousting lances on the backs of giant ostriches? What’s the plan? “Secure our borders to prevent illegal entry.” Maybe if they underlined it.
The point here is not to pick on John Boehner. John Boehner is okay in my book, though he really needs to fire whoever is in charge of updating his web site. (Seriously. Today. Let him start a consulting business with Janet Napolitano.) The point is that, while it is fun to watch Obama, Pelosi, and Reid shoot each other in the feet, Democratic stupidity and Republican stupidity are complementary conditions, not exclusive ones. The Republicans may be set to have a big year in 2010, but a victory based on smart, innovative thinking would be much more pleasing — and much better for the country — than one based on dumb luck, Obama’s narcissism, and Reid’s fecklessness.
There’s a lot of innovative thinking on the right — not least in the pages of NR — but there is little evidence that much or any of it is making its way to the Republican party as such. Conservatives, for instance, have much, much better ideas about health-care reform than do Democrats. A smart Republican leadership would be shouting those from the rooftops. But that’s not happening. Conservatives have good new ideas about energy, national security, and the economy, too, but you wouldn’t know it to hear Republican leaders talk. Even the brainier bits of official Republicandom, such as the Republican Study Committee, seem content, for the moment, to watch the Democrats trip over their own shoestrings. It’s easy to know what to be against right now, but the Republicans have yet to show that they’ve really learned from the shellacking of 2006–08. I’m willing to be convinced, but I don’t see that the Republican party of 2010 is much different from the Republican party of 2006. We’re listening, guys. What do you have to say?
– Kevin Williamson is a deputy managing editor of NR.