Republicans: Ideology, Principles, Competence

I understand that ideology is important. But so are principles. And so, certainly, is competence. The Republican party, in its current incarnation, fails on all counts.

Start with competence. The list of disasters is as long as it is familiar. There's Iraq, of course, but also a nuclear North Korea and an ascendent Iran. That's the Axis of Evil right there, remember -- three for three.

Pause here for a moment if you're a Republican. Ask yourself how you would feel if a Democratic president and congress had executed the Iraq war as Bush and the Republican congress have. What would be your take on a Democratic president if, six years following his inauguration, Kim Jung Il tested his first atomic bomb? And if that president had accomplished nothing in those six years to slow Iran's march toward possessing nuclear weapons? Would you give him a pass -- especially if he himself had named these three countries as the greatest threats to America's security?

Katrina is usually included as a primary exhibit in the list of Republican incompetence. Rightly so, although Louisiana's Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco, and New Orleans' Democratic mayor, Ray Nagin, can rightly take bows, too. But "the Democrats were incompetent, too," is hardly a ringing defense.

Even if, ideologically, you believe we ought to be torturing -- or rather, subjecting to alternative interrogation techniques -- terror suspects, you have to acknowledge that Abu Grahib was a public relations fiasco and a terror recruitment bonanza. Abu Grahib was many things. Competence wasn't one of them.

What are the Republican's substantive achievements since capturing all three branches of government in 2000? Arguably, the economy is doing well, although anyone can maintain a temporary facade of prosperity by living on credit cards. The American homeland hasn't been attacked since 9/11, but it's difficult to prove a correlation between Republican policies and the lack of a follow-up attack.

In fact, I believe both of these Republican "successes" have been achieved the same way: by borrowing against the future. In the case of the economy, we've financed "prosperity" by going into hock (the debt is held by China, BTW); in the case of security, we have distracted existing jihadists to Iraq at the cost of creating many more new ones. Or, as President Bush himself has said, "If we leave, they will follow us." The very definition of debt.

Now principles. The explosion in earmarks (up tenfold since the Republicans captured the house in 1994) and other pork isn't a reflection of Republican incompetence, because reckless Republican spending has been deliberate. Rather, the reckless spending, and the quarter trillion dollar deficit it has created, is the result of the divorce of the Republican party from conservative principles, indeed, from principles generally.

In fact, in many areas, what at first glance looks like Republican incompetence is evidence instead of a lack of principle. If Mark Foley had been a Democrat, would Dennis Hastert and company have dealt with him as they did upon first learning of his behavior? And what can be said of Jack Abramoff, Randy "Duke" Cuningham, Tom Delay? As Ian Fleming said: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

That test again: if you're a Republican and find instances of Republican corruption to be isolated and not a reflection of the party generally, ask yourself if you would be equally sanguine if the criminals and the party in question were all Democrats.

Now, if Republicans are incompetent and have few principles beyond clinging to power, what can we say of their ideology?

All that seems left of Republican ideology, or all that it's become, is what Andrew Sullivan calls Christianism (as distinct from Chistianity. I like the word for its parallel with Islamicism, and for its resonance with Stephen Colbert's notion of "truthiness"). What in the last six years has roused the federal government to swift action (aside from periodic incompetent attempts at damage control)? Terry Schiavo and the notion of giving taxpayers rebates to buy gasoline when a barrel of oil hit $75. Oh, and posturing against gay marriage. Oh and wait, I'm forgetting the Freedom Fries movement. Obviously, all of them the critical national issues of the day.

To me, conservatism has always been more about ends; liberalism, more about means. Conservatism, the forest; liberalism, the trees. Conservatism, the brain; liberalism, the heart. (Neither focus is inherently right or wrong, and I don't think you can build a healthy society without both.)

More than anything else, conservatism has always been more about results; liberalism, more about intentions. Which makes it all the more remarkable that there's still any support for today's Republican party among people who think of themselves as conservative. The results, as discussed above, are disastrous, whatever the intentions. As for ends and means, if the end is preventing abortion and saving lives, it's hard to understand means that rule out condoms and stem cell research (even if you think stem cell research involves murdering human embryos, don't you have to balance that evil against the good of lives potentially saved? Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing in Iraq? Aren't conservatives supposed to be good at making the hard moral decisions?). And "Conservative" commentators appeal to the heart in arguing the worthiness of our enterprise in Iraq, while issuing a pass to the unprecedentedly acerebral manner in which the war's aftermath was planned and conducted.

President Bush is not a conservative (Peter Beinart's arguments notwithstanding). On foreign policy, he has embarked on an unprecedented mission of nation building in the Middle East and has declared that our goal must be to "end tyranny." Fiscally, he has presided over record spending and record deficits. Socially, he tried to endrun state court decisions by turning Terry Schiavo's fate over to federal courts (a stunning double word score of anti-federalism and support for judicial activism). In every way I know, he has betrayed traditional conservative principles in favor of a radical ideology, incompetently executed.

We have to ask, then, how even nominal conservatives can stick with this manifestly unconservative crew. In the absence of conservative ideology, principled deeds, and fundamental competence, I can only conclude that some percentage of America's population (30%, with regard to congress; 40%, with regard to the president) continues to support Bush (and by extension the Republicans) because Bush seems to be their kind of guy. He's plain-spoken (that's one way of putting it); he likes Nascar; he clears brush at his ranch. And he claims Jesus is his favorite philosopher. That is, simply put, Bush's supporters sympathize with his intentions in spite of his results. Which, in a possible triple irony, makes them classic liberals who continue to support radicals masquerading as conservatives.

I'm a conservative. And I'll be voting a straight Democratic ticket on November 7. A Democratic victory in one, and hopefully both, houses of congress is the only way I can see of shocking the Republicans back to ideology, principle, and competence. If you care about the party, and about the country, this time you'll vote Democratic.