You Can’t Spell “Reformicon” Without “No Republican Constituency”
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Krugman has some fun with the end of any pretense that the “reformicon” movement could ever be a thing that matters:
Ross Douthat has a wonderfully written, heartfelt takedown of the WSJ editorial page, which is — surprise! — dead set against any deviation from the tax-cuts-for-the-rich agenda. Definitely worth reading. But my question is, did Republican reformers like Douthat really think there was any chance that their ideas would achieve headway within the party? If so, they were remarkably naive.
After all, what is the modern GOP? A simple model that accounts for just about everything you see is that it’s an engine designed to harness white resentment on behalf of higher incomes for the donor class.
What we call the Republican establishment is really a network of organizations that represent donor interests because they’re supported by donor money. These organizations impose ideological purity with a combination of carrots and sticks: assured support for politicians and pundits who toe the line, sanctions against anyone who veers from orthodoxy — excommunication if you’re an independent thinking pundit, a primary challenge from the Club for Growth if you’re an imperfectly reliable politician.
To a very casual observer, it may look as if this movement infrastructure engages in actual policy analysis and discussion, but that’s only a show put on for the media. Can you even imagine being unsure how a Heritage Foundation study on any significant issue will come out? The truth is that the right’s policy ideas haven’t changed in decades. Paul Ryan’s innovative idea on Medicare — let’s replace it with vouchers! — is the same proposal Newt Gingrich offered in 1995.
So why are we seeing a crackup of this system now? It’s not because events have called the orthodoxy into question; that has never mattered in the past. On the contrary, failed predictions have never caused even the slightest change in claims: the same people who predicted that Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax hike would kill jobs and that Obamacare would be an economic disaster are making confident predictions about the salutary effects of tax cuts now.
The problem, instead, seems to be demography — an increasingly diverse population means that the party needs to go beyond white resentment, but the resentful whites are having none of it. Oh, and the base never cared about the ideology.
All very true. And, yet, Krugman is somewhat burying the lede, because the competition for “the most indefensible thing Ross Douthat will write in 2016” has already ended:
It's unfortunate when good actors are wasted in superhero movies. But wasting a good *director* on Batman v. Superman is just weird.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) March 22, 2016
So it’s good that they hired Zach Snyder instead!