The recent acceleration of America’s persistent drift toward social democracy has reenergized the right. In the last year, the Tea Party movement became a significant player in grassroots politics. If this spark is to have meaningful, long-term impacts on policy, however, it will have to become a full-fledged renaissance. The “progressive” intelligentsia and mainstream media decreed long ago that conservatives (and classical liberals) are largely bereft of critical thinking and new ideas. To get around these gatekeepers and, in the process, influence the habits, perceptions, and prejudices of the general public, right-wing intellectuals and commentators will have to wage intellectual war with creativity and precision while reformist Republicans capture the imaginations of voters with a few key inspirational themes.                   

On the intellectual war front, Jonah Goldberg explores, in Commentary magazine, “What Kind of Socialist is Barack Obama?” Goldberg takes on the strawman argument used by Obama and other leftists, which suggests that referring to Obamacare as socialistic is akin to envisioning that Obama is initiating a Bolshevik plot. According to Goldberg, Obama is a non-Marxist socialist in the Fabian tradition. He explains that socialism was around for many decades before Karl Marx was born and has continued to influence policy throughout the world twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The non-hot socialism Hayek was describing often goes by the name of “social democracy,” though it is perhaps best understood as an American variant of Fabianism, the late-Victorian British socialist tendency. “There will never come a moment when we can say ‘now Socialism is established,’” explained Sidney Webb, Britain’s leading Fabian, in 1887. The flaw of Fabianism, and the reason it never became a mass movement on the Left, is that the revolutionary appetite will never be sated by its incrementalist approach. The political virtue of Fabianism is that since “socialism” is always around the corner and has never been fully implemented, it can never be held to blame for the failings of the statist policies that have already been enacted. The cure is always more incremental socialism. And the disease is, always and forever, laissez-faire capitalism. That is why George W. Bush’s tenure is routinely described by Democrats as a period of unfettered capitalism and “market fundamentalism,” even as the size and scope of government massively expanded under Bush’s watch while corporate tax rates remained high and Wall Street was more, not less, regulated.  

Read the entire article. As a complement to Goldberg’s analysis, I’d remind readers that when real live Marxist socialists have won elections in social democratic countries, even they have not usually tried to transform their systems into Bolshevik states overnight. Rather, they work to change things incrementally, to whatever extent is politically feasible. My point isn’t to suggest that Obama is necessarily a died-in-the-wool socialist, but to ask: If a self-described Marxist socialist had been elected the president of the United States in 2008, would he or she have governed much differently than Obama has, given American political realities?          

One criticism of Goldberg’s article: although it is reasonable for him to equate social democracy with Tony Blair-style ”social-ism,” why not just call it social democracy? Whenever Goldberg and other commentators throw out the word socialism (or social-ism), no matter how well they qualify the terms, it makes it easier for the left to delegitimize the entire analysis. On the one hand, I wonder if Goldberg underestimates the strategic potential of tainting the American left with the “social democratic” label, especially as it has no defense against the label; but on the other hand, I wonder if ”social democracy” doesn’t push enough buttons to satisfy Goldberg’s own immediate purpose.  

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On the political inspiration front: Kimberly Strassel argues that, contrary to the mainstream media narrative, the Republican “civil war” in Florida and elsewhere is not a battle between “tea party fanatics” and supposed “moderates” like Charlie Crist. Instead, the “real divide is between reformers like Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who are running on principles and tough issues, and a GOP old guard that still finds it politically expedient to duck or demagogue issues.” She continues:

What has attracted independents and even Democrats to Mr. Rubio is his reformist agenda, which taps into this week’s Pew poll finding a historically low 22% of Americans trust government. It hasn’t hurt that Mr. Crist has provided a sharp contrast with a campaign that channels the mindset that lost the GOP its majority.

On Social Security, Mr. Rubio is a supporter of Mr. Ryan’s roadmap, which tackles entitlement and budget reform. Mr. Crist took the typical Washington path of refusing to acknowledge reality and then accusing his opponent of robbing granny. This is reminiscent of the GOP reluctance to embrace hard issues like health-care reform when it controlled Washington. One result is ObamaCare.

Speaking of that law, Mr. Rubio condemned the takeover. Mr. Crist dithered. While Mr. Rubio slammed the stimulus, the governor grabbed at its state bailout provisions since that was easier than cutting spending. One of these sounds like the GOP of old; one does not.

Strassel rightly points out that opposition to bad Democratic policy might be a legitimate strategy for the midterms, but what about after that? In developing this theme, Strassel had to oversimplify real world dynamics, using David Brooks-esque two dimensional Archetype-A (good) versus bad Archetype-B (evil). Then, again, that’s how you deliver a political sermon, and Strassel is preaching about a reformist movement that could make a lasting contribution to reversing the social democratic drift.

For the reform movement to be truly impactful, though, it will have to be driven by a seismic shift in public attitudes. Right now, it’s easy to accuse establishment Republicans like John Cornyn of supporting hacks like Charlie Crist in part because a victory by Rubio would be a delayed repudiation of Bush-era “business as usual” Republicanism, which hits a little too close to home for the party establishment. On the other hand, why should the old party regulars stick their necks out, if the fickle American voters are just going to forget all about fiscal prudence if/when the economy improves? Give the establishment types some credit: they became experts on how to survive and thrive in the pre-2006 political climate and they’re inclined to stick with what worked in the past. The only way that changes significantly is if the political paradigm changes - hopefully in response to a right-wing renaissance, rather than as a result of prolonged economic malaise.