Sowell: the inarticulate Republicans
Another excellent article in a long line of them by Thomas Sowell:
Boehner is not unique in having a blind spot when it comes to recognizing the importance of articulation and the need to put some serious time and effort into presenting your case in a way that people outside the Beltway would understand. On the contrary, he has been all too typical of Republican leaders in recent decades…
You might think that the stakes are high enough for Republicans to put in some serious time trying to clarify their message. As the great economist Alfred Marshall once said, facts do not speak for themselves. If we are waiting for the Republicans to do the speaking, the country is in big trouble.
Democrats, by contrast, are all talk. They could sell refrigerators to Eskimos before Republicans could sell them blankets…
It occurs to me that one of Reagan’s great gifts was that he knew how to speak to the public and be understood. He didn’t play the game of inside beltway baseball that so many Republicans such as Boehner are playing today. The same is true of Chris Christie—call him RINO or whatever you want, but he’s a clear and down-to-earth speaker who connects with people.
Sowell himself, although a PhD in economics and a brilliant, brilliant man, is exceptionally clear and accessible when he writes. He practices what he preaches. But alas, he’s never run for office, and at the age of 83 is highly unlikely to do so.
You would think that the Obama Administration’s heavy-handed, mean spirited, petty and, I imagine, very unpopular enforcement of the government shutdown–steps that have never been taken before–that have resulted in the closure of things like D.C.’s WWII Veteran’s Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, Mount Vernon, closing the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg, shutting down the Amber Alert system (while leaving Michelle Obama’s healthy eating website up), shutting down NIH programs that treat children with cancer, reportedly rounding up, holding under guard, then ejecting tourists–many of them elderly and foreign–from Yellowstone, evicting an elderly resident couple from their Nevada house, situated on government parkland, allowing a pro-immigration rally to take place on the supposedly “shut down” National Mall, even attempts to block people from stopping on the roadside, miles from Mt. Rushmore, to admire the view, and a host of other boneheaded and, one would think, counterproductive, spiteful actions would be tailor made for Republicans to pounce on, to trumpet to the skies, to publicize nationwide, and to flog to death as exemplifying Obama & Co., yet, I see and hear nothing of the kind.
And so did Newt Gingrich, he did he did he did he did he did he did.
Spatial imperception.
It appears now not so much that conservatives will win but that progressives will fail. Or a mix of both.
Which has ever been the case, yeah?
P.S.–Here in Northern Virginia, each day for the last week or so, we have received in the mail a Democratic flyer lambasting Republican candidate Cucinelli for supposedly trying to somehow shut down “women’s reproductive rights,” (a charge echoed on several anti-Cucinelli TV ads) yet, despite the fact that McAuliff, his Democratic opponent, recently came out for stringent, new, Colorado-type gun control legislation, and also reportedly signed on to Obama & Co’s approach to energy production that would essentially destroy the coal industry (still a somewhat important industry here in Virginia) in the same time period we have received perhaps one or two Cucinelli flyers that just said that he was pro jobs, echoed in one TV ad I saw by Cucinelli’s campaign.
This is part and parcel of the Institutional Republican Party’s “Just The Same As The Other Guy (only with an ‘R’)!” candidate selection policy and election strategy, which goes back over twenty years.
Coincidentally, the last election held before the adoptation of this policy was also the last election where the Republican presidential candidate won a popular vote majority.
Well, except for that fluke in 2010- but those guys were most definitely Not Our Class Dear and the IRP has pledged to get rid of them as soon as possible.
Where have we had our hopes for justice crushed:
Romney lost.
Obamacare upheld.
DOMA reversed.
Benghazi. Fast and Furious. IRS. NSA.
Syria. Iran. Russia.
And yet here we are. No amount of willing and propaganda will create success for progressives.
Christie cannot be trusted. Depsite his awesome gifts, he does not seem for principle.
That’s all we want. In 2006, when the House was lost, that was the message. In 2010, when the House was won, that was the message.
They will not win nor can they win unless they reveal who they are.
And they are doing just that.
Keep your poweder dry and spirits high.
They are full of panic and chaos.
A major part of the problem is that most in the Republican leadership really don’t believe in conservative values themselves. It is hard to be an articulate spokesman for something that you find personally distasteful.
“Boehner is not unique in having a blind spot when it comes to recognizing the importance of articulation” T. Sowell
With all due respect to the brilliant Dr. Sowell, I think he fails to grasp why republicans are so inexplicably inarticulate. IMO, they are inarticulate because what they believe and what they must say are if not always contradictory, always unrelated.
Congressional Republicans must pay lip service to conservative principles, as they form much of the base of the republican party. But that base is NOT to whom their loyalty is given. Their allegiance is to a combination of, their own reelection with its status, money and power, the interests of their big donors who do not support small government, constitutional principles and the rationalizations they must construct in attempting to reconcile their personal loyalties with the necessities of political office.
It’s extremely difficult to believe one thing and say another, especially extemporaneously and on short notice. Obama has similar difficulties, since he’s a rabid leftist pretending to be a reasonable liberal but his office allows him to greatly minimize the times when he must speak without prepared remarks. No doubt this is a major factor in why he holds remarkably few press conferences. Obama more than anything fears exposure, he fears the curtain being pulled aside and the truth of reality emerging. No matter how compliant the media, that is always a danger he faces. This is why, when he has spoken off the cuff, he’s much more hesitant and unpolished, he can’t say what he really thinks and must speak within the false construct he’s created.
Congressional republicans however are generally speaking in reaction to Obama and must do so on short notice, while believing one thing and having to pay lip service to entirely different premises and principles. No wonder they are inarticulate.
Reagan spoke from the heart, a heart that was in ‘alignment’ with his mind and beliefs. There being no disconnect between them, he could speak directly and without contradiction and thus persuasively. Though he had a fine mind and was an actor familiar with delivering lines from a script, Reagan’s ‘genius at communication’ was actually ‘just’ consistency in belief and actions.
Thank you kaba for summarizing what I perceive to be the republican’s ‘articulation’ problem.
Kaba–That is the way I read the Congressional leadership that we see on the talk shows and being interviewed on TV–mealy-mouthed, way too self-satisfied, way too sleek, expensively dressed, and well turned out, too afraid of losing, and unwilling to actually take a stand and really fight for any of what I consider to be the bedrock Conservative/Republican values that were talked about and enumerated by our Founding Fathers in things like the “Federalist Papers, ” the “Debates on the Constitution” and “Common Sense,” put into written form in our Constitution, that formed the basis for our initial policies–foreign and domestic, and were actualized by our leaders during the early days of our country’s history.
Explaining economics to the general public is quite difficult. Those of us who have children will remember how we introduced them to the idea of work with chores. Gave them an allowance to teach them about money. Worked to encourage them to get entry level jobs while on high school vacations. Tried to introduce the concept that without people creating things, there was no new wealth. Carefully explained the concept of borrowing and lending, showing how wise borrowing could enhance one’s financial position, but over-borrowing could be ruinous. Over many years they were educated and yet, when they became adults, they still made mistakes. They often need to learn by doing and by making mistakes. Mistakes that were painful for you to see, but educated them – unless you bailed them out. Then the lesson was not learned.
So it is among progressives and much of the general public. Many have not learned the lessons of basic economics. Too many don’t realize what creates wealth and why this country is wealthy. Too many don’t understand how over-borrowing can be ruinous, even for a country that can print money to pay its bills.
It’s nearly impossible for Republican candidates to explain economics in the short sound bites that make up a campaign. It is easy for the democrats to cater to people’s greed. It’s not easy to cater to the need to save and sacrifice. It’s not easy to explain where real wealth comes from in a short sound bite. If the MSM was on board with the Republicans, it would be easier to get the concepts across. But they’re not. Certainly it would be a good idea to use men like Thomas Sowell to help craft the sound bites and speeches for campaigns. He certainly has an ability to simplify and make it understandable.
I have long though Sowell to be a most understandable, unambiguous, forceful, thorough writer. Recently I have come to regard Neo Neocon as just as good. And, she even writes cheerfully about the arts.
I meant “…long thought Sowell to be…”
The Democrat propaganda mill merely relies on mass produced memes, forcing people to respond to it and thus keep talking about what they want you to talk about it. If 50 people in a crowd of 100 are arguing, attacking, or defending a view the Democrat propaganda mill worked up, that is Mission Accomplished for them.
You don’t even have to be on the side of their propaganda to participate. The guy at the bottom, with no time to craft Leftist strategy, but is a loyal adherent of Obamaca, will use the New York Times, the ABC news, HBO, comedy central, Hollywood stars, the AP press, to reiterate the SAME Talking Points. They didn’t come up with these TPs, they just regurgitate what the Leftist propaganda arms give them. And in the doing, this achieves a critical mass, and the fission reaction becomes sustainable.
Now compare this to a Republican, who often when they open their mouth, gets the response “I’ve never heard of that” when it came to positive progress in America by patriots or Iraq by US troops. They’d never heard of that. It doesn’t exist for them. Bombs and poverty, though, they know that exists because Everyone Talks About It.
So it’s not that they are masters of propaganda, which in my view they aren’t given their crudity and obviousness, but merely because what they lack in quality propaganda, they more than make up for it in quantity.
Kaba and GB are right. RINO’s are liars and unlike the progressives do not have a base that want to believe their lies. So Yahoo. I guess.
Remember 2006 and the Bush domestic policy. Remember Islam is the religion of peace. Looks at the Bush daughter and Jeb Bush. We were actually lucky in that G.W. had an evangelical bent that somewhat thwarted the new world order Bush doctrine.
I agree with JJ in large part.
In addition it is very hard to break through the media wall. It is bad enough that there is the very fine mesh filter of the Liberal media, which is openly antagonistic; there is also the self-proclaimed Conservative media with their sniping. Charles Krauthammer and Bill O’Reilly come immediately to mind. You can throw in self proclaimed conservative intellectuals in the print media, like George Will, as well. Not to mention a high percentage of the conservative blogosphere.
On the one side there are the Democrats with their notoriously regimented “talking points”. On the other, an amalgamation of stone throwers configured in an inward looking circle.
The establishment dismisses and insults the Tea Party types publicly; the hard core conservatives retaliate by staying home on election day.
Is it any wonder?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS5HPCTpSqY
FeketeResearch.com
Max Kaiser is classic British Left… but scandalized.
Professor Fekete’s comments on the cross winds of money-printing and wealth destruction by fiat regimes are striking.
His interview starts half-way through.
Unfortunately, in these days of long-tenured “professional politicians”* it appears that, no matter with what idealistic principles, ideas, and plans one first came to Washington, once exposed to the perks, adulation, and power of the life of a member of Congress, and to Washington’s “inside the Beltway culture,” few can resist the seduction of the Washington gravy train.
– As I understand it, during the first several decades of our country’s existence there was hardly such a thing as a “professional politician.” Most members of Congress were “citizen legislators,” the majority of whose lives were devoted to their “real” jobs outside of Washington, D.C. where they were farmers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and land owners, and given the often long distances involved, the condition of the “roads,” the available modes of transport, and the slowness of travel, they (I believe pretty reluctantly) made the often long, arduous, very uncomfortable, and sometimes dangerous trip to the un-air conditioned (the Congress one of the first venues to be air conditioned when air conditioning was first invented) humid, inhospitable, mosquito infested Capitol–built, after all, on a malarial swamp–there to be crammed into the few available, uncomfortable, over-crowded boarding houses, they met for the minimum time necessary to conduct essential business–paid the grand sum of $1.50 per day for their service– and, as soon as possible, departed for home, there to take care of their families and their real businesses.
It was only some decades after the Founding that full time, “professional” politicians started to live in the Washington, D.C. area, thus able to “politic” full time as well, and that is where it all started to go wrong.
“The only exception to this policy is that we may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities. ”
What can’t health care be linked to or used for?
It never was anything but an attempt to tyrannize us.
Death to tyrants.
Ymarsakar: ““I’ve never heard of that” when it came to positive progress in … Iraq by US troops.”
Having engaged in many Iraq conversations, I can expand this point. I’ve actually had people give a version of this response despite that I previously had painstakingly debunked the Democrats’ lies about the Iraq mission, with sources, to the *same people*. The first time it was a shock when someone sincerely repeated the same Democrat lies about Iraq that we had already critiqued only weeks earlier.
By now, I’ve realized I could hold the same conversation with that person multiple times, and he’ll always default back to the Democrat lies. I can debunk them again and it won’t make a difference.
When a fraud has to explain himself
he suddenly grows dumb.
A game: with two binary choices (articulation and ideology), that makes four possible outcomes. Who exemplifies each?
Articulate, with convictions: Reagan, Thatcher
Non-articulate, with convictions: Romney?
Articulate, without convictions: Bill Clinton, Mitch McConnell
Non-articulate, without convictions: John Boehner, Eric Cantor, most of the back-benchers.
With all due respect to the brilliant Dr Sowell, who is indeed as clear a thinker and communicator as I have ever read or listened to, Kaba and Geoffrey Britain have articulated the root of the problem.
Boner, McCain, and their followers are not conservatives or ideologues who stand for anything except themselves and their donors. Their allegiance is to government, for the sake of government. They regularly talk about compromise and grand bargains with Democrats as “good government”. If you listen to Boner’s monotonous and dull conferences, he isn’t arguing for any specific principle with this standoff, his central beef with Obama is he won’t NEGOTIATE.
In fact that is all John Boner complains about and campaigns for whenever he gets in front of a camera. “Obama won’t negotiate”, you name the subject of the month.
So he spends days sending up bills and proposals to show the world he’s a man ready to bargain and deal. There’s no clearer way for him to say that dealing is what’s important, and his position, whatever it is, is negotiable. He’s got no message to deliver, except that he’s ready to stop making a fool out of himself if Obama will agree to give him stuff he can use- “Obama care is the Law of the land” as our hero has said more than once – so what message could he possibly have to articulate?
Good points by everyone. Unfortunately, even if we had more articulate spokesmen, a majority of the people don’t want to hear the truth.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360619/thirty-obamacare-fails-andrew-johnson/page/0/1
republican inarticulatness v democrat incompetence.
I leave it to you Greg.
southpaw:
I disagree with you somewhat. I think you and many others are lumping too many people on the Republican side together.
I make a distinction between Republicans such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham—whom I think fit the description you’ve given—and many others. McCain and Graham and their ilk are so entrenched in government and their own role as the great compromisers that this has become their identity and the principle they are defending. But then there are people like Ted Cruz and a few others who do seem to be espousing conservative principles, although of course they are also politicians interested in winning races and gaining power.
And then there are a bunch more who are in-between. I think Boehner is in that in-between space. He is a politician first and foremost (no one becomes Speaker without being a real wheeler-dealer). But I think he does have a fair amount of devotion to conservative principles, he’s just not very articulate and not populist either. But the whole “I’m willing to negotiate” stance I actually see as rather smart. He is trying to counter what Obama’s doing in terms of PR (painting Republicans as the party of “no” and the mean, intransigent ones) and saying that it’s actually Obama who’s the inflexible naysayer and the Republicans who are the flexible ones willing to negotiate. I think that’s an important message if it could get out, and would actually help the Republicans in the entire fight against Obama and what he’s trying to do. It does not mean the person espousing it has no principles.
And Wolla Dalbo, I agree too many years in Washington has its own corrupting effect.
soutpaw, Matt_SE, others:
I invite you to look at Boehner’s Wiki entry.
I submit that he’s a politician and not an especially gifted or articulate one, or even all that strong. But it seems pretty clear to me that he does have conservative principles and they are not fake.
Look at the story of his younger years. Also, although he turned on Gingrich when Gingrich was later perceived as an off-putting political liability (which he in fact had become), Boehner was one of the authors of the original Contract With America.
kaba:
That is the simplest and most likely explanation of the discrepancy between asserted principles and actual actions. There is an unresolved internal conflict. That’s not good, but is there a viable alternative? Is it sufficient to maximize correlation when the product distorts the priority of principal issues? What are those issues?
n.n.:
Another possible explanation is a conflict between principles and strategic thinking about how those principles will play politically.
neo-neocon:
If he does adhere to conservative principles, then it must be acknowledged that it is not at all easy to deny people instant or immediate gratification. In fact, it is quite stressful. The analogy is of a parent who is required to constrain their child’s actions because they are not fully competent to moderate their own behavior. It’s demanding work. “The toughest job you will ever love”. I hope Boehner has the strength of his convictions and the support of his fellow conservatives to take a strong stand and carry out authentic reform. I don’t envy his task. It’s a big family with diverse interests and motivations.
neo-neocon:
Certainly. I am not a politician. However, I do appreciate its fine art. I would not accuse anyone of ulterior motives with only circumstantial evidence.
I know that I am fortunate to speak my mind without nuance or compromise. The Republican principles are good. However, there is corruption in the exception, which must be acknowledged, if perhaps not attributed. There is a complex dynamic which obfuscates the relationships.
By the way, there’s evidence that Boehner knows what he’s up against, at least in the strategic sense. He is aware that Obama isn’t playing pattycake. From a speech Boehner gave to Republicans (behind closed doors) in January of 2013, right after Obama’s second inauguration:
And he repeated the thought today.
@Neo
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a mind-reader. I can only guess what Boehner’s motivations are. That said, when I guess about his motivations it is based on previous stances he took. Stances that in my mind could only have been taken be either a fool or a knave (yeah, I know, that old question again).
In the end, it doesn’t matter what his motivation is; just the results. I’d happily vote for Boehner, even if I KNEW he was a sociopath, if he took the same ACTIONS that a principled conservative took.
Oops…hit the “submit” button too quickly. To continue:
Boehner may have started as a different person than he is now. D.C. has a way of changing people.
He may be the same person he always was…no way to tell, and as I said before, it doesn’t matter.
I will admit that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by his recent behavior, and puzzled as to the source of this transformation. OTOH, maybe he’s just playing the long game.
Respect and trust must be earned over a period of years. If Boehner is good, I’ll give him a review before 2014.
Boehner is in the direct line of succession if Obama and Biden are given the heave ho.
Obama has done countless impeachable offenses. Like the infamous tyrants of history, the audience is left stunned.
If the Senate is lost — and Benghazigate unfolds — Barry has to genuinely fear impeachment and conviction.
Unlike you, he really knows his crimes. (Think Macbeth.)
Should the Democrats EVER wake up and realize that Barry is destroying the Democrat Party (Note DNC poverty — he’s bleeding it into his own OFA.) they can round on him.
Biden would have to be part of the package. The mud would rise that high — and his drinking would make him unacceptable.
(Shades of John Tower.)
Hence, the Speaker wants to be there for any rescue — rather like the bland, nice, Gerald Ford.
The Obamacare poll tax is going to cause MAJOR losses come 2014. Remember what happened in 2006. It’s a tradition for Presidents to lose support six years in.
Behind the scenes Barry has been dis-invited by Beijing. They’re getting antsy about their Treasury holdings. When Barry punks the American economy it directly cripples the Red Chinese economy — which is in real trouble.
We may well see civil wars breaking out in America, Red China and Russia — as Barry blows up the US Dollar.
In all history none of the “experts” have ever seen a currency crisis coming. Just ask Greece, Cyprus, Argentina….
A tax of this magnitude ought to cause a fantastic contraction in global GDP. It’s deflationary against all middle class labor. Once underway, the death spiral of layoffs starts breaking very, very, bad.
Barry would be sitting there paralyzed, pushing back twice as hard on a string.
Obama won’t be impeached, nor should he be. It would be the most divisive event in the US since the civil.war. Besides, there really wouldn’t be time. Better to just let him finish his term.
G. Joubert–I’m sure that that thought is just what Obama has been counting on.
Collateral damage in all this “shutdown theater” is the reputation of the U.S. Park Service Police/Rangers (I don’t think that people will make a distinction), formerly embodied as your cute, friendly, helpful cartoon character bear wearing a ranger hat, who was there to protect you and your kids so that you can safely enjoy your time in the park, but now more likely to be seen as an impediment to that enjoyment, an Obama storm trooper, a spiteful, threatening presence, a cat’s paw enforcing the will of our Maximum Leader–he is the great Red sun in our hearts–by rounding up, forcing them to stay in a hotel under guard, and then kicking out elderly tourists whose crime was trying to visiting Yosemite, by preventing elderly, 80 and 90 year old WWII vets from visiting their memorial in Washington, D.C. and by preventing citizens–all across the country–from enjoying, wandering through, or even viewing at a distance the monuments and parks that their tax dollars paid for, and that are their heritage and property.
The missus thinks that people’s memories are short and that they will quickly forget, but I don’t think that a bazillion pictures of that friendly bear are going to undo that damage that has been done–in just a few short days–to the image of those Park Service Plice/Rangers.
G. Joubert:
He also will not be impeached because he could never be convicted in the Senate. The votes are simply not there, no matter what Obama has done or will do.
So I don’t think the House would even try. What’s more, I don’t even think there are enough votes in the House to impeach him. And why should there be, because it would be an exercise in futility if the Senate wouldn’t convict.
One of my many quarrels with the Clinton impeachment was that it was uselessly divisive because the votes were not there to convict (two-thirds are needed).
On the other hand, Nixon probably would have been impeached because even Republicans would have voted to do so and to convict. That’s why he resigned; he knew that. Democrats will never vote to impeach or to convict Obama, never (except perhaps for a few, I suppose—but never enough to convict).
Neo–Regardless of whether the Senate would vote to convict, I think that the House should vote a bill of Impeachment so as to have a clear enumeration of Obama’s impeachable offenses, as a way of educating the public about the limits the Constitution places on Presidential power, outlining boundaries for future would be Presidential tyrants, and as a way of tying up a large part of the Obama Administration–and perhaps somewhat limiting the damage that they are doing–by forcing them to do those things necessary to counter and answer the impeachment charges.
Wolla Dalbo:
I disagree, although I understand where you’re coming from. I think that is too idealistic an approach. In reality, I think it would backfire because the backlash would be ferocious, and it would play into Obama’s hands to no purpose and make him a martyr.
And most people would gloss over the substance: the list of limits placed on the president’s power. It’s in the Constitution already; if they were interested, they would read and study that. If the lesson is couched in an attack on Obama, it will have the opposite effect.
By now, I’ve realized I could hold the same conversation with that person multiple times, and he’ll always default back to the Democrat lies. I can debunk them again and it won’t make a difference.
Eric, that’s why Demoncrats like to talk about reset buttons. They actually have one tailor engineered for their cannonfodder zombies. They push it every few days. And it works. We all know it “works”, even though we may not agree on the details.
The power of the Left is not in their political power, vote buying, numbers, wealth, propaganda, or how many seats they hold in DC. In my view, the power of the Left was far more insidious, sinister, and more durable than that. The power to raise zombies like a necromancer. The power to program them like suicide bombers are programmed. The power to make people Believe that which sane people cannot believe. All of that, is part of the power, but not the whole.
Breaking the back of the Leftist alliance’s power will require something most people cannot dare imagine.
And Wolla Dalbo, I agree too many years in Washington has its own corrupting effect.
I think being around groups of people have the same corrupting effect, though lesser in intensity. More people, more insanity, the faster it spreads. Like urban fiefdoms and cities.
If you want to attack Obama, the best place is to go for his weaknesses, his enforcers. Nukes and bombs and .50 caliber assassin bullets are better suited for decapitation operations.
All the political bribes and favors that would go into an impeachment bill would be better used to get rid of Demoncrat pawns at the lower levels. Without soldiers, an army general can’t do much by himself.
If one wants to once and for all end the Republican Party, then, yes, by all means, impeach.
Meanwhile, history for the foreseeable future will say that Obama was a “transformational” president, the first black president, that he was elected and re-elected by the people, despite pernicious opposition from conservative racists who were constantly harrassing him, doing things like impeaching him, just because he’s black. And most people will believe it.
As I say, it’s better to just let him finish his term. Investgate the scandals -all of them- and let those chips fall where they may. But impeachment? Suicide.
The US is already doing suicide protocols. So it’s not really a choice between suicide or not.
They’re already flipped the suicide switch. It’s only a matter of time now.