Old Rhetoric Won't Save GOP

It’s been six weeks since change came to Washington, but an old chestnut from the 2008 presidential campaign -- more of the same -- may best define the Republican Party today.

Nearly four months after the American people offered a stinging rebuke to Republicans, the rhetoric from the party’s leaders sounds remarkably familiar: Taxes are bad, spending is bad, big government is worse and socialism is on the way. Indeed, the Republican response to Barack Obama’s election -- both rhetorically and policywise -- has been to act as though nothing has changed.

In his response to Obama’s speech to Congress, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared, “Democratic leaders in Washington -- they place their hope in the federal government. We place our hope in you, the American people.” Where have we heard these stale talking points before? Instead of choosing a new political path or offering reeds of compromise with the Democratic majority, Republicans are doubling down on the conservative platitudes that worked in the past. But such sentiments seem increasingly out of touch with the challenges facing the country today.

This is not the first time that a political party has gone back to basics after a devastating political loss. In the wake of the Reagan landslide in 1980, Democrats failed to shift course from the New Deal-style populism that had kept them in the political majority for more than four decades. It took a dozen years for the party to offer a new political approach that resonated with middle-class voters.

After Franklin D. Roosevelt’s victory in 1932, Republicans took a similar course, maintaining a drumbeat of Hooverite, small-government rhetoric that led to political calamity in 1936 and kept the GOP in the political wilderness for a generation.

This year Republicans seem to be adopting a similar course, believing that the Obama moment shall pass and that the country’s traditional conservative mind-set -- and antipathy toward “big government” -- will bring them back to power. But the GOP is misreading the political tea leaves. 

While some voters may be skeptical of the spending increases and big deficits that President Obama is pushing, this doesn’t mean they are ready to return to the conservative policies of the past eight years. Republicans have done more than lose the trust of the American people -- their ideas no longer hold them in thrall.Part of the problem is that no matter the situation, the Republicans’ policy solutions have remained remarkably similar. When times are good, we need to cut taxes. When times are bad ... we need to cut taxes. Indeed, in Jindal’s speech last week, he decried Obama’s tax increases as if the president’s stimulus package wasn’t composed of almost 40 percent tax cuts.

By rejecting any notion that government has a role to play in improving the country’s economic prospects -- and employing the same policy approaches -- conservatives are marginalizing themselves and ceding the political middle to Democrats. The moves taken by Obama, be they the economic stimulus package or his recent budget, do move the country’s politics to the left. But these proposals seem far less extreme when compared to the Republican alternatives.

Moreover, by failing to accept Obama’s calls for compromise and bipartisanship, Republicans appear to be more interested in ideological purity than finding solutions. These impressions are only enhanced by outlandish warnings such as those from Mike Huckabee that a “union of American Socialist republics is being born.” Such admonitions didn’t work for John McCain’s 2008 campaign, and they are even less likely to work today.

Sixteen years ago, Republican unity against a new Democratic president brought sizable political rewards. But times have dramatically changed. Democrats are more unified, the country’s economic prospects have gotten worse and the new president is trusted by a sizable percentage of Americans. Obstruction was the smart political move then, but it’s the wrong politics today.

The GOP should not cease to be an opposition party, but Republicans must realize that the country has changed in a dramatic and seminal manner. They need to go from being the party of “no” to the party of “yes, but.” Moving further to the right and ignoring Obama’s calls for post-partisanship will only serve to ensure that their trek through the political wilderness is a long one.