I'm on record saying that effectively dissolving the contemporary Republican Party might be what's needed in order to bring about a political union genuinely concerned with promoting the common good-- but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to listen to well thought-out prescriptions that address how the GOP can save itself (or, for that matter, how the Dems could do the same thing).

Commentary Magazine provides such an assessment, entitled "How to Save the Republican Party." While I don't agree with everything they have to say, it's a serious, intelligent piece chock full of worthwhile advice and keen observations. The authors, Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, focus on five areas of correction: economics, immigration, the common good, social issues, and science.

GOP

Gerson and Wehner first address the GOP's current economic policies and positions, and come to a seemingly obvious conclusion: the Republican establishment of the past two decades has been an apologist for corporate welfare and socio-economic Darwinism. While the authors acknowledge that the GOP should stick to its free-market principles, real and substantive changes are needed:

...a fair hearing on any of these issues [of economic principles] requires changing an image that the GOP is engaged in class warfare on behalf of the upper class. Republicans could begin by becoming visible and persistent critics of corporate welfare: the vast network of subsidies and tax breaks extended by Democratic and Republican administrations alike to wealthy and well-connected corporations.

And:
The Republican goal is equal opportunity, not equal results. But equality of opportunity is not a natural state; it is a social achievement, for which government shares some responsibility. The proper reaction to egalitarianism is not indifference. It is the promotion of a fluid society in which aspiration is honored and rewarded.

These prescriptions seem not only obviously necessary to salvage the GOP's once-perceived advantage on matters economic, they also seem obviously right, as matters of principle and morality. Republicans have been all too willing to use the mechanisms of Big Government when it favors Big Business (the wedding of Chesterton's Hudge and Gudge, as it were), all the while maintaining a rose-tinted version of the American Dream that stipulates that hard work and determination are all one needs in order to prosper financially and achieve upward mobility. Reality states otherwise, and the GOP needs to adjust. Discarding the failed and false thought of Rand and trickle-down-economics-gone-wild is a good place to start.

The authors next turn their attention to another issue Republicans have absolutely managed to mangle: immigration.

 When it comes to immigration, the GOP has succeeded in taking an issue of genuine concern—namely, the lack of border security—and speaking about it in ways offensive to legal immigrants, including vast numbers of Hispanics and Asian Americans (with whom Romney did even worse than Hispanics).

During the 2012 Republican primary season, for example, with candidates vying for the title of who could be toughest on illegal immigration, Herman Cain described his ideal border fence like this: “It’s going to be 20 feet high. It’s going to have barbed wire on the top. It’s going to be electrified. And there’s going to be a sign on the other side saying, ‘It will kill you—Warning.’” In case anyone missed the point, Cain added helpfully that the sign would be written “in English and in Spanish.”


Cain's statement is bad enough, but let's not forget the absolutely despicable policy of "self-deportation" that Republican presidential nominee Romney favored. President Obama was correct when he described this approach as nothing more than "making life so miserable on folks that they’ll leave." Not only is self-deportation a fundamentally cruel way to address the very real, flesh and blood people who live in this country illegally, it also makes for horrible, counter-productive policy, at least when it comes to attracting votes from the ever-growing population of Hispanic Americans. As Gerson and Wehner note, the proof is in the pudding:
Consider the performance of Mitt Romney, who carried the white vote by 20 points. If the country’s demographic composition were still the same last year as it was in 2000, he would now be president. If it were still the same as it was in 1992, he would have won in a rout. If he had merely secured 42 percent of the Hispanic vote—rather than his pathetic 27 percent—Romney would have won the popular vote and carried Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico. Republicans, in short, have a winning message for an electorate that no longer exists.

Next, the authors consider a third focus, the common good, that they are right to note is completely and utterly deficient from the GOP establishment lexicon. In their estimation, "there is an impression—exaggerated but not wholly without merit—that the GOP is hyper-individualistic" and that even moderate Republicans tend to sound like "libertarians run amok." In addressing the lack of concern for the common good, Gerson and Wehner do far more than merely appeal to some nebulous concept of aggregate wealth. They refer explicitly to traditional thought and the Catholic conception of the common good:
Included within that tradition is the thought of Edmund Burke, with its emphasis on the “little platoons” of civil society; the Catholic doctrines of subsidiarity and solidarity with the poor; and the ideas developed by evangelical social reformers of an earlier era such as, in England, William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury.

And Gerson and Wehner offer tangible solutions to boot:
In pointing to dangers of an expanding central government, Republicans can rightly cite not only the constraints it places on individual initiative but also its crowding-out of civil society and citizen engagement. Specifically, they might propose ways to protect the charitable sector from federal aggression. They might also work to reinforce the activities of civil-society groups by involving them centrally in the next stages of welfare reform, in a robust agenda to overhaul our prison system, and in a concerted effort to encourage civic and cultural assimilation of immigrants.

American society comprises more than private individuals on the one hand, government on the other. Republicans and conservatives can and should take their policy bearings from that crucial fact.


In their next section, the authors address social issues in a manner that is refreshingly principled and pragmatic. Take, for instance, their treatment of marriage and the family:
Addressing the issue of marriage and family is not optional; it is essential. Far from being a strictly private matter, the collapse of the marriage culture in America has profound public ramifications, affecting everything from welfare and education to crime, income inequality, social mobility, and the size of the state. Yet few public or political figures are even willing to acknowledge that this collapse is happening.

For various reasons, the issue of gay marriage is now front and center in the public consciousness. Republicans for the most part oppose same-sex marriage out of deference to traditional family structures. In large parts of America, and among the largest portion of a rising generation, this appears to be a losing battle. In the meantime, the fact remains that our marriage culture began to disintegrate long before a single court or a single state approved gay marriage. It is heterosexuals, not homosexuals, who have made a hash out of marriage, and when it comes to strengthening an institution in crisis, Republicans need to have something useful to offer. The advance of gay marriage does not release them from their responsibilities to help fortify that institution and speak out confidently on the full array of family-related issues. Republicans need to make their own inner peace with working with those who both support gay marriage and are committed to strengthening the institution of marriage.


While their lack of resolute opposition to same-sex marriage may be concerning, Gerson and Wahner are absolutely correct in their identification of the root causes of the marriage crisis:  a redefinment of marriage as a union of love and consent that took hold of Western society in the 20th century, spurred on by contraception, the sexual revolution, and no-fault divorce. Republicans need to fight the symptoms, gay marriage being one of them, while attempting to remedy the deep-seated socio-cultural sources of the demise of marriage and the family. Solutions provided include:
correcting the mistreatment of parents in our tax code by significantly increasing the child tax credit; eliminating various marriage penalties and harmful incentives for poor and for unwed mothers; evaluating state and local marriage-promotion programs and supporting those that work; informally encouraging Hollywood to help shape positive attitudes toward marriage and parenthood. There may be no single, easy solution, but that is not a reason for silence on the issue of strengthening and protecting the family.

Finally, Gerson and Wehner address the Republican Party's bizarre aversion to science. While I don't think this amounts to an issue that is in as desperate need of correction as areas like economics or immigration, it exists and is at least somewhat detrimental to the party's cause. After highlighting the inanity of such GOP figureheads as Michelle Bachmann, the authors tackle the elephant in the room, climate change:
There is a difference between a healthy skepticism toward fashionable liberal shibboleths and dogmatic resistance to accumulated evidence. Gregg Easterbrook, an environmental commentator who has a long record of opposing alarmism, put it this way: “All of the world’s major science academies have said they are convinced climate change is happening and that human action plays a role.”

To acknowledge climate disruption need hardly lead one to embrace Al Gore’s policy agenda. It is perfectly reasonable to doubt the merits of pushing for a global deal to cut carbon emissions—a deal that is almost surely beyond reach—and to argue instead for a focus on adaptation and investments in new and emerging technologies. Republicans could back an entrepreneurial approach to technical and scientific investment as opposed to the top-down approach of unwieldy government bureaucracies offering huge subsidies to favored companies such as Solyndra. (See above, under “corporate welfare.”)

Confronting climate change is important in and of itself. It is also important as a matter of epistemology, to show that Republicans are not, in fact, at war with the scientific method. Only then will Republicans have adequate standing to criticize junk science when it’s used as a tort weapon or as an obstacle to new energy technologies.


While Gerson and Wehner, somewhat shockingly, did not include foreign affairs in their list of the five critical areas for improvement, they do provide a brief treatment of the GOP's failed policies in this realm:
For four decades, our adversarial relationship with the Soviet Union was a major issue in presidential elections. Over that period, and particularly from the early 1970s to the late 1980s, Republicans were widely considered the stronger and more trustworthy party when it came to national defense and to keeping America safe. In every presidential election since the Nixon–Humphrey contest in 1968, Republicans began with a significant lead in this respect. With the end of the Cold War in 1989, this potent issue was largely taken off the table. Nor has the decidedly mixed legacy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade worked to bolster the Republicans’ electoral advantage in the conduct of foreign policy; if anything, the opposite is the case.

Matters of foreign policy will usually not be the most salient of issues for the average American, but there is little doubt that the war hawking ways of  a neo-conservative administration and its still active proponents severely sullied the Republican brand, significantly disillusioning a swath of young people-- myself included-- to the point where affiliation with the GOP was no longer an option. But nation-building and ubiquitous warring are not only turn-offs for potential supporters, they are awful policies, part and parcel of the overtly-ideological and unrealistic neo-conservative vision of a world "safe for democracy." Republicans need to return to sensible, realistic foreign policy as a matter of principle, and the votes will follow.

Gerson and Wahner close their reasonable plan for an improved GOP not with a policy prescription, but a reminder that a good message needs a good messenger to deliver it. Stripped of their policy differences, an objective analysis of the past several elections reveals a soberingly simplistic trend: the more likable candidate wins. Southern compromiser Clinton bests high-brown Bush then robotic Dole, affable Bush II defeats intense Gore and flaky Kerry, and, finally, smooth-talking Obama comes out on top of ambling McCain followed by flavorless Romney. If 2008 and 2012 are any indication, the pool of Republican presidential prospects needs as much a makeover as do the party's positions.

Fortunately, in this regard, there are a number of potential leaders-- young, likable, and principled-- of whom one could emerge as the GOP's 2016 standardbearer. Rand Paul, who just delivered a 13-hour talking filibuster in which he denounced the Obama Administration's disregard for the Rule of Law as it expands its state policing power, is one such individual (though, I should mention, my support for Paul's filibuster is not anything close to an endorsement of his positions, wholesale).

However, the reality is that any candidate who is willing to make substantive corrections to even a few of the areas Gerson and Wahner identify will inevitably meet heavy, heavy resistance from special interests and the GOP establishment. After all, Romney, the hand-picked preference of the GOP old guard, easily emerged with the nomination despite the fact that no one seemeed to like him. If it can happen once, it can happen again. For this reason, I'll maintain a bit of optimism that the GOP can be redeemed, while more realistically being prepared for more of the same. I'm hopeful that I'll be proved wrong; it'd be nice to vote for a candidate more than begrudgingly.