Moral Blurriness And Spots

The David Brooks column mentioned below (In our scathing ruination of Crunchy Con Dreher, we modestly mention.) has some obvious points that haven't yet been assimilated by the Republican hive-mind, & brings John Ford into it.

Republicans like the way Westerns seem to celebrate their core themes — freedom, individualism, opportunity and moral clarity.

Moral clarity. The ignorance & stupidity behind those two words always slays us. Anyway ...

But the greatest of all Western directors, John Ford, actually used Westerns to tell a different story. Ford’s movies didn’t really celebrate the rugged individual. They celebrated civic order.

Alright, Ford was a bit fascistic. Still.

But the Republican Party has mis-learned that history. The party sometimes seems cut off from the concrete relationships of neighborhood life. Republicans are so much the party of individualism and freedom these days that they are no longer the party of community and order. This puts them out of touch with the young, who are exceptionally community-oriented. It gives them nothing to say to the lower middle class, who fear that capitalism has gone haywire. It gives them little to say to the upper middle class, who are interested in the environment and other common concerns. The Republicans talk more about the market than about society, more about income than quality of life. They celebrate capitalism, which is a means, and are inarticulate about the good life, which is the end. They take things like tax cuts, which are tactics that are good in some circumstances, and elevate them to holy principle, to be pursued in all circumstances.

Why, they do, don't they? Those less charitable might say they were merely greedy jerks, equipped w/ a certain animal cunning but little actual intelligence, & that their string is about to run out. 

Brooks does recognize the big problem: Farmers & swineherds versus the producers & doers of urban areas.

The emphasis on freedom and individual choice may work in the sparsely populated parts of the country. People there naturally want to do whatever they want on their own land. But it doesn’t work in the densely populated parts of the country: the cities and suburbs where Republicans are getting slaughtered. People in these areas understand that their lives are profoundly influenced by other people’s individual choices. People there are used to worrying about the health of the communal order. In these places, Democrats have been able to establish themselves as the safe and orderly party. President Obama has made responsibility his core theme and has emerged as a calm, reassuring presence (even as he runs up the debt and intervenes rashly in sector after sector).

We thought debt meant nothing. Someone proved that. And the rash intervention. Horrors. [Make a pearl-clutching gesture here.] Wouldn't want to be "rash" just because the financial system & economy are making a nose-dive to the toilet. David does go on to solve the problem, in his always reasonable way, w/ a knight on a white horse:

If the Republicans are going to rebound, they will have to re-establish themselves as the party of civic order. First, they will have to stylistically decontaminate their brand. That means they will have to find a leader who is calm, prudent, reassuring and reasonable.

What? No charisma, no Reaganesque inspiration? Let's remind ourselves of the list from our last item yesterday: Republican House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. House Minority Leader John Boehner. Senator John McCain. Mitt Romney. Haley Barbour. Jeb Bush. Governor Bobby Jindal. Mike Pence. Pete Sessions. Roy Blunt. Senator Mitch McConnell. Senator Jon Kyl. Lamar Alexander. Senator John Cornyn. John Thune. Also, perhaps, Sarah Palin. 

Maybe they should all throw themselves on their swords. This draws itself out to ridiculous length. Die, already.