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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 9, 2008
Latest Update: June 10, 2008
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
patriciaacone@yahoo.com
Introduction Notes for essay.
Essay and explanation of concepts, along with link to more extensive discussion, if we have done one.
Source backup with original URL Article backup with commentary and highlights by jeanne, for reference when studying this issue.
Backup of The Sam’s Club Agenda
By David Brooks
SOURCE: New York Times
Copyright: Source Copyright.
Included here under Fair Use Doctrine for teaching purposes only and for archival preservation when old papers are dropped from existing websites or when websites and/or their archives cease to exist. This happens more often than you may realize. jeanneThis backup copy is to be used only if the original site on the Web is not accessible. It is meant to preserve the document for teaching purposes, when sometimes the URLS are changed when sites are updated, or sites are eliminated. Please be certain to give credit if you refer to this material to the original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27brooks.html. Original URL, consulted by jeanne, June 27, 2008.June 27, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Sam’s Club Agenda
By DAVID BROOKSHighlights and commentary by jeanne.
Among the many dark tidings for American conservatism, there is one genuine bright spot. Over the past five years, a group of young and unpredictable rightward-leaning writers has emerged on the scene.
These writers came of age as official conservatism slipped into decrepitude. Most of them were dismayed by what the Republican Party had become under Tom DeLay and seemed put off by the shock-jock rhetorical style of Ann Coulter. As a result, most have the conviction — which was rare in earlier generations — that something is fundamentally wrong with the right, and it needs to be fixed.
We often speak of the attitude that something is wrong with the system and that we need to fix it as critical, as opposed to apologetic thought. An apologetic approach, coming from , means that we view the system we believe in as the best that is possible under the circumstances, so when someone criticizes it, we respond with a defense of or apology for the system. We don't see any need to or way to fix it so that it might be better for all.Here is a leading rightward-leaning writer applauding critical thought in young conservative writers. Me, too. I'm so glad to see critical reasoning return to ideological issues that matter greatly in our world today. jeanne
Moreover, most of these writers did not rise through the official channels of the conservative or libertarian establishments. By and large, they didn’t do the internships or take part in the young leader programs that were designed to replenish “the movement.” Instead, they found their voices while blogging. The new technology allowed them to create a new sort of career path and test out opinions without much adult supervision.
Do not confuse liberal with "libertarian." Big difference. A liberal is aware of and concerned for the preservation of the community of individuals. The libertarian is more aware of and concerned for the importance of preserving freedom for the individual, and believes that mankind will realize the most benefit from not tethering the individual.As a consequence, they are heterodox and hard to label. These writers grew up reading conservative classics — Burke, Hayek, Smith, C.S. Lewis — but have now splayed off in all sorts of quirky ideological directions.
There are dozens of writers I could put in this group, but I’d certainly mention Yuval Levin, Daniel Larison, Will Wilkinson, Julian Sanchez, James Poulos, Megan McArdle, Matt Continetti and, though he’s a tad older, Ramesh Ponnuru.
Ross Douthat and my former assistant, Reihan Salam, are two of the most promising. This pair has just come out with a book called “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.”
There have been other outstanding books on how the G.O.P. can rediscover its soul (like “Comeback” by David Frum), but if I could put one book on the desk of every Republican officeholder, “Grand New Party” would be it. You can discount my praise because of my friendship with the authors, but this is the best single roadmap of where the party should and is likely to head.
Several years ago, Tim Pawlenty, the Minnesota governor, said the Republicans should be the party of Sam’s Club, not the country club. This line is the animating spirit of “Grand New Party.” Douthat and Salam argue that the Republicans rode to the majority because of support from the Reagan Democrats, and if the party has a future, it will be because it understands the dreams and tribulations of working-class Americans.
hey open the book with a working-class view of recent American history. Douthat and Salam write admiringly about the New Deal. They mention Roosevelt’s economic policies, but they also emphasize the New Deal’s intense social conservatism. Self-conscious maternalists like Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins ensured that New Deal programs were biased in favor of traditional two-parent families.
Liberals write about economic inequality and conservatives about social disruption, but Douthat and Salam write about the interplay between values and economics and the way virtue and economic security can reinforce each other.
In the 1950s, divorce rates were low and jobs were plentiful, but over the next few decades that broke down. The social revolutions of the 1960s and the economic revolution of the information age have emancipated the well-educated but left the Sam’s Club voters feeling insecure.
Gaps are opening between the educated and less educated. Working-class divorce rates remain high, while the mostly upper-middle-class parents of Ivy Leaguers have divorce rates of only 10 percent. Working-class kids are unlikely to complete college, affluent kids usually do.
Liberals have a way to address these inequalities — the creation of a Denmark-style welfare state. Conservatives have offered almost nothing. The G.O.P. has lost contact with its own working-class base. This is the intellectual vacuum that “Grand New Party” seeks to fill.
The heart of the book is the last third, where Douthat and Salam lay out a series of policy ideas to help working-class families cope with economic, health care, neighborhood and family insecurity.
“What all these ideas, from the sober to the speculative, have in common is a vision of working-class independence — from bosses, from bureaucracy, from entrenched interests of all kinds,” Douthat and Salam write. This is not compassionate conservatism (which flattered the mind of the compassionate donor), it’s hard-work conservatism, which uses government to increase the odds that self-discipline and effort will pay off.
I’m not sure how quickly the G.O.P. can swing behind this working-class focus and this vision of government-enhanced social mobility. But the McCain campaign really needs to. So far, McCain’s platform is like an omnibus spending bill — lots of decent ideas thrown together with no larger social vision.
It may take a few defeats for the G.O.P. to embrace a Sam’s Club agenda, but sooner or later, it will happen. Trust me.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Discussion Questions
- QUESTION
Consider WHAT I WAS THINKING ABOUT WHEN I WROTE THE QUESTION. AND LINKS TO SOURCES YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER IN ANSWERING THE QUESTION.
References:
- Paul Rosenberg's Open Left response to David Brooks' article. He responds and comments paragraph by paragraph, as I have. jeanne
- Julian Sanchez' response to David Brooks' article. On Julian Sanchez' blog. I liked his response and would like to follow more of what he has to say. jeanne
- Indignity and Bioethics Steven Pinker discovers the human-dignity cabal. By Yuval Levin Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2008. National Review Online. Publication Date: May 14, 2008. Yuval Levin is one of young blog writers named by David Brooks. This article gave me a link to the report of the President's Commission on human dignity and bioethics, which will be important for many of us. jeanne
- From the essay title: Pace Aristotle, Dichotomies Suck - - pace: "with due respect to: used to express polite disagreement [Latin, from pax peace]" Collins Essential English Dictionary. 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006.
- apologetics - Serving as or containing a formal justification or defense - an apologetic treatise on church doctrine.
Middle English, formal defense, from Latin apologticus, from Greek apologtikos, suitable for defense, from apologeisthai, to defend oneself verbally, from apologos, apology, story; see apologue.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
- Farlex Free Online Dictionary:
