What Does G.O.P. Stand For?

This figurative question has been asked quite a bit in the wake of last Tuesday's historic election. What does it mean to be a member of the Grand Old Party? That you favor small government over large? That you cling to guns and God more than your Democrat neighbors? That the issue of abortion trumps all else? Perhaps all three reasons apply. Whatever the reason for Republican affiliation, a clear side-effect of this political condition became apparent in the waning days of the campaign, and has taken hold of the party faithful: Anger.

Consider this now-famous exchange from a McCain rally.



The bubbling over of rage at these events caused McCain to rip the town hall microphone back from his surly crowds for the last two weeks of the race. Why? YouTube footage of half-cocked partisans wasn't playing well with independent voters. But in the aftermath of a stinging defeat, anger may just be the only therapeutic response left for those who would just as soon the nation "keep the change."

In this light, we might think of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh as pop psychologists, proffering a kind of primal scream therapy to their disgruntled fan base. From the LA Times:

. . . many on the losing end of last week's election want to hold on to their anger. And there are those in the media--led by the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity--only too ready to feed that animus, along with their own ratings.

I guess that's what happens when right-wing entertainers seem to set the agenda for the party more than the office-holding politicians themselves. What's also striking about the "I'm mad as hell" turn of the Republican party is how different in tone it is from the politics practiced by G.O.P. deity Ronald Reagan. Of course, in so far as ideas are concerned, Republicans seem cryogenically frozen to Reagan-era policies, even as the rest of the country seems to realize that deregulation, one of Reagan's signature achievements, was, ultimately, a colossal mistake. Here's Fareed Zakaria:

Ideas matter, Richard Weaver once wrote, and the Republican Party has become a party bereft of ideas or trapped by the wrong ones. The Reagan-Thatcher revolution of low taxes, deregulation and tight money seems irrelevant to the problems of underregulated financial products, huge deficits and a deepening recession. The Republican Party's social program is out of tune with an increasingly young, diverse and tolerate electorate.

So, in the absence of ideas that are relevant to the times in which we live, where does the G.O.P. turn? To Sarah Palin, of course. Take it away Kathleen Parker:

More important is what the "P Factor" revealed about the party itself. It has become angry and ordinary. And, oh, by the way, proud of it.

We saw that starkly as Palin whipped up crowds, winking her way through attacks against Obama that telegraphed, "He's not one of us." We saw the cackling white man toting an Obama monkey to a rally and listened slack-jawed as country singer Gretchen Wilson belted out "Redneck Woman" while Palin clapped and lip-synched her favorite song.

Anger is a potent weapon, you see. In the eyes of some, it even trumps intelligence. Truly, the populism born of hard times has the power to transform the political landscape. But it can just as easily give rise to a frightening bunker mentality. Here's Daniel Larison:

They [Palin defenders] seemed excited by how much she [Palin] didn't know. Can't define the Bush Doctrine? The pundits had a ready-made answer. "Who can define it? It is a mysterious, changing thing that no one truly understands." Can't name a Court ruling other than Roe she disagrees with? No problem--evade the relevant issue and talk about how stupid Biden is! The rule was simple: the deeper the confusion and cluelessness, the more zealous the defense.

While the rise of the angry party may be explained away in light of an unsuccessful campaign filled with failed Hail Marys, and the continuation of that anger understood as a kind of catharsis in the wake of defeat, what remains to be seen is how long it will take the party to realize that anger won't come close to winning the election of 2012. As a sanguine Bill Kristol put it today:

So Obama will be formidable. But conservatives should welcome the challenge. It's good for conservatism that conservatives will have to develop refreshed ideas and regenerated political skills to succeed in the age of Obama.

Item number one on the list should be: Ditch the anger.