****MUST READ**** VANITY FAIR: Are Conservatives Ever Right?

[FourScore]

November 6, 2014
30 Years of Conservative Nonsense, An Explainer
If those calls to close the borders over Ebola are giving you déjà vu, you might not be wrong.
By Kurt Eichenwald




Are conservatives ever right?

The question isn’t meant to suggest that liberals are never wrong. But reviewing the last few decades of conservative policy initiatives—or their objections over that timespan to policies they hate—shows a consistent pattern of failure: predictions never pan out, and intended results turn to catastrophic flops.

Given the G.O.P.’s midterm victories this week, the question is of particular import. Come January, conservatives will have control of both houses of Congress, and hold a considerable legislative advantage in the last two years of the Obama presidency. Yet not a week ago, conservative politicians and commentators were screaming out batty ideas as they demanded that President Obama close the borders over Ebola, ignoring the advice of infectious disease specialists who know that shutting borders against a disease leads people to make travel by means that aren’t easily tracked, escalates danger, and harms the ability to stop the infection at its source. Conservative know-nothings dismiss the professionals as know-nothings themselves, despite their training and expertise.

And that could be the problem. Too often, it seems, conservatives have scorned experts as incompetent, biased, or otherwise worth ignoring because they came up with answers that didn’t fit their politically desired answer. Often, they proclaim experts have a liberal bias. Of course, plenty of Democrats have voted for conservative ideas, but that is beside the point. The question is whether policies proposed by conservatives failed, not whether they were passed into law. And this question is all the more important now, with the Republicans having re-captured control of the Senate. Will they govern based on a knowledge of history and the analysis of experts? Or will they resort to faith-based, sure-we’re-right policies—like trying to impose a border ban to stop Ebola—that may lead the ignorant to cheer but will leave turn the experts’ hair white with fear.

Before venturing through the rogues’ gallery of past disasters, an exception that proves the rule: the 1983 decision by the Reagan Administration to deploy missiles in Europe to counter Russian SS-20s was a success, ultimately contributing to the Soviet collapse. But otherwise, there is not a lot in the last three decades to give conservatives bragging rights, and with almost every fiasco, they blame someone else. So let’s look at the record of the last 30-some years:

Tax cuts pay for themselves.

The fantasy: In 1981, as he championed massive tax cuts, President Ronald Reagan promised there would be no growth in the federal budget deficit because the economic boom that would follow would lead to higher revenues.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/11/conservative-nonsense-political-history

[underpants]

1. Wow! The Dorgan quote on Glass-Steagall

In a floor speech, Dorgan warned, “We will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this, but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past.” He cautioned that banks would become “too big to fail” and that the impact on government and the economy would be disastrous.

This is a fantastic read. Bookmarking on my phone.

[Mnpaul]

13. If you love that quote

you have to see the video

part 2

[valerief]

2. They babble bullshit to make it easier to steal from us. That's all they do. nt

[world wide wally]

3. Because of some kind of innate arrogance, Republicans actually believe they can control

things like physics, climate, and disease through sheer determination to have it their way. However, the truth will always surface eventually proving them wrong time after time

[brush]

5. And they still never admit they're wrong

I'm beginning to think they're a different species, lacking the ability to learn from mistakes.

If they were able to do that, they would have become progressives by now because their big theory of the last 30 years, trickle-down, has proven to be so disastrous for the country they'd have to have abandoned it.

But no, they're never wrong in their minds — like that effing Bill Kristal, who's be wrong on so many thinks for so long that I don't think he's ever been right.

But on second thought, i think they are actually playing all of us. They know trickle-down is bullshit for everyone but the 1%, which is what they are or what they aspire to be, which further proves my first point but for a different reason.

It's not like they lack the ability to learn from mistakes, they lack the conscience that would prevent them from touting an economic fairytale of manna raining down from job-creator heaven, when that theory has been PROVEN over 30 years not to work, and they know it, thus to me, they are definitely a slight different species.

[world wide wally]

7. Republican Rule #1….. Greed comes first!!!

[BlindTiresias]

8. Uh, well actually

Some neuroscience research has identified core differences between rightists and leftists on a fundamental level in terms of brain structure. So yeah, they could be thinking in an entirely alien way.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. Ever watch the show "Shark Tank"?

Republicans feel EVERYTHING is a matter of a good sales pitch.

Combine that with their tremendous ego and belief that they have direct contact with God and you have a bunch of arrogant assholes who honestly believe they have supernatural powers.

[riqster]

4. Kick for a good read.

[CJCRANE]

6. Newt Gingrich introduced the whole NLP thing

with the associated magical thinking and affirmations.

This concept of "creating reality" is a perfect fit for the GOP's anti-science, faith-based followers.

The trouble is that these techniques are basically forms of hypnosis and self-hypnosis which are very difficult to snap out of, particularly as the Repubs have never been challenged with the true consequences of their actions.

So, after a few years hiatus, the neocons are back and stronger than ever and ready to make even bigger mistakes.

[Enrique]

9. the next one will be the effects of gay marriage

for example the end of western civilization among other unfavorable outcomes they have warned us about.

[SoapBox]

14. What you said.

[WillyT]

12. K & R !!!

[UTUSN]

15. R#61 & K n/t

[stopwastingmymoney]

16. Kick for later reading. Thanks! nt

[bucolic_frolic]

17. Religious, Righteous Certainty and Entitlement

leads to a rigid mindset and inflexible authoritarian thinking

where the experts must agree with conservatives and not the other
way around.

They reject all that does not fit their predetermined ideas, and impose their
will and ideas on others.

[Grins]

18. The Reagan decision to deploy missiles in Europe was a success.. Bullshit!

"...the 1983 decision by the Reagan Administration to deploy missiles in Europe to counter Russian SS-20s was a success."

The hell it was.

It made the Soviets go into overdrive in their paranoia about being attacked by the "Cowboy" in the White House. Moving those missiles closer to Moscow dropped their time to get Soviet senior officers and key members of the Politburo into nuclear safe places from 30-minutes to 8. With only 8 minutes, all would be dead nd so would the Soviet Union. They considered this move a first step in an attack on them.

Andropov had repeatedly warned that the U.S. was approaching the "red line" leading to nuclear war when he met with Averell Harriman in June 1983, but Reagan and his fellow 'get-tough' warriors ignored all that.

From November 7 to November 11, 1983 NATO conducted an exercise called "Able Archer", the impetus for the exercise coming from the Reich-wing nutjobs in the Reagan White House, "where they wanted to stare down the Soviet bear," said historian Nate.Jones.

40,000 U.S. and NATO troops were moved across Western Europe while an additional 16,044 U.S. troops were airlifted overseas in 170 missions, all conducted in radio silence. It shifted commands and had numerous "slips of the tongue" in which B-52 sorties were referred to as nuclear "strikes", all of which the Soviets were monitoring and fearing, "this is it!"

All this matched official Soviet indicators for a Western nuclear missile attack.

Reagan's actions brought about the most dangerous nuclear threat to the U.S. since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

If you can, find the documentary, "1983 - The Brink of Apocalypse".

[davidpdx]

19. Will read this afternoon as it looks like a pretty detailed article

Thanks for posting it.

[redruddyred]

20. forgive my ignorance

but wasn't the cold war nothing but political grandstanding after all? who cares if the russians want to be communists?

[vkkv]

21. Conservatives have been mostly WRONG coming around EVERY corner of history.

The time-honored right-wing motto: "Frequently wrong, never in doubt."

I'll name one really easy one. Gay Marriage, okay another, minorities voting, okay another, women voting, okay another: Republicans fought against Dems in joining WWII until Pearl Harbor was struck (kinda like BushCo's unpreparedness for 911), okay, three more, the Roman, Spanish and French Inquisitions, more? The Civil War ( Repubs were the Big Gov liberals and the Dems were the conservative state's rights party in the 1800's until the Whig Party collapsed around 1900) More? Renewable energy, the environment. The Earth is round and not the center of the Universe by the way.. oh and it's not flat. Invading Iraq when Saddam was going to walk out before the bombs fell anyway? And how about our absurd military budget, It's killing our development as a future leader on this planet. Time will show again and again how conservatives just can't get over their ideology to make the correct social, environmental and economic long-term decisions.

[mwb970]

25. Don't forget the Tories.

During the Revolution, the conservatives of the day were the Tories, who sided with the King and did not want America to be created. In the Civil War the conservatives were the Confederacy, who were willing to tear the nation apart to preserve their "right" to enslave black people. In the Civil Rights Era, the conservatives stood in school house doors to prevent America from becoming an integrated nation. And so on. And so on.

Conservatives have been a thorn in the side of America since before the nation was even formed, and the pattern of holding us back from progress continues to this very day.

[Martin Eden]

22. "conservatives have scorned experts as incompetent, biased, or otherwise worth ignoring"

That's very true, and it reminded me of the excellent piece (linked below) written by Josh Marshall in Sept 2003 about the Bush administration.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0309.marshall.html

This summer, when it became clear that Iraq had no active nuclear weapons program--indeed showed no apparent evidence of any weapons of mass destruction at all--that the economy was still losing jobs, and that the administration's own budget office predicted deficits as far as it dared project, Bush's reputation for honesty took a turn for the worse. By the middle of July, only 47 percent of adults surveyed by Time/CNN said they felt they could trust the president, down from 56 percent in March. The president's response to all this was to make yet more confidently expressed, undisprovable assertions. He simply insisted that his tax cuts would create jobs--and who knows? Perhaps someday they will--and that American forces would eventually turn up evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But by then, the press was beginning to pick up on deceptions in other policy areas--the redaction of evidence of global warming in EPA reports, the administration's refusal to provide Congress with any estimates whatsoever about the costs of the occupation of Iraq. The White House seemed guilty of what might be called persistent, chronic up-is-downism, the tendency to ridicule the possibility that a given policy might actually have its predictable adverse consequences, to deny those consequences once they have already occurred, or--failing that--to insist against all evidence that those consequences were part of the plan all along. By late July, even a paragon of establishment conservatism like Barron's columnist Alan Abelson was lamenting the president's "regrettable aversion to the truth and reality when the truth and reality aren't lovely or convenient."

The president and his aides don't speak untruths because they are necessarily people of bad character. They do so because their politics and policies demand it. As astute observers such as National Journal's Jonathan Rauch have recently noted, George W. Bush campaigned as a moderate, but has governed with the most radical agenda of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Indeed, the aim of most of Bush's policies has been to overturn what FDR created three generations ago. On the domestic front, that has meant major tax cuts forcing sharp reductions in resources for future government activism, combined with privatization of as many government functions as possible. Abroad, Bush has pursued an expansive and militarized unilateralism aimed at cutting the U.S. free from entangling alliances and international treaty obligations so as to maximize freedom of maneuver for American power in a Hobbesian world.

Yet this is not an agenda that the bulk of the American electorate ever endorsed. Indeed, poll after poll suggest that Bush's policy agenda is not particularly popular. What the public wants is its problems solved: terrorists thwarted, jobs created, prescription drugs made affordable, the environment protected. Almost all of Bush's deceptions have been deployed when he has tried to pass off his preexisting agenda items as solutions to particular problems with which, for the most part, they have no real connection.

That's when the unverifiable assertion comes in handy. Many of the administration's policy arguments have amounted to predictions--tax cuts will promote job growth, Saddam is close to having nukes, Iraq can be occupied with a minimum of U.S. manpower--that most experts believed to be wrong, but which couldn't be definitely disproven until events played out in the future. In the midst of getting those policies passed, the administration's main obstacle has been the experts themselves--the economists who didn't trust the budget projections, the generals who didn't buy the troop estimates, intelligence analysts who questioned the existence of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq. That has created a strong incentive to delegitimize the experts--a task that comes particularly easy to the revisionists who drive Bush administration policy. They tend to see experts as guardians of the status quo, who seek to block any and all change, no matter how necessary, and whose views are influenced and corrupted by the agendas and mindsets of their agencies. Like orthodox Marxists who pick apart mainstream economics and anthropology as the creations of 'bourgeois ideology' or Frenchified academic post-modernists who 'deconstruct' knowledge in a similar fashion, revisionist ideologues seek to expose "the facts" as nothing more than the spin of experts blinded by their own unacknowledged biases. The Bush administration's betes noir aren't patriarchy, racism, and homophobia, but establishmentarianism, big-government liberalism, and what they see as pervasive foreign policy namby-pambyism. For them, ignoring the experts and their 'facts' is not only necessary to advance their agenda, but a virtuous effort in the service of a higher cause.

[treestar]

23. Great article

In the long run, too, conservatives are always going to lose. That explains their desperation. Society will in the long run always progress. Conservatives are fighting nature's course.

[Quixote1818]

24. Well, their main constituent's end up more wealthy as do they and that is their main goal

I don't think they are very concerned with anything else. They get what they want so their policies work perfectly in their eyes.

[Mopar151]

26. Narcisstic Personality Disorder

And its allied manifestations, like pedophelia and megalomania, are the dark family secret of the right wing.

Look at the dirty history of white supemacy. More factions have been taken down by cases of child molestation and extreme abuse, then by BATF for their weapons fetish.

[alfredo]

27. Reagan pushing Russia to collapse was a mistake. It gave us Putin and

a Russia ruled by the oligarch. Reagan should have allowed the reformers time to reform the system. Reagan's ego got in the way. Of course it might be that Reagan wanted the "Chilean miracle" repeated in Russia.

In the sixties I was told by a military spook that the USSR was collapsing and all we need to do is keep the pressure on and be patient.

[NorthCarolina]

28. "Tax cuts pay for themselves" is likely a TRUE statement

If you do not take the statement out of context by assuming that it means the "economy" benefits. Rather, tax cuts to the wealthy pay for themselves in the windfall of campaign donations and graft that showers down on pro-tax cut legislators. I think Americans at large are still operating under the delusion that holding public office is commensurate with "public service", when in truth it is simply a vehicle for personal gain and fortune.