I would go to any party other than the GOP to see up-close the full range of expressions on Reihan's face - perhaps even to planet Ekton. I'm not interested in any conversion experience, so unfortunately they can't count me as a book sale. It's always a pleasure to see and listen to them on bhtv though.
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/121...7&out=00:02:39

This is from the recent New Yorker article that Brendan recommended, The Fall of Conservatism:

It’s probably not an accident that the most compelling account of the crisis was written by two conservatives who are still in their twenties and have made their careers outside movement institutions. Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, editors at the Atlantic Monthly, are eager to cut loose the dead weight of the Gingrich and Bush years. In their forthcoming book, “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream” (Doubleday), Douthat and Salam are writing about, if not for, what they call “Sam’s Club Republicans”—members of the white working class, who are the descendants of Nixon’s “northern ethnics and southern Protestants” and the Reagan Democrats of the eighties. In their analysis, America is divided between the working class (defined as those without a college education) and a “mass upper class” of the college educated, who are culturally liberal and increasingly Democratic. The New Deal, the authors acknowledge, provided a sense of security to working-class families; the upheavals of the sixties and afterward broke it down. Their emphasis is on the disintegration of working-class

Well, let's not underestimate the tremendous importance that economic growth can have for people's well-being. But getting to your points about the GOP being meaner to blacks, gays, and women, I wanted to say a few things. First, and going out on a limb here, but I would say that the worst thing to happen to American blacks since the 1960s is the decline of the inner cities. I don't know that you can lay this at the feet of conservatives (maybe you can, but if you're going to bring up the drug war as the explanation, I don't think this is by any stretch a distinctively conservative agenda). And I'm not sure that Jim Crowe was worse than the drugs and violence of the inner cities, especially in the 80s and early 90s. Second, Ross will point out that the Democrats have been far more unkind to unborn fetuses than the Republicans have. This will make a huge difference for him. Third, identity politics--and I know, to some extent all politics are identity politics--have been, in my opinion, overall damaging to political and civic discourse. It's also not been good, I don't think, for the minorities it was meant to

1) re: meritocracy. if one's social status is simply contingent upon the human capital one brings to the table (whether innate or learned), then one would assume society would get more stratified over time as those individuals with useful traits succeed and marry each other, and pass on those traits to their children (either genetically or through culture). in other words, one might think of upward and downward social mobility in this sort of society being generated by stochastic noise and serendipity as opposed to just desserts. of course, you could maintain mobility if you include a model where exogenous shocks keep changing the sign value of various elements of the human capital which are inequitably distributed across society so that what was beneficial at time X is not as time X + n. 2) i was kind of pissed by ross baiting us about the relationship to jane goodall! for shame! i'd bet they have relatives in common within the last 300 years though. 3) the tenor of this vlog was definitely different in that sometimes i felt like i was overhearing two friends having a discussion. not that

Just a note on your first point: If my friend buys me a car and I die of CO inhalation, I don't think the gift could be construed as unfriendly or malicious. However if another friend beat me up every time I tried to drive a car, I think I'd be justified in believing he wasn't really my friend. The modern GOP is guilty of quite a few unfriendly acts toward blacks, gays, and women, among others. ("Southern strategy", anti-ERA movement [may Phyllis Schlafly rot in hell], "family friendly" pandering to religious fanatics - to name a few ways in which I'd back up that claim). It may or may not be true that urban blight is the result of liberal social policy - I think it's at best arguable - but even if it is, it's pretty obviously an unintended consequence of a set of policies that were aimed at creating benefits - and if you look at the proportion of middle class backs now and at trends going back fifty years, it seems pretty clear that those benefits have to some extent been realized.

Quoting claymisher: The two guys are nice enough, and they have nice friends to vouch for them being nice guys, but really, the Republican Party hasn't exactly been on the side of the angels for a long time. Whenever it's in trouble they come after black Americans or gays or lesbians. Why would nice guys like that side with the bullies? How do they feel about that? I like the free market as much as the next guy, but do you really prioritize that over treating people decently?

God, that really nails it. Well said. Ross and Reihan don't appear to be vicious hatemongers; indeed, they seem like two extremely decent individuals. But for whatever reason, they are perfectly comfortable in the party of (and in the company of) vicious hatemongers. I can't say it any better than you already have, but I would really like an answer to your question: "Why would nice guys like that side with" a political party and political movement built on hate?

Quoting Bobby G: First, and going out on a limb here, but I would say that the worst thing to happen to American blacks since the 1960s is the decline of the inner cities.

The worst thing to happen to blacks since the 1960s is the decline of the inner cities? Sure. I'll agree with that. You omit any mention or acknowledgement of the good things that have happened to the black community since the 1960s, such as the development of a black middle class that (for the most part) didn't exist when conservatives were enforcing Jim Crow prior to the liberal Democratic civil rights policies of the 1960s. But that's not your focus; fair enough. I'll echo AemJeff's point that there's a difference between one person's incomplete and only partly successful efforts to do good, and another person's repeated attempts to do harm. Republicans have been swinging a pipe at the faces of their enemies -- blacks, gays, women, Mexicans, Arabs, non-Christians, teachers, union members, poor people, the elderly, who else am I forgetting? -- for a long, long time. As for the causes of the decline of the inner city, it starts with Brown v. Board of Education, and continues with the Civil Rights

Ross and Reihan don't appear to be vicious hatemongers; indeed, they seem like two extremely decent individuals. But for whatever reason, they are perfectly comfortable in the party of (and in the company of) vicious hatemongers. I can't say it any better than you already have, but I would really like an answer to your question: "Why would nice guys like that side with" a political party and political movement built on hate?

Well, first off, these guys are not hardcore Repubs. They distance themselves from the hate and warmongers and seem to align with Repubs basically on economic issues. Remember, the Democrats formed a coalition with Segregationists, but it's not really fair to say that John F. Kennedy or César Chávez or Shirley Chisholm were in the party of vicious hatemongers. They tried to change things from within, just as some antiwar and gay/lesbian Republicans work for change today. One problem is that we are stuck with a dysfunctional two-party system, so each party has a intra-right and intra-left wing that are very far apart. You get not only the phenomenon of Republicrats like Bill Clinton, but also the irony of right-wing Dems. who are

Bobby, thanks for spelling out a good faith argument, but I don't think those five points do much to tip the scale: 1) Both parties haven't really payed that much attention to the problems of cities and the underclass in general. 2) The consensus in America since at least the 1970s has been "uncomfortable with abortion but unwilling to change the status quo". IIRC the Pew data showed opinions pretty steady on that. The gap between "wrong except in the case of rape" and "wrong always" shows how muddled the public's thinking is on this. Republicans are all talk on abortion. When they start talking about actual punishment -- prison sentences for women who have abortions -- then we'll know they're serious. But if you really think abortion is murder that is probably good enough reason to be a Republican. 3) "Identity politics" is too broad to debate. But since there are more white folks than everybody else it's clear that it benefits Republicans more than Democrats. Disliking Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton isn't a good enough reason to be a Republican. 4) Last I saw Republicans get divorced more than Democrats, so I could see how

Quoting TwinSwords: God, that really nails it. Well said. Ross and Reihan don't appear to be vicious hatemongers; indeed, they seem like two extremely decent individuals. But for whatever reason, they are perfectly comfortable in the party of (and in the company of) vicious hatemongers. I can't say it any better than you already have, but I would really like an answer to your question: "Why would nice guys like that side with" a political party and political movement built on hate?

I think the challenge for them is to find a way for Republicans to win elections with out doing the bad things necessary to gain the support of bigots. Good luck guys! Ross is such a weird-looking guy, I'm sure his pals at Fox News would deem him to be queer or foreign or something un-American like that, and so for his sake alone I hope the Republicans improve.

As a big-D Democrat, I agree with Reihan: he should be kept as far away from the levers of the Republican party as possible (that's a compliment!). More seriously, as someone who's sick to death of the partisan pie-fight, I hope that once the crash-and-burn of the GOP is complete, these two will be in charge of the rebuilding (that's not to say I don't hope it takes, say, three or four election cycles). I've listened to Reihan explain his politics several times now, and Hayekian or not, I don't see any reason why he can't fit into the emerging Democratic big-tent coalition, other than maybe tribal association. He wouldn't be fully comfortable, but he can't possibly be comfortable in today's GOP, and anyway he's a self-described contrarian. The same goes for Ross, more or less, but in his case I think abortion rights may be a deal-breaker.

Two smart guys but their apparent lack of humanity decimates their own arguments.

MESSAGE TO LIBERALS: There are lots of thoughtful conservatives like Ross and Reihan. The fact that this comes as a shock to you says more about you than about the GOP. Time to break out of the liberal caccoon!

Admirable and engaging (speaking as someone well into left field). The most immediately arresting attraction of the divilog is the ease with candor, the open humanity of Ross and Reihan. (Something bloggingheads seems to encourage, and so much the better for it, and for us.)
Would that the national conversation(s) might show a similar candor and humanity.

Quoting JerseyBoy: MESSAGE TO LIBERALS: There are lots of thoughtful conservatives like Ross and Reihan.

Your assertion would be more credible if you offered some examples.

Seriously? Alright, in case you don't know, here's a list of thoughtful conservatives: Andrew Sullivan
Daniel Larison
James Poulos
Peter Hitchens
John Derbyshire
Heather Mac Donald
Charles Murray
James Q. Wilson
Robert Rector
Andrew Ferguson
Christopher Caldwell
David Brooks
Theodore Dalrymple That was off the top of my head in a minute or so.

Quoting AemJeff: Just a note on your first point: If my friend buys me a car and I die of CO inhalation, I don't think the gift could be construed as unfriendly or malicious. However if another friend beat me up every time I tried to drive a car, I think I'd be justified in believing he wasn't really my friend. The modern GOP is guilty of quite a few unfriendly acts toward blacks, gays, and women, among others. ("Southern strategy", anti-ERA movement [may Phyllis Schlafly rot in hell], "family friendly" pandering to religious fanatics - to name a few ways in which I'd back up that claim). It may or may not be true that urban blight is the result of liberal social policy - I think it's at best arguable - but even if it is, it's pretty obviously an unintended consequence of a set of policies that were aimed at creating benefits - and if you look at the proportion of middle class backs now and at trends going back fifty years, it seems pretty clear that those benefits have to some extent been realized.

Well, what if your friend constantly took money from you, used your money to buy you gifts, and the gifts

Lots of good points in your post here--a lot of them strike me as eminently plausible. About gerrymandering, though: I was under the impression that that was a Democratic initiative undertaken to ensure that there would be a number of black congresspeople. Of course, the effect was to effectively castrate any influence the black community would have. I don't know about your first litany, though--about Republicans being the enemies of blacks, women, gays, the old, the poor, teachers, etc. Sure, the Republicans are against giving benefits for a lot of these groups (the poor, the elderly, teachers), but it's not obvious to me that giving benefits is the right thing to do in a lot of these cases (especially the case of teachers).

Quoting claymisher: 1) Both parties haven't really payed that much attention to the problems of cities and the underclass in general.

Right, but I was asserting that the Dems have done a lot, inadvertently, to make things worse. TwinSwords, though, has provided some reasons to doubt that.

Republicans are all talk on abortion. When they start talking about actual punishment -- prison sentences for women who have abortions -- then we'll know they're serious.

William Saletan seems to think (ruefully) that Republicans have done a lot to curtail abortion.

I don't know why pro-lifers would have to enforce prison sentences on all women who had abortion. It might be lots easier simply to imprison the doctors who performed it.

3) "Identity politics" is too broad to debate. But since there are more white folks than everybody else it's clear that it benefits Republicans more than Democrats. Disliking Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton isn't a good enough reason to be a Republican.

I'm not sure I understand this. What I had in mind was the notion that blacks ought to form black interest groups, gays form gay interest groups, etc. I think this contributes to factionalization, though there's lots to be said about this.

5) Democrats are

Bobby G:

What I had in mind was the notion that blacks ought to form black interest groups, gays form gay interest groups, etc. I think this contributes to factionalization, though there's lots to be said about this.

Do you feel the same way about right-leaning special interest groups, like the NRA, extreme pro-lifers, Big Oil, the credit card issuers, the mining lobby, automotive manufacturers, evangelical Christians, defense contractors, the Norquist-style anti-tax crowd, and so on?

Quoting Bobby G: Seriously? Alright, in case you don't know, here's a list of thoughtful conservatives:

FWIW, I regularly read or read at least once in a while a good chunk of the people you listed. Possibly related: Seems to me that most of them have been "expelled" by the purists in the movement. So, it's not that I don't know, it's that I wanted to hear JerseyBoy's examples.

Bobby G:

About gerrymandering, though: I was under the impression that that was a Democratic initiative undertaken to ensure that there would be a number of black congresspeople.

Possibly true in some cases, but it's also true that Republicans have a long and sordid history of using gerrymandering. They have done this in some instances to lump the overwhelming majority of black residents into one district, and they have done it in plenty of other times for the more general reason that they wanted to maintain or acquire additional power. You might, for example, read up on Tom Delay's work in Texas in the early 2000s. It is my sense that Delay and the Texas GOP took things to a new low, but overall, this is not a partisan thing by any stretch -- both parties have long done it.

Quoting Bobby G: Well, what if your friend constantly took money from you, used your money to buy you gifts, and the gifts often not only failed to work, but also positively harmed you? And then, whenever you pointed out his errors, he accused you of having malicious motivations and didn't change his conduct? It's not obvious to me which person is worse.

As for the improvements of the black middle class, I would bet that it's in spite of, not because of, a lot of liberal interventionist policies.

You're going to need to do more than assert those effects. Took your money and bought you gifts that harmed you? Map that metaphor onto reality in some detail please. Frankly, I'd like to hear about the utopia that existed before civil rights legislation and the New Deal in which happy blacks, gays, and independent women frolicked, cruelly unaware of the liberal dystopia inevitably bearing down on their idyllic lives. Like I said in my prior post, I think that there's a valid argument to be made to the effect that liberal policies have had some harmful effects. But even if that were established - the extent of that effect is

I enjoyed hearing these two, it's good to have some diverse viewpoints on BH, but can anyone name three original/unique arguments you'd expect to find in the book, based on this "interview?" Neither 'head did a very good job of giving the potential book-buying audience a reason to purchase their product.

Oh you mean like Senator Lieberman has been treated by the Democrats or the "Regan Democrats" it is not a partisan phenomena as much as the left wishes to sell it.

Quoting piscivorous: Oh you mean like Senator Lieberman has been treated by the Democrats or the "Regan Democrats" it is not a partisan phenomena as much as the left wishes to sell it.

Seems to me that Liberman is a poor example for your argument. He really has gone over to the other side -- refusal to accept his party's primary results in 2006, actively campaigning for McCain, and frequently disparaging the Democrats in speeches and op-eds since then. Also, he's a politician, not a thinker, which is what we were talking about here. As far as "Reagan Democrats" go, again, these are not thinkers. This is an MSM term for a certain type of voter. I do grant that there is some tendency on the far left to accuse those who don't march in lockstep of apostasy, but overall, it is my impression that the far right is much more vehement about this, tends to hurl the accusations at a far lower threshold, and tends to be more unreasonable about it. For example, two and three years ago, any antiwar talk or any criticism of Bush was grounds for instant "he's not a real conservative" clamoring and

Quoting bjkeefe: I do grant that there is some tendency on the far left to accuse those who don't march in lockstep of apostasy, but overall, it is my impression that the far right is much more vehement about this, tends to hurl the accusations at a far lower threshold, and tends to be more unreasonable about it.

Actually, I think there's justice in the view that it isn't so much what you believe that matters, but how closely you identify yourself by those beliefs. A lot of self-described "conservatives" seem like they really want to sit at the cool kid's table. There's a symmetrical phenomenon on the left, except that the labels don't seem quite as important to them. There's something apparently satisfying to a lot of people in calling themselves "conservative," that the terms "liberal," or "progressive" doesn't seem to share, or at least it doesn't manifest as strongly in those cases. I'd dispute whether either side is actually worse than the other. It's really the clubbiness - the tribal identification - that seems to matter. And the more somebody stakes their self-worth on that identity, the more they seem to be offended by people

AemJeff: That's a good point. I'd also say that there is a tradition/stereotype of conservatives maintaining a single voice and shared set of issues, whereas liberals are always squabbling amongst themselves. Which, among other things, is the reason the conservatives have been winning so many more elections and accomplishing so many more policy goals over the past quarter-century, despite the surveys that have shown for a long time that most people actually align themselves with liberal policy goals if they don't get to hear the label.

Quoting bjkeefe: AemJeff:

That's a good point. I'd also say that there is a tradition/stereotype of conservatives maintaining a single voice and shared set of issues, whereas liberals are always squabbling amongst themselves. Which, among other things, is the reason the conservatives have been winning so many more elections and accomplishing so many more policy goals over the past quarter-century, despite the surveys that have shown for a long time that most people actually align themselves with liberal policy goals if they don't get to hear the label.

You seem to be conflating a couple of concepts here as if they are one. There is no such entity as "policy goals." There are goals you wish to achieve and then there are the policies and actions one uses to try and achieve them. It is not surprising to me, that polling somewhere supports the claim that many conservatives and liberals have similar goals. It is the difference in what policies one uses and the actions one takes to achieve those shared goals that differentiate the two groups.

Quoting Incompetence Dodger: I've listened to Reihan explain his politics several times now, and Hayekian or not, I don't see any reason why he can't fit into the emerging Democratic big-tent coalition, other than maybe tribal association. He wouldn't be fully comfortable, but he can't possibly be comfortable in today's GOP, and anyway he's a self-described contrarian.

That's what I was thinking too (but couldn't manage to put into words). Bobby, as for prosecuting doctors and not women for abortions, you should know that women have performed abortions on themselves since at least antiquity. A good friend's grandmother died in that manner during the Depression, while having six children already. (Can you imagine that, six children without a mother during the Depression?) Supposing the abortion equals murder paradigm, I don't see how you could rationally allow a women to hire a killer and let her get off. According to Law & Order ordering a hit is first-degree murder. So you can't slip out of this: How many years in prison for an abortion (that is, murder)? One? Ten? Life? Death? Or zero? Or maybe a just a citation, like a parking ticket? I'm not arguing whether abortion is right or not. My point is that Republicans aren't

Come to think of it, there are plenty of debates that could be clearing up by making them numerical. People shouldn't get away with "more" or "less". You should have to say what your number is. Instead of debating immigration: How many million immigrants per year? As a percentage of population? How many from one country? Instead of debating spending: What percentage of GDP are you going to spend? Instead of debating tax cuts: What percentage of GDP are you going to spend? (In the long-run spending equals taxes) Any self-respecting sports fan wouldn't ever debate anything without having a rough idea of facts like:
a .300 average is pretty good
13 wins in the NFL is a great season
a point guard should have more than 5 assists per game.

No, I don't feel that way. Which makes me think I have to re-evaluate my earlier statements. I suppose if I were to defend them, I would say that I don't mind groups coalescing around issues as opposed to identities, but I wonder how far that can take me. Shows what happens when I listen to Kwame Anthony Appiah. (In that book, he argues that race is a social construct rather than a biological reality. He further argues that we should do what we can to eliminate thinking of race as biologically real. Consequently, he thinks that we should eschew belonging to groups that fundamentally organize themselves around the notion of racial identity. If this argument works, I don't think it would apply to religious groups or interest groups. But maybe his argument doesn't work.)

Yes, here is where I'm going to need to provide data. I don't have it at the moment, and I don't think it's likely that I'll get back to you any time soon with it. But I could look, if you'd like.

Quoting Bobby G: No, I don't feel that way. Which makes me think I have to re-evaluate my earlier statements. I suppose if I were to defend them, I would say that I don't mind groups coalescing around issues as opposed to identities, but I wonder how far that can take me.

Shows what happens when I listen to Kwame Anthony Appiah. (In that book, he argues that race is a social construct rather than a biological reality. He further argues that we should do what we can to eliminate thinking of race as biologically real. Consequently, he thinks that we should eschew belonging to groups that fundamentally organize themselves around the notion of racial identity. If this argument works, I don't think it would apply to religious groups or interest groups. But maybe his argument doesn't work.)

It's all well and good to say groups shouldn't coalesce around a shared physical characteristic (skin color, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, etc.), but when that physical characteristic has meant so much, to everyone else in society as well, and almost always in a negative way, it seems to me entirely appropriate to work as a group. Hang together or hang separately, so to speak. Can it go too far? Of

pisc: If you insist.

Quoting Bobby G: Yes, here is where I'm going to need to provide data. I don't have it at the moment, and I don't think it's likely that I'll get back to you any time soon with it. But I could look, if you'd like.

Fair enough. It's an interesting question, but we don't need to try to resolve it here and now.

Quoting Bobby G: Shows what happens when I listen to Kwame Anthony Appiah. (In that book, he argues that race is a social construct rather than a biological reality. He further argues that we should do what we can to eliminate thinking of race as biologically real.

It's not just Kwame Anthony Appiah who says race is a social construct and invalid as a biological concept: it's simply a fact. It's something I rarely even mention because people just can't wrap their minds around it, but the idea of biologically distinct races is totally and completely invalid and has long been rejected by the scientific community. Just one randomly selected example: — AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Race It would be a major leap forward for our civilization if people could learn this and internalize it. Earlier you cited Charles Murray, that vile racist, as an example of a reasonable conservative. If more people could deal with the realities of science, hate-mongering charlatans like the pig Murray would be out of work — and the world would be a better place. Pardon my hostility towards Murray, but I don't like Nazis or people like Nazis, e.g., Murray

Quoting bjkeefe: Speaking of race as a social construct (or not), you might enjoy the 23 June edition of Start the Week, where this is one of the issues discussed.

That is a great link. I haven't listened to your suggestion yet... but the whole BBC page is a find. I always check the online paper but never considered the radio. Duh! Thanks.

Quoting http://physanth.org/positions/race.html: 3. There is great genetic diversity within all human populations.* Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.

*When this states "all human populations," it means all groups normally considered distinct races, e.g., blacks or whites or Asians. This directly relates to the well understood notion that there is greater variation within so-called racial groups than there is between them.

Also see, American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race" The problem, I think conservatives and liberals can agree (Cf., e.g., your discussion with Brendan about the political value of "identity" politics) that the concept of race is useful politically: both to conservatives, who run on a position of hate and loathing for non-whites, and liberals, who embrace the human race in all its forms. Because of the political value of race as a concept, it's difficult for people to accept that it is biologically invalid. From the AAA statement:

With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.

Quoting Bobby G: Lots of good points in your post here--a lot of them strike me as eminently plausible. About gerrymandering, though: I was under the impression that that was a Democratic initiative undertaken to ensure that there would be a number of black congresspeople.

True, but there is a difference between gerrymandering to create districts that are 99% black in order to MINIMIZE black representation — a Republican practice — and attempts to create districts to MAXIMIZE black representation — a Democratic practice. While these are both forms of gerrymandering, they are not neutral in terms of helping and hurting black people as a group, as I'm sure you would agree. That is, one clearly helps the black community and one clearly hurts it. Conservatives and Republicans may not think black people notice when you try to hurt them with this and a million other little scams, but they do.

Quoting Wonderment: Well, first off, these guys are not hardcore Repubs. They distance themselves from the hate and warmongers and seem to align with Repubs basically on economic issues.

Are you saying that these two are opposed to the Iraq war, torture, extra-judicial murder, permanent detention without trial, and the remaining slew of Republican abuses? I admit I don't read either of them regularly, but if the answers to the above are affirmative, wouldn't it just be easier for them to register as Democrats?

Quoting Wonderment: Remember, the Democrats formed a coalition with Segregationists, but it's not really fair to say that John F. Kennedy or César Chávez or Shirley Chisholm were in the party of vicious hatemongers.

Well, I think it would be fair to say they were in the Party (the Democratic Party) of vicious hatemongers. But you're right: They helped to wrest control of that party away from the segregationists. That's a good reason to stay in a party with bad people: so you can boot them out and redefine the party on your terms. Are Ross and Reihan doing that? Are they attempting to take the Republican Party back from the people who dominate the party today

From their book's product description:

Memo to John McCain: Please, please READ THIS BOOK. It can help you win the election and guide Republicans in shaping the political future.

Would electing John McCain help stop or continue the horrific abuses we've seen in the last 7 years? Ross and Reihan may "distance themselves from the hate and warmongers," but the practical effect of their efforts, if successful, would be to empower them. Surely they are aware of that. Doesn't that mean they are complicit?

You raise some good points, Twin.

Are you saying that these two are opposed to the Iraq war, torture, extra-judicial murder, permanent detention without trial, and the remaining slew of Republican abuses?

I don't read these two either and only know them from Bheads. I'm just trying to say a couple of things that refer to the overall Dem.Repub split and that might apply to Ross and Reihan (benefit of doubt granted): 1) There's a lot of Dem-Repub overlap on "national security" issues to the extent that I often can't tell the difference between the players. Colin Powell was a good example. Either party would have loved to have him and could have claimed him as one of their own. The UN/Iraq speech destroyed his career, but discounting that he'd fit perfectly into an Obama cabinet. See also Blue Dog Coalition. 2) On the issues of support for torture, illegal detention, preemptive war, etc., I think it's a stretch to pin all that on Republicans in general. It's true that in the past eight years the Repubs. have rallied around a deranged president, but I think a good case can be made that Bush is a frightening aberration and

Characterizing Pat Buchanan as "pro-human rights" requires, I think, a pretty complex gesture. Pat's opinions, as I'm sure you're aware, have some pretty iffy quirks and he sometimes seems to be daring people to Godwin him. I know you weren't making the argument solely about him, but he's an interesting example.

A couple of things. (1) You go to far when you say that it's just a fact that race is not a biological reality (depending on what one means by race). See, for example: Risch, Neil; Burchard, Esteban; Ziv, Elad and Tang, Hua, "Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease", Genome Biology 3 (2002). Bamshad, Michael; Olson, Steve, "Does Race Exist?" Scientific American, December 2003. Andreasen, Robin, "A New Perspective on the Race Debate," British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 49 (1998): 199-225. Andreasen, Robin, "Race: Biological Reality or Social Construct?," British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 67 (2000): 653-666. (2) I'm not so sure about characterizing Murray as a vile racist. First, he's a fan of Barack Obama unlike, say, Steve Sailer. Second, even if he has a wrong-headed, possibly offensively wrong-headed, view about the intellectual capabilities of blacks, it doesn't follow that he's generally unreasonable (i.e., he might have a "block" in one place while being worth reading on many others). See his new book, In Our Hands, which was favorably reviewed by leftist Harry Brighouse on Crooked Timber. By the way, I get my links for (1) from Elizabeth Anderson's wonderful "Bibliography on Race, Gender, and Affirmative Action".

Quoting TwinSwords: True, but there is a difference between gerrymandering to create districts that are 99% black in order to MINIMIZE black representation — a Republican practice — and attempts to create districts to MAXIMIZE black representation — a Democratic practice.

I'm much more reluctant to see the Dems' motivations as consisting of sweetness and light. I think they were just trying to satisfy their black constituents without having to do much of anything for them.

I agree about Murray. I've posted about him in the past both (slightly) pro and con. This eleven year-old Slate piece is a good take-down of The Bell Curve. On the other hand, his defense of Obama on NRO's The Corner was intellectually honest and relatively generous (thought the last graf seemed less than necessary). And it was done in the face of a great deal of heat from fellow travelers.

Quoting Bobby G: I'm much more reluctant to see the Dems' motivations as consisting of sweetness and light. I think they were just trying to satisfy their black constituents without having to do much of anything for them.

Then what you are saying is that you think black people are stupid, that they can be bought off with useless gifts that don't do anything for them, because they are so lacking in awareness that they think the bauble of Congressional representation is actually a prize worth having. How can it be that you simultaneously oppose "liberal interventionist policies" and claim that Democrats don't really do "much of anything for them"?

Quoting TwinSwords: Then what you are saying is that you think black people are stupid, that they can be bought off with useless gifts that don't do anything for them, because they are so lacking in awareness that they think the bauble of Congressional representation is actually a prize worth having.

Well, just for the record: what do you think of blacks and gays who vote for Republicans? Are they stupid? What do you think of the members of the working class who vote Republican? Are they stupid? One can believe, say, Thomas Frank's thesis without thinking that the people in Kansas are all stupid; one could think that they're deceived, make an honest mistake, have the wrong priorities, etc. Similarly, I think the false assumption made by some well-intentioned Dems who gerrymandered blacks into irrelevance was that there needed to be super-majorities of blacks for there to be any chance of electing a black congressman.

How can it be that you simultaneously oppose "liberal interventionist policies" and claim that Democrats don't really do "much of anything for them"?

Sorry, by "do much of anything for them" I mean do positive things for them. So on the

I think I'm going to stop trying to defend the Republicans now. If someone else wants to step into the breach, that's all well and good, but let me address at least the earlier question: why do Ross and Reihan want to hang out with the Republican party? Especially if you grant that the Republicans rely primarily on racism to win elections? (I doubt that this is the primary mover for the Republican party, but it seems to me undeniable that most racists feel most comfortable in the Republican party rather than the Democratic party). Well, the answer is, I think, that Ross and Reihan are conservative. If the choice is between voting for the Democrats, who endorse a lot of policies you think are wrongheaded and voting for Republicans, who endorse, or are at least open to, the policies you think are best for the country, then you may want to vote Republican while holding your nose, even if the Republican is home to people of lower moral character than the Democrats.

Characterizing Pat Buchanan as "pro-human rights" requires, I think, a pretty complex gesture. Pat's opinions, as I'm sure you're aware, have some pretty iffy quirks and he sometimes seems to be daring people to Godwin him. I know you weren't making the argument solely about him, but he's an interesting example.

True. Pat has made anti-Semitic remarks and Ron Paul has been accused of racism. But like Obama, both were against the war in Iraq since before it started. Many Democrats were not (Hillary, Biden, Edwards, etc.) By my lights, it's was a deeply immoral human rights decision to authorize unilateral preemptive war on a country that did not pose an imminent threat to any other nation and was not engaged in crimes against humanity that would ustify an emergency intervention. Although the Republicans did worse than the Dems. on that decision, and although the ultimate responsibility for the war and the subsequent war crimes rests with Bush, it seems clear to me that the war was bipartisan. When it comes to determining who's in the war-and-atrocity party, things get blurry fast. It really is a bipartisan military-industrial-congressional complex (as Republican president Eisenhower warned). So my bottom line