A former Republican makes his case

November 1, 2006

Chances are, you’ve already seen posts about this elsewhere, but Balloon Juice’s John Cole, who voted for Bush and is a life-long Republican, wrote a pretty powerful item yesterday explaining why he just can’t stay with the GOP anymore. There are at least two important things to consider about this: John’s poignant perspective, and the right’s reaction to it.

On the prior, it seems John is just fed up. It’s hard to blame him.

In short, it really sucks looking around at the wreckage that is my party and realizing that the only decent thing to do is to pull the plug on them (or help). I am not really having any fun attacking my old friends — but I don’t know how else to respond when people call decent men like Jim Webb a pervert for no other reason than to win an election. I don’t know how to deal with people who think savaging a man with Parkinson’s for electoral gain is appropriate election-year discourse. I don’t know how to react to people who think that calling anyone who disagrees with them on Iraq a “terrorist-enabler” than to swing back. I don’t know how to react to people who think that media reports of party hacks in the administration overruling scientists on issues like global warming, endangered species, intelligent design, prescription drugs, etc., are signs of… liberal media bias. […]

And I don’t know why my friends on the right still keep fighting for these guys to stay in power. Why do they keep attacking decent people like Jim Webb- to keep this corrupt lot of fools in office? Why can’t they just admit they were sold a bill of goods and start over? Why do they want to remain in power, but without any principles? Are tax cuts that important? What is gained by keeping troops in harms way with no clear plan for victory? With no desire to change course? With our guys dying every day in what looks to be for no real good reason? Why?

I know John isn’t alone on feeling this way, or asking these questions — there’s ample evidence of reasonable, decent people who just can’t in good conscience with the Republican Party anymore — but this perspective is rather unique in the blog world, where changes of heart, particularly on this scale, are uncommon.

When a party and a movement that bolsters that party go too far, good people who are uncomfortable with the shift have to leave. It’s, in fact, necessary so that the party itself is able to recognize the problem. For all the talk that people will stick with the GOP and “change it from within,” it’s a fundamentally misguided approach. So long as one stays with the party, the party has no incentive to change.

As for John’s conservative colleagues, the reaction is even worse than I expected.

John Hawkins at Right Wing News had a fascinating, albeit disconcerting, post in which he calls John Cole “another lame poseur conservative” who is “shoveling manure as fast as he can as his former allies on the right.”

Step One: Condemn the heretic as irrelevant and intolerant.

At one time, Cole ran a reliably conservative blog, but about the time Terri Sciavo [sic] became a big issue, he get a real bee in his bonnet about religious people being allowed to have a voice in the Republican Party, too and he flipped out and veered left. In other words, he pulled an Andrew Sullivan and got so upset that the majority of the conservative commentariat disagreed with him, that it twisted his whole philosophy.

Of course, he benefitted [sic] from stepping to the left a lot more than Sullivan did. Sullivan had a big audience and actually seemed to pay a price for switching allegiances. On the other hand, Cole went from being a small fry conservative blog to being a small fry ex-conservative blog that regularly got links from liberal blogs like the Daily Kos that love nothing more than to read a blogger claiming to be a conservative ripping on other conservatives.

If John’s just a “small fry,” which he isn’t, why write a 1,000-word post to condemn him? Hawkins doesn’t say.

Step Two: Condemn the heretic with liberal caricatures and guilt by association.

In other words, supposedly Cole is hopping into bed with people like Kos, Jane Hamsher, Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, William Jefferson, John Kerry, & Ted Rall, because he thinks Republicans are mean.

Step Three: Question Cole’s motives for speaking his mind and impugn his character.

Maybe it’s just me, but when I see people like John Cole, Andrew Sullivan, and David Brock basking in praise from the left and criticizing the right for all the same things that their new best buddies do day in and day out, I can’t help but think that they’re, at least to a certain degree, phonies who’re writing things not because they believe them, but because they think it’ll pull in more traffic and money for them.

Step Four: We never really liked him anyway.

Also, let me add that Cole really shouldn’t say that, “my party is nothing but a bunch of frauds,” because when you’ve been carrying water for the Democrats for a year and a half or so, the Republican Party isn’t, in any meaningful sense, “your party,” any more. Personally, I haven’t considered Balloon Juice to be a Republican/conservative blog for a long time. In my book, Cole traded in his party and his ideology a long time ago and the only reason he’s still pretending otherwise is because it benefits him to do so.

It’s apparently impossible that a smart, decent, and honest guy like John Cole simply saw his party get corrupted and decided he wouldn’t stand for it. It’s so much easier to think he wants a temporary boost in web traffic, and was really a secret liberal all along.

The right could respond to the substance of Cole’s comments, or maybe even take a look in the mirror to see if he’s right, but that’s not the right’s way. Smear first, ask questions later.

I wish I could say I’m surprised.

Minor point: IIRC, Cole voted for Kerry in 2004. Which just means his conversion goes back further than most.

  • Here’s a stupid point: Whenever I see the name “John Cole” I always think it’s Juan Cole and I get very confused as to what I’m reading. Isn’t that pretty stupid?

    Oh, and on a more relevent thought, what’s weirder, how Stalinist they are in their rigid ideology, or how quick they are to insist that conservatives they once considered to be hardcore intellectuals are actually posers who would trade-in their beliefs on a whim? It’s as if they know that they too might flip sides on a whim, simply to gain more readers or whatever. As if they really don’t believe any of that crap, and are just sticking with the team because they still think its a winner, but would quickly switch sides if they thought it was to their advantage. Even their rigid ideology is nothing but sham, and it seems fairly obvious that they’re secretly aware of that.

  • One party rule, as the modern GOP has demonstrated, is a very bad thing. I think it is likely that the Democrats will narrowly retake the Congress next week and then drive a stake through the GOP in 2008. I think there is a real chance that the GOP could go the way of the Whigs in my lifetime (I’m 50).

    If that happens, it will still be necessary for there to be a functioning opposition party, even one I disagree with, so long as it has integrity. It give me hope that thoughtful conservatives like John Cole exist and could populate such a party.

  • How to distinguish the Coles: The Anglo John mostly posts pictures of Cats and Bottles of Beer. He lets his Boy Friday, Tim, do most of the heavy lifting. Juan is best known for his work as E.T.’s stunt double in the classic Spielberg flick.

  • I agree with all of your points save the one about changing the party from within. By this logic, I should be a Green. But that’s what got Bush elected in the first place. I left the Democrats in 2000, joined the Greens. But after the disaster, I’m back in the Dems, in the progressive wing. I wouldn’t call the DLC as corrupt as Bush by any stretch of the imagination, but they certainly made me go green for a while.

    Perhaps the republicans can vote libertarian for a while, but I’m not sure the country can afford more than two huge party machines, so they’ll have to fix it from within. Though the world would be a lot saner if democrats were the center, and greens and libertarians the fringe…

  • If “changing the party from within” is a flawed argument, why should any homosexual choose to stay with the dems? With the singular exception of the incredible leadership of Russ Feingold, the dems have taken our money to the bank, and left us to rot in the gutter when push comes to shove.

    So, either you’re advocating for those being used by the democratic party to leave as well, or your point is invalid. You can’t have it both ways.

  • Is it supposed to be amazing that a Republican recognizes that the Bushites are not conservatives?

    I’m not sure how I would feel about John Cole if there were any reason for me to feel about John Cole. He’s not particularly inspiring sympathy from me. Maybe if I knew his “conservative credentials” better. But he is right that the attacks on Jim Webb kind of demonstrate just how sick minded the Republican’ts are now, which after all is why Jim Webb is no longer a Republican.

    Since the -Can’t can’t Can Do any more, -Cans who Can Do aren’t -Can’ts.

  • For all the talk that people will stick with the GOP and “change it from within,” it’s a fundamentally misguided approach. So long as one stays with the party, the party has no incentive to change.

    Shh, the Greens might be listening

  • It’s become clear that the right doesn’t really care about policy OR ideology so much as tribal identity / gang afffiliation. It’s not actually possible to make an argument against El Jefe that some of these guys will accept, because support of El Jefe is their a priori assumption.

    Their world-view is all about figuring out how to prove to ‘those morons out there’ that he is right, no matter what, and reinforcing their peers in doing the same. Actual consideration of the issues and, perish the thought, reality, is not part of the job. Do that and you’re as bad as those crazed lefties.

  • It’s nice of the rightwingers to further enlighten John Cole with their attacks. If he had any doubts, these smear tactices from the right should settle the doubts for him. Amazing what you start seeing once you open your eyes.

    Too bad we’re in a two-party system and not a multi-party system. That in itself is polarizing, because it creates so many singles issue members.

  • I’ve been reading John Cole’s site for over 2 years now as the conversation is varied and generally cordial when comparing it to the rest of the blogworld. He’s slowly become more and more dissillusioned with his party, but why I read him is that he seems like the perfect example of any ordinary American. It’s taken him a while, but he’s come to realize this President is not a conservative, in fact he is incompeltent. I look to John as a bellweather of what the silent majority of the country is thinking. That he chooses not to sit around and be silent in heartening. I expect him to be skinned and quartered by his party, but I thank God he has the capacity to think for himself and be honest with himself as well. We need more John Cole’s in this country.

  • The tribe is closing ranks as one of their own has fallen from grace. Their words sound a bit shrill as they fear that the world is seeing them as they really are.

    A while ago, someone here had pointed out the allegory of human nature that is Lord of the Flies.

    Those in the Republican Party have long ago surrendered to Jacks and Rogers within their ranks. Any attempt for reason, logic, and decency have long disappeared. They don’t really care about any of the three things mentioned because they need, no, want power as a shield to protect themselves from their own inadequacies and failings as people.

    Before some gets the idea I think the Dems are pure and sainted. They are not. Far from it. Strange as it sounds, I think the only thing that keeps the Dems from dancing around a Pig’s Head as the Repubs are doing is the very things that the Repubs laugh about them. The fracturous nature of the inter party coalition between anti-business/pro business. The “wussiness” of thinking and thought. The doubt. The lack of a single mindedness to winning at all costs. The lack of discipline.

  • This seems like a perfect example of the GOP ‘big tent’ philosophy. Welcome all, just don’t disagree in public or steal the towels. JOhn Cole needs to be put on TV to discuss these revelations that the GOP sucks. Since they take “traitors” so seriously, a nice loud accounting of how moderates (and moderate advocates no less) are attacked for differing opinions should result in a good show of insane shrillness.

  • what’s that line the good ol boy says in the Shut Up & Sing trailer?
    “I believe in freedom of speech, but they shouldn’t do it in public”?

  • For a second there, I thought John Hawkins accused John Cole of bedding with dogs and beasts of burden…maybe that will be Hawkins’ next post.

    However, hysteria like this–it should be clear–is a predictable result of our two-party system and the increasing role the primary plays in shaping party leadership. When was the last time your heard any politician put Country before Party? American democracy has become a form of electoral date rape.

  • From my perspective, the apoplectic reaction of the radical-right to “deserters” is based entirely on their desire to maintain power. Why? It’s all about MONEY. The scam, the “con” of the conservatives over the last several years has been to detract the suckers while they pick those sucker’s pockets. Anti-abortion, anti-science, anti-gay, etc., have been mere stances to direct attention from the real agenda, looting the country. Getting the suckers to believe that if they think like Repugs and act like Repugs that they’ll all get rich like Repugs is the con. A totalitarian system that supports the very wealthy, the corporations, and the Paris Hiltons is sooooo close. Their lackeys and cronies whine, smear, and lie. It’s unclear if winning one election or recasting the complexion of Congress will dismantled their expensive, well constructed, and powerful machine.

  • Youre wrong about one thing in that post

    Smear first, ask questions later.
    is not how the Repubs do it::

    this is how they do it:
    Smear first, NEVER ask questions later.

  • Minor point: IIRC, Cole voted for Kerry in 2004. Which just means his conversion goes back further than most.

    Nope, he voted for W twice, and has regretted it pretty much from the word go.

  • I knew the GOP was in trouble when my father and I were discussing politics before the Chiefs/Chargers game a few weeks ago. Ye Olde Phart has voted “R” his ENTIRE life, but will not be this year.

    When I asked why, he just shook his head. “They’re not Republicans.”

    I said, “No, they’re not. I don’t mind Republicans, but these folks … just … damn.”

    “Yep,” he said., “They’ve completely lost their fucking minds.”

    When you’ve lost a 40-year dedicated Republican, and he uses an expletive I’ve heard him use only twice in my entire life (both directed at my dumb ass), you’re in big, huge, ginormous trouble.

    I give Cole credit for thinking for himself. Quite frankly, I think he speaks (or writes, in this case) for a large number of true Republicans who no longer recognize the party they once supported.

  • If that happens, it will still be necessary for there to be a functioning opposition party, even one I disagree with, so long as it has integrity.

    And that is the difference between us liberals and neoconservatives — we don’t mind having a party opposite us, whereas the hardcore righties want the entire left completely eliminated, by violence if necessary. Just look at Free Republic or LGF. For them, one party rule is just dandy.

    And that scares the crap out of me.

  • So this time next week when it becomes clear that other Repubs have fled the party, not on blogs but in the voting booth, what will the chuckleheads on right wing blogs say then about their fellow Rs? Shooting one of your own for deserting may keep others at the front lines out of fear of recrimination, but it sure doesn’t help morale. When the cannibals are out in force must not the end be near?

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