The Reagan Coalition Under
Pressure
Can it hold?
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the illegal
immigration debate is that it is the clearest example to date
of how delicate a thing the right-of-center governing coalition
is. Remember, there was no majority conservative party in America
prior to Ronald Reagan. The liberalism of Richard Nixon and Gerald
Ford was masked by their committed anti-communism, but economically
and socially they governed to the left of Bill Clinton.
Reagan single-handedly created the base that has won 5 out of
the last 7 Presidential elections, as well as consistently kept
the Congress in Republican hands since 1994. He didn’t make
it up, of course. He leveraged larger social trends and had immense
help from a perpetually over-reaching left. He sought out Catholics
and evangelical protestants who were largely socially traditional
Democrats under assault by the cultural left, married them with
anti-communists, born-again laissez faire economists, and traditional
Republicans. In one fell swoop he created a coalition that spanned
the gamut from Pat Buchanan to Jerry Falwell to Irving Kristol
to George Gilder. In the process he redefined for generations
what it meant to be a Republican or a Democrat. In one form or
another this coalition has held together ever since.
One of the defining features of an insurgent movement is that
it coheres because of what it opposes. What the Reagan coalition
opposed was rather simple: communist expansionism abroad, governmental
interference at home, and cultural aggression by the radical left.
But as successes begin to stack up, and as the responsibilities
of governing demand proactive policy prescriptions, the differences
inherent in the coalition have begun to show, to wear, to degrade
the integrity of the coalition as a whole.
This ought not to be shocking. There is at best an uneasy alliance
between the libertarianism of the Wall Street Journal crowd
and the more rules-based and “protection-oriented”
conservative catholic crowd. In many ways these are natural opponents
who have managed to find common ground. There is at times a surprising
degree of confluence between the anti-communist/ neoconservatives
and evangelicals, but the evangelicals’ coupling of social
conservatism with their inherent eschatological progressive instincts
(a.k.a. “compassionate conservatism”) makes them uneasy
bedfellows with just about everybody else.
I suspect that if 9/11 had not occurred, we would have seen the
splintering of the coalition long before now. Although the Buchananite/
paleoconservative right proceeded on its own way, the rest of
the gang has more or less hung together in support of the President
and the fight against Islamofascism.
Until now. Until immigration. Politically, one has to wonder
why the President chose to push this when he did. It would be
difficult to come up with a political hot potato more likely to
alienate portions of the base, and to pit conservative camps against
one another. Conservative Catholics and paleos tend to be wildly
opposed to what they perceive as a reward for lawbreaking and
a threat to jobs. The natural libertarian tendencies of the economics
and business crowd aligned with their economic interests to make
them enthusiastic supporters of immigration “reform.”
Meanwhile the neocons shrug their shoulders and the evangelicals
are conflicted by a sense of “hate the sin, love the sinner”
that has them all over the board, not knowing whether to be outraged
by blatant defiance of the law, or impressed by the moral and
work habits of an overwhelmingly upstanding group of people.
As for me, well, being a libertarian-oriented but traditional
conservative sort of fellow, I am also conflicted. But my inner
Catholic whispers that “secure the borders, enforce the
law” must be our first priority. Even if nothing else gets
done, we must start there.
In theory, this has all the earmarks of a political disaster
in the making. It seems custom-designed to unravel the very source
of conservative and Republican political success.
So, why now?
My guess is that the President wanted to get it on the plate
well before the 2006 elections. An issue this large and ugly will
please no one. So rather than wait until the opposition raises
it on their terms, he brought it front and center on his. And
those terms are not pleasing to many in his own party. But November
is a long way off. My guess is we’ll end up with a fence,
and a promise to rethink about “serious reform” next
year, but that’ll be about it. The issue will fade before
November. Continuing decent news out of Iraq, lower gasoline prices,
and the political resurgence of the crazy left will remind conservatives
(and the majority of Americans) that most Republicans will be
preferable to most Democrats in a head-to-head choice. We will
have our uniting foe back in the form of Howard Dean.
In the end it could well be seen as a politically astute move,
the sort we tend to ascribe to Karl Rove. But in the process we
sell President Bush short. He’s a bright man. Plenty bright
enough to hold the Reagan Coalition together.
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