Mitt Romney: "We are the party of the revolutionaries, they [Democrats] are the party of the monarchists..."
In addition to continuing to use irresposible, violent rhetoric, this quote doesn't make much sense. Wasn't it Republicans whose theories of executive power were functionally limitless? Didn't Republicans basically turn patriotism into a game of supporting Bush, in much the same way that patriotism in monarchies is just about supporting the crown? I guess his argument was either that the left's Obama worship is similar to that of a king or that the federal government is the current equivalent of the late 18th century British Empire.
This is, of course, all nonsense. But it tells you something about the right. Rather than doing the hard work of formulating policy solutions, pivoting on important issues, or rethinking their approach to government, Republicans seem to think that victory lies in coming up with the right rhetorical frame to bash liberals. Why can't the public see how evil all this is? Let's call him a socialist. No? Didn't work? How about fascist? No? Wait, our approval ratings are sinking, we need to come up with better names to call Obama.
In reality, the public broadly approves of Obama and likes his policies. I honestly don't think that conservatives are hopeless for the forseeable future, but conservatives don't seem to realize that the word "conservative" has been discredited by George W. Bush. If the GOP wanted to criticize Bush for more than just excessive spending, they might be able to make some sort of recovery. But instead you get Jay Nordlinger saying that there is a positive correlation between virtue and support of W. Bush. People might not like some of what the term "liberal" implies, but they do like Obama, and it's been so long since we've had another liberal on the national stage that if he's the association people make with liberalism and Dubya is who gets associated with conservatism then conservatives really don't have a chance.
Now, obviously, there wasn't much that was conservative about George W. Bush in an intellectual sense, but in a political sense they freakin' loved that guy. And he's still popular among conservatives, which means that it's going to be hard for a Republican to try to critique his legacy. At the end of the day, I suspect that Bush, even more than Obama, will wind up getting credit for destroying American conservatism, just like Hoover got more credit for it than FDR did last time.
