May, 2006

Future of the GOP: It’s Up to the Democrats

by David Frum

May 16th, 2006

Ross’ question about the future of “fusionism”—the longstanding alliance between libertarians and social conservatives—is a very profound one. Let me suggest a couple of thoughts that may help us think it through together.

While strict doctrinal libertarians have always been a vanishingly small minority in America (cocaine vending machines anyone?), the libertarian disposition or tendency is [...]

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Voters Will Defend Economic Security Against Painful Reforms

At the risk of sounding simple-minded, I’d like to advance a proposition that will strike most readers as blindingly obvious—a political movement that doesn’t solve or at least alleviate the problems we encounter in daily life will fail. This is why Bruce Bartlett’s broader understanding of freedom is so crucial. Those benighted Europeans, [...]

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Best of the Blogs: Jon Henke on the Republican Marginal Revolution

In a smart response to this month’s discussion, Jon Henke at QandO argues that growth of government has gotten out of hand because there is too little transparency in government spending–it is not clear to voters where their taxes are going–and there is no price mechanism that provides feedback to voters about the real cost of government spending, leading voters too demand goods and services at a level they cannot ultimately afford.

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The Future of Fusionism

One question that we’ve all danced around a bit is whether the old “fusionist” project, wedding cultural conservatives to libertarians, makes sense any more. As a social conservative weary of unfulfilled and unfulfillable boasts about how we’re going to “drown the federal government in the bathtub,” I’m occasionally inclined to say no—as are a lot [...]

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