Customer Reviews

The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party

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Sager makes a clear and easy-to-follow argument for how to keep the GOP coalition together in the years ahead. As a Republican who has no memory of conservative icons like Barry Goldwater, I appreciate Sager's summary of the history of the modern conservative movement. From this historical perspective, he argues that the GOP has veered away from its previous commitment to small government and liberty.

At its core, the book primarily seems to address the question of how the GOP can retain social conservatives without alienating voters in the more libertarian regions of the country. He suggests that a consensual return to 'liberty' and 'federalism' as the GOP's core values can allow social conservatives and libertarians to get what they want out of the party. This would involve asking social conservatives to focus their attention on state-level politics rather than on national politics (judicial nominations excepted...maybe). This would position the GOP to strengthen its hold on the libertarian Intermountain West.

This approach seems reasonable. But the chapters on anti-Communism and anti-Clintonism left me with a nagging question: Had social conservatives and economic conservatives only been bound together by common enemies? After Communism and Clintonism both vanished, the two groups have awakened and realized that neither has much to gain from the marriage anymore.

Those of us economic conservatives generally expect social consevatives to conduct themselves in a pragmatic manner. We want them to barter their 'values' in the way that we make financial decisions. But I just don't think that the Religious Right operates in that way. And their fundraising efforts largely depend on having nationl visibility. Therefore, they may just view Sager's approach as a clever way of trying to get them to turn down the volume on the values rhetoric. Hence, maybe George W. Bush was just the accidental deliverer of our divorce papers.

Besides, I think many economic conservatives are starting to find that we have a lot in common with the Clintonite wing of the Democratic party. If this trend continues, the GOP may find itself asking how it can avoid becoming isolated to the South.

In a 1975 interview with the libertarian magazine "Reason," Ronald Reagan said, "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. ... The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is." If you agree with Ryan Sager's argument in "The Elephant in the Room," you'd have wonder how at home Reagan would feel (or for that matter how welcome he would be) in the GOP of the late Bush-43 era. If, as the Gipper more famously also said, he didn't leave the Democrat party in the 1940s, but rather it left him, it seems pretty clear the Republican party has left his substance (as opposed to his image) behind too.

I think would be hard for any reasonable observer to disagree with Sager's basic thesis, which is that largely-irreconcilable tectonic forces are tearing Reagan's GOP coalition asunder. The small-government, low-tax, personal-freedom libertarian wing -- the wing of Goldwater, Reagan, and generally western Republicans -- is being steamrolled by cultural conservatism (aka "the religious right"), which the author identifies as primarily a southern-Republican phenomenon. In one of the most arresting political images I've come across in some time, Sager describes "the situation at home [within the GOP] looking like an episode of 'COPS,' with the shirtless social conservatives wrestled to the ground and handcuffed outside the trailer, and the libertarians deciding whether to press charges" (p. 183).

The problem as Sager sees it, of course, is that the social-cons aren't "handcuffed" at all, but in fact are still free to slap the western libertarian-conservatives around at will. And this is where "The Elephant in the Room" shifts from being a historic and sociological look at the GOP and turns instead into a passionate call for the Republicans to throw social conservatives over the side and return to their roots as the party of small government and personal freedom. I wasn't expecting the book to be as energetic an argument as it became, but I can hardly fault the author for his point of view. He articulates it quite well, has a firm grasp of both history and the current forces within the GOP, and makes his case with solid argumentation and a good turn of phrase.

What I found most interesting is the degree to which Sager is willing to assign blame to George W. Bush and to Karl Rove -- while these are the *betes noire* of the Left, it's only recently that Republicans have begun en masse to criticize them and their heretofore-winning political strategy (it's a shame this book was published before the 2006 midterms; I need to make a point of looking up what Sager may have written in the last few months). Bush and Rove, the author argues, have turned the GOP into the rightward half of America's Big Government Party, differing from the Democrats only in what they want to spend money and flex the government's muscles to achieve.

It's an important argument, and one that I hope presages a real attempt within the GOP to figure out what it stands for -- both in strategy and in tactics. Whether you're a Republican or an interested outsider ... a social-conservative, a libertarian one, or no conservative at all ... this is a book that should provoke a lot of thought about the future of the Republican party, and therefore of American politics.

Great, funny, informative, witty book on what has happened to the Republican party since 1995. This book describes the history of conservatism since 1945, and how there used to be balance between the libertarians (who value individual freedom and limited government), and the social conservatives (who value tradition and religion). These two groups complemented each other and were like the yin and yang of the GOP: they kept the party in balance.

Since 1995 (roughly), the libertarians have lost power in the GOP, and the GOP is increasingly a party of: massive governmental spending (spending under Bush has mushroomed and is the worst since LBJ in the 1960s), southern Christian fundamentalism, and unlimited government that we all are supposed to "trust" (the Patriot Act, etc.).

Bush, DeLay and company have basically wielded power the way that liberals traditionally have (meaning: not trying to limit it, but trying to maximize the power of the federal government over society). Government spending and debt is out of control, and the government is increasingly playing "nanny" to us all (the Terry Schiavo case is a good example). Things like mandatory governmental counselling for any married couple with minor kids wanting a divorce shows the degree to which the GOP wants to use the federal government to intrude on all of our lives and play "nanny" to us all.

As a former Republican who voted for Reagan and who values individual initiative and choice, I am appalled by what the GOP has become. People like Tom DeLay cast aside 50 years of conservative distrust of government to declare that he was in essence put in power to enact the will of God. If that is not scary, I don't know what is. Unlike Ronald Reagan, who always tried to unite America and who had no mean words for others, and who did not believe in division, the new breed of GOP leaders are mean-spiritied partisans who believe in dividing the naition: on issues of gay marriage, abortion, and prayer in school. In Texas, where I live, the current GOP governor, Rick Perry, is contend to hold the 35 % of the Christian fundamentalist vote he knows he "has" and which he knows can get him re-elected (instead of trying to represent all Texans). The GOP in Texas is willing to represent this minority, and willing to pander to some really idiotic ideas of this group, such as removing the U.S. from the United Nations, and going back to the gold standard (if you doubt that, read the 2004 Texas GOP platform, which looks like it was written by fanatical morons). From forced marriage counselling by federal bureaucrats, to intruding on intimite family decisions on life and death (the Schiavo case), to tampering with the constitution (gay marriage bans), to out of control spending and "faith-based prisons", the GOP is clearly a party that has lost all grip on common sense. Thereby the notion of individualism and choice has gone out the window. Texas (Reaganite) Republican ex-congressman Dick Armey is quoted in the book as stating, "being Christian is no excuse for being stupid", and he refers to fundamentalist Focus on the Family leader Dobson as "a thug" (for trying to use threats against the GOP to get its agenda forced on the nation). Armey is smart enough to realize that a federal government that can impose conservative morality on us, can also enforce liberal/socialist morality on us, at some time in the future (indeed, liberals like Hillary Clinton are already using the rhetoric of the Christian fundamentalist right to cloak their moral initiatives in a "soulful banner").

The result is the split in the GOP that the author describes: the party is increasingly split between the southern Republicans, who want to impose their moral values on the rest of us, and "western conservatives", who want to preserve individual choice and individual freedom, and who realize that every power the GOP gets for government can in future be used by liberals to impose THEIR values on the rest of us (can you imagine mandatory liberal federal marriage counsellors ?). The ultimate result of all this is a lame GOP that cannot win. The party won't be able to satisfy the Christian Right fully (if it did, it would lose all the moderates in the party, and it will also not be able to jetison the Christian Right. The end result is a divided GOP that is increasingly partisan and strident.

As a Republican who loved Ronald Reagan, and for whom the GOP was about: a. individual freedom, b. strong national defense/anti-communism, and c. limited government, I feel that this book is excellent and is long overdue. The only option for us now is to vote Democrat for the time being to try to get gridlock in Washington, and stop this out of control spending and moralising. And then hope for something better in future.

Bush and Rove and DeLay and their ilk have sold out the Reagan Revolution.

The modern conservative movement is really a fusion of several desperate strands of political thought, most prominently the libertarians and the traditional conservatives. The unifying principle was that government was not the be all and end all of human endeavor. Reaching a high point following 1994 midterm elections, that fusion is in danger of cracking. Iraq is only one part of it - the fractures were growing for years. When George Bush began to talk of "compassionate conservatism" and earmarks replaced principles for Republican officeholders, it was only a matter of time before the break.

Under George Bush, "conservatism" has become a mere brand label. He has increased government programs in an effort to further a very socially conservative agenda. Federalism has been thrown out the window as Congress tried to turn marriage and other traditionally state issues into federal affairs. Tax cuts are coupled with increased spending.

Sager explores these issues and tries to find a way to say the old fusionist coalition. Convincingly, he argues that the marriage can be saved through federalism, cultural tolerance among conservatives, and a return to principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility.

Additionally, the book provides a good overview of the history of the conservative movement in America. As a child of the Reagan years, it is easy to forget conservatism's irrelevance following the death of Robert Taft. Sager in a brief though well written overview, described how through networking, think tanks and magazines, conservative and libertarian intellectuals together founded the modern conservative movement.

For all conservatives, this book should be required reading, on how to shake up the movement.

Wow, it's so clear to me now! An unpopular war wasn't the half of how the Republican leadership self-destructed.

This book presents a stunningly eloquent exposition of the current state of the Republican Party, from the perspective of 'before the fall'. Essential information for voters on the motivating ideas of US federal leadership. This book will make the Republican half of the story strikingly clear.

The writing is entertaining and an 'easy read' while covering what could be a dry subject. The book is of modest length but impressive depth. It reads like a conversation with a master of the subject conveying a rich scope in a terse 250 pages.

I can understand Kristen's review below but it hardly seems fair to criticize a book for doing what it promises, explaining the battle for control, so well that the reader wishes there was an easy answer. Sager could have given us one, as we are so accustomed to hearing from political candidates. I'm glad he did not. It would have encouraged readers to consider the `problem solved' and slip back into our daily complacency. Having seen and understood the Republican dilemma I feel motivated to address it and armed with the clarity to push through pat answers for real actions.

Now where's the book that will explain the Democrat malaise, including why their leadership seems to hate the central values of the American Experiment?

Sager sees the long marriage of convenience between the Religious Right (RR) primarily in the South) and the small-government conservatives (eg. libertarians - primarily in the West) as unraveling. Earlier thinking was that the RR had a vested interest in the small government pursued by libertarians - federal judges were banning prayer in the schools, city planners destroying inner cities with their highways and public housing projects, and New Deal welfare programs fostering illegitimacy. Thus, libertarian means could achieve RR ends.

After WWII the Right was decimated - people didn't want to hear about free market virtues after losing all their money in the stock market, bank failures, and/or job losses. Nor was there much interest in non-interventionism after having saved half the world from tyranny at great cost. The rebound gained considerable strength with Goldwater's losing presidential campaign via greatly expanding the Republican financial base. Shortly afterward the Democrats lost the South via Civil Rights legislation. Clinton's election and subsequent allowing gays in the military, appointing Janet Reno attorney general and Jocelyn Elders as his first Surgeon General, HillaryCare, the ban on assault weapons - all generated great hatred and further enthused Republicans.

Now the Bush administration (Rove) has adopted a philosophy of big government conservatism joining unrestrained government spending in an aggressive appeal to the RR. The death of the Republicans commitment to small government came 11/95 when they shut down the federal government over the budget and got slammed in the polls.

The "elephant in the room" now is that Bush's "crimes against conservatism" (federal spending increasing at a rate twice that under Clinton - mostly unrelated to the War on Terror, Iraq, or homeland security) as well as passing Campaign Reform, Sarbanes-Oxley, steel tariffs, committing to a manned mission to Mars, and tax cuts that simply create the need for future tax hikes), and failing to effectively address education ownership (via vouchers and allowing states to "game" the tests), health care ownership, and pension ownership have acerbated tensions between the RR and the libertarians to near the breaking point.

Before coming across this book, I had never heard of Ryan Sager. What a pleasant surprise when I began reading! I will definitely keep my eyes out for anything else published by him.

Mr. Sager has written -- excellently, by the way, and often with laugh-out-loud humor -- all the things that I'd been thinking (and often getting frustrated & angry about) politically for the last 6+ years. It was like reading my own nebulous thoughts and feelings on the hijacking of conservatism by big-government Evangelicals, only done in a much more articulate and well-researched way than my own ramblings could ever have managed.

His primary thesis is that the alliance between 'social conservatives' (those concerned primarily with 'values' issues rather than individual rights or small gov't, and who are often Southern & evangelical) with 'libertarian' or 'fiscal conservatives' (those focused more on small gov't and individual rights, more likely to be from the interior West), is in danger, primarily as a result of the Bush Administration and the 2000-06 Congresses, combined with historical changes. According to Sager, this alliance, first begun in the 1950s, first brought to national prominence in the Goldwater campaign ('64), and brought to electoral victory by Reagan in the '80s and Gingrich in the mid-90s, was a marriage of convenience. The two strands of 'conservatism,' which in fact seem contradictory when you think about it, allied first against communism (and the aftertaste of the New Deal), and then, in the '90s, against the Clinton administration. Now, however, without a foe both strands recognize (libertarian conservatives tend to be less hysterical about the Islamic threat than social conservatives), the marriage is on the rocks.

As a former registered Republican, turned off from the Party by the Bush Administration's and the Hastert/Lott/Frist Congresses' big spending (they made Clinton look like a fiscal conservative!), religious pandering, government enlargement(NCLB, Prescription Drug entitlements, anyone???) and Wilsonian interventionism (make the world safe for democracy!), I have now been a proudly registered Libertarian for several years.

It is here that I differ with Mr. Sager (and agree with several other reviews of this book) because I don't share the author's optimism that the alliance between libertarian and social conservatives can (or, even moreso, should) be fixed. Instead, I think the Republican party may well be on its last legs if it continues to pander to Southern Evangelicals at the expense of the rest of the party. Many people like myself don't like the fact that the two options in major parties today are a big government party that takes the Bible literally (GOP) and a big government party that doesn't (Dems). If these trends continue, I think we can expect more Democratic electoral victories. Whether the Libertarian Party or some other option will take the place of the GOP if it does indeed disintegrate(like the Whigs in the 1850s) remains to be seen......

Still, this book is excellent, very well-written, and I think vital to anyone who wants to understand what's going on in the Republican party & conservative movement today. I couldn't put it down and read it very quickly. This is the best book on current politics I've read in a while.

Ryan Sager quite clearly and carefully tracks the history of the conservative coalition and how its promise, for the most part, has been either thwarted or outright betrayed. Unfortunately, his vague and sometimes shifting references to the titular "elephant in the room"- the fact that conservatives only hold power through the alliance of social conservatives and civil libertarians- miss the point his analysis actually makes. His attempt to argue that the alliance should be reformed only shows that, for libertarians at least, it would have been better if the alliance had never been made at all. Indeed, throughout the history of the alliance the libertarians come off as second-class stooges to the big-government social conservatives, receiving little more than table scraps under Reagan and nothing at all at any other point in the alliance's forty-year history.

More to the point, Sager really gives no alternatives to libertarians except the traditional alliance- despite the fact that it is now clear social conservatives want nothing to do with small-government ideas or goals. The book makes it crystal clear that not only do libertarians have no hope of a new alliance with any faction of the Democrats- united in the drive for socialism- but that the social conservatives would rather see the alliance destroyed and an overwhelming Democratic hegemony for the next decade than give up any part of their new agenda. Sager's book leaves no options for libertarians except to continue following the lead of the big-government Republicans in the faint hope that those people will honor their side of the alliance- something they have never done.

I'm ambivalent whether we conservatives need to be moral or money makers. What's the point of the free market without the Decalogue? Rabbi Daniel Lapin has written a book showing how both can be one and the same.

I lean libertarian as does the author Ryan Sager, who like me is a former intern with the Cato Institute, the libertarian's Heritage Foundation.

But the right's stance on moral issues such as abortion, euthanasia, pornography, Terri Schiavo, drug use, etc. may have come to the detriment of the party's success outside the South. Why can't a hippie cancer patient take a puff on a joint, asks Sager? (I'm paraphrasing)

There's the American West ripe for the taking, argues Sager somewhat convincingly, for freedom-loving, pro-growth politicians who publicly embrace the Second Amendment. I think that's about right. Too often in recent years Republicans gave only lip service to these American ideals. He uses as a colorful example the governor of Montana who is a Democrat who loves guns. Not what one sees in the Northeast where gun rights people are almost exclusively Republican.

The "fusionism" first espoused by Frank S. Meyer needs to be trumpeted by the conservative rooftops. Ryan Sager has beaten others (Jonathan Adler, we're waiting.) to the punch in doing just that in a way that wittily recounts past political events in a charming, even elegant way.

The growth of spending under Bush is scary. On page 191 Sager writes: "An analysis published in USA Today in March 2006 found that federal entitlement spending had grown more between 2000 and 2005 than in any other five-year period since the Great Society." What a disaster!

But the pessimism luring between the lines of the book is borne out by demographics. Whites in the West may lean libertarian, but not the immigrants who definitely list to the Democratic party. If only Sager could be joined by Mark Steyn (America Alone) and Lawrence Auster (The Path to National Suicide) one would have encountered a book even more profitable.

A great read, for me it filled in the historical gaps on how the Republican Party has arrived at it's current sorry state. Sagerr predicted the 2006 outcome with the GOP losing both houses of Congress in the mid-terms,and he foreshadows the '08 election. The GOP has no likelihood of regaining either house in '08, and Sager shows why they also have a real possibility of also losing the White House, unless they can rebuild the traditionally successful libertarian/evangelical fusionist alliance. This scenario is particularly troubling, since it raises the specter of a return to one party government in Washington DC, but this time under the control of the Democratic Party.

Sager's interview with Newt Gingrich in the concluding chapter was one (of many) interesting elements in the book, and this summary of Newt's political posturing resonated on several levels:

'The Republican Party lacks "intellectual depth"? The president can't "win the argument"? The president lacks "drive" and "understanding," which limits his effectiveness? It all comes dangerously close to an assertion that Bush & Company aren't up to the job intelligencewise, or at least they are too intellectually lazy to govern. And it leads to a surprising rationale for a for a Gingrich candidacy. "We're looking for a next cycle of intellectual politics." Gingrich said "In the tradition of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan." ... Gingrich doesn't mention himself as the standard bearer for the conservative intellectual revival, but if there is one thing the former Speaker has always fancied himself, not without some justification, it's as an idea man and a visionary.' - Ryan Sager, The Elephant in the Room.

Sager's highlight of this Gingrich observation is spot-on. It is not difficult to discern a pattern in American politics, where the electorate becomes exhausted with two term administrations and seeks to elect the perceived opposite in the follow-up election. Jimmy Carter's home spun morality made him the Anti-Nixon(Ford). Bill Clinton' empathy and common touch made him the Anti-Bush(41), Bush(43)'s evangelical born-again righteousness made him the anti-Clinton. The next President will be the Anti-Bush(43), and regardless of party, that makes him/her "articulate", an "idea man", and a "visionary" possessed of a luminous intellect the electorate will demand, as it seeks the perceptual polar opposite of the current president.

On the Republican side, Sager thinks that Gingrich fits that description, but he is not the only one. The current Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani, also projects competence and intelligence (but as Sager recently pointed out, carries baggage that may yet drag down his candidacy). Chuck Hagel also fits Newt's description of an intellectual President to a "T". Hagel has the additional advantage that his public statements on the war in Iraq put him on the right side of that war before the war, whereas both Gingrich and Giuliani have been completely and disastrously wrong on the Iraq war since it's beginning four years ago. This gives Hagel an additional Anti-Bush position that is unique among Republican candidates (except for Ron Paul). Depending on the status of our military participation in the Iraqi sectarian violence at the time of the election, it may yet prove to be the only position that matters, and that may make Hagel the only electable Republican in the field.

Hagel (like Gingrich) has announced that he will decide about his candidacy later in the year, and very late in the presidential political cycle. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom on running for President, and may yet prove to be a flawed decision. Still, it is interesting that the two brightest intellectual lights in the Republican Presidential field have both chosen to enter the fray late. With Republican rank and file restless about their choices now, having Hagel in reserve later in the season may yet prove to be a godsend. As Sager concludes:

"The Republican Party has been heading in the wrong direction for a long time. Toward big government and away from small government. Toward politics and away from principle. Toward the South and away from the West. Toward moralism and away from morality. It's not to late to turn back, but time is running out."

Chuck Hagel could still be the man to turn the Republican party back to its intellectual foundation and principles, and resore the fusionist alliance before it is too late.