I’m curious, although it’s. Do other board leftists believe this? I am naturally suspicious when Der Trihs claims something is “well known.”
After some thought, I would say, as I have before, that Republican party has four broad sentiments, though each one isn’t necessarily what liberals think of them as, and you’ll find broad support for most of the others. Here is where it gets confusing. I view the Democrats as being a party composed of numerous discrete interest groups. African-Americans. Women’s Groups. Wall-Street (I know it’s not too popular to point this out, but yes, the votings patterns don’t lie). Lawyers. Many more, of course, but that’s the point: each tends to have tighter grouping, but the overlap between them is minimal.
Republicans have broad ideological goals, which don’t always, or even usually, conflict. However, we do not, despite Der Trihs assertion, have much organization, and what is, is purely local. The Democrats have, and have had for ages, a much more effective national organization - one which I honestly admire, at least in its effectiveness. The thing to understand about Republicans is that we are localists at heart. We ally with other across the nation, but we don’t perceive ourselves as being brothers in arms. We’re simply like-minded people. Nor do we shy from criticizing each other; just not in the same way we’d criticize others. There’s no real line between being inside or outside the party, whereas one can easily be a member of an organization dedicated to liberal goals. Anyway, onto the groupings. Imagine this as a cloud with several points of greater thickness and solidity.
First, Paleo-Conservatives. These are the old-school types. Though driven underground post-Goldwater, they still exist and even form the backbone. These are the least ideological, but tend towards the legalistic side of things and often embrace various flavors of originalism or textualism. Paleoconservativism is about rootedness and prefers to be left alone. They prefer isolationism and pleasant but distant relations abroad, and a weak central government within (mostly; exceptions exist). Though can find elements of it anywhere, Paleocons are not political. They really don’t understand why anyone like to turn neutral oprganizations into a political body, be it the AMA or the Bar.
Paleocons are the most varied grouping, because they tend to be a catch-all category.
Second, Libertarians. Libertarians are the ones you find making arguments, running experimental models, and generally being annoying intellectuals at the party when everyone was sipping their drinks and talking about the latest movie. (Or in my circles, which Magic: The Gathering cards are hot.) Libertarians hold to a theory about how the economy can best be dealt with, and base their politics off of that. They don’t care about almost anything else - as long as it doesn’t actively hurt another, it’s not their problem. They’ve been discussed to death and back elsewhere.
Third, Religious Conservatives. In the United States, this mostly means the Christian Right, and ironically it’s in some ways the closest to the very Liberals who utterly hate them and everything about them. They tend to be quite flexible about matters of political doctine - whatever works - but keep a skeptical eye on the liberal interpretation of success. What many don’t understand is that this isn’t a political movement at all. It’s a social movement with political implications, emphasizing personal responsibility and moral behavior, and spanning semi-liberal Catholics to fundamentalist Evangelicals. Their biggest policy goal is banning abortion, which is viewed as a complete abomination, sort of like if infanticide was legally permitted and often approved of in practice.
Fourth, NeoConservatives. In a way they’re just in between Paleocons and Libertarians, but then again, not exactly. They’re a little hard to decribe. They favor active intervention abroad to prevent trouble ending up here. They’re fine with a free markets, but also a limited welfare state. Additionally, while it’s a relatively small movement, it’s more influential than it looks because so many adherents are extremely intellectual and often quite brilliant.
And here’s the kicker. Most elected Republicans don’t neatly fall into one category or another. They’re in the cloud, but not really identifiably one part of it. The Republican party is a 3D Venn diagram.