Republicans Urge Party to Become More Open, Ignore Major Newspapers

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedcruzforsenate/8122350803/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Cruz for Senate</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Ted Cruz had some advice for House Republicans on Saturday: “Stop reading the New York Times.”

Cruz, a freshman Republican senator from Texas, was at speaking at the National Review Institute Summit in Washington, a gathering hosted by a magazine that has dubbed him, at various points, the “Michael Phelps” of public speaking and “the next great conservative hope.” For three days, Republican heavyweights, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, gathered to ruminate on what had gone wrong in November—and what the party can do to right the ship.

At times, the assembled conservative elites tried introspection. The New Republic‘s Alec MacGillis rounded up 10 such moments from the summit, including notable revelations suchs as “the financial collapse was kind of a big deal,” “the voter-fraud bogeyman was a distraction,” and “[l]iving without health insurance is a bummer.” These are all true. There was even some self-flagellation: Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman turned MSNBC host, eviscerated GOPers for shunning empiciricism during the campaign and for embracing Wall Street. Scarborough wondered why not a single Republican presidential candidate came out in favor of “breaking up the banks.” (For more on the intraparty wrestling match, see Slate‘s Dave Weigel.)

But calls for reform were often countered by a renewed quest for purity. There was Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a regular on Fox News, who called the idea of female soldiers serving in combat “literally nuts” (editor’s note: not literally) and, channeling William F. Buckley, urged Republian senators to stand atop* the wall of history, shouting “Stop!” John Podhoretz of Commentary magazine spent time rehashing his grievances about Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke. The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Barone—speaking at an all-white panel called “Do Demographics Doom the Right?”—referred to the peculiar new breed of pro-Obama single women as “the Lena Dunham generation,” a nod to the Girls creator who famously invented contraception.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, an architect of the campaign against the Affordable Care Act and Obama’s EPA, echoed Cruz’s call to unsubscribe from the nation’s top newspaper. Rep. Tom Cotton, a rising star from Arkansas, didn’t urge attendees to unsubscribe from the Times, but perhaps only because he didn’t need to, having previously called for its reporters to be thrown in prison. (Cotton also suggested his party didn’t need to change its approach on gay rights, because the string of marriage equality successes in November were probably fleeting.)

Kristol and Podhoretz’s comments, as well as Scarborough’s tough critique, came at a panel called “What is wrong with the Right?” Thoughtful as the speakers were, the question seemed to answer itself. The five panelists (moderator Reihan Salam not included) were all white males—as was everyone who asked a question.

Then there was Cruz, who hammered Mitt Romney for his 47 percent remarks while asserting, as he has done regularly since the election, that the GOP needs to be “the party of the 47 percent”—not by embracing a new set of policies, but by changing its rhetoric. Even as the movement’s elders wrestled openly with where the Republican party is headed, they offered a strikingly familiar road map.

So they beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into their gaffes.

*Update: I’m informed the word I was looking for here was “athwart.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate