Denver Metro Young Republicans

For those wondering what went wrong with the GOP over the past several years, and those looking for ideas for how to rebuild the Republican party for the new century and the new information culture, you would do well to learn from the lessons of the Democrat party and its “nutroots”.

No, not the policy prescriptions or ideas for governance (the Dems are still lousy there), but how to organize a movement and reach potential voters with new technologies and a well-articulated ideology.

One excellent history of the left’s resurgence (and its grassroots insurgence) is Matt Bai’s The Argument, which documents the efforts to rebuild the left between 2002 and 2008. While Bai’s portrayal of conservatives is a shallow recitation of left-wing myths and self-serving misrepresentations, he does examine the Kos brigades, MoveOnners, Sorosian underwriters, and insider/outsider operatives in depth, warts and all.

Most interesting is the similarities between where the Democrats found themselves after 2002 and where the GOP finds itself today: out of power, out of political steam, and facing a long time in the wilderness after having become accustomed to the idea of being the “permanent majority”. One bright spot, however, is the acknowledgement that the left has so heavily invested itself in preserving the New Deal legacy that it has a hard time formulating new ideas, while the GOP is animated by ideas churned out by the think tanks and policy institutions established when the conservative movement went through its last re-boot in the early 1970s. While the left struggles to find a purpose beyond simply opposing conservatism, conservatives and libertarians already have a solid ideological basis (if they’re willing the recommit themselves to it).