Jonathan Bernstein is curious about what Kevin Drum calls the “Hack Gap.” In an article yesterday, he looked at Obamacare. Every time an insurance company announces a rate hike, conservative economists come out of the woodwork to proclaim that it is all the fault of Obamacare and just wait until next year when everyone will die of syphilis. But when a new study comes out that finds that healthcare cost increases are slowing by more than would be predicted by the recession, there are not any liberal economists making the rounds proclaiming that Obamacare is our savior.

This behavior is not limited to Obamacare. On just about any economic policy issue, this is what we see. Bernstein doesn’t really offer any answers to his question, but there were a few good comments. (There were also two conservative commenters who think that Krugman is a hack because he isn’t nice. And they posted again and again, because as far as I can tell, conservatives on the internet don’t have jobs.) They all revolved around the idea of policing. When a conservative economist comes along with an outlandish idea (for example, Reinhart & Rogoff), the conservative media universe completely accepts it; there is no push back. But if the same bad science came from a liberal economist, there would be major push back.

As an anonymous poster put it:

I think there is something deeper going on here, however. The truth is that there is no comparable divide in foreign policy or even social policy. There are a lot of supposed expert hacks when it comes to this. (But I will admit there is a lot more hackery on the conservative side.) Why is it we just don’t see this in economics? I think it is that the left lost its economic moorings in the 1970s and 1980s. The political success of economic conservatism caused them to focus on data. This in turn caused liberal economics to move substantially to the right. Given that conservative economics was moored to an ideology, it naturally moved to the right as well. And this ended with conservative economists turning into apologists for the ideology.

I know this sounds harsh, but I am quite certain about it. The Reinhart & Rogoff episode was telling. Normally, academics appreciate outside attention, but they are very leery of non-professionals overstating their work. In the case of Rogoff, it was just the opposite; he went out of his way to push an un-nuanced understanding of their work. That isn’t the behavior of a serious scientist; it is the behavior of an ideological hack. And Kenneth Rogoff isn’t some minor player; he is (or was) a highly respected economist.

This all comes back to my often stated problem with American economic policy: it’s come off the rails. Now the “liberal” side is basically what the science of economics would dictate. The conservative side is an ideological travesty. That’s not the way it is supposed to work. The middle is supposed to be what reality is. Then the two sides are supposed to fight over changes to that. For example, a liberal might argue that slightly higher taxes is not best for the economy, but it will limit suffering. A conservative might argue that slightly lower taxes will cause wages to go up. But this isn’t what we see. Conservative economics is no longer moored to reality.

This is via Reddit user valeriepieris via Matt Yglesias. I think it speaks for itself:

Sometimes I am so proud of my culture. A good example was on display this morning in District Court. Judge Edward Korman came down hard on the Obama administration’s cowardly limitation of Plan B emergency birth control. The administration’s actions show that despite what Democrats like to think, Obama really is a lot more conservative than he claims to be. I can see this policy while he was facing re-election. It was still cowardly and cynical, but understandable. What’s going on now? The truth is we don’t know. Other than Obama claiming that he would have a problem with his own daughters having access to the drug, the administration has never given any rationale for requiring a photo ID to purchase it.

Judge Korman is no liberal. In fact, he’s a Republican. But apparently, he’s an old fashioned Republican—the kind that actual believes in things like the law and freedom. Because he is very angry and it doesn’t seem partisan. He has very good reasons for his anger.

He especially went after the administration for thinking that young women should have to present ID to get what all tests indicate is a safe drug. He said it was hypocritical to argue this when the administration also argues against voter ID laws. The administration then tried to argue that it is all a process: first they start with the ID law and gradually they would liberalize things. It said that this is how the public interest is best served. Korman interrupted, “Tell me about the public interest. Is there a public interest in unplanned pregnancies? Some of which end in abortions?”

Ouch!

But the truth of the matter is that the administration seems on autopilot with regards to this matter. It doesn’t seemed to have worked out why it is supporting its current policy. It’s all maddening. And what’s more, it lays bare just what a collection of political hacks this administration is. It sure ain’t hope and change. And in the case of this policy, it is exactly what the Bush administration was.

But it makes me happy to see the judicial branch of the government calling the executive to task on this matter. Forget all the bullshit about individual rights. That’s more propaganda than anything. If the government wants to shut you down or shut you up, it will. But this kind of antagonism between the branches of government is a good thing and the only thing that stops this country from completely going on tilt.

Today over at The Plum Line, Jamelle Bouie discussed an issue that is close to my heart, Don’t Expect the GOP to Change on Gay Rights Anytime Soon. I think all this talk of the Republican Party moderating itself is nonsense. It is all a kind of mass pundit delusion. Moderates especially really want to think that the Republicans will be reasonable. And by that, they mean more liberal on the social issues that moderates care about.

Remember when Bobby Jindal created a stir about how Republicans had to stop being the “stupid party”? And what did he do to prove he wasn’t stupid? He almost destroyed his political career by proposing an end to the state income tax to be replaced by a regressive sales tax. Republican claims at reform are nothing by a desire that the electorate won’t notice all the terrible things they are trying to do.

Bouie noted that the Republicans are not going to moderate on same sex marriage even though a plurality of Republicans favors it. The problem is that the most consistent voters, the old, white, bigoted evangelicals really hate same sex marriage. And so the Republican Party is trying to appeal to them. But I wonder. Does that really explain it?

After all, the conservative base doesn’t vote so consistently because they love the Republican Party. You see that in polls. About 30% of the electorate think of themselves as Republican. But often, the party only gets an approval of about 20%. The difference isn’t people who are tending toward the Democrats; they just think the Republicans are being too liberal. These people are still going to go to the polls and vote Republican, even if they think the party has turned communist.

So why doesn’t the GOP change? The only reasonable argument is that the base wouldn’t show up to the polls. But we know this isn’t the case. Look at the Democratic Party. It is more than happy to snub its base in order to gain more moderate voters. In the Democrat’s case, I’m not sure it works. But in the Republican case, there is much more to gain. A lot of people have a visceral dislike of the party beyond any policies. There are a lot of upper middle class urbanites who would find the Republican Party’s economic conservatism very appealing if it weren’t for their constant “Kill the gays!” and “Oppress the women!” rhetoric.

The problem, I think, is that the people who run the Republican Party are members of the base. They really do think that homosexuality and abortion are abominations. Part of this is just because since the time of Reagan, the state level party organizations have been overrun with evangelicals. But a good part of the problem is that after a while, you begin to believe your own propaganda. Republicans have been putting out so much fear and hatred over the years that they themselves are the final casualties. It’s going to take some time to fix their systemic problems.

On this day back in 1711, the great philosopher David Hume was born. Poet Robert Browning was born in 1812. German composer Johannes Brahms was born in 1833. And Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in 1840. Gary Cooper was born in 1901. Night Stalker actor Darren McGavin was born in 1922. And Anne Baxter was born in 1923.

The only person I noticed having a birthday today is Traci Lords, the young woman who threw the porn industry into chaos when it was found that she had made 100 film while less than 18. She argues that this scandal actually made the porn industry much richer because of all the media attention it created. I tend to think she’s right. I’m not much interested in porn, but I know who she is. She’s 47 today and doing very well, I assume. She has a net worth of $7 million.

But the day belongs to a great talent, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who was born on this day in 1927. I am not saying that she is greater than Hume or Brahms. But she died last month and I didn’t notice it. Most people know her as the screenwriter of most of the Merchant-Ivory films like Remains of the Day and A Room with a View. But she was also a great novelist. She would have been 86 today.

Happy birthday, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala!

Afterword

This is from Jhabvala:

This is really interesting. Harry Reid wanted to take the budget the Senate passed and go to conference with the House. It doesn’t much matter; the House will be against any reasonable budget. But Ted Cruz objected. He says he will only allow it if they agree that whatever comes out of the conference includes no tax increases and no raising of the debt ceiling. Harry Reid was clearly angry. He said that the Republicans had their chance with the budget. They lost. And now Cruz wants to put the very limits on the budget that the Republicans wanted but were unable to add in the normal legislative process.

Part of me wants to just tell Harry Reid to go fuck himself. If he had displayed any balls, he could have gotten rid of the filibuster and their wouldn’t be these problems. “Oh, you object? Let’s have a vote. Your objection is overruled, you fuckwad.” Just the same, Harry Reid is right: this kind of behavior is unacceptable. We shouldn’t have to have concrete rules about everything. But that’s the biggest defining feature of a revolutionary movement: it doesn’t accept norms. And the Republican Party (most of all including Ted Cruz) is a revolutionary group.

The best part of this 5 minute video is when Reid likens Cruz to a schoolyard bully. Cruz then responds, a little hurt I think, “I wasn’t aware we were in a schoolyard.” Reid interrupts and coldly says, “There’s either and objection or no objection.” And Cruz extends his arms and says, “Mr. President, I object.” He might have added, “Because I am a bully who wants to stop all legislative work if I can’t get everything that I want.” Reid is right: Cruz is a schoolyard bully. He’s also a dick.

Last night on the Economix Blog, Bruce Bartlett returned to Niall Ferguson’s gay Keynes moment. I wrote about this over the weekend. Basically, Ferguson said that Keynes’ economics didn’t take the long term into account (not true) because he was gay (largely true) and didn’t have kids (true). Most of the criticism has been regarding Ferguson’s homophobia. But as I pointed out, the main issue is that he was dead wrong on the economics: he totally misunderstood Keynes’ most famous quote, “In the long run we are all dead.”

What is also stupid about the comment is that the only reason a man would care about future generations is if he had sperm in the game. I have no children, and yet I am terribly concerned about future generations. Part of this is personal. I have friends who have kids. I have friends who are kids. But beyond that, only a sociopath thinks of himself alone and his own well being. I assume that Ferguson is an atheist, because his wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is a prominent member of the New Atheists. But his attitude is typical of conservative religious people who think without the threat of God’s wrath, there is no reason not to kill everyone you don’t like.

In Bartlett’s column, he makes a similar error. Ostensibly, his argument is that Keynes’ real mistake was that he mis-titled his book and thus gave the wrong impression about his work. But he spends most of his time on claims of Keynes’ homosexuality. It seems like he is trying to give Ferguson cover. It doesn’t much matter one way or the other. Clearly, no one particularly cares what Keynes did in his bedroom nor does anyone seriously think that it made him short sighted. But Bartlett does think his homosexuality had an effect on his work:

I don’t think this is true. Everyone has experiences that allow them to see what it is like to be an outsider. If this kind of thing is going on, I’m sure it works the other way around. There are lots of people who never really accept their sexual orientation. Clearly doing so requires a mind that accepts that social conventions are often arbitrary and wrong. But it is incorrect to think that the process runs: “gay” leads to “outsider” leads to “thinking outside the box.” It just doesn’t work like that.

So let’s just all agree that being gay really has nothing to do with economic brilliance, either for good or ill.

Afterword

I don’t mean to be down on Bruce Bartlett. Although he has been a big player in a lot of really bad conservative policy over the years, he’s mostly been dead on the last few. He does look at data and act on it. He’s a good example of what I am surprised we don’t see more of: a conservative who stood still. Rather than be dragged to the right by his party, he has become one of its most effective critics.

This evening as my flu or whatever slowly fades away, I thought you could use a little cheering up. John Fugelsang and TV’s Frank Conniff created a little spoof on all the Benghazi hysteria in the right wing echo chamber. Oh, you don’t know what I’m talking about? You probably remember an attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi where four of our countrymen were killed. But you probably thought that was long over.

This morning, Jonathan Bernstein noted, this is big news on the right. “Even though no one has ever made clear exactly what terrible secret was the subject of the supposed cover-up; even though a succession of ‘revelations’ have all turned out to be nonsense (here’s one from just last week). Doesn’t matter; discredited accusations are just forgotten and new ones are substituted.” He’s been arguing for some time that this whole thing is making Republican politicians lazy because they can just go on right wing radio shows and archly say, “Benghazi!” And all the listeners murmur to themselves, “Oh, yes. I’ve heard about that. Obama! Cover up! Worse than Watergate! Worse than Iran-Contra! Worse than WMDs!” Of course, that isn’t saying much, because they don’t think Watergate, Iran-Contra, or WMDs were bad at all.

Now you know enough to enjoy Fugelsang and Conniff:

Ed Kilgore over at Political Animal has a great article, None Dare Call it Treason. It is about the new NRA president, James Porter, and his loose talk of tyranny and violent opposition to it. I know the kind of guy. There is an enormous subsection of the male population who have fantasies about taking up arms against the government. And it isn’t limited to conservatives (although it primarily is). I’ve talked to young slacker game addicts who have told me about their desires to make their simulated urban combat real. Of course, most of these people do not go out and join the army. They just live with their fantasies. In fact, I dare say that most of them are cowards. Regardless, I think that is usually what’s going on when some guy says something like, “Obama’s not a valid president, somebody ought to take him out!” (Not that Porter would go so far; he would just say that Obama is a “fake president.”)

Kilgore notes that these kinds of guys normally think of themselves as ultra-patriots. Yet they are “deliberately courting the impression that loyalty to their country is strictly contingent on the maintenance of laws and policies they favor, to be achieved if not by ballots then by bullets.” You know: treason. In fact, I think it is only because of conservative mythology that we as a society put up with this. We apparently have to take it as given that Timothy McVeigh is a patriot, right up to the point that he starts bombing government buildings. If it were reversed—if liberals went around talking armed insurrection—the FBI would be all over them. But we are supposed to assume that conservatives are patriotic, even though right now, conservatives are the only major group in our society that are rightly called revolutionary.

Part of this must be due to the fact that they see themselves fading away. Tom Hamburger wrote a very interesting article at the Washington Post this afternoon, NRA Celebrates Recent Gains on Guns; Faces Long-Term Challenges. It talks about how a lot of gun rights people are concerned that this recent “victory” may be a last hurrah for the NRA. In the 1970s, 50% of all households had guns. It is down to 34% now, and it is sinking. And being against the most benign gun restrictions does not make joining “gun culture” sound appealing to the rest of the nation.

A whole kind of conservatism is fading away: cultural conservatism. And let’s be clear: that is the bedrock of the Republican Party. Much of it is still locked up in the evangelical movement. But a large part of that is gun culture. It is no accident that “God and guns” are linked together. The truth is that most conservative men associate much more with the latter. And as fewer and fewer men care about guns, what will be left of the conservative movement? When someone like James Porter spouts off about tyranny, what he’s really saying is that his way of life is dying. And he’s right.

Immigration reform! Why is it that I don’t care? Greg Sargent and the guys over at The Plum Line tell me that I should care. They seem to think that something will happen. (They also think that something is still going to happen on gun reform, so decide for yourself.) Today, Sargent reported on a new report from the Heritage Foundation that is meant to kill immigration reform. But he notes that the Republican establishment is pushing back on this. So maybe we will get actual immigration reform after all.

I have a couple of problems with this. First, the good thing in the bill is not very good. It offers a ridiculously arduous route to citizenship that will take at least 13 years to accomplish. And with all the details—background check, proof of residency before a certain date, paying of back taxes—it will just be impossible for a lot of people. And those who can do it, are likely looking at a lot longer a time than 13 years. But I’m okay with this; it’s not very good, but it is something.

The problem is all the conservative sweeteners that are being offered up for this long and winding road to citizenship. In particular, we are looking at a huge increase in the indentured servitude program known as the H1-B visa program. As I reported two weeks ago, there is no high tech worker shortage. This is just an effort by the government to bring down the wages of high tech workers.

Then there is the whole “secure the boarders” aspect of the law. This just seems like an effort to militarize the border. Plus there’s lots of room for conservatives to claim that the border is not (Ever!) secure so there can be no pathway to citizenship. I can well imagine seeing Republicans on Fox News saying, “As long as there is one person getting over the border, it is not secure!” (They’ll probably start complaining about sea traffic.)

But the fact is that the Gang of Eight bill is the most liberal it will ever be. Once it goes into the House, who knows what will become of it. I’ve already reported that they want to increase the path to citizenship to 15 years, because whatever is on offer, they must make it worse. By and end, it could be no better than my recent modest proposal.

So I’m not very excited about immigration reform. I suppose I would take the Gang of Eight bill if it were on offer. But it is a close call. And we might be best off waiting a couple of election cycles and seeing if we can get a much better bill.