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The Changing Face of Conservatism
Andrew Sullivan ponders: from Irving Kristol to Glenn Beck?
16 Responses to “The Changing Face of Conservatism”
Who cares who the face of conservatism is? The future is that conservatism will be irrelevant and the U.S. will be a single party state where the Democratic primary will be the real election and the general election is a moot exercise.
Joe, living in California, should be able to recognize the signs of a one party state where there are few if any competitive elections, most incumbents face no real challenge, and the government's budget grows much faster than inflation or economic growth should allow for.
Instead of worrying about the irrelevant conservatives, the real question is who will be the winners and loser in the coming one party state. I believe blacks will be huge losers since white progressives and blue dog Democrats will not be forced to tolerate the insanity of the CBC just to keep the Republicans out of power.
“coming one party state” = nonsense.
DMF,
Less than half of the children in first grade are white. Since all non-white demographic groups vote for Democrats at greater than 65%, where do you think the future Republican voters are going to come form. Non-whites are all, on average, much more liberal than the current Republican Party. Given that the number of whites employed in the for-profit private sector is shrinking, the number of natural Republican voters is also shrinking.
In the long run, demographics will kill the Republican Party. The incompetence of the current Republican leaders is just making it happen faster.
i didn't say there were going to be any future republican voters. but there is a reason that we've never become a multi-party society, and similarly we will never be a single party society. there's already a rift happening in the democratic party over the public option of the health care bill. i can't say if that is where it will start, if it does. but it clearly indicates that the void formed by a defuct GOP will be filled quickly and easily by another group.
SD The subject of the post is a transition from intellectual to populist rodeo clown. What does your racism have to do with the dumbing down of conservatism.
I am in no way a conservative but, the downfall of the movement has been so dramatic that you cannot help but, see it as both a stand in for what has happened to our once great country and a lesson of politics and social upheaval.
I do think the intellectual but, also intellectually dishonest leadership of Gingrich, the criminality and low brow thinking of DeLay and the hyper reactionary 24 hr screaming pit of Faux news did the movement in.
I don't think it was Bush, as so many do. I just don't think he was that influential in the movement to take it down regardless of how bad of a president he was.
He did do some damage in letting the neocons run amok in his administration and push for their little war in Iraq but, not enough to destroy the movement.
No, it was the rise of cynical, criminal and posturing to the moment pols that manipulated along with their talking heads at Fox that destroyed the movement.
The only reason to care about who is the face of conservatism (not that Kristol was ever the face of conservatism except for non-conservatives in NYC) is that conservatism will be relevant in the future.
As is stands now, conservatism is irrelevant today and will remain irrelevant in the future. The only thing that gives conservatives any sense of being relevant to governance and policy is the Democrats keep pretending that the conservatives are relevant so that conservatives can be blamed for future failures of liberal policies.
Unless one can provide a rational scenario where non-whites will ever support conservative policies, then there is no reason to treat conservatives like they are relevant.
Ok, history lesson on how the conservatives came to dominate the Republican Party.
Part One – liberal Republican wing implodes after Nelson Rockefeller disgraces them by leaving his wife to marry a campaign worker in 1962. This is largely the reason why moderates agree to back Mr. Conservative, Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Part Two – moderate Republicans are disgraced by Bob Dole divorcing his wife while serving as RNC chair. He is asked to resign by President Nixon, who further disgraces moderates via Watergate. The final Republican moderate of any stature, Gerald Ford, takes over and bumbles his way to oblivion. Without a strong liberal wing, Ford is forced to offer the VP spot to Ronald Reagan, who turns him down in favor of returning as a Presidential candidate in 1980. Conservative intellectuals begin building a coalition between themselves, libertarians, and social conservatives (Christian Right).
Part Three – without a liberal wing or a moderate base of support, Conservatives push Ronald Reagan to the fore as their nominee in 1980. Reagan trades arms for hostages, breaking federal law in doing so, and manages to time it so the Iranian hostages are released as he assumes the Presidency. Largely by being in the right place at the right time, Reagan is given credit for an oil boom that saves the US economy and for winning the Cold War, as if the USSR hadn't teetered on the brink for years because of corruption and stupidity.
Part Four – Newt Gingrich launches his Contract on America, which destroys any intellectual type of conservatism as the basis for action and replaces it with “party loyalty.” The concentration of Christian evangelicals in the Southern states allows Republicans to take advantage of shifting demographics as the population base begins to shift southward and westward. Conservative intellectuals find themselves vilified alongside “egghead liberals” as anti-intellectualism rises among social conservatives, whose beliefs are challenged by advancing science.
Part Five – “Conservatives” complete purges against “RINOs.” In reality, this is the culmination of the party discipline instituted by Gingrich (who also became of victim of that same force). The final push to eliminate “RINOs” takes away those moderates who were desperately needed to hold onto a majority. Democrats make gains by opening a “wide tent” to appeal to those moderates and mild conservatives who feel alienated by the GOP and build a small majority.
Part Six – unfolding currently. Liberal Democrats, upset that moderates and conservatives actually have different opinions, begin to talk about targeting them in primaries. Republicans, casting about for something to get headlines, latch onto the craziest morons they can find (Beck, teabaggers, birthers). What we can't know yet is if Democrats will manage to juggle the demands of governing with a big tent or if they will implode and drive moderates and conservatives out of the party. If it is the latter, it remains unknown if the GOP can find a way to make those moderates and conservatives feel welcomed.
Most non-white democrats are socially much more conservative than white democrats. They tend to favor more restrictions on abortion and oppose full marriage equality for same-sex couples. It doesn't take Karl Rove to figure out how to run a campaign that stresses that.
ThurmanHart is correct.
GW Bush was able to capitalize on the social conservatism of Hispanic voters in his two WH victories. And the majority of black churches condemn homosexuality as virulently as Pat Robertson. The GOP has capitalized on Southern racism and more recently nativism– and has had no compunction in its domination of that region.
By doing so they have lost the chance to attract social conservatives of other races, and left themselves open to charges of racism against an African-American president. If they become a permanent minority and a regional party, they can look back on the bone-headed Southern strategy.
Interestingly enough, the only conservative leader who hasn't been discredited is RR. Conservatives are constantly searching for the new Reagan revolution to solve the country's ills. What few admit, however, is that the US is not the same country that it was in 1980, when we had double-digit inflation, malaise from high oil prices, high taxation and an unproductive welfare state.
We are facing different challenges from globalization, world wide terrorism, environmental deterioration, and rocketing health care costs. Our infrastructure is crumbling, wages are stagnating and inequality is at an all-time high.
This is not Ronald Reagan's America. So why do conservatives persist in providing the same tired prescriptions of tax cuts,strong defense, small government, trickle-down economics,pro-business -anti-environmental policy and their anti-immigration stance?
If you will look at Rep Cohen (D-Tn), only white Democrat who represents a majority black district, you will see he is extremely liberal and is radical and supports abortion on demand, adding homosexual activity to the Civil Rights laws, supports open borders, and a complete separation of church and state.
If you look at the CBC, they support the same things. Blacks have never been social conservatives and none of the statistically dominate behaviors of blacks demonstrates any concerns about social conservative issues.
However, support for affirmative action, quotas, racial set asides, and more government jobs are non-negotiables with blacks. If you do not support racial set asides, blacks with not support any candidate and the Republicans cannot be conservative while supporting race based governance.
How are any of those positions radical? Liberal maybe but not radical.
And the only African-American president we have had did not emphasize any of those positions during his campaign– with the exception of separation of church and state- which is one of the concepts our country was founded on.
And affirmative action certainly isn't any worse than the previous administration's emphasis on party and personal loyalty as the sole qualification for awarding positions of power. Applicants were denied if they hadn't voted for Bush or didn't agree 100% with some of his positions-regardless of their lack of experience or relevant qualifications.
kritt,
President Obama is a good example that blacks are not social conservative. President Obama is a boiler plate liberal Democrat. He would never support any socially conservative position. Yet, he got 95% of the black vote in 2008 and will probably get 95% of the black vote in 2012 even if the black unemployment rate is higher than is was during any time of the Bush Administration.
calling obama a “boiler plate liberal” is like calling bill clinton one.
in that only people who don't know what they're talking about do it. and yes, statistically, nonwhite dems are much, much more socially conservative. mostly because they're also more religious. there's absolutely no evidence to the contrary. one man does not a trend make.
dmf
Barack Obama is a boiler plate liberal because he was virtually no policy differences with people like Senator Durbin, Senator Feinstein, or Senator Levin. In reality, President Obama is nothing more than Senator Durbin in black face.
Also, the evidence of blacks and Hispanics being liberal is shown in the actions of both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Both groups are extremely leftist. The same goes for virtually every black inner city mayor or any Hispanic politician in California or New York.
You are falling into the trap that the Republicans make when they equate the social conservatism of church going whites (who are more conservative than average) with church going blacks. If you would ever visit a black church you would realize who most of the members are extremely liberal to the point of believing that reparations and race based government are great ideas and that the government should be able to regulate the speech of whites.