Conservatism And The GOP
Posted on May 24th, 2009
by Daniel Larison |
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The ongoing debate in the comments of this post has spurred me to make a few points that I think have tended to get lost in much of the post-election quarreling and recriminations on the right. One of the remarkable things about the Gallup poll I was commenting on in the initial post was the GOP’s remarkable ability to retain conservative identification with the party. Rather, I should say that this is conservatives’ remarkable ability to continue to identify with a party that they simultaneously claim represents them less and less. This continuing identification with the party has happened despite what most long-time conservative critics of the party would insist is its failure to practice the sort of principled conservatism that most conservatives say that they want. Populist and dissident conservatives have raised objections for years, indeed decades, that the party has never governed as they would wish it to, but over time the label conservative, emptied of meaning as it has become, has increasingly become a more common label for reliable Republican voters to apply to themselves. The two identities have become harder and harder to extricate from one another, and the insistence from mainstream conservatives that it was the GOP that failed them, and they were more or less blameless, has become ever more difficult for a skeptic to accept.
It is not the case, on the whole, that these reliable Republican voters who call themselves conservatives have come around to adopting a strict version of the principled conservatism that either marginal critics or mainstream conservatives have in mind, but rather that the label has become a marker of belonging and evidence of one’s good sense as defined inside the movement and party. In other words, it has become a word on the right, like the word diversity in other contexts, that people use to show that they are bien-pensant people. Indeed, the less meaningful the label is, the better it is to accommodate all those voters whose actual views, or rather inclinations, on policy may have little in common with those of the activists. To some extent, even the populists and dissidents are stuck inside this framework, and we have tended to spend a great deal of time in emphasizing our claim to be more consistent or principled conservatives while pointing out how much of what passes conventionally for conservatism has gone awry. Those arguments have their place, they have been vindicated on more than a few fronts, and I’m sure that we’ll keep making them in the future, but here I’d like to do something different. It would be useful to remind ourselves and also to demonstrate that we understand that most of the public sees all of this very differently.
Ironically, the political center of the GOP is significantly farther to the left today than it was thirty years ago, in keeping with general shifts in popular opinion and cultural changes, but there are far more people inside the party who claim to be conservatives than was the case just 12 years ago. This has created the bizarre disconnect between those inside and those outside the party, as those inside see accurately that there has been no “move to the right” by the GOP in the last decade (on the contrary, there has been a move in the opposite direction), but those outside see for the most part the strong identification between Republicans and conservatives, and the largely unflinching support the latter give to the party in good times and bad, and they conclude that the GOP is conservative and becoming more so all the time. This perception will tend to be strongest among the least informed and therefore least ideological voters, and it will not matter that this perception is based in a manipulative electoral strategy that has little policy substance behind it (see Palin, Sarah). They then look at the outcomes of Republican governance, which marginal critics have been correctly lambasting for years or decades as un-conservative or even anti-conservative by more traditional defintions, and conclude that all these people running around calling themselves conservatives should not be trusted with power.
If they hear conservative complaints after an election to the effect of, “the country rejected Republicans, not conservatism,” these less ideological voters likely put this down to scapegoating and buck-passing. Even when it is true, for example, that the Republicans eventually lost the country because they failed to heed conservative wisdom (e.g., by abandoning prudence, restraint and caution and invading Iraq to the detriment of the national interest), it is very difficult for those outside the party to credit the idea that the antiwar conservative represents Real Conservatism, not least because most people who call themselves conservatives even now back the war and believe it was the right thing to do. They may be more likely to conclude, along with Bill Kauffman (subscribers only), that “for half a century, “conservative” has been a synonym for–a slave to–militarism, profligacy, the invasion of other nations, contempt for personal liberties and an ignorance of and hostility toward provincial America that is Philip Rothian in its scope.” The dissident conservative naturally wants to say that all of this is an abuse and perversion of the meaning of the word, and it is, but I think it is fair to say that most people are not going to investigate things that deeply. Why would they? It is not their responsibility to discover how the word has been abused–it is up to conservatives to stop embracing policies that encourage the distortion and abuse.
A non-ideological voter might wonder why self-styled conservatives remain more loyal to the Republican Party than practically any other group in the country if it is as lacking in conservatism as they claim it to be. The conservatives have plenty of answers: they have no other viable political vehicle, it is better than the alternative, etc., but this is the language of the relatively engaged and politically active person, and it does not carry that much weight with those who do not use it regularly. (The entire “lesser of two evils” argument usually assumes a fairly extensive knowledge of both parties’ platforms, records and proposals, all of which non-ideological voters tend not to have.) What this means in practice is that non-ideological voters and “weak” (i.e., not reliably attached) Republicans, who also tend to be “moderates,” drift away from the GOP as policy failures and adverse conditions mount, and these voters associate the party they are rejecting with the conservatives who cling to the wreckage. This creates a condition in which self-styled conservatives become an even larger percentage of the party’s membership, which in turns makes claims about the party’s insufficient conservatism even harder for outsiders to take despite being true on many, if not most, issues in practice. Non-ideological voters would normally be skeptical if they were told that conservatism had nothing to do with Republican woes, but when the overwhelming majority of conservatives backed a failed President and many of his most unpopular policies to the bitter end they are bound to be incredulous when they are told that the solution that conservatives are offering is some vague “return to principles” (which usually turns out to mean taking positions on fiscal and economic policy with which even many Republican voters are not necessarily all that sympathetic–see the Fabrizio survey for details). As a result, they unlikely to be inclined to support the conservatives’ preferred party, and they are very likely to link the word conservative to all of the things that the last administration did. This is a misunderstanding that needs to be corrected, but the far more important thing that needs correction is the conservative movement itself. If the word is not going to be tied to any of the things that Kauffman mentioned, the bulk of those who call themselves conservatives will have to stop endorsing policies and rhetoric that reinforce those associations. In other words, they will have to start acting like conservatives, rather than simply calling themselves that. None of this necessarily promises to bring about a political revival for the Republican Party, which may be a long time in coming, but at this stage the restoration of the credibility of most conservatives is more pressing and more important.
Filed under: politics
The Bill Kauffman link should have a “(subscribers only)” added to it … since it is not publicly available.
Speaking from personal experience as one who has never voted conservative, I find the thing which keeps me staunch is what I abhor about the other side rather than what I support about my own side – for me, stuff like entrenchment of privilege, policies which increase inequality, social illiberalism, disregard of the common good, protection of rapacious corporations, perversion of a healthy regard for (and often, admittedly, practice of) self reliance into detestation of ‘losers’ and ‘do-gooders’, more outrage over reverse racism than was ever evident over the original variety, elevation of commonsense over evidence-based knowledge and a biblical adherence with a literalist and old testament slant that even the Christ of the new testament would find hard to forgive. I see these as true conservative tendencies – not Rovian aberrations.
I’ve no doubt that most self-described conservatives remain staunch GOP adherents according to a reciprocal principle.
I often despair of of my side of politics too, but today’s GOP does represent some kind of nadir, so far as parties in modern wealthy democracies are concerned. I hope something arises from its ashes to enable the US polity to re-experience a creative tension between two tenable world views.
My parting thought is that we live in a more interconnected world where individuals’ scope for affecting others is ever greater and further reaching, with ever more serious consequences. This fact will make the fashioning of a realistic modern conservatism a daunting task – but potentially a fresh and fascinating one. Some rational principled prudent realism would come in handy as this century unfolds. The US can’t leave it to Dems handicapped by nutters. The whole world needs better than that.
I’m afraid you just hit the tip of the iceberg. Some of the favored epitaths of Bush was that he was a “liberal” or a “moderate.” Last I checked, moderate wasn’t an ideology, so the argument was that he wasn’t conservative enough, like he didn’t invade enough countries or he should have imprisoned global warming activists, er fear mongers. As for claims of Bush being a liberal (or a progressive in the sense people are using it) disciple, it is simply laughable. The problem with Bush and the rest of conservatism from National Review to TAC to Taki’s Mag to Chronicles is that it still embraces the fusionist compromise. It has used libertarianism as a leg for so long that it can’t compose its own identity.
Take a look at the health care debate. There is no conservative argument against a single-payer system. Oh, they are still arguing. They are just adopting the libertarian argument that the free market is best and the governement is evil, and the postal service is terrible, despite every other first world country having such a system and even a number of 3rd world countries managing to have one. The gay marriage debate has been woeful because conservatives have rarely been able to articulate reasons against it involving more than the affections of the two people seeking to be wed. And on global warming, conservatism has decided to define itself by declaring materialism can’t be found wanting a priori. If we haven’t seen enough conservatism from 1980 until the present, I would hate to see what our country would look like if all their designs went through.
You seem to be describing the process of linguistic change. Perhaps you are right about what ‘conservative’ once meant. I assume that this is a fairly controversial subject, and I don’t know enough to venture an opinion. But now ‘conservative’ is often used to describe loyal supporters of Republican Party talking points.
Word meaning is a function of current usage, rather than historical usage. At some point you may just have to find a new word.
I think Daniel’s point is that Republicans are not conservatives, that real conservatives are actually a rare breed, but after that I get confused. If the unthinking (non-ideological in Daniel speak) Republicans are drifting away from the party, as Daniel suggests, then that means that only the ideologically aware remain with the party – which kind of begs the question; if the aware remain with the party, then the party is THEIRS, in all it’s perfidy and destructiveness.
I think Daniel agrees when he says, “they will have to start acting like conservatives, rather than simply calling themselves that.” My guess is that most of the ideological conservatives are not at all similar to Daniel, and it is his blind spot in action, not theirs. The party is exactly what most ideologically aware “conservatives” want it to be.
I interpret Daniel as saying that the GOP is the lesser of two evils. After these past 8 years, I have no idea how he can support that position, if that is what he believes. His writing doesn’t support it.
In my reading of the kind of conservative sites Daniel represents, I find many worthy ideas. I also find the kind of libertarian bigotry to which both Alan and MZ refer. But more than anything else, it is abortion that I believe keeps true conservatives like Daniel from fleeing the GOP. I am sorry for that, sorry that I can’t accept their reasoning, sorry that they can’t see that taking away a woman’s choice is as wrong as locking her up in Gitmo with no rights and no evidence of any wrongdoing. I think as long as conservatives feel they must stick to an anti-abortion platform they will remain outside the discussion of what is right and good for America and for the world, because that discussion is happening in circles from which the GOP has excluded itself. Daniel’s best hope, and that of his fellow travelers, is that those who disagree with him on abortion will none the less carry some of his water into those forums where real discussion can occur.
There is some chance of that, no? I mean, look who reads here – self styled liberals (me, for example) who find much of what Daniel says to be no more than the simple truth.
Jake
@DanS – I think you’re right in that a linguistic change is being described, but I think the bigger question is WHY is there that linguistic change?
When I read histories and political discussions from England and the rest of the world, there’s an acknowledgment of the historical tendencies behind the terminology being used. That is, in American political discourse, you never hear the term “classical liberal” being used to describe the American political system, even though historically, that’s what it is. Saying “liberal conservative” – which is historically a meaningful term, as one who supports the ideals of classical liberalism while rejecting dramatic and revolutionary changes – would make American political heads explode.
I see two major reasons for this. First, Reagan’s successful change of the term “liberal” into an epithet, and second, the 24-hour news cycle, talk radio, and bloggers turning the discourse of the American public sphere into referendums on the Democrats and the Republicans.
The even bigger question is, of course, what to do about it. And on that I have no idea short of moving off-grid into some agrarian utopia, but I know I’m not ready for that yet.
“The dissident [ie, mainstream - ed.] conservative naturally wants to say that all of this is an abuse and perversion of the meaning of the word, and it is, but I think it is fair to say that most people are not going to investigate things that deeply. Why would they?”
Because for the typical American, the realization of how much they stand to lose and how close they are to losing it hasn’t hit yet.
For fifty years or so, the fiscal consequences of the entitlement state are a boiled frog: the temperature keeps getting hotter but our amphibian body politic manages to adjust. But that’s in the process of ending. For us mainstream conservatives, _we_ have the way out and no one else does. Let’s just hope the body politic finds us in time.
I think almost everyone here is guilty of conflating two different issues: abandonment of conservative principles in order to gain power, as opposed to differing visions of what what it means to be a conservative.
Modern movement conservatism is a bit of both – principles in the domestic are abandoned to gain power, in part in order to implement foriegn policies which THEY believe are conservative, but which many conservatives believe are not at all conservative.
I think as long as conservatives feel they must stick to an anti-abortion platform they will remain outside the discussion of what is right and good for America and for the world, because that discussion is happening in circles from which the GOP has excluded itself.
If there were evidence backing the proposition, it would be worth evaluating. All available evidence suggests that being anti-abortion is net positive for any candidate. The only problem is that social cons sometimes tend to substitute being against abortion for having a platform, a mistake that would be more forgivable in other times.
The problem with using the label “conservative” in relation to the GOP is that it is conferred upon whatever wing of the party dominates any particular policy debate, regardless of whether that ends up being genuinely conservative in the definitional sense. The GOP is not a single ideological party of all, but a conglomerate of various ideological interest groups, united not by commonality of views, but by carefully apportioning those views to various groups based on their own special interests and needs, each ceding to the others particular spheres of influence, which each agrees to tacitly support as if they were fully in agreement with it, when in fact, they would otherwise oppose it, since it is goes against their own interests.
So Wall Street laissez faire Republicans will support socially conservative views that they themselves will never live by, because they need socially conservative votes to keep their own interests in the game. And social conservatives will support neocon wars because they have ceded foreign policy to that i interest group, in exchange for support of their views. Etc. What we end up with is a party of rather insane contradictions that has no internal glue to hold it together. At least the old Democratic party interest group coalition had an overal ideological consensus that did not generally involve gross contradictions of interest, and it was meat-and-potatoes trade-offs that held them together, not blind indifference to their own interests.
For the GOP, ideology has become everything and nothing, because the label “conservative” is all they have left to hold themselves together. So they call “conservative” all kinds of policies that have almost nothing to do with either one another, or with any historical movement that could rightly be called “conservative”. As long as no one sees the man behind the curtain, all seems well and good. But for some time now the curtain has been torn and dragged through the mud, and the wizard has been revealed as a puny little man with nothing but a labeling machine he uses to slap the word “conservative” on whatever he thinks others will rally around. I get the sense that most people in the GOP are wondering how long they can put up with this charade.
MZ, I don’t think I follow you. The Democrats owned the 2008 elections, and pro-choice is an integral part of their platform. If being anti-abortion is a net gain, then why did the GOP do so poorly? If you are saying that if otherwise liberal candidates would adopt anti-abortion platforms then social cons could support them, I agree. At the same time, large portions of the rest of the body politic would not.
As it is, being anti-abortion, with very few exceptions, locks you into the GOP, and the GOP no longer has a seat at the table, which I take to by your point, “The only problem is that social cons sometimes tend to substitute being against abortion for having a platform,…” And it is my point as well – if social cons insist that anti-abortion is THE litmus test for their support, they will remain marginalized, however valuable their other thoughts on life might be.
Jake
If you read Democratic pollsters, they will tell you that Democrats start losing votes because of social issues at $22,000/year in income. This was part of the book “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” but it is fairly well known in polling circles. I would imagine Ponnuru hits the same ground in “Party of Death”, or something like that. Between abortion and guns, Democrats still have trouble clearing the industrial unions, despite the GOP being openly hostile to unions. As for elections, Webb and Casey were both pro-life if I’m not mistaken. The surprise congressional win in Alabama was also pro-life. Dean was quite smart to not have an abortion litmus test for red state races. So in summary, being anti-abortion doesn’t cost votes; being incompetent in other areas will cost votes.
“Half a century, ‘conservative’ has been a synonym for–a slave to–militarism, profligacy, the invasion of other nations, contempt for personal liberties and an ignorance of and hostility toward provincial America that is Philip Rothian in its scope.†— Bill Kauffman
Actually from ‘When She Was Good’ (1967) to ‘The Human Stain’ (2000) Phillip Roth has portrayed working-class, rural whites with a great deal of sympathy and some genuine insight. After Joyce Carol Oates there may not be another contemporary American novelist of stature who has so continually evoked the great masses of Americans who didn’t go to college, live in coastal cities or benefit from the economic changes and military adventures (they, of course, actually fight our wars) of the last forty years.
Ironically (but, alas, not surprisingly), Kauffman’s comment smacks of the kind of ignorance and rabble-rousing that the Larrison post decries.
The underlying assumption would seem to be that Roth is a highbrow, foulmouthed, autobiographical Jewish writer who despised Nixon and Bush therefor he must be contemptuous of “provincial America.” Not true. Just the rantings of yet another “conservative” writer who’s a loud, ignorant blowhard (Kauffman).
Somewhat sad. Though perhaps typical, not just for the current GOP but for ‘The American Conservative’, which still all too easily slides into frothing Taki mode.
MZ, it is the near (but not complete, I agree) lockstep between anti-abortion and the GOP that is the issue. If the Democratic big tent can include anti-abortion , then why do social cons stick with the GOP? Because it is exactly GOP incompetence that has brought the party to its current status of near irrelevance. It is time for true social cons to abandon that hypocritical ship that is the GOP as described above by conradg at 3:02 am on May 26. But it isn’t going to happen, because those self same social cons can’t get past the anti-abortion issue. it IS a litmus test for them, though not for the Democratic party.
Jake
Many of us have already left. If you click on my name for this post (I have finally updated my profile here), it will take you to a group website. I think 4 or 5 of us voted for Bush in at least 2000 but voted for Obama in 2008.
As recently as the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan (not his actions in office), the Goldwater’s aphorism — Republican government, by libertarian means, for conservative ends — still provided conservatives with coherent policy positions on hot-button social issues. This is so because, whether one looked to Bolingbroke’s formal identification of Church and State or Burke’s reliance on perscriptive (Christian) prejudices as proper governmental ends, conserviative could make Judeo-Christian moral arguments in support of their poltical policies without fear of being called out of bounds for mixing moral tradition into their platform.
But more and more, whether rational or not, the electorate consider “issues of social and private morality” to be largely put of political bounds. In response, the institutional GOP has more or less been co-opted by (or versa visa, it makes no difference) Neoconism — which seems to me be a fusion of Ashkenazi Jewish — Evangelical Dispensationalist fascism couple with Country Club morals (gutter morals dressed in Brooks Brothers), which largely correspond to those of the ever more metrosexual electorate.
Hence, traditional conservatives more and more are flocking to the strategy of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.
Dr. Paul is trying to recapture the GOP using the old Goldwater formula but with a marked de-emphasizes on the conservative social/moral agenda. He is not a libertine libertarian (e.g., CATO), but rather is wisely avoiding off-putting debates about hot-button social and moral issues on anational level by appealing to federalism. Of course, he hopes, but is not saying out loud that, at the state level, these issues, which are so divisive on a national level (i.e. the Red country v. the Blue cities) will mostly resolve themselves along conservative lines, which would be a solid incremental victory for conservatism against the libertinism of the sexual revolution, which has become a bedrock plank in the Democratic Party Platform. Dr. Paul knows from experience that a frontal conservative attack on in national politics will not gain any sort of victory for conservative social policy but rather increase the liberal (libertine) strangle hold on these issue.
Instead, for his national-issue talking points, Rep. Paul focuses on paleocon fiscal conservatism, fair trade, enforcement of immigration laws for the sake of law and order, and foreign non-interventionism — which are all issues that do resonate with the electorate on a national level, as both the Bush administration and the Democratic Congress took hidings in opinion polls precisely for being on the wrong side. A presidential candidate running on these four major issues, and pushing social policy to the state level, might indeed have a chance at beating the current Democratic, “Rainbow” Coalition as well as the decadent, Necon Chicken Hawks.
And, if the conservative wing of the GOP cannot get a Ron-Paul conservative candidate nominated next time around, and we are faced with yet another Neocon nomination, it will then most certainly be the time for the Old Right of Coolidge, Taft, Goldwater, Buchanan, and Paul to form a third-party strategy or join the ready-made Constitution Party.
Peter, the problem with Ron Paul is similar to the one with Bush – in denying evolution for example, he is saying that he is free to create his own reality, one in which he gets to decide what is real and true and what is not. Yes, he has some good ideas. Even so, I don’t want to trust someone who believes metastatic faith (borrowing from Front Porch Republic and Voegelin) is all you need to succeed.
And to the point here in this discussion, just what do YOU mean by “resolve themselves along conservative lines”? If there is one thing that this thread has firmly established, there is no overarching philosophy that falls under the rubric of “conservative”.
Jake
Ironically, the political center of the GOP is significantly farther to the left today than it was thirty years ago, in keeping with general shifts in popular opinion . . .
I was 19 in 1979, and I’m puzzled over what this can refer to.
Shall-issue laws, routine today, would have been widely considered nuts in 1979.
In 1979 Jimmy Carter had just begin to dismantle a regulatory state whose like no one dreams of restoring.
In 1979 the Clinton era welfare reform would have been considered so draconian that it would not be implemented until, well, the Clinton administration.
In 1979 crime was skyrocketing, and everywhere liberals could be heard insisting that ‘locking people up is not the answer’. Today, while there are concerns about the sheer number of people incarcerated, there’s not much interest in returning to the lax sentencing of the 1970s.
Of course political changes over the last three decades have been too complex to sum up as ‘move left’ or ‘move right’. Examples of ‘leftward’ movement include gay rights and growing interest in drug legalization. Falling crime rates and the effects of DNA testing have eroded the popularity of the death penalty.
Regarding health care, it occurs to me that Republicans have been reluctant to press for market oriented reform because more competition is, as always, the last thing existing industry leaders want. Note what a pitiful job the McCain campaign did of selling its reform plan. Popular dissatisfaction with the present system has nowhere to go but towards more state involvement. But I concede that health care is an area in which popular opinion has moved left, for whatever reason.
On the overall size of government, I would say there has been a small shift to the left.
In 1979 the federal budget took 20.1% of GDP, and discontent with such levels of spending was widespread. It would contribute to Reagan’ s victory the following year.
In 2008 the federal bite was somewhat larger, at 20.9%. Discontent, while evident, is not nearly so great as in 1979. (I expect that will change as the cost of Obama’s policies sinks in.)
Overall, though, I would say popular opinion in 2009 is significantly further ‘right’ than in 1979. What am I missing?
“Conservatives” allowed Bush and Cheny to ruin this country.Where was the outrage when Cheney and ENRON helped bring down the entire state of California with the help of Grover Norquists prop 13?Tax cuts during a boom in a time of war? 2 wars one of which we were lied into?Where was Greenspan who oversaw the bust of the dot coms yet let the housing bubble grow unheeded?As if he didnt know the implications for the country or what the banks {his bosses} were doing?And why did JP Morgan bring the Gaussian formula to Joe Cassano at AIG?A formula Greenpsn himself said he didnt understand?This is a quiet coup as Simon Johnson described and it was planned.Meanwhile we have spent the last 30 years sending our industial base and technology to a totalitarian communist state,China leaving us with little to export but arms.Thats why so many of us wanted to know what was said at cheneys energy meetings with ENRON etc.You were expecting what exactly by putting the oil companies and war profiteers in the whitehouse.Was this it? The drowning of our government in the bathtub?Mission Accomplished?
And lets not forget the first president to call for national healthcare.Who was it? Teddy Roosevelt.
[...] jumped out at me from Daniel [...]