How David Frum Leads to Birther Madness
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I’ve just posted this in the comments of the item below, but it’s worth repeating here:
If all a Tanenhaus wants is a Right that is a.) a little abashed about how Iraq turned out, but not really repentant, and b.) in favor of a “pro-family” welfare state, then he already has much of what he wants, since Ramesh Ponnuru, David Frum, Ross Douthat, David Brooks, and a host of neoconservatives already affirm a program exactly like that. Hell, Karl Rove belongs in that category, too. These are the most prominent names in “conservative” print media, and fairly influential voices within the Beltway. They would all complain that the grassroots aren’t on board with their “moderate” military welfarism — the grassroots are too brusque, too bumptious, too worked up about Obama’s birth certificate and illegal immigration. But the grassroots Right is in the state it’s in thanks in no small part to the likes of Ponnuru, Frum, Douthat, and Brooks. Since their program of welfare for families doesn’t inspire anyone, their political allies wind up having to whip up enthusiasm for the military side of the program, and have to throw in some red meat about gays, immigrants, and abortion. But the NY-DC axis have no cause to complain, since that’s the only way to sell the public on their insipid welfare-warfare program. He who wills the end must will the means. The only means toward getting the Right to embrace the welfare state is to get the Right hopped up about real wars or culture wars. But that’s precisely what has cost the Right political power over the last four years.
In short, the moderates created the extremists. And now they’re just proposing more of the same. Mencken may have said that no one ever went bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the American people, but in this case I think the people have a lot more sense than media mod-cons. If they want welfare, they’ll get it from the experts — the liberals.
Filed under: Ideology, Politics, Uncategorized
I don’t follow Tanenhaus and I never really thought about the Iraq angle. Then I googled and found this gem at TAC:
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2009/02/12/tanenhaus-i-vs-tanenhaus-ii-on-the-neocons-conservatives-or-radicals/
and this at HNN:
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/44335.html
And I’m convinced he was carrying Neocon water in this piece I came across panning TAC’s launch. It’s basically a forerunner of Unpatriotic Conservatives: http://www.slate.com/id/2071908/
Tanenhaus is just a neocon trying to further narrow the bounds of “respectable debate” whilst lending credibility to his ideological buddy David “An End to Evil” Frum:
“A serious conservative like David Frum knows this, and has spoken up. It is remarkable how few others have. The moon party is being yanked ever farther onto its marginal orbit.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/214253
How interesting it is that those of us who opposed Iraq (correctly), government spending (correctly), and government involvement in housing (correctly) are of “the moon party”. Beltway hacks of the Frumian persuasion ran the government last 8 years and led us to the worst disaster in 70+ years and yet Tanenhaus & Co do not deem us “serious conservatives”. In a sane world the arrogant blindness of our FAILED rulers and court intellectuals alone would elicit an “extremist” reaction.
But alas “We are [still] trapped, in America, inside a Menshevik fantasy, with the narrow bounds of respectable debate set for us by various brands of Marxists ” http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch1.html (Yup I love that speech)
As I wrote before in the TAC post Conservative INC., so long as those in the establishment right refuse to admit any mistakes or take any responsibilities for their errors, then it’s hard for them to criticize the “base” for being radicalized. When you feel you’ve been lied too, when you feel marginalized and put upon, when you feel let down and when you feel like you’ve given the bill for the party you never were allowed into, yeah you’re going to be angry, you’re going to be cynical, and you’re going to go down the radical path because you feel it’s the only one not taken, yet.
It’s hard being a part of the alt. right watching all of this unfold. On the one hand you agree with those dissident establishmentarians about the sleazy hucksterism of Conservative INC., and the dark paths its leading the “base” down. And yet you know they’re as much to blame for all of this, blame they refuse to take responsibility for (and as Austin Bramwell says, don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen). They used the “base” to support their war and their attempts to turn the U.S into a police state and now have discarded them like yesterday’s junk mail.
All we can do in the alt. right is hope once the anger burns itself out (and it will), that those looking to be for something rather than be at a perpetual boil, will give us a look and leave the establishment that uses and abuses them behind.
You are so right, Sean. That’s why this time is so crucial for conservatism, we must fight to expose the neocons to the base and radicalize them into the truth of restoring our Republic.
It’s nauseating that David Frum is trying to maneuver himself into becoming the so-called “reasonable” voice of conservatism
Thanks for kind comments Jihad.
[...] relationship of conservative elites and their grassroots supporters. Here at TAC, Dan McCarthy has argued that it is the Republican welfarism of ‘moderates’ and ‘reformists’ that requires and [...]