Posted on 05/22/2008 11:06:22 PM PDT by The_Republican
George Packer of The New Yorker has penned the latest in a long line (reaching back many decades) of obituaries for conservatism. Like so many in the genre, it consists of a description of a movement in the midst of intellectual turmoil, searching for ways to apply its basic insights about government, human nature, and the culture to changing times, and it takes this turmoil to be a sign of decay or self-destruction. Packer discusses some of the younger conservatives (he mentions Ramesh Ponnuru, Ross Douthat, and Reihan Salam, among other examples) who are working to apply conservative principles and insights to the moment we’re living in, and yet he takes these signs, too, to suggest only gloom and doom for the Right. He points to intellectual fatigue (a phrase he quotes me using in the piece) but not to promising signs of resurgence and revitalization.
Let me suggest two things he might have noted. First of all, the kind of intellectual turmoil and self-searching he cites would be almost unimaginable on the left, today or at most points in the past half century. Conservatism is an intellectual movement in a way that American liberalism generally hasn’t been. For a long time, American liberals could draw their ideas from the European Left, and from the socialist experiment. The fall of communism—which certainly ended an era for the Right, and left many conservatives searching for a clear purpose—was far more of a challenge to the Left, and one the left has yet to recover from, or even fully engage. Clintonian triangulation helped pass the time for a while in the 90’s, and anti-Bushism has helped since, but what is the worldview underlying Obama’s and Clinton’s platforms today? The relative absence of heated arguments about that question on the left is not a sign of strength.
Second, he might note the character of the Democratic resurgence in Congress, evident in 2006 and in the much-discussed triad of Republican defeats this year. The general pattern suggests a concerted effort by the Democrats to recruit socially conservative but economically populist candidates to run against Republicans. This is a smart tactic for building strength in Congress (engineered largely by Rahm Emmanuel, a former Clinton lieutenant) but it is hardly a sign of strength for the Left (which has come to define itself first and foremost in cultural terms in recent years), or of weakness for conservatism. Democrat Travis Childers, who won a once-secure Republican seat in Mississippi last week, took every possible opportunity to describe himself as “pro-life and pro-gun” and to distance himself from Barack Obama. What so many are (so annoyingly) calling the Republican “brand” is indeed in trouble, for a variety of reasons, related especially to voter concerns about competence. But the Democrats’ effort to capitalize on this opportunity has involved making the Congressional Democratic party more, not less, conservative. And when Republicans finally wake up, their response will be to become more conservative too, especially on fiscal matters. If that’s a fall, let’s start falling.
There is no question that American conservatism is trying to retool and redirect itself to new challenges; and this process is messy and in many respects quite unpleasant. It will also take time. But to mistake these efforts for a fall is to reveal a preference for cohesion over substance. A preference for cohesion is certainly one problem the American right has never suffered from—but it’s far from clear that this is such a bad thing, or that conservatism is doomed. Cheer up.
“Not Quite Dead - Conservatism still alive and kicking”
Just no longer required or desired in “the other democrat party” formerly known as the Republican Party.
Yep.
This is compounded by the fact or elections namely or primaries are no longer about choosing someone based on platform and record but rather superstitions like a congressman can't win POTUS. It goes from there to a beauty pageant. The only answer to end the madness with the national POTUS primaries is to make them just that. All parties contending for office of POTUS should have primary elections held the same day in all states preferably in August of election year. To the parties that don't hold primaries require that their candidate be qualified to be on state ballots by the August primary. This will stop the insane stupidity of New Years primaries and foolish antics of egomaniacs like Rush from encouraging disruption of the primary process.
I think if the primaries had been held the same day this election cycle McCain would not be in the picture even as a VP possibility.
I hope you aren’t suggesting the government mandate the primary setup.
And it should be noted that even the “conservatives” running now are more just Nanny-Staters than conservatives.
“I think if the primaries had been held the same day this election cycle McCain would not be in the picture even as a VP possibility.”
We’d likely have wound up with Huckaloser. But I do agree that the primary system as it is is broken and in dire need of overhaul.
If every primary was held on the same day, it might just cause more of a homogenous voting pattern, as well as give the media even more power in how the effect voting. Ideally it would allow a larger diversity among voters, and clearly take away the ridiculous importance of Iowa and New Hampshire, but conversely could allow the media to completely tilt the election in favor of one candidate. I support the idea of voting into August; the election process starts so early it distracts from that which is more important: the implementation of policy and having congressman actually focusing on the jobs they were already elected to.
It's either that or every state is going to have to make January 1 as primary day on their own free will or it's voters be left out of the process entirely. The idea is to get the actual will of the people and not the will of several liberal ststes who have early primaries.
Maybe or who knows someone else may have stepped up had the entry timing been more reasonable.
I do find it odd though. I'm from GOP stronghold East Tennessee mostly conservative voters here actually. I saw more Ron Paul signs than any other persons combined including Fred Thompson. They were in peoples front yards Big Signs too. Before anyone says something silly I'll add to this that Congressman Jimmy Duncan is pretty close to Ron Paul on issues including Iraq. His congressional seat is very safe. Actually Duncan was approached by the Constitution Party too. Indeed Conservatism is not dead but the GOP is trying to kill it though as is the MSM.
I am in a rural area of “Moscow on the the Columbia” also known as Washington State and I saw one heck of a lot of Ron Paul signs around here, I even saw families walking the streets with Huckabee signs.
I never saw and still do not see any visible support for McGore.
(as far as the Conservative Party goes, I am likely voting for Chuck Baldwin this year)
Conservative Party = Constitution Party.....ugh, bedtime.
I'll be voting for him as well. After 1996 I can't vote a straight party GOP ticket any more. Voting for Dole pretty well cured me of that. I got so disgusted with the 1996 Convention I turned the channel after Christie got done surrendering the GOP platform to the Democratic Party.
I’m always amused when liberals say conservatives have run out of ideas. The statement is a fraud for one big reason: conservatism is a perpetual, self-contained idea. Conservatives don’t have to keep coming up with new ideas. The program of only using government as a last resort as a solution to problems is a conservative theme that will never die. But the idea that liberals are brimming with wonderful, new ideas is a sick joke anyway. Libs only have one main rule: extract as much wealth from the producers of wealth as possible and give it to the nonproducers.
Levin makes excellent points here.
If the Republican party and or John McLames platform pushes amnesty for ILLEGALs it will be the death of the Republican party for me and I am sure millions more folks.
“What so many are (so annoyingly) calling the Republican “brand” is indeed in trouble, for a variety of reasons..”
W did the heavy lifting on the war of terror and isn’t getting any credit for winning. War weariness is a large part of the problem. Only a dose of leftism and another terrorist attack will dispel the delusion that the war on terror, and the Iraq front, was unnecessary.
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