Posted on 01/16/2013 6:42:50 AM PST by Kaslin
It's hard for a lot of people, particularly on the right, to recognize that the conservative movement's problems are mostly problems of success. The Republican Party's problems are much more recognizable as the problems of failure, including the failure to recognize the limits of that movement's success.
American conservatism began as a kind of intellectual hobbyist's group with little hope of changing the broader society. Albert Jay Nock, the cape-wearing libertarian intellectual -- he called himself a "philosophical anarchist" -- who inspired a very young William F. Buckley Jr., argued that political change was impossible because the masses were rubes, goons, fools or sheep, victims of the eternal tendency of the powerful to exploit the powerless.
Buckley, who rightly admired Nock for many things, rightly disagreed on this point. Buckley trusted the people more than the intellectuals. Moreover, as Buckley's friend Richard Weaver said, "ideas have consequences" and, consequently, it is possible to rally the public to your cause.
It took time. In an age when conservative books make millions, it's hard to imagine how difficult it once was to get a right-of-center book published. Henry L. Regnery, the founder of the publishing house that bears his name, started his venture to break the wall of groupthink censorship surrounding the publishing industry. With a few exceptions, Regnery was the only game in town for decades.
That's hardly the case anymore. While there's a higher bar for conservative authors at mainstream publishers (which remain overwhelmingly liberal), profit tends to trump ideology.
And publishing is a lagging indicator. In cable news, think tanks, talk radio and, of course, the Internet, conservatives have at least rough parity with, and often superiority to, liberals. It's only in the legacy institutions -- newspapers, the broadcast networks and most especially academia and Hollywood -- where conservatism is still largely frozen out. Nonetheless, conservatism is a mass-market enterprise these days, for good and for ill.
The good is obvious. The ill is less understood. For starters, the movement has an unhealthy share of hucksters eager to make money from stirring rage, paranoia and an ill-defined sense of betrayal with little concern for the real political success that can only come with persuading the unconverted.
A conservative journalist or activist can now make a decent living while never once bothering to persuade a liberal. Telling people only what they want to hear has become a vocation. Worse, it's possible to be a rank-and-file conservative without once being exposed to a good liberal argument. Many liberals lived in such an ideological cocoon for decades, which is one reason conservatives won so many arguments early on. Having the right emulate that echo chamber helps no one.
Ironically, the institution in which conservatives had their greatest success is the one most besieged by conservatives today: the Republican Party. To listen to many grassroots conservatives, the GOP establishment is a cabal of weak-kneed sellouts who regularly light votive candles to a poster of liberal Republican icon Nelson Rockefeller.
This is not only not true, it's a destructive myth. The Rockefeller Republicans were purged from the GOP decades ago. Their high-water mark was in 1960, when the Goldwater insurgency was temporarily crushed. Richard Nixon agreed to run on a platform all but dictated by Rockefeller and to tap Rockefeller's minion Henry Cabot Lodge as his running mate. When the forebears of today's tea partiers threatened to stay home or bolt the party in 1960, Sen. Barry Goldwater proclaimed, "Let's grow up, conservatives!"
It's still good advice. It's not that the GOP isn't conservative enough, it's that it isn't tactically smart or persuasive enough to move the rest of the nation in a more conservative direction. Moreover, thanks in part to the myth that all that stands between conservatives and total victory is a philosophically pure GOP, party leaders suffer from a debilitating lack of trust -- some of it well earned -- from the rank and file.
But politics is about persuasion, and a party consumed by the need to prove its purity to its base is going to have a very hard time proving anything else to the rest of the country.
Time to replace the GOP
Let me think about it.
Not buying it.
The GOP is composed of a collection of limp-wristed do nothings whose shortcomings are exceeded only by the even more talentless “things” currently living in the cesspool called the democratic party.
I have withdrawn my membership from the GOP and will no longer give them any funds. Perhaps we have to enter the full stall and go into a spin for a while, but we’ve got no choice, given the lack of talent, ability, creativity and morality of both parties.
Hopefully, we can pull out of the soon to come spin before CW-II starts.
Jonah’s flat-out wrong here with respect to the GOP - the party has no use for conservatives, outside of demanding “tribute” in the way of votes and donations. If left to its own devices, the party would not make any push in favor of any significant conservative causes.
He’s right about the number of hucksters in the conservative orbit, though — I’d lump Hannity and the Huckster himself in this category, and Coulter has become more of a saleslady for the party than for conservatism.
Jonah’s flat-out wrong here with respect to the GOP - the party has no use for conservatives, outside of demanding “tribute” in the way of votes and donations. If left to its own devices, the party would not make any push in favor of any significant conservative causes.
He’s right about the number of hucksters in the conservative orbit, though — I’d lump Hannity and the Huckster himself in this category, and Coulter has become more of a saleslady for the party than for conservatism.
But we (rightly, I think) believe they are just looking for anything that will keep them in power. Minority power is OK as long as they hold office. So we don't trust them to have the right goal, and we don't accept their compromise.
I'll grow up, Jonah, when I'm certain I'm playing with adults.
The GOP and conservatives especially don’t really have a future and this is why.
WHITE VOTE IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
2012: 72% of electorate, Romney 59, Obama 39
2008: 74% of electorate, McCain 55, Obama 43
2004: 77% of electorate, Bush 58, Kerry 41
2000: 81% of electorate, Bush 55, Gore 42
1996: 83% of electorate, Dole 46, Clinton 44 (Perot 9)
1992: 87% of electorate, Bush 41, Clinton 39 (Perot 21)
1988: 85% of electorate, Bush 60, Dukakis 40
1984: 86% of electorate, Reagan 66, Mondale 34
1980: 88% of electorate, Reagan 56, Carter 36 (Anderson 8)
1976: 89% of electorate, Ford 52, Carter 48
AVERAGE DEMOCRATIC WHITE VOTE SHARE: 40.6%
Sorry, Jonah. You may have missed it, but the party just ran a Progressive Democrat for President and dragged the party to the electoral depths in the process.
He was enabled in this process by a party leadership and apparatus determined to choke off conservative opposition. The Speaker of the House threatened conservative members with, in essence, desertion by the national party for daring to commit the sin of representing their constituents.
Republican leadership is a weak-kneed, vacillating mass of moderation and 'compromise', deliberately out of touch with the populist wave that catapulted it into national influence.
Rockefeller Republicans have not been purged from the Republican Party. In essence, they ARE the Republican Party.
Jonah Goldberg is yet another example of nepotism destroying conservatism.
The Fox News Green Room is a generator of RINO isotopes that weaken the will and corrode faith in conservative principles...
...nah, just more money in being a GOP-e sellout and JG ain't selling as many books as before...freekin' hypocrite.
and this is the money line...
The good is obvious. The ill is less understood. For starters, the movement has an unhealthy share of hucksters eager to make money from stirring rage, paranoia and an ill-defined sense of betrayal with little concern for the real political success that can only come with persuading the unconverted.
my case in point is the fubocare ruling...
while fubocare sucks, and i detest it, this ruling was a victory for constitution minded people everywhere, if it was just read and examined..
the talking heads on the radio proclaimed that we were betrayed, and that we lost, that the people who are actually helping fight off the libs are traitors..
I believe this attitude in turn spawned a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness, and that people decided that going to the polls would do nothing to help, so they decided to just stay home...
Now, if the talking heads had stated this law sucks, but went on to reveal the bars of gold hidden in this ruling, the people would instead have realized that the good fight is being fought, that we have people who are dedicated to returning to constitutionalism, and that sometimes you need to take a step back in order to go forward, the masses may have turned out to vote, and we just may have been able to overturn fubocare, keeping the bars of gold in the ruling intact..
but, the talking heads have ratings to uphold, and they mean far more than the advancement of conservative principals....
you have been betrayed, not by roberts, but by the talking heads who are indeed entertainers first, republicans second, and everything else follows....
Boehner and McConnell are pathetic.
RINORomney and all his little RINOs were and have been attacking any and all Conservatives in the party since the MIDDLE of McCain’s run in ‘08!
Purgeing Conservatives is an ineffective strategy, you see.
THAT’s why the (spit)GOP loses.
Again, and again, you see.
Ask for $$$$$—then, please PLEASE just go awwaaaay.
In ‘12, Conservatives did.
Hence—the result.
Happy now, RINOs???
Jonah needs to get a major clue. In the House of Representatives, where Conservatives are hanging on by their fingernails, you can count on the fingers of both hands the number of Reps that have the balls to do what needs to be done.
The national GOP is next to worthless. They didn’t stand up on Bengahzi, they didn’t stand up on the fiscal cliff and it looks like they won’t stand up on the debt limit. What else is there? Worthless SOBs.
I’m sure the GOP doesn’t like hearing that kind of talk. Too bad they won’t be honest. Even with themselves.
The GOP is begging us to replace them.
Jonah is just another blind insider. The country would be vastly better off if Washington D.C. and it’s destructive legislation disappeared.
I’m lucky to have one of those congressman I agree with more than I disagree. (by a wide margin).
I’ve got plenty of complaints about the GOP-e but only one for some conservatives. My only complaint with conservatives is the attitude that 1 vote we disagree with makes a congressman a traitor to conservatism. Michele Bachmann voted in favor of ethanol subsidies as a freshman but that hardly puts her in the same category as a Fred Upton or John Boehner.
My rule of thumb is that if I agree with any politician 100% of the time, one of us is lying.
I've read some really dumb lines since the election, and the one above has got to be in the top 5.
Using Romney as an example, Romney's problem, we're being told here, wasn't that he was a pro-gay, squishi life, big government, gun grabbing, Benghazi overlooking, conflict avoiding liberal. This says his problem was that he couldn't persuade the rest of the nation.
Horse hockey....he couldn't persuade conservatives.
And what was he trying to persuade the nation of....that a Massachusetts liberal is far better than a Kenyan liberal???
Jonah beclowns himself....he just another tool for the lobby.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.