Ahh yes the fever dream of so-called libertarians. Well it never amounted to much because the right merely exchanged an ill-founded notion that the Feds are the devil but were completely fine with loading on every kind of coercive law at the state level.
7
As a libertarian I love some of the Democratic agenda but I hate most of the democratic criminals
Conservatives and big government. Gilead here we come.
5
"Already-liberal institutions — universities, Hollywood, the big foundations and the mass media — are now more uniformly allied with the left than even the very recent past."
Oral Roberts University, ...
Mercer Family Foundation, ...
Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, ...
Fox, Rush, ...
What is Ross talking about? The list of right-wing allied institutions and people goes on and on.
8
So, in short, conservative thought all these years has been wrong and is essentially what wrought the world of Trump. Got it.
4
I query the basis of this argument. The GOP, & especially conservative Christians, have been worming their way into government for decades: it starts at the local level & squirms its way up to state & the federal. It's where the teabags came from & why they were so powerful. It's why SCOTUS is tilted to the far right & is responsible for the repeal of the Voter Registration Act & the Citizens United decision. The big difference now is that its participants used to be sincere whereas they currently support someone who should be abhorrent to their values.
2
You'd have to go back to George H. W. Bush to find a Republican president who elected not to increase military spending. Let's get real here. The era of limited government died long before Trump came around.
4
The New York Times really has to think about the people it’s allowing to write has its headliners in the opinion section. Consistently it’s conservative and right wing writers sound like people from a completely different time and space then the reality that is happening .
I am 60 years old and have 12 years of post secondary education, Brett and Ross sound like my father’s pundits. Laughable. If the New York Times wants to reach the modern audience they need to stop playing both sides against the middle, And actually show they know what they’re talking about.
4
What happened to the Tea Party which dogged both Obama's terms in office? Weren't they supposed to be conservatives in the truest form? American conservatives like the state just fine so long as a Republican is in office expanding the government. The problem isn't about Republican conservatism, but Republican hypocrisy. The Republicans are so hypocritical in their politics they can't see straight, much less craft policy that actually portends to support their rhetoric.
15
Terms such as fascism and communism get thrown around too freely these days, but the aura of fascism sure does hang over these new conservative thinkers like a dark, ominous cloud. Yes, now celebrate the big state acting for the common good, for the moral values that the Catholic and evangelical hierarchies, the Republican party, and conservative intellectuals have so conspicuously failed to enshrine. As so often, Douthat tries to blame liberals, but for him, it's a fairly halfhearted attempt (and is that a hint of recognition that conservative condemnation of unions might not have been such a great idea after all?). His issue isn't so much with the largely liberal readership of the Times on this occasion; it's with his conservative colleagues and possibly with himself. Why indeed have conservative values, with all that money and power behind them, failed so largely? What does it say that a growing number of conservatives apparently are deciding that they don't care all that much for the bedrock conservative value of freedom anymore? And truly what does it say that some conservative intellectuals now see their role as systematizing and prettifying the pretensions and impulses of Donald Trump? It's like the gradual triumph of the pod people in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers: poor Ross Douthat, like Dr. Miles Bennell, may end up being the last conservative left, desperately shouting warnings to anyone who'll listen.
7
Having had Trump run the government should make everyone to the right of AOC want a smaller government.
In failed states, criminal groups sometimes provide some forms of public services as a recruiting and PR tool. Where that is happening here, we need more government. Where it is not, we should probably think twice.
1
If the "good old days" these Conservatives are trying to revive is the 1950s Ozzie & Harriet decade of 70% income taxes on the rich and high membership in unions, then I might be able to get behind some of it.
9
Limited government has been just another phrase for states' rights, privilege, and private property/enterprise. Otherwise, can anyone truly say American society is economically better off today than it was 40 years ago?
Now that 'starve the beast' has done its worst and even so-called 'conservative values' are getting tiresome out (and we still have social security), government has been rendered corrupt and dysfunctional. Yet, it still won't die -- at least not according to a new wave of Democrats.
Now that private enterprise has monetized just about everything in life, and even our hobbies, automobiles, homes and personal information have been made into marketable transactions, where is that big payoff society was promised. Instead, we're left with twice as much work as time saved, a few dollars to offset thousands in higher housing costs, and personal information that can be used against us even without our knowledge.
Like offshoring and globalization before, the sharing economy has turned into one big transfer of wealth while leaving enormous costs for society to bare.
Small government or big government -- just give us a government that works for society.
4
Big vs small government isn't the issue given the country's current size. We're just too big to have DC reach down into every nook and cranny of the country - that model has failed. More DC government is just a growth plan for Maryland and Virginia.
Texas isn't California which isn't New York. Let Sacramento and Albany and Austin keep and spend more of their own money. In 1940, CA and Texas had a bit over six million people each and now look at them.
California's housing issues are not Vermont's. Our need for ever stricter pollution controls and water infrastructure in Los Angeles are not for Montana. Debate high speed rail all you want but clearly we need more transportation options that Iowa doesn't call for.
Let's have smarter, far more de-centralized government. Let's allow a wide range of approaches to be tried and let resources and plans reflect our diversity of needs. Not big, not small government but government at a scale that works.
8
It's a tad early to write of conservatives winning the White House and Congress, Ross. The GOP deserves ongoing electoral punishment for the mortal sin of giving us, and worse, still supporting Trump. It will be a long time before this Independent centrist votes for any Republican candidate for even the most minor office. I am proud that my much-maligned state has now become competitive.
6
Congratulations, Ross! You’re a Whig! Your new party ceased to exist 155 years ago which makes you 300 years more modern than most talk radio “Conservatives.”
8
"Yet conservatives can still win the White House and the Congress."
Scary. Look how "conservatives," being generous here, consistently make life harder for the masses. And send us into debt for the Democrats to turn those messes around.
1
"Yet conservatives can still win the White House and the Congress, which means that the one power center they can hope to control is the one they are notionally organized to limit — the administrative state."
I'm not normally on the reform-the-electoral-college bandwagon, but if the electorate and the remaining strong social institutions are moving leftward, how can this be considered democratic? The hypocrisy of conservatives that espouse the credo of limited government while seeking greater control of people's personal lives and the erosion of congressional power in favor of a new imperial presidency has driven me out of the Republican party. They chastise the lazy working class with bootstrap-ethics while loosening regulations and rewriting the tax code to benefit large corporations. They claim old-fashioned, usually Christian, values and then turn away asylum seekers and separate families. They pay lip-service to the Constitution while shredding it to achieve their shortsighted aims.
I've been a libertarian-leaning conservative most of my life, but the populist rhetoric of recent years has affected me, I think. It hasn't driven me towards Trump and the Trump-a-likes in Congress with their reality-distorting politics of hate, but more towards progressives like Sanders and Warren. The game is being rigged--by Republicans!
6
Freedom or equality? Which do you prefer? I prefer freedom.
2
Define your terms.
1
IMHO most commenters are embroiled in the minutiae of the day and are missing the larger point. Neither Democrat nor Republican platforms are sustainable e.g. AOC.v Pelosi. At some point they will realign into two factions: those who want government control over their everyday lives in service of the "general welfare" (as they define general welfare) and those who (to the greatest extent possible) want government out of their lives. Liberal and conservative no longer have any meaning.
1
I read columns like this to challenge my own thinking, but end up scratching my head. Conservatives wax nostalgic for a "communitarian" past where the small government allowed the economically, racially, and gender privileged free rein to shape culture and community. Somehow they completely gloss over the fact the community wasn't very inclusive, and a whole lot of people (women, people of color, LGBTQ...) weren't exactly happy with being excluded from community and from political or cultural power. Corporate greed polluted our water, air, and land, and bestowed the legacy of climate change on the entire living community of planet earth. This article poses the entire political debate about government as a zero sum game instead of a complex dance of human interaction - a game that he imagines conservatives winning. Fascism light?
8
The size of national governments is predicated on the size of international commerce, something rarely discussed in these pages. Markets are aligned to maximize the wealth of shareholders, many of whom may not be citizens, and therefore disinterested in the role of any particular national government, be it Democratic or Republican so long as it doesn't inhibit their profits.
Limited government is ill-equipped to deal with the economic pressures of global trade on this nation's citizens and it is quixotic to believe that a return to a mythical past will solve our present disillusions. Until conservatives reconcile themselves to that fact, their understanding of government will continue to be informed merely to its ability to oppress.
1
No, no, no... Government and its intrusive reach should be severely limited. Government should provide for only the state's basic need and individuals should fend for themselves. Government should never be or become the great equalizer. Freedom is infinitely more important than equality.
4
The era of limited government was over in 1928 - J. W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States, 276 U.S. 394 (1928) - when Congress outsourced its Art 1 Sec 1 legislative responsibility to the Executive Branch and created the "imperial presidency."
Baloney. A fascist is a fascist is a fascist.
4
The era of small government ended in 1945. The era of Luntzian spin, which may have confused this author, has morphed into trumpian nonsense and the cognitive dissonance is obviously disorienting his current thinking. As for the historical illiteracy, he needs to read Kurt Andersen’s “Fantasyland”, and get with the program.
The question is whether Republicans will be in office; if they are, then government will be evil.
2
"Conservatism" is dead. Coffin nail pounded.
Long live Trump Fake TV, Fox News and (speaking of coffins), Lincoln Spinning at Light Speed.
Call me not-so-subtle, but I always thought "small government" was a con, since small government hasn't existed since the time of Jefferson. Why should we need small government, when corporations are gigantic, populations of many countries have exploded, economies have grown many times greater and the problems of pollution, poverty, and public health are far more complex and consequential than they were in the nineteenth century? In other words, we need big government because all the problems we have now are bigger than they were back then.
The reason I call the "small government" philosophy a con is because it appears to be really about letting big business and the rich get away with despoiling the environment and ripping off consumers. Prime examples: the 2008 bankster fraud and Trump's evisceration of environmental regulations.
Yes, certain companies do well without regulations, but you will find that, even in the medium term, getting rid of regulations is far more costly in terms of people's health, poor quality of life, financial instability, and economic productivity. Look at Canada, we survived 2008 in much better shape, with a more regulated bank sector than the U.S. Canadians are healthier, and live longer than Americans, while spending less per capita on health care with a system of universal medicare. You've basically been bamboozled by a long line of conservative con men.
6
Increasing equity and justice as a common good cannot be achieved without a social democratic public sector to address and substantially limit the inequities caused by capitalism. Some form of social democracy in America is possible; establishing democratic socialism to replace capitalism is delusional. Even a public sector social democracy in the American market economy would be a very radical change. In other capitalist countries, however, it is common. Many European countries have various forms of social democracy, some for over 70 years. It hard to find democratic socialist countries because they don’t exist.
3
@Arthur T. Himmelman This confuses safety nets with capitalist regulation. Many European economies actually have less regulation.
The claim that small government was at the center of conservatism was always balderdash. You can find huge business subsidies all over, for many many years.
3
It was over when Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex, and the increasing corporate welfare.
6
A great article. But Douthat's image, or hope, of "American businessmen [women too? or just the men?] basically public spirited, eager to compete on equal terms once government removes its heavy hand" is an image of something that never was.
Religion, convention and civil society have never tamed the worst excesses of American businesses. Yes there have been good businesspeople, but there has never been a systematically self-policing business sector in America.
From slave plantations to the robber barons, violent strike-breaking mining companies to polluting oil conglomerates, rip-off tax cheats of investment banks and everything in between: they have all been reined only by government.
Churches and lion's clubs don't stop monopolies, pollution, labor exploitation and fraud. Sound government regulation in the public interest is the only thing that ever has.
6
"Instead limited government conservatism may give way to an attempt to improve on Trumpism with a clearer blueprints and smarter cadres..." The use of "clearer blueprints" implies that Trumpism has some sort of blueprint it has been operating from. From what has come out of his administration it's hard to see much of any premeditated scheme. Unless the plan was make-it-up-as-he-goes-fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants.
3
Hilarious. American "conservatives" have never been for limited government".
They are activists for government intervention in society and the economy that above all serves their interests, law and constitution be damned. "Originalism" preached by Scalia fro example, means "invented on the spot for Republican advantage".
3
Republican "conservatives" have spent the past 40 years making life more difficult for American families. They have decimated unions; kept minimum wages as low as possible; fought against healthcare reform; cut taxes on the wealthy multiple times and driven up the national debt; fought every government program that benefits working people; replaced pensions with stock crap-shoots; increased military spending; eliminated government regulations on workers' rights and the environment; rewritten the 2nd Amendment against all precedent and ignoring have its language to flood our streets with AK-47's; made corporations people with religious rights; gutted the voter rights laws and worked to suppress the votes of people; and concentrated the wealth of the country in the top few at the expense of working families.
As for religion that Ross thinks brings us together, they have turned evangelicals into supporters of immoral politicians by using propaganda and wedge issues to convince working people to vote against their own best interests. The Catholic church has been shown to be a cesspool of immoral behavior and coverups.
Corporations are not uniting; they are "religious people" with no civic responsibility that work to further concentrate wealth in the few at the expense of their workers and their community.
Republicans limit government only as it applies to working people. They like government that benefits the military, corporations, and the very wealthy.
6
Great, so now that you’ve managed to demonize and destroy government and any “collectivist” institutions...now that you’ve completely surrendered all power to the handful of rapacious billionaires who have sucked the money and the life out of the families and the individuals that make up this nation.... you’ve finally come around to accepting what Democrats have know all along, and been fighting tooth and nail to enact: that government has a role to enact and enforce laws that protect the weak from the powerful and criminal, and that represent what we have come to know as Justice or Fairness. Welcome to the party, even if you are very very late....and the party is over...and the hangover has just begun.
2
So it’s the communitarian, civic dreams of conservatives that have caused them to block all attempts to allow the big, bad Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with the poor, terrified pharmaceutical companies.
And maybe now that central government is no longer the enemy, but can be an ally in building the beloved community, Republicans will vote in favor of a bill allowing such negotiation. Oh, wait...
Maybe it was conservatives’ communitarian dreams that caused them to support states’ rights in addressing the needs of their black residents, without any nasty federal interference. Yes, I’m aware that some of these conservatives were Democrats as well as Republicans.
I could go on. Mr. Doubthat has a rose-colored glass view of the history of conservatism.
The “vanguard socialists” he snipes at are working at reestablishing community ties via grass-roots organizing and building the beloved community in places conservatives won’t even go. Will Mr. Douthat support their efforts?
2
Hey, Ross--- got any synonyms for "less inchoate"?
What does that actually mean?
Please write plain.
Ask Steve King or Charles Grassley if they’re ready to deny billions of Federal tax largesse to their soy bean, corn-farming, pig raising, constituents.
Republicans, conservative or otherwise, love big government as much as the Left, just sending the dollars to different recipients is all.
Not one of them has measurably shrunk the federal government in the last 50 years. Not. One.
3
I think we are talking about Fascism here and in it's clerico Fascist variety ( where the Catholic Church establishes the values that the party bullies enforce with Castor oil) Ross is the best example that there is. When we read that that Fascist Italy came to ship thousands of Jews to death camps as an act of friendship for Hitler, this is the model Ross wants for America.
4
Totalitarianism is coming to America, left, right, and center. Civic society falters ever more as the divisions between rich and poor widen. Racial unrest is stoked each day in the press. A coming apocalypse is preached by the climate change activists who tell you with a straight face that we have 12 - not 11 or 13– years until it strikes. Republican buffoons in the White House declare an imaginary immigration emergency while our fiscal emergency of 22 trillion in the deficit is hardly mentioned. Please also ignore that the year is 1984 in China and they are currently performed genocide on a Muslim minority. Alright back to work.
2
Mr. Douthat:
A truly silly column. Conservatives are defending an "unwritten constitution". I always thought that the original constitution was a political covenant that precluded such acts of treason ever taking root. If you believe in such unjustifiable tripe why don't you just put it writing? Is it, perhaps, that it might contradict the original in ways that might seem less than democratic?
So much for all those conservative defenders of constitutional fundamentalism. If you believe any of this you are a fool. The only way to improve on Trumpism is to bury it
as a relic of an shameful past. You are not only off base here, you are defending fascism.
5
This essay is so blind, so arrogant as to be almost beyond belief.
Conservatives seek to control the government administration because they use it to CHEAT - to gerrymander, to suppress voters, to stack courts. They have run the table on "state-as-enemy", adopting the most sensational, mob-stirring rhetoric possible regardless of truth or benefit to convince just enough voters that Godless "lib-ruls" are using the power of government to destroy America, kill babies, impose perverse racial, sexual and gender mores, flood the country with brown people and raise taxes on 'good' people to pay for it.
Trump having taken these ravings from Tea Party foolishness to white supremacist threats and anticonstitutional actions, Douthat suggest that this tactic be replaced by "state-as-shaper". But who gets 'shaped"? The people that "the corporatists want tamed and marginalized, just as Douthat writes. The GOP wants the corporate gusher to continue to fill their pockets while they repeat profitable, "progressive propaganda" lies to "younger customers", to women, to people of color, to gay Americans - anyone that the GOP seeks to oppress but who buys corporate products.
The GOP is not interested in "balancing" economic opportunity - their tax bill shows precisely who they favor, by region and wealth class. They have defecated on "the national political integrity".
Bush and Trump have been figureheads for vicious spoils-taking and incipient fascism. Conservatives own the rot.
3
Something is backwards here -- when George Washington was in politics it may have made sense to allow more Federal action. Nowadays politicians are largely unqualified twits and fakes, media creations, and we should be limiting them accordingly. For example, Federal science funding has turned into identity science and corporate welfare in recent years with this crowd.
1
“If you wanted to summarize the intellectual uncertainties of conservatives in the Trump era, you could say that the right is trying to figure out whether the unwritten American constitution it imagines itself defending still exists.”
The author neglects to point out that conservatives in the Trump era are simultaneously and somewhat contemptuously violating the written Constitution.
The willingness to set aside the Constitution out of concern for GOP party unity is emblemic of the utter failure of conservatuve thought to empower anything other than kleptocrats. We’re a long, long way from the GOP of Ike, Nixon, and Ford.
2
Oh Ross, Ross. You adorable little child, you. What made you ever think the GOP was for limited government?
What was limited about Bush's trillion dollar wars? What was limited about his torture program? What was limited about the curtailment of freedoms and mass surveillance authorized by the Patriot Act he signed?
What's limited about an establishment of religion (man on death row denied non-Christian clergy at execution)? What's limited about trying to control women's bodies? What's limited about a wall on our southern border? What's limited about the exploding deficit that Republicans only care about when the president's a Democrat?
What, in short, is limited about "conservative" hypocrisy?
3
There are two parties in this country : and each one works for the oligarchy. (who is the oligarchy? : big business , big money- the power elite )
That’s all there is and all you need to know . (Skip Douthat , Friedman , Brooke. etc. ) My way is quicker and cheaper .
2
3 random thoughts inspired by this article:
This "state power conservatism" sounds to me like a hypocritical way for Conservatives, who claim to want to limit "Big Government" in people lives, to justify using the power of the state to stop women from being able to choose abortions and to stop gays from being able to marry.
Hitler's early appeal, both within Germany and with sympathizers in other countries, including the USA and UK, was that he was going to use the power of the state to unify society specifically for putting it back onto a more prosperous economic path. That's partly how he got his foot in the door (along with a lot of other tricks, including the murder of his opponents).
Lastly, the mythic American past these authors look back to sounds like that old TV show, The Waltons... Newsflash! That was a fantasy, folks, a rosy picture dreamed up by Hollywood producers and writers. That was never what America was about. America was always about MANY things. Yes, a bit of the Waltons. But diversity was there from the start, debates over whether German or English would be the national language, religious debates, persecution of groups like the Mormons, immigrant influxes from all kinds of countries, even China and Russia ... and of course, the bloodshed of the native people. "Conservatism" is never going to be able to recreate that idyllic past because it never actually existed.
2
The only way to "improve on Trumpism" is to burn it in a dumpster!
Religion should stay out of government. Way out.
Rand Paul, Republican/Libertarian “small government” senator from Kentucky thinks government should interfere in certain people’s ability to get married - same-sex couples. He thinks women should be denied contraception and the right to chose an abortion. He’s a big supporter of the rip-off for profit colleges.
The whole small government Republican philosophy is a gimmick created by the billionaires. It’s small for them because they create rules to keep government away from them and bothering the rest of us. Sorry Ross I completely disagree, Republicans love big government, taxes and rules as long as the rich people are unencumbered.
4
unwritten constitution?
Power centers?
Thanks Moses.
Show me the tablets.
4
If you're citing Tucker Carlson as a seriously conservative voice, then the field's wide open Ross and you can aspire to be a leading voice. I'd advise you to go back to Edmund Burke and disregard a modified Trumpism, but that's up to you. After a four-year travesty, it will require any Republican to eat a lot of crow to get a pass into future political discourse. You can try waiting out for the Dems to fall into a ditch with Bernie or AOS, but that's just reactive politics and more of the same hyper-partisan demonization of the other. Or you can just stay in a comfortable niche as a Times columnist. I'm alright Jack!
1
Excellent and thought provoking article, so thank you. The questions you raise for me are many.
First, was the term “big government” used to demonize liberal government policies, or was it genuinely used to limit the size of government? For example, abortion rights granted by the Supreme Court are considered to be both liberal and a product of big government. The same could be said about Civil Rights when federal legislation and the courts trumped states rights. There are other examples, I’m sure. Fears of big government may be the reason why so many people are fearful that the government is going to take away their guns, even though government has done relatively little to regulate gun ownership, despite the climbing rate of mass murders.
This demonization of government has also been used to limit common sense maintenance of our infrastructure, police and fire departments, and education. And it has promoted corporate power and tax reduction for the very wealthy as a viable replacement for government power, thus driving income inequality through the roof, none of which are desirable outcomes for the common good, if you ask me.
So when you say limited government is on the way out, that government should be used to promote conservative ideas, isn’t this just one “big” government replacing another? And what conservative ideas do you really have in mind for government to concretely promote?
1
The post-Vietnam mishmash that is the American scene Is a bit of an experiment.
The Founders never dared imagine that the two supports of our civilization - religion and the family - would come under fifty yeas of open warfare by single-party news media and entertainment zealots angry at the U.S. for succeeding while stresing personal freedom.
How good can a non-religious America become? I think we see it in the classic NBC series ''This Is Us'' where the family support system does what it can but when the big crises come - and they always do - people are bereft of help and pastors are now limited to only holding funerals.
No, this family drama admits the reality that even the strongest, most committed parents can NOT instill a solid enough family structure to survive even a generation without organized Jewish or Christian faith.
Meanwhile, progressives grit their teeth at night over the national motto and the dozens of things that trigger their rage.
1
The reason for communitarian collapse in the US is the relentless clinging to the design of things. A depopulating and declining rural center and a populating and declining suburb-metro near-wasteland. It has neither rhyme nor reason. #cybercommunities are an answer.
I started reading this tearjerking paean to small-government conservatism, got through one paragraph, then tried an experiment - I searched for the words 'deficit' and 'debt' and 'budget'.
Nope. Nada. Zilch. No mention at all.
You see, small government conservatism isn't really about churches and diverse power centers and rich communities. It's about letting the rich keep as much of their loot as possible, while scaring the masses that their tax money might pay for services for darker people.
The masses have always tended to favor social programs - heck, Irving Kristol opposed Hillary-care in 1993 because it might make the Democrats look too good!
What's 'small' about $1T deficit pumped up by corporate tax cuts and increased military spending?
2
@Alfred
Do you want the minority groups and women -
- that every Democrat politician has preached over for generations -
- to have the greatest employment situation in our country's HISTORY? Cut taxes.
President Trump creates over two million jobs a year. & you're welcome.
What kills the big-government argument is that earners spend the money they earn FAR more carefully than any government bureaucrat ever could.
While gov't aims to buy votes with tax money, the people creating that wealth knw the real value of it - and employ and build accordingly.
Companies never pay taxes. They only collect them on orders from government. So how do you FEEL about the poor paying big companies' taxes with every purchase of diapers, food and formula?
Your side set this system up. Either love it or change it.
Hamilton is rolling over in his grave, if this is what the federal government's role is according to conservatives. But don't worry Alexander, Mr. Douthaut doesn't represent mainstream conservatives; he's one of the only idea men conservatives have left.
Too bad it's an awful idea built upon an awful analysis. First, for the analysis, Ross plays the role of apologist for corporate power - a power so significant that many citizens question the allegiance of the federal government - is it to the people, or those wealthy enough to be the donor class? Corporate power clearly prefers the ladder, and has proven so through ecocide, slave wages, and purchasing legislation favorable to their greed.
You can't ignore that Ross, especially when bemoaning the cultural, political, and social ramifications inherent to declining empire.
As for the solution, yes, the alarmists are correct that a right wing use of power toward affecting the cultural changes they want is fascism. Moreover, the GOP is already proving that democracy light, in other words authoritarianism, is an acceptable way to ensure their control of the state, regardless of their regressive policies or your philosophical call to use progressive tactics for regressive ends.
It's not a new idea Ross, and if such a philosophy we're employed toward right wing cultural change, it would do more to prove Reagan right than any progressive since FDR. Don't make government the problem.
Incompetency is bad enough.
1
Mr. Douthat you are part of the problem; a conservative thinker who went along with the 'bad government' 'trickle down' NONSENSE for year after year.
Now the barbarians are at the gate - the average citizen will not put up with the lies of the wealthy and the ethos of the privileged.
People aren't jealous of rich people, they are miserable in their lives- there is a difference! Working people are left to fend for themselves while the entitled don't worry about healthcare.
How do think it feels for a working mom, barely scraping by to hear some millionaire GOP congressman or senator telling her that she doesn't deserve the same access to a basic human right as they already possess?
Like all crumbling empires, the privileged do not yet see the real rage of the unwashed - and here's a hint - labelling those who seek hope, prosperity and respect for their lives as 'socialists' is not going to fly this time.
Honestly, for such an educated upper class I can't believe how fundamentally tone deaf and stupid they act.
Prepare for the same or worse civil unrest as the Vietman war.
3
"Improve on Trumpism"? Remove the "-ism." There is only the narcissistic man and the oligarchs to whom he is beholden. "Trump" is a placeholder for self-interest.
1
And by “limited government” he means a weak and toothless government unable to protect the country and it’s people from con artists and greedy vulture capitalists only interested in getting richer while destroying the country they are supposed to serve.
1
Brilliant analysis. Unfortunately, it has no relation to anything happening now. Otherwise it is outstanding.
2
Lo, after these 250 years some (not all) conservatives have figured out that there is a place for a Federal government in helping to moderate the impact of commerce, illness, ill-fortune and economic disruption on the lives of the citizens. What next? That bankruptcy from medical costs could be largely avoided? That abuse of prisoners could be stopped and prisons re-calibrated to rehabilitate most criminals? That the free flow of cash into elections might not conduce to equitable election outcomes? Gee whiz.
2
Oh, please!
American conservatism has always loved the state -- that is, when the state serves American conservatism's aims and values.
Whether it comes to intruding in our bedrooms or in local classrooms, conservatives make the loudest cries for strong, activist government.
If American conservatives truly value limited government, why do they typically push for seemingly unlimited military budgets (and interventions on an international scale) and for corporate welfare that costs taxpayers multiple multiples of the bill for our meager social safety nets?
True, most conservatives -- with the exception of honorable libertarians -- are highly motivated to limit (read, eliminate) the government's role in environmental protection, pure food & drug regulations, workplace safety, etc.
And what does that tell you?
But enough of this utter myth that conservatives -- especially within the ranks of the G.O.P. -- are noble knights who crusade unceasingly against big government.
Please!
7
The problem with the limited government ideology always was that domination is neither transformed nor abandoned, only checked. And of course, it was always used to argue for relatively untrammeled corporate power to be only minimally limited by either government or countervailing forces like unions. (Which in fact were only really accepted because like lobbies they represented the self-interest of their members). When big business endorses "libertarianism," it is obviously proven a sham.
Underlying the conservative liberal (liberty) ideology is an 18th century (meta)physics according to which individuals are atoms exercising force on other atoms. So then my liberty is constituted by the limits on your power. Citizens have rights in this model that are constituted as limits to (government) powers.
The conservatives are right about two things here:
(1) progressive politics tends towards unlimited government, simply because its partisans seek to implement through social policy values they think are objectively true, and
(2) government (at least ours) tends to provide people with services that they need at the cost of policing.
Both demarcate progressive "liberals" from the left proper, less in love with the state, which is capital's. The left knows that it is largely because the society is so capitalist that welfare is policing. Elsewhere it is less so.
And we know: what matters is less the "if" of the state than "what" it does.
The role of government is to provide those services society and individuals cannot economically provide for themselves. When government strays from that mission -- for whatever reason but usually in the pursuit of a set of values not naturally arising from the populace -- by the propagation and enforcement of a code of conduct that is not generally accepted -- it is inevitably derailed. Consequences for the government may be felt at the ballot box or in more severe ways. Consequences for the targets of enforcement -- the people -- are likely to be more far reaching and in a grand circle those people may ultimately visit their response on the governors. Our society and our culture is in the early stages of that (r)evolution now.
@rogerarner
I couldn't disagree more. The role of government is to provide security and transparency. Churches are more than capable of taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves, and I have no time or patience for those who will not take care of themselves. Free unfettered markets will take care of the rest.
1
@I want another option
All spots on the political spectrum are at fault but consequences are the same. See Wolfgang Munchau's February 24th column in The FT.
If "free unfettered markets" and churches are so good at "taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves," why are there so many millions of homeless people living in our streets? Why are so many kids going without meals, sometimes all day long? Why are so many veterans dying while they wait for treatment of life-threatening illnesses and injuries?
I say the role of government is to do those things collectively, as a people, that individuals can't and corporations won't, as well as to protect us from foreign enemies and each other's greed and violence. You rightist "the private sector will pick up the slack, don't make me pay for you" types make my hair hurt.
Of course Republican Progressives like Herbert Croly and Randolph Bourne in the early 1900s put forward these very same ideas. Teddy Roosevelt's New Nationalism called for a strong national state that was firmly in the hands of a responsible middle class as a way to stave off left wing solutions to the country's problems. We tend to forget that it was the Republican Party under TR that invented the progressive state; Woodrow Wilson sought to bring back the small town, small business America that had been largely overwhelmed by the giant corporations and trusts. Yes, there is such a thing as "conservative modernization" and it is not fascism. A healthy nationalism also underlay the program of Abraham Lincoln, for that matter. Today's conservative Republicans often sound like the Southern provincials that "Washington" has been fighting for years.
1
Many are troubled that the Republican Party are so opposed to meaningful sex education in schools. If the Republicans actually increased funding to groups such as Planned Parenthood, it would see fewer teenage pregnancies and fewer abortions.
Why won’t Republicans support policies that will drive down teenage pregnancies and abortion?
1
Traditional conservatives supported community institutions that were by and for their people: white Christian churches, not mosques or black churches, the VFW not the hippie commune and the segregation academy, not the liberal University. They supported strong government to police poor communities, and armies to fight leftist governments. It has never been about how strong government was, but about who used it against whom.
2
IF Republicans really can hold on to the senate and presidency it will be because less populous states (with more per capita representation in both races) tend to be more conservative states (or maybe more accurately: more anti-Democratic Party).
Thus, looking toward using this advantage to strive for "administrative control" is essentially looking to subvert the will of the people.
The author is confused about what we are fighting for and what we are fighting against. We are fighting for real democracy and against the power of concentrated wealth. The purpose of our government is to restrain the power of greed, which which obliterates both communitarian insitutions and a politics on which we can collectively have a real influence. The radically free market is what is destroys churches, charities and town picnics, not government, and not godless liberalism. Douthat hasn't learned that in observing thirty-odd years of the Reagan wrecking ball, but he is young. There is yet time.
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@tony zito The most eloquent statement which I have been trying to articulate for a long time. Thanks Tony!
23
@tony zito Ill take godless liberalism in a heartbeat
11
@tony zito Out of control government regulation actually exaggerates inequity. Regulations and patents artificially creates winners and losers and particularly impacts small businesses.
1
To me the main proof that the GOP has renounced small government is its attitudes towards and laws concerning women and their autonomy. The Republicans want to tell women what they can do with their bodies and lives, down to what kind of contraception they should be allowed to use. Of course, as many others have pointed out many times, as soon as the baby is born, they are back to small government - you're on your own. Predatory for-profit colleges - small government - you're on your own. I'm not buying it.
460
@Margaret
"Small Government" is just more Republican marketing and advertising. The Party of Business put their business majors to use and dusted off their Marketing 101 books from college. They probably panel tested it too and got a positive response.
Here are some more meaningless Republican slogans:
Small Government
Fiscal Responsibility
Compassionate Conservatism (my favorite)
Family Values
Personal Responsibility
Freedom!
Culture of Life
Law and Order
Tough on Crime
Tough on Terrorism
Tough of Communism
New and Improved, Now with 25% More! Drivel, all of it.
49
@JD Ripper I love the tough on Communism. Nikolai Lenin opined that capitalists would compete to sell the rope to the Soviet Union which they would use to hang the capitalists, What Lenin neglected to add was that capitalists bankers would compete to lend the funds to the Soviet Union so that the Soviets could purchase the rope.
10
@Margaret don't forget the small government-ness of telling people who they can and cannot marry.
15
Conservative want to go back to a kinder, gentler time when everyone went to the same house of worship (Christian), was the same color (white) and had the same sexual orientation (heterosexual).
A time when Jews, Blacks and homosexuals knew their place (out of sight).
2
Whenever inequality reaches an extreme, as it is now, it tends to self correct one way or another. The easy way is through higher taxes on the wealthy, more regulation, and more generous government support for the needy. This happened in the 1930's. The hard way is through mob violence, strikes, revolution. The wealthy need to decide which they prefer. Some Capitalists like Paul Tudor Jones saw the writing on the wall and are way out in front of this with his Just Capital Foundation.
What did the founding fathers want? I don't know for sure, but I do know what the big issues were in the years after the nation's creation. Those issues included slavery, and its close cousin, indentured servitude. But isn't that similar to today's system of medical extortion accompanied by life crippling debt? Doesn't our country have a duty to protect us from that?
Where are the patriotic conservatives who believe in the goals of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"
2
How can Ross, Cass or Carney even argue that Conservatives are for Limited Government?
Since Reagan, the Conservatives have allowed the Government to rule the Bedroom, increase Corporate Welfare, increase the Deficit, pack the tax bills with more loop holes for the wealthy.
How have Conservatives actually shown that they believe that their ways increase American values, making it friendlier for American Families under their rule?
How can they say they believe in the Constitution of this Country when they have done more to make sure that there is no Separation of Church and State?
Unfortunately the Conservatives have outlived their usefulness. Bernie Sanders has the right idea, as does Elizabeth Warren.
There ideas are not leftist or Socialist. They are humane and workable.
Perhaps it is time to keep an open mind about their various proposals. They are fact based, despite what the naysayers would have you believe.
The reason there is very little civility right now is because of the years the likes of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and the rest of the power mongers who have made sure that they please their donors by threatening our way of life by shoving their so-called Conservatism and its total disregard for most of the American Public.
It is time to become more humane in the way we take care of all Americans, not just the haves. It is not Socialism to believe we are all here on this earth to take care of each other.
It beats the ravages we have already seen.
2
You can't bemoan the loss of local civic life while at the same time championing the shareholder value philosophy for corporations. The latter is antethical to the former and the former cannot survive in thrall to the latter.
If conservatives want to rebuild civic institutions, I suggest they start at the top, in the C suite, and let it "trickle down." And, unlike money, it actually just might.
Is it fair to point out that each side of each argument sees the other group's illogic very clearly, but their own through a glass, darkly?
And that each side exaggerates the sins of the other: The rich claim the poor are lazy; the poor claim the rich greedy.
Isn't the truth somewhere in the middle? Not according to many, perhaps most, partisans; no, it's all those guys over there on the other side.
Probably due to survival instincts or ego defense mechanisms, we forgive our mistakes, but condemn those of others. Worse, we often can't even see our own. What mistakes?
The actual dynamic here, I think, is that most humans are deeply flawed physically, mentally, spiritually, politically, experientially, educationally, etc. We try to do good, sometimes we succeed, in fact, probably most of the time, but we can't remove our inner Mr. Hyde; he's relentless, inextinguishable, and largely invisible: What Mr. Hyde?
True, few of us are egregiously evil; most of just have a few character problems, some small, some large, some come and go. And the few near-perfect ones -- supposedly they exist -- we worship, enshrine, and try to emulate -- not a bad idea on many levels.
But the common man's flawed opinions, mine, too, are a very risky political roadmap. So do we trust just the wise among us? Those blessed few? Yes, they are our best bet. Who wants a layman as a brain surgeon? Who wants a half-wit for a leader? Not all ideas are good ideas. We need Pericles, not Steve King.
1
What a load of navel-gazing clap trap. I’m not looking to the current wave of ‘conservative intellectuals’ to come up with a fix to the cesspool of xenophobia, corruption, willful ignorance, weakness before foreign threats, and pandering to bigotry which has become the Republican Party. Why strain so hard to find a conservative purpose, Russ? Look to history. Take on the rich oligarchs and monopolists of today, like Teddy Roosevelt did. Use government to build an infrastructure which makes us strong, like Eisenhower did. You’d think a ‘conservative’ approach to a threat like climate change would be to take a cautious stance and protect against the overwhelming risk it poses. You’d think a ‘conservative’ approach to our future would be to invest in scientific research to preserve our strengths in technology. Modern day conservatives lead on none of these things – they simply sell out to the rich, and pander to the ignorant, to preserve their power.
5
The era of limited government, as championed by Barry Goldwater is long over.
Ronald Reagan got America addicted to borrowing, such that the level of national debt rose from zero at the inception of his Presidency to $21 trillion today, under - another Republican - "Mr. Borrowing", Donald Trump.
2
There has not been an era of limited federal government has not existed during my 65 years of living. A limited government would do only those things in the constitution and any other programs that could get 2/3 votes in both houses, with periodic renewal.
3
The authors of the constitution went to great lengths to break up the power of the federal government. The founding fathers profoundly understood how the populace can be abused by an unchecked leader or group of leaders. What the founders did not anticipate was the growth of big business. Big money understands that our election rules allow lobbyists to buy candidates throughout the ranks of government. The alliance between wealthy individuals and politicians has put our government in a strangle hold. Their grip on the three branches of our government is aided and abetted by a powerful private media machine that is so effective that around 40% of registered voters have bought into the propaganda of those in control. With this control the beholden elected representatives have passed tax cuts that have further increased the concentration of wealth. Judges are being appointed who will decide in favor of the rich. This whole scenario is unlikely to change without significant changes in our election laws as well as a groundswell of awareness in the electorate.
Sounds like Dr. Frankenstein has grabbed a pitchfork and joined the peasans.
May the era of labeling this and demonizing that wilt, and the era of problem-solving unhindered by notional blinders bloom.
Consider that the conservative ideal is based on a society where individuals lived in small stable communities and were a part of a multigenerational family structure can could provide support. Individuals subverted there desires in return for the support of their community.
It also assumed lower levels of technology and cheaper, if less effective, medical care.
The world, at least in the US, has changed.
Conservative "philosophy" rests primarily upon two pillars. The first pillar, money, is more important for a variety of reasons, chief among them the fact the money begets power, which in turn begets more money, and so on. When it comes to money, RepubLieCons screech "freedom! Tax cuts! De-regulate! Free market!"
The other pillar is personal behavior. RepubLieCons' orientation toward personal behavior involves control (e.g., women's behavior and bodies), denial (e.g., slash or eliminate social security, food stamps and health care for children, etc.), and punishment (e.g., steal a pack of cigarettes and get 5 years in a private prison).
There is a clear connection between the two pillars, with the Lords free to exploit and control, and the serfs exploited and controlled in our neo-feudal "democracy."
3
"But as civil society has decayed over recent decades, its remaining power centers have also become increasingly left-wing."
Where you see decay, I see evolutionary progress: Gender, race and sexual-orientation advancements, albeit-haltingly, toward equality. And loosening of the man-made strictures of religion.
3
@Bill M - Yes, I agree! I see more and more people able to pursue self-fulfillment in their own ways, living in a society that does not constrain them to follow strict gender, class or ethnic norms.
I was born and raised in San Francisco. I'm not gay. But at the time it was a haven for gay men from all over the country, a place where they could come, be themselves without fear or social ostracism. I understood how special my city was, for being that safe haven. Much more of the USA is safe for them now. If this is the decay of civil society I want to see more of it.
That's just one little example.
I am for freedom. But so long as there are at least 2 people living in the world there IS a social contract. I am only entitled to freedom so long as I don't try to take it away from others.
1
Ross, One has to wonder when exactly this ' movement conservatism' actually worked for average folks?
Was it the end of child labor, the closing of the sweat shops, the demise of seventy hour work weeks, the poisoning of rivers lakes and streams?
The good old days Ross were mostly not!
Get sick you were fired, get injured on the job, get out. Got too old..too bad, dust bowl, and you lose, market manipulation s, if you weren't in on it, you were certainly out.
Laissez faire pretty much only worked well if you were a winner.
1
American communitarianism has been under attack - economically and culturally from the left (i.e. small towns and their institutions are oppressive and small-minded, smart people should escape to opportunities in cities), but also economically and culturally from the right (basically, survival of the fittest capitalism, competition before community sentimentality). To get an idea of what is missing in Ross's piece, one might go watch "It's a wonderful life" (rewind to 1940s?) and try to figure out who George Bailey is. A tough-minded traditionalist who exhibits family values, Christian faith, and patriotism and organizes people to make sacrifices for American greatness in WWII? (communitarian-conservative?) Or an advocate of local business and banks who is committed to employing his incompetent uncle and generally to opposing corporate evil in the form of Mr. Potter? (communitarian-liberal?). Democrats mocked George Bailey and turned their backs on him, while Republicans stabbed him in the heart, killed him, and used his lifeless corpse as their banner. But I am sorry, Republicans as advocates of diverse and local power centers? You should be ashamed, Ross, for daring to make such an assertion.
2
Douthat leaves out completely the underlying force that drives nationalism and how a conservative administrative state would deal with it: racism.
Troubling is the McCarthy quote because it follows an emerging trend being pushed even by so called liberal media that in the Trump era "unconventional" equals "successful."
I thought you converted to the Catholic Church???? How can you do that and still claim to be a Republican? Have you not ever read the words of the man named Jesus, who you had to claim you followed in order to join the Catholic Church?
Jesus was an extreme left socialist, although they didn't have that name for it when he was living. I distinctly remember his words repeating tirelessly that in his father's kingdom all would be common property, shared equality. Well, not really. What I read is that here on earth there would always be the poor, sick, and handicapped but that wasn't the manifestation of his father's rule. I'm standing pretty sure that anyone who wants to keep 'their stuff' to 'themselves' would soon find their place back on earth.
I also recall this certain man Jesus saying that his father's kingdom could happened here on earth. There's an entire prayer about it with the expectation that his followers will repeat that prayer daily.
That sort of set up will require quite an overseer set up to prosper on earth as it is now. It is especially what the earth needs now. We already know that a so very few of the filthy wealthy can self monitor themselves to make this true. Who do expect to do it then, if not the government? The Vatican? We know how well that worked out in the past.
1
Mr. Douthat's textbook narrative about conservatives' attitudes toward state power misses the elephant in the living room: The Supreme Court. For decades, conservatives have spared no effort in concentrating as much conservative-friendly power in the Supreme Court as possible. Because Court appointments come with tenure-for-life, that's some very serious state power. And make no mistake: In our system of government, the Supreme Court has the final word (just ask Al Gore).
It must also be pointed out that in too many cases where conservatives have argued against state power at the Federal level, what they were really doing was arguing FOR state power at the State level -- where they could more effectively manipulate that power for their own ends. Or, in Mr. Douthat's words, "people tend to seek power, and devise justifications for seeking power, where it can be plausibly exercised and won..."
In other words, "Don't believe the hype."
Conservatives have never been shy about spending taxpayer dollars for their own benefit. When they call for limited government, they simply mean "this will benefit somebody besides us." This tradition goes back a century and more. The banana wars the United States waged in Latin America in the 20's were of minimal value for the average American. But they were very good for United Fruit and other big businesses - owned by the same people that lamented FDR's "big government."
1
The "All or nothing" mentality of both the extreme left and the extreme right is at the heart of the issue. A healthy society needs both liberalism and conservatism in order to thrive. Liberalism provides the forward thrust for "something new and better", and conservatism provides the safekeeping of "those things of value" that come from that forward thrust. Each has its place, and each must be embraced (not just tolerated) rather than fought against.
I think Mr. Douthat is lost.
American conservatism is concerned with limiting government power in our ordinary lives. Besides those powers granted the Federal and State governments in the Constitution is the implicit one to allow for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Most of the arguing between liberals and conservatives seems to be about the latter. Pursuit, not a guarantee (as if governments could do that anyway).
I'm a believer in the American Free Enterprise system. It's the only system which allows people to go up the economic ladder and escape whatever "rung" they were borne into it. The problem is that, like any ladder, you can go down. Which way you go is supposed to be left to the individual with the government ensuring that everyone has an opportunity (beginning with education) to succeed (but, again, not a guarantee of success). Today it seems the debate is how many rungs the ladder should have. Not too many (1%) at the top and not too many at the bottom (safety net).
1
Somewhere, in recent memory, modern conservatism conflated freedom with lack of responsibility and obligation. I've got mine, too bad for you.
“Political parties don’t exist because of political visions, and don’t need them to survive. They exist because they represent interests, and they can represent those interests reasonably effectively — especially in a system that empowers minority parties — without an overarching vision of the common good.” Ross Douthat, NY “Times” 7/12/13
The basic problem with today's conservatives is that they take to heart the "godfather" of American conservatism William F. Buckley, Jr.'s, mission statement in the first issue of “National Review (1955) that his mandate was to stand “athwart history, yelling Stop.”
The world does NOT stop. To stop is to die.
The word politics comes from the Greek word, polis, which means community. Politics, or government, is how communities function. By claiming to be anti-government and pro-community conservatism shows just how empty and self-serving the conservatives’ intellectual argument really is.
There is no commonality to conservatism. It isn’t conservative, and really hasn’t been since 1964, and now there is nothing but inertia to hold it together.
Edmund Burke would not recognize modern conservatism. Nor want to.
"...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Remember that quaint notion, Ross? And do you know ANY "conservative" who can, with straight face, subscribe to those words? I suspect not, unless they embrace the SCOTUS definition that the people Lincoln references are really the "corporations are people" type, in which case sure, the words work for them fine and endorse your quest for power. Just don't dare to suggest that your invocation of "The Common Good" is in any way a factor in that quest.
It is exactly the limiting of the role of government that keeps America from having a president become a dictator. Yes, I see all of dire warnings coming from the left that our democracy is at stake with Trump in office and that he is usurping the the role that Congress is supposed to have but is he really doing that? Other than the concerns over him declaring a national emergency (which is yet to be proven he can do and once it goes through the courts which it most surely will than we will have a true verdict as opposed to what is happening in the court of public opinion) what has he actually done as president that is outside what has always been available to other presidents? People who are elected that become dictators come to power when government itself is given more control. That is the essence of the word "dictator". They get to decide for you and that is why government has to be limited.
1
The premise that a strong civil society needs a weak central government is false and unworkable as part of the conservative thinking. Part of what this country needs to fight is such extreme reasoning. The framers of the Constitution well recognized the need for a democracy to express the needs of its people at the national level as well as the state, local and non-governmental levels. That is part of the beauty of the system. A national level government cannot always know the needs at the local level and so there are responsibilities best served by the local community. However, when job or hunger issues begin to heavily weigh on communities that Is probably a sign that the national level has to look at the national economic picture. When local or state programs are not supportive of universal suffrage or education then it is time for Washington to step in to guarantee these most basic rights. Local and national government need to work together on many issues such as environmental clean-up to corporate responsibility. Big government has always been the conservative shibboleth used to make people fearful and limit their understanding of democracy. There is a role for all levels of government to play in a well functioning democracy. To be “well functioning” we all need to start electing folks who represent our diversity and who know how to listen and think.
@Sunny Garner There is a big difference between "weak" and "limited". I think that the French and Italian governments are "weak" but they are certainly not "limited". The U.S. government is a strong government but it is limited. Your point is valid that there is a role for government at all levels, even truly essential. But there is most definitely a limit to where government can continue to be effective in its role as opposed to creating such chaos, bureaucracy, and inefficiencies that the people would rather go with no government. There is a balance to be struck. But as a nation we no longer can strike a balance on anything.
1
"A more sympathetic reader would say no, there is plenty of space for more a state-friendly conservative politics in between movement conservatism and Mussolini"
By the same logic, a more sympathetic reader would say no, there is plenty of space for more a state-friendly progressive politics in between movement liberalism and Stalin. If conservatives can make that change in thinking, why can't progressives also inhabit that "plenty of space" between movement and extremism?
BTW, in the foregoing, "Stalin" could also be read as "Communism" or "Socialism", as in the definition of "Progressive" currently believed by some of those less sympathetic readers.
Either way, good luck selling it. Halfway through either premise, the modern conservative or liberal will immediately define you as a believer in the opposite extreme - and stop listening to anything else you say. At the same time, you'll be permanently labeled as either Mussolini or Stalin, depending on the audience.
Everyone wants a smaller, more efficient and less intrusive government that meets there needs. Everyone also wants certain needs met, and are willing to make government large and intrusive to do so. The difference is in priorities.
The Republicans are willing to use government to enforce sexual norms, and some Christian religious beliefs. They are willing to use it disenfranchise through the intentional unequal enforcement of laws.They are willing to use government power to provide money to the rich and bail them out. They are willing to use it to protect monopolies in trade- patent and copyright to extreme grotesque ends. They are willing to use it to force our will through military force upon the world.
The Democrats are willing to use government for science, for the protection of the common environment, for education, for healthcare, and social security programs. The Republicans not so much.
It is a matter of priorities not of size. Everyone wants smaller more efficient where it suits the mission they deem important. Mr Douthat is no different. Just less honest about his prerogatives.
1
The heart of this is that some conservative intellectuals are seeing a potential role of government in "the common good of our citizens." It will be interesting if anything of substance comes of this, and what that will look like.
22
Isn't all this talk of conservative cultural values just a way to pretty up bigotry and a refusal to acknowledge people that aren't white heterosexual Christians?
68
@Nels Watt
Absolutely, but Republicans also mean to strip women of their personhood and their property in their own person, by reversing Roe v wade. They are evil and must be stopped
5
Nope. But the era of sleazy, disingenuous, racist, bigoted, compassionate, humorless, greedy, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist, plutocratic owned, corrupted, seditious, treasonous Republicans will soon be over, in November 2020.
3
Sounds like some conservatives are finally waking up to what sensible centrist liberals have been arguing for some time. I hope this would apply to Mr. Douthat.
Couple things:
First, as someone whose life experience includes a few years before Medicare, Medicaid, the EPA, and who grew up shanty Irish I can assure you that despite the existence of the St. Vincent DePaul Society, the Knights of Columbus, the Goodwill, The Little Sisters of the Poor, etc.. etc. those weren't the good old days.
Second as quoted by Mr. Douthat, "The challenge now is to balance those groups with the postindustrial classes as well, and to strengthen the productive economy against the largely fictional economy of administrators and clerks. All of this is for the sake not just of prosperity, in raw dollar terms, but of a national economy that provides the basis for a healthy culture in which citizens and their families can flourish."
Dan McCarthy's statement makes a great deal of noble sense. However, what trumps this sentiment is what's included in the first paragraph of every finance textbook whether it's used in the coursework of a community college or at a first tier graduate school of business. I'm paraphrasing but "The responsibility of management to maximize shareholder wealth" is what drives the decision making process in our economy. I think the professional life expectancy of a CEO who advocates for lower operating results in an effort to remedy some of the nation's social ills would be pretty short.
2
The conservative right has only one goal, limited government, pull the wool over the taxpayers' eyes, and transfer as much wealth to the 1% as possible without getting criminally convicted. They could give a squat about the Constitution.
5
@Jacquie Massive government creates inequality. It does not combat inequality. Our problems exist because government uses its powers to provide unearned advantage to large corporations. That will never change.
2
@John It will change when we change who is sitting in the seats on Congress.
1
"[T]he American right has understood itself to be defending not just the written American Constitution but an unwritten one as well."
Boy, that went out the door a long time ago! And now it's the American left defending those very values against the supine and rapacious Republican Party.
4
@Nathaniel Brown - That line got me too. I was like, "Whoa! ... NO! ... There is only ONE constitution, the written one."
Anyone trying to defend any other is probably violating their oath of office.
So tedious. So-called conservatives want limited government except when it comes to their own pet projects, starting with dictating all sorts of details of other people's sex lives. Let's limit the government's ability to harass those bastions of moral authority in the Catholic and Baptist churches.
So tedious.
6
What a joke! In Douthat’s world “real” limited government conservatives are committed to a “large communitarian panoply” of civic organizations that are going to do what government has no business doing and constitute the essential fabric of society. And Trump is raising questions about whether America is still a nation of thriving local communities and energetic civil life. What planet is this guy from? Did anyone get the feeling Trump was concerned about “thriving local communities”? I didn’t. I knew he was an amoral, self-involved half-formed human being right out of the gate. Trust me, he couldn’t even put together the phrase “thriving local communities” without a teleprompter. Does anyone except a Republican who thinks he will get in on the game as taxes get lowered for people far wealthier than him who couldn’t care less about him really buy this nonsense? Does anybody but a Republican think a “communitarian panoply” of civic organizations is anything other than a “compassionate” way of flushing other human beings down the drain while their local church sings Christmas carols at a convalescent hospital? Douthat loves to coin words like “communitarian” and quote obscure authors to create the impression that there is a solid intellectual basis for being a jerk. But in the end, a selfish jerk is just a selfish jerk.
8
the communitarian system worked great with coal companies who raped Appalachia, exported the profits out of communities and declared bankruptcy so they wouldn't have to clean up their messes, huh?
5
This whole large government protecting us from capitalism bit is nothing but pure fantasy. We are in the situation we find ourselves in because of big government. Regulation and patent laws have done more to create inequality than any natural mechanism of capitalism. We don’t have an unregulated capitalism. Our version rates lower than that of most Nordic nation when it comes to economic freedom. Crony capitalism is created by poor government regulation.
1
The main thing keeping the economy rolling in this day and age, is an economy at full employment. Just this morning, Jerome Powell appeared before Congress expressing concern, that so few were in the work force, and several reasons, are the opioid crisis,(too many addicted to them, or actually just wanting to be high), and the fact that many don't want to go out and work for $9 or $10 an hour to start, and they are making more in government benefits than that. So, if these trends continue, and they will, even more so, as those reaching retirement age, leave the work force, we are going to be a country, deaf to the reality of less revenue coming into the government, at a time, that those new to the Congressional game, especially the progressive left, are gearing up for wanting to spend trillions by borrowing while the getting is good, but they may find out that the reality of what exists in the already promised entitlement programs need to be shored up rather than expanded, as they are all running out of money, the programs of Medicaid, Medicare, & Social Security, plus please no more tax cuts for anyone Congress, okay?!
1
An interesting and thought-provoking essay. But anyone's perspective on this question is largely determined by their standing in life. Are you a high-wage earner with a large number of accumulated assets? Are you well off in retirement with a generous pension and health care benefits? Then limited government (and by extension, limited taxation) is your mantra.
Are you a freshly-minted college graduate, working a minimum wage job and carrying a bundle of loan debt? Are you a Baby Boomer in your late 50s or early 60s and unemployed because of off-shoring or automation? Then you look to government to step in and ease your financial burdens.
Corporations and government work best when they check each other. Plenty of companies found ways to make good profits in eras of higher tax rates, thanks to ample deductions and clever tax lawyers. Local, state, and federal agencies have had to slim down from time to time, but still manage to deliver useful services.
The challenge today is an increasingly tilted playing field against the younger generation, high school graduates looking for work, seniors on limited incomes, and that mythical "blue collar family." Government still has a role in tilting the field in the other direction, which (perhaps ironically) helps the very families, groups, and causes that Republicans claim they support.
“What can we do with the reins of power, that is, the state, to ensure the common good of our citizens?”
If so-called "conservatives" ever actually asked this question they would not BE "conservatives" at all. The very concept of "The Common Good" is unknown and incomprehensible to those whose sole purpose (in practice, as opposed to your self-flattering fantasies about "movement conservatism") is to transfer wealth as efficiently as possible to the already-wealthy from all other sources (including the state treasuries and the meager incomes of the working poor).
So you are already working on a "post-Trump" justification for seeking power to do more of the same wealth-transfer con. Please don't pretend "The Common Good" has anything whatsoever to do with it.
5
The issue is that if people (or businesses and so on) are free to make their own choices, both socially and economically, but society does not support them in these, then they are not exactly free to make those choices. So, individual freedom requires a communal backstop, paradoxical (and “un-American”) as that may seem.
1
I am not sure what you have in mind here, although it sounds ominous. If conservatives aren't about smaller government, and personal freedom and responsibility, then what are they about? If nationalism is the goal, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have points of agreement in terms of reining in global capitalism. I'm not sure that what you are talking about is conservatism at all.
Community institutions in a small town will be damaged if the largest employer moves or automates and no replacement comes along. They are damaged when Wal-mart puts local, locally owned stores out of business. They are damaged when independent general stores are put out of business by convenience stores attached to gas stations owned or franchised by oil companies.
This slow destruction of local institutions is not the government's doing (unless government interference in the free market "forces" private companies to destroy local institutions, and in a free market without government interference they would survive and prosper). And if the way our "free" oligopolistic market has developed is what business freedom has brought us, then the destruction is inevitable.
1
"Thriving local communities and energetic civic life"? Nice phrases. Get real. Local means weak. National means powerful.
We need big govt by the people to protect our human and economic rights. We have small govt for us, and big govt for corporations.
Robert Reich:
"The American oligarchy is real. A study by Princeton's Gilens and Page showed how policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans. The typical American has no influence at all."
Ex Pres Jimmy Carter says the US veers toward oligarchy because it takes so many millions to run for any office now, compared with his era.
Our corporate mega donors to elections are in effect 'unionized'---combined into a body to exert maximum influence. We citizens are un-unionized, disorganized, underfunded, individualized and weak in political influence.
The citizen counterforce would be public financing of elections, with limits on private giving, enabling democracy to operate. Our media must discuss this.
Public funding of elections is more common in other capitalist democracies--- and btw, they've had universal HC for generations, which here we fight about as too left wing.
As our mega donors call the shots, We the People will dutifully line up to vote, but the choices offered--better or worse-- will stay within limits the mega donors set. Citizens United sealed the deal.
This is recent American history and a warning on how democracies fail.
2
How can any conservative argue that they have been fighting for better lives for America’s citizens? The primary goal of all of their policies has been to sustain and augment the power of wealthy, white males in a changing America. If they now want to use central government to promote a dystopian, hyper-white, hyper-male, theatrical and oligarchic agenda, we are all in for a bumpy ride, as the majority of Americans do not share this vision or those goals. This author sees real change but isn’t honest enough with us (or himself) to accurately portray how radical Conservatism has actually become.
5
I can see no surer way to alienate the base. My thinking may be simplistic - I don't do politics for a living, and my current opinions are filled with images of flaming swastikas, torch-bearing men with shaved heads in Charlottesville, pictures of camo-clad men clutching assault rifles on Facebook. . . the list goes on. The overall craziness I saw on the right in '16 was a real shock to this moderate Democrat.
This appears to be the Republican base. I guess I have trouble with the idea that they'll get behind anything new, especially if "new" means inching toward Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez.
It is often amusing to see Douthat rationalize past abuses. In this case, he's gone so far as to make Herbert Hoover a hero of rugged individualism, rather than architect of the Great Depression. That is a bridge too far for amusement.
3
Maybe Ross can put some flesh on the bones of his new Republican love affair with the administrative state. Will it just be a big handout to evangelical allies to make everything better?
Why not let the various states handle this problem and have the federal government pull back. Lower federal taxes on the middle class and let them raise their state taxes to support the level of government they want. Why try to harmonize California and Alabama with one set of policies when neither will be happy with the result?
Ross talks about farmers, labor, administrators and is concerned about the distribution of economic and political power among them, and about the power of various human institutions like family, church, business, and government. Human relationships are important, but the critical relationship to which everything else must be subordinated is our relationship to the natural world.
If our institutions and human relationships do not produce a healthy relationship between humanity and nature, disaster lies ahead for everyone. We need to start by defining our goals for the future, including responding to climate change, as well as economic stability for families and individuals, and form our human institutions to achieve them. And that takes thinking outside the usual boxes. Ayn Rand, Karl Marx and Jean-Jacques Rousseau didn't have to take into account the destruction of the physical world we live in.
4
"A hostile reader of these essays, libertarian or liberal, might respond that a vision in which right-wing governments seek to reshape culture and mediate between classes resembles nothing so much as early-20th century fascism."
Yes, I am hostile. Hostile to fascism. And fascism is most certainly what American "conservatism" [aka radical nationalism] is transmogrifying into. Of course, the GOP would argue this is all patriotism of which they are the sole owner and protector. [As echos of heel clicks span the ages.]
10
I was going to write my own response and then I saw yours. Thank you for saving me the trouble. he simply says that the Republican model is not fascist and that we evil people who are doubters of his word would have course think that. he gives no justification for that statement. he is embroiled in his own fantasy of what Republicans are and what their intellectual basis is. their basis is not very intellectual it is simply greed and arrogance. Greed and arrogance are not unique to Republicans but they are the underlying motivation I am saddened to say. this columnist often has such logical gaps in his argument. I wonder if he knows it.
The most basic right is bodily integrity, and the GOP is practically trying to crawl into women's uteri by controlling every inch of every woman's reproductive system plus lying to her about her medical options and healthcare.
Add to the pollution in the air people breathe, the water they drink, and the food they eat -- all of which can now be poisoned in myriad ways with the loosening of previous regulations so that greedy corporations can profit again shows that conservative control for government landscape has no limits about the harm it can do.
Hypocrisy has become the ruling ideology here.
6
Sorry Ross, but in the age of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, the very idea of “conservative intellectual” makes me laugh.
7
The subtext in all the books cited by Ross Douthat--books by male, white, conservative intellectuals--is the same as the subtext in books like "Strangers in Their Own Land:"
Life used to be wonderful when we had all the power.
Despite all the strenuous efforts by Douthat and his ilk to pretend that conservatism is a philosophy of governing-- about community & civic life & personal virtue-- conservatism is actually about who runs things and who owns things (and people).
"Democracy in America," one of the sacred texts of conservatism, was published in 1835 & 1840.
That era was when slavery was blossoming, when Native Americans were rounded up as ruthlessly as Jews were rounded up by Nazis, when Texas and Mexico went to war, and when Jackson expanded presidential power beyond anything Donald Trump could imagine.
But, that, of course, is the conservative Golden Age.
The country needs a new version of conservatism about as much as the country needs a new version of AIDS.
4
"Are American businessmen basically public spirited, eager to compete on equal terms once government removes its heavy hand, and natural allies for a political movement wedded to patriotism and religion?"
Public spirited, flag blinded, christian, fascist, business (wo)men; what's not to like about that?
2
The numbers simply don’t support the notion of Republicans having supported limited government in the last 40 years.
Their lips belie their actions.
1
I am very hopeful that conservative ideas can shift towards a posture of making government work to further conservative ideas, and away from what seems to be simple anti-government. The answer is not "less government is better" nor is it "more government is better"; instead liberals and conservatives can go back to a perfectly rational set of disagreements about how and to what ends government can work better.
While my leanings have been liberal over the last decade, it's mainly in response to what seems like a binary choice between two ever separating poles defining the role of government. If we instead start finding ways for both poles to seek commonality where there is agreement, and argue around the edges, as we did more of in the late 20th century, I think we'll be in a better place.
Ross doesn't adequately answers his own questions.
Are America's communities/civic life thriving? Depends where you live. Rural communities have been struggling for 30+ years. Jobs are being eliminated due to automation. Larger communities were able to adapt and thrive. 45 has done wonders for civic engagement.
Does America have strong & growing churches? No, There may be some areas where this is true but overall they are in the decline. Lgbtq bashing & anti-trans legislation have failed to reverse that trend. However new social connections have formed in the absence to connect communities. Online groups are connecting more and more people around ideas and helping spur action.
Are American businesses public spirited, competing on equal terms when regs are loosened, and natural allies for the GOPs patriotism and religion? This has never been true, capitalism has always led businesses astray (see Sinclair's The Jungle). The public has never benefitted from unrestricted capitalism. The conservative movement has strayed too far from the stated goal of benefiting the public. It is hard to see how those who are patriotic could embrace a party that worked with a foreign advisory to win an election or the religious could embrace the cruel immigration policies that directly contradict Jesus' teachings.
The GOP needs to reckon with its current state not fantasize about a reality that doesn't exist.
2
The Republican donor class has effectively destroyed big labor and is attempting to destroy government regulations so that big business can do whatever it wishes. Any" philosophical" changes in conservatism will be based on that. And as long as modern conservatism is not fact based, it is difficult to take any discussion seriously.
3
This jumbo salad of hundred of contorted words, phrases and ideas can be summarized very succinctly: Douthat is admitting that popular appeal and support for dated, old ,pseudo religious, conservative social and societal ideas, structures and strictures have diminished and are vanishing. He now wants to impose with government powers what they could not get people to accept and adopt voluntarily. Perfect example: ham handed approach to limiting Women’s Choices for contraception, family planning, education on healthcare options including abortion. Abstain or get pregnant and have babies are the Christian choices even as those who fund the conservatives have sex with underage girls and enslaved women in massage parlors.
4
Ross, like so many conservatives, seems almost ignorant to the fact that we are at the end of the "conservative revolution" and we can see what it has wrought. The churches are emptying because their mission was sidelined by there corruption and their rhetoric was absent action. Republicans are beginning to lose because their rhetoric was absent any action that backed up their many slogans, and in some cases actions even directly opposed the rhetoric. Our infrastructure is decrepit because, as it turns out, it takes government action to fix and maintain public things. Government was never the enemy, except to the people who were the enemy of government, a government mind you, made up of we the people. The commonwealth is just that, but conservatism made it all about the private wealth and only for a few patrons. Conservatism produced corporate control of our lives and our national destiny, but tell us all, how easy is it to control corporations ? You don't elect the oligarchs, but you do elect who controls government, or we did, that is, before the conservatives gave the whole government and our society to the oligarchs. They elected an oligarch to solve all the problems created by the oligarchs, while screaming to the heavens all the laments of the working man. Trump is a perfect illustration of what conservatism has come to: an elite, self-aggrandizing, politically schizophrenic, nihilistic, narcissistic, lazy thing, with no empathy and even less imagination.
5
@KevinCF Very Succinctly stated!
1
Liberalism is the new world. Conservatives are counter-productive. Good riddance!
Science and technology are driving change at an increasing rate. A conservative might say it is shaking the foundations of society.
But, the liberal emancipation transcends these shaky traditions. The "free market" isn't free and we dare not allow its vagaries to rule the world.
Turns out nothing is running well on automatic. Human rationality must be applied.
Religious idolatry is counter-productive. The Buddha Path is still valid. The other religions could be wonderful fun if the idolatry of true believers did not threaten society and life on earth.
The Apocalypse for the religions of our fathers is now. Come to the softness of the living loving lord, without religion, and say goodbye to the all to solid "Rock of Ages".
The world is change.
1
Mr. Douthat always writes a term paper of erudition to try to perfume the pig of conservatism, when instead he could have learned everything he needed to know about it from my mother, who indelibly explained it to me when I was a little kid:
"Remember, Tommy: the rich always get richer, and the poor always get poorer."
5
If moving left means the responsible embrace of humanity then the Church has always been left in its social agenda: if it means relaxing authoritarian tendencies viz its administration then the Church is only returning to its roots. Again, Mr. Douthat demonstrates his underlying confusion and contradictory purview when he at once calls for greater community with less government while yearning for an imagined yesteryear 50s’ society in which suppression and exclusion was predominantly enforced through strong authoritarian right wing consciousness and policies. Has it never occurred to Mr. Douthat the reason “power centers have ... become increasingly left-wing” is our individual and collective (cultural) consciousness is progressing to a more inclusive and socially responsible (some would say Christian) consciousness? And that the underlying values within a “state friendly conservative politics” is the bedrock for increasingly suppressive, divisive and authoritarian society? Mr. Douthat‘s limiting view that legitimate authority is power over, rather than power in and through others, accompanied by a belief that positional authority is meant to enforce political and sociatal norms (evidenced by his continuous call for a right-wing political and social agenda coupled with an authoritarian Church and papacy) is oxymoronic and belies any call or leaning he has for “limited government conservatism”. Mr. Douthat’s perspective is authoritarian whether political or ecclesiastical.
3
I'm an old man, now - a life long liberal, waiting, waiting, waiting for Americans to wake up from a long long Cold War dream.
Bernie Sanders Democratic Socialism is NOT communism. It's not even socialism. It is a form of capitalism and I wish it's proponents would make that more clear.
Government is our friend - or better be, because: Government is our ONLY hope. You were expecting some billionaire to save us? Or, still waiting for Jesus?
It's time to stop destroying government. It's time to stop expecting the not so free market to save us. It's time to stop the Christian/Republican killing, jailing, and destruction.
It's time to end the the GOP.
280
@Tracy Rupp I agree on many points, but I would instead say it's time to restore the GOP to something more like it was in the past.
1
@Tracy Rupp Government got us into this mess to begin with. One of the main reasons that we have so much inequality is because of government regulation and laws. Large corporations use the regulatory process to put smaller competitors at a disadvantage. Stringent trademark and patent laws have the same impact. It’s the government intervention that is doing the most harm.
2
@John And every chance it gets, the "small government" GOP uses its control of government to hone those regulations to benefit large corporations at the expense of everyone else. So, the best available solution isn't to empower those who claim they want smaller government; because what they truly want is bigger government, but one that fits their agenda.
28
The right role for government is to act as an offset against unequal factions, and to promote harmony and cooperation between all Americans. By limiting its ability to do this, the Republican-conservatives have helped to undo 40 years of the widest sharing of prosperity and advancement of equal rights, and replaced it with a "Law of the Jungle" credo. Look only to the Robber Baron Era, and the accounts of writers like Upton Sinclair to see what minimalist government allowed to happen. Conversely, look at the results of Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, and the New Deal to see what happens when government asserts itself to offset the accumulation of great wealth and power. And how can you then not see that we are in a 21st Century Robber Baron Era as the result of Reaganism and "trickle down" for almost 40 years?
And if government has been seen mostly as "liberal", is that because by nature it is, or is it in response to the conservative forces aligned with money and power, and which almost never seek to promote widespread well being, and instead promote only selfishness and concentration of power, and subjugation of the masses?
No, government can be harnessed - or hijacked - by liberals or conservatives, it doesn't have its own ideology. But it is best used not as its own force, imposing the will of whomever is in power, but ensuring against tyranny, by the majority or the minority.
But it's dishonest to claim that conservatives haven't used government to their own ends.
I believe that most Republicans were screaming for limited government, not for the lofty reasons described by Ross, but because "limited government" meant to them fewer restrictions on exploitation of the environment, generation of pollution, financial fraud etc. This prevented them from making as money as they could. Just as "states rights" was an unspoken argument for slavery, "limited government" is such a phrase. Republicans have now realized that all they have to do is control the government and they can emasculate the EPA and load the courts with stooges. What's not to like about that?
4
NYT Pick K. Bronson says
I just don’t care about inequality. Not one little bit. Envious people scare me." Does this not state, more clearly than Douthat does, the theory behind today's conservatism? The difference between conservatism and liberalism today is no longer about the role of the State in making peoples' lives better: it is now about whether there is or should be any such public goal as the common good. Today's conservatives question whether or not people should have any equal rights; whether or not there exist any common benefits worth the cost of providing; and whether or not popular democracy, as embodied in the US Constitution as currently interpreted, is a worthwhile form of government.
6
I'm bemused by conservative philosophy that refuses to discuss the entities that truly govern us: multinational corporations.
The make (buy) our laws, they determine our food and medicine (and additives), they tell us where to live and work, what to not to do and what not to say. They create structures to manipulate our behavior in every respect.
I'm not going to say the Douthat's vision of a mercantile utopia is impossible, but it's never been achieved. And we've only gotten close through appropriate regulation. Markets without regulation are like football without rules: they just don't work.
What has happened under the guise of free market corporatism is the reemergence of feudalism. And it's been accelerated by deregulation.
I would assert that feudalism will always emerge if you give an entity perpetual life, limited liability, and the other freedoms that corporations enjoy.
4
A most depressing column. Anyone who has had direct experience with dealing with the power of government at ANY level knows, first-hand, that "the state" tends to see those it rules with something close to utter contempt. Bureaucracies, universally, want more--more money, more personnel, more regulations (beyond almost any average citizen's understanding), more coercive power, more, more, more.
The genius of the American experiment is that, miraculously, the Founders anticipated this, having, at considerable personal risk, cut themselves loose from the overwhelming power of the British Empire.
They designed a system that, simply put, wasn't intended to "work," but to be slow, plodding, and--to those bright young things full of utopian ideas--frustrating.
If what passes for conservatism in the US these days falls into line behind the idea of a state with its snout in every last nook and cranny and hidey-hole, then the American experiment will be over.
It will fail, as all empires have, in illusions of unfettered power, when it actually will have made the state more fragile, more prone to collapse in the face of the unanticipated shocks that history always deals from the bottom of the deck.
Maybe, at last, it's our turn.
3
I’m not so sure that conservatism, no matter how its “intellectuals” struggle to justify it, hasn’t always been about exactly what the word suggests: conserving the power of traditional elements of society. Lately that has been egregiously and blatantly centered around the self-advantage of the economically elite.
What Trump has added to the recipe is an unembarrassed willingness to pander to racist or near racist individuals in order to achieve political power while making the economically disadvantaged cling to a wildly improbable belief that he is one of them.
Simply “conserving” what is because it is what gave you advantage to begin with, is hardly a compelling political slogan. So they have to dress it up some to make it more palatable. But as the saying goes, if it walks like a ducks and quacks, it’s a duck.
Conserving sometimes makes good sense, but often what society needs are new ideas, which ought not be dismissed simply because they are new. Restraint is useful, but it ought not to turn into a shackle.
5
There are instant problems with Douthat's idea of social conservatism:
1. It's the conservatives who want to impose their values on everybody via the government, the obvious ones being ban on individuals' choices on procreation and sexuality. They are not just supporting private entities like churches promote their values, but to aim to dominate by legislation.
2. Corporations have gotten so big only government can properly counter their misdeeds. If we remove the government oversight of these corporations, the individuals are left to their mercy.
3. By bemoaning the "decaying" of societies because their power centers have become left-wing, is to say the Left is inherently decadent. And yet, as of now, it is the Left that fight for equitable and living wages and work place safety for workers, family leave time for family, healthcare coverage for all, oversight of big corporations from polluting the environment, abusing the workers and defrauding or harming the consumers with faulty products. Whereas, the Right fight tooth and nail against them. Who is more pro-community/people?
Therefore, Douthat's vision of conservatism has always been a farce, if not misguided.
Douthat forgets the Left have always value grass root activism. Occupy movement actually failed for lack of a hierarchical organization. The Right wants to trickle down economy and the Left, trickle up.
Like Trump, any truths against him is fake news. "My way is highway," is conservatism in a nut shell.
5
Drive, or better yet, walk around your community. What do you see? I see multitudes of people just scraping by. The Republican strategy for decades has been to divide these people using race as a wedge issue. If the multitudes that are just barely making it ever figure out that they have more in common than what divides them, watch out.
3
The era of 'limited government' is not over. It never existed.
The right, who proclaimed limited government, has never had any problem with the government imposing restrictions on who we can love, how we can peacefully protest, and what we can say about the government.
The left has, at least, been honest about their belief that the government should control who we work with, who we sell to, how we may protect ourselves, and what sorts of nasty things we can say about other people.
The only party which actually calls for limited government is the Libertarian Party, which received a whopping 3.28% of the vote in 2016. Obviously, the people do not want a limited government, they want one which suppresses those things they do not like no matter how big it has to be to do so.
4
In his fantasy that "power centers" are increasingly "left wing," Douthat overlooks that these so-called "power centers" are calling for exactly the government interventions he envisions: Strengthening of communities and fundamental provisions for families and individuals.
The "left wing" has had to struggle for decades against right-wing resistance to using the power of government for improving the lot of the people. Drowning the government in a bathtub does not provide help for families with sick or starving children.
In his own perverse way, Douthat has come around to a progressive view of government for so-called "conservative ends." So far, those "conservative ends" have been to make the rich richer -- how's that "trickle down" working out for you?
The right-wing supporting using government power, specifically the power of taxation, to improve life for everyday folks would be novel indeed.
In this essay, Douthat more or less confesses the utter bankruptcy of US conservative thought, finally handing the game to progressivism -- which is the direction a government for the people, by the people should have been going all along.
3
Ah yes. The use of government for right-wing ends. No no, not fascism, of course not! Remember Jim Crow? That was fun.
2
"In religion, Catholicism under Pope Francis aspires (scandals permitting) to ease its way leftward as well, leaving evangelical Christianity as an isolated bastion with little culture-shaping power."
1. Yes, you know, the whole social justice part of the catholic church that conservatives ignore.
2. Evangelical christianity does not deserve culture shaping power. Good riddance.
4
...to make practical “use of the administrative state” for right-wing ends.
That's the problem, in a nutshell, with RD's whole goatee stroking expostulation.
Use the government to promote the general welfare? Like say the ACA? Nah, let's use it to punish people who don't think like us, and put more money into the hands of those with power to keep down the undesirables and desecrate scientific thought in the name of contemporary greed.
That's the worry, Ross.
5
Limited government is a lie.
Republicans have consistently (ab)used government in a heavy-handed manner in favor of corporatists, the wealthy, and the religious right and against anyone who dares challenge that sacred triad.
7
Ross Douthat has always espoused a Catholic, conservative, Republican point of view.
Now that those positions have all been discredited, it's interesting to see him try to make sense of America and the world from an untenable perch.
"One can live for a week without food, but not one day without rationalizing," so Ross, keep rationalizing until you find a satisfying weltanschauung (world view) that you can live with. You have much work to do.
5
Douthat's column looks suspiciously like a call for the far right's last-ditch efforts to wrest democracy from our republic, and to set up a dictatorship of oligarchs, lest his faction of fascists (what else can they be?) becomes caught in the undertow of a demographic and progressive wave which has been building for the last 20 years.
Too late, Ross.
4
An "era of limited government" has never existed -- not for white males over 21.
2
"...there is plenty of space for more a state-friendly conservative politics in between movement conservatism and Mussolini..."
I bet there is.
1
I relish the end of limited government. It is a hoax of the oligarchs to gain more for themselves at the expense of our Treasury, our infrastructure, our educations and our health.
Right wing blowhards pound the lie of limited government into the heads of the gullible have-nots looking for a scapegoat to blame.
It was limited government that stood by like a wimp while the price of an Epipen was jacked up from $100 to $600 apiece. Ask anyone who needed an Epipen how that limited government thing worked out for them.
It was limited government that stood by like a wimp while credit default swaps, CDOs, LBOs and other sick practices of Wall St laid waste to the world's economies.
It is limited government that stands by like a wimp while polar ice caps melt, cities burn, and oil barons roll around in untold billions.
It was not limited government that build the interstate highway system, put men on the moon with a safe return, stalemated the USSR into oblivion, beat polio, tamed the rivers, electrified rural America, made the desert bloom, beat the dust bowl and stopped old Jim Crow in his tracks.
Those arguing for limited government have an unhealthy agenda up their sleeve.
6
@Mike
Exactly!
Why Douthat have a column?
The church is no longer a power center in American culture and frankly, it should never have been.
Ironically it was conservatives that killed the centrality of religion in civic life by electing a moral degenerate to the presidency.
Now that the religious right has self-destructed, we should probably put Ross back up on the shelf. These columns are less relevant every week.
7
So the upshot is that conservatives are really considering fascism as an option.
2
"If you wanted to summarize the intellectual uncertainties of conservatives in the Trump era, you could say that the right is trying to figure out whether the unwritten American constitution it imagines itself defending still exists."
It doesn't and hasn't for a long time, at least since Reagan. There may have been a day in which conservatives had some adorable notion of smaller government allowing civic institutions to do more good for more people, but since at least Reagan, all conservatives have been about is aiding our nations' downtrodden oligarchy class and using the government and the courts to do it.
2
"Thus when conservatives preach about the virtues of “limited government,”.... They envision a larger communitarian panoply.."
Communitarian panoply? SOUNDS LIKE SOCIALISM TO ME!
1
Conservatives want limited government -- for everyone else.
1
Good citizens seek truth.
So called, self identifying "conservative" members of Congress must be called out as enabling an attack by Russia and maybe other foreign powers,
They also are guilty of undermining Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds. They are merely willing idiots (sound familiar) played by interests that have been steadily dismantling our government to the benefit of the highest bidders, to the detriment of the rest of us.
Meanwhile they are also the arch enemies of petit bourgeois people like me, who need government services and who want to live in a free society where the playing field is level.
1
Wow. This article is...lessee...1933...only 86 years past being relevant!
1
Well count me among those who consider this a neo-apologia for nascent fascism.
3
Limited Government “ conservatives” equals Kansas.
Enough said. Would YOU live here, Sir ???
3
@Phyliss Dalmatian
What is wrong with Kansas?
Please Mr.Douthat, stop writing run on sentences. If your goal is to communicate, write sentences of no more than 25 words. Paragraph long sentences are not the mark of intellect.
Thank you.
2
“a 21st-century update of French Gaullism”
Yikes! If you read up on on the Gaullist era, you’ll want to avoid a repeat. Possibly as close to fascism as you can get without labelling it as such.
2
the trump voting, fox watching, under-educated, opioid addicted deplorables won't become enlightened anytime soon (ever). Folks like Hannity, Coulter and Bannon will continue to sell and profit from it.
5
Yes that big smiling, cowboy hat phony, side kick of Bonzo can now take his final ride off into the sunset. Good riddance.
2
This entire article is just part of Ross’s long intellectual effort at rationalizing his own comfort with fascism. He’s not goosestepping and raising his arm yet, but if he thinks it’s the only way his precious, non-existent “White Christian civilization” can be preserved, you can bet he’ll be there at Nuremburg.
3
BOTH the Marxist Rats in the Left, and the Corporatist RINO Rats (allegedly on the right), are both clever liars and spinners of gold. The MRs really do want to control individuals right down to the Stalin-designed uniforms, while they claim that the Conservatives instead pursue that aim. The NeoCons and Corporatists really do want to control the winners and losers at the institutional level, while they claim the Marx Rats have that as the aim. And then both groups cross their pee streams in order to obfuscate what they're doing. Like my favorite HS teacher taught: Politics = Poly ticks = multiple bloodsuckers.
Conservatives changing their "small government" mantra??
Sorry, but FDR was right when he said that a conservative is someone with two strong legs who never learned how to walk forward.
2
Wait! We had limited government?
You should have told me, I would have looked.
Conservatives' limited government is an odd one: intrusions into healthcare and the bedrooms of America, dosing the nation with vile vats of religious dogma and prejudice, refusal to allow hated identity groups a modicum of comfort or security...you've been binging on control since the 1960s, forcing America into tight, squeaky shoes.
In Conservative Land there's no rational limit on government spending so long as it goes to war, military expenditure, insane tax breaks for people who take the cash and remove it from the broader economy.
In your Lincolnesque paean to common-man America you list a passel of cultural factions needing your compassion and support. Unsurprisingly you omit massive segments of the population, including the hopeless urban poor, ethnicities struggling to fit in and move the nation forward, people of genders and relationships of whom you do not approve.
Then you base your argument on maladroit provocateurs like the bigoted fake scientist Chuck Murray.
In your own sneaky way you produce a parody of David Brooks, all Norman Rockwell's America wrapped in the same stony Conservative hatefulness you espoused all along. Soft, but painfully crunchy.
To your question, America is not a deeply religious country, with strong churches and growing denominations. Your church built on raw power and a hateful disregard for the other, have seen to that.
4
I am often annoyed by Douthat’s columns, but he is an original thinker. Many columnists can express their opinions well, but their views don’t stray from their right or left wing lames. Douthat dares to go where others fear to tread.
Thankyou Ross Douthat. Your writing and thoughtful consideration are rare indeed!
1
Something that conservatives always seem to miss in the discussion of power centers, is that government is the power center over which the populous has the most control. In neutering government, the conservative republicans have undercut people in favor of corporations. Government is how we get a seat at the table when decisions that affect our lives are made. 40 years of republican attacks have left us without a strong advocate at the table. Decisions about trade deals, regulations, economics, the environment, etc are made based mostly on the input from corporations. To reverse this, Republicans can either try to make a U-turn on their philosophy or they can become Democrats. Either way is fine with me...
3
Ross, I have been reading your column for a long time now, and while your interest in "conservative principles" is regularly displayed, for the life of me, I still am not sure what you actually believe in. Perhaps "mending the social fabric" comes to mind, be it through espousing civil behavior, participation in organized religion, or a commitment to civic engagement. But on a political spectrum, these goals are as at valued in liberal households as conservative ones. Help me out here- what is it you are actually advocating for?
1
Without exactly saying it, you did. Conservatism as we know it over. It’s been a shell of itself for a long time. The idea of limited government ended when conservatives used every branch of government they could get their hands on to legislate then stacked the courts. Then actively used the courts to further an their agenda. Hardly conservative, but more revolutionary. Then conservatives anointed themselves keepers of the flag and and their own limited view of the constitution, despite large majorities differing from this narrow vision. When the republicans absorbed the religious right, under the banner of conservatives, the game should have been over, but has limped forward. The religious right is decidedly not conservative, but a minority of government activists for completely disregarding division of church and state, while using the power of the federal and local governments to further its agenda. Nothing about constitutional purity of defending government overreach, as they preached their conservative bonafides. Now they are nothing more than a gun lobby and anti-abortion activists. Whatever else happens in between does not matter. These so called conservatives are now grinding the country to a halt. So hell bent, they are on using government to further an agenda, they now defend minority rule over the majority.
William Buckley is rolling over in his grave, the movement and the term no longer has a shred of legitimacy.
4
"the country’s once-rich associational and civic and religious life is declining and dissolving"
It's the big-government version of Gresham's Law. In this case, government programs drive out private initiatives. Why donate to a church or charity or foundation when big-government programs suck up tax dollars and savings, promising to address and ameliorate medical, educational, employment and almost every other private issue that was once handled privately? The "era" of "limited government" has been over since FDR's first term.
2
To see an example of a conservative government intruding on the minimal government idea, look no further than Iowa. Here, the conservative Republican legislature has passed laws to curtail the power of local governments, i.e. Those closest to the people, even though those governments acted the way their electors wanted them to. For example, a couple of urban populist counties passed laws raising the minimum wage and allowing towns within those counties to opt out if they chose. Sounds like representative government, right? But the Republican legislature, controlled not by the voters but by "big agriculture" and other corporate interests, passed a bill forbidding counties to set a minimum wage above the state level, even though the higher minimum wage was what the voters of those counties wanted. Not only does it represent government over-reach on the state level, but it defies the free market theory of business and labor espoused by Republicans. Mr. Douthat beat around the bush of the core truth - that Republicans value power more than democracy, and will do whatever it takes to retain that power, philosophies and principles be damned.
5
Even more thought-provoking than usual. It seems to me that there are two axes: liberal/conservative, and more government/less government. What is clearer and clearer to me is that a libertarian solution ("Government, butt out!") won't work.
1
This is all very interesting, but it has little to do with the cheaper passions of the real world that actually govern political behavior. "An attempt to improve on Trumpism"? Trumpism is very little but a jingoistic and avowedly racist appeal to the basest instincts of the mob, and that includes the sort of remarks with which Tucker Carlson (who you seem to regard as some sort of public intellectual) degrades our airwaves. It has become impossible to view conservatism except through these glasses, glasses forcibly shoved onto our noses every day, with Trump's every act and tweet, lately his bogus "emergency" supported by a mythic imagery of invading dark-skinned hordes justifying a massive public works project. It is rather an outrage that you are not outraged, but rather see these outrages as prologue to intellectual trends in public discourse. Taking a historical view, they are prologue to no such thing. They are prologue to violence, and without a Congress or a Judiciary--and a press-- willing to do something about it, that is where we may well be headed.
4
Forgive me if I don't feel we have been living in an era of limited government when that government is removing reproductive freedom from (especially) poor women.
Imagine how surprised America's wealthy women are going to be when can't get get an abortion for their daughter anywhere in America and their concierge doctor will be too afraid of prosecution to even fit her with a contraceptive. That's Pence's America and we are closer than we think.
8
I find this: "But as civil society has decayed over recent decades..." to mean, "as civil society has moved away from Christianity and laissez faire capitalism..." And, true to form, you treat both as disasters. They aren't.
5
Why do people like Ross Douthat use the word "socialist" like a bogeyman? Do they look at stable modern European states that provide healthcare, education, and financial security for their citizens and recoil in horror? If so, why? Do they really believe that Soviet-style communism is just around the corner for Denmark? I do not understand this insanity.
8
If our communities have collapsed, I think it can be summarized in two words: good jobs.
Unmarried parents, rampant drug abuse, cynicism, anger. The 40-year economic starvation of our middle and lower classes is killing our society.
Corporations couldn't care less, and apparently neither does our government.
3
Gosh, where to even start?
On economics, the vast majority of people--liberal or conservative--dissapprove of giant tax cuts for the uber-rich; moreover the mess in states like Kansas proves they do not work.
On reproductive rights, the mass-majority still approve of Roe v. Wade; the greatest success in preventing unintended pregnancies (and thus abortions) have come from liberal policies.
Universities are massively liberal because conservatives have rejected science--not just on evolution and climate change, but also on social science ( see above).
If the young people of this country (and thus the giant corporations trying to appeal to them) are turning away from religion, that's because they are sick of hearing anti-gay and anti-feminist messages they know to be false.
One issue notable by it's abscence is race and immigration--the fact that Trump won mostly by saying all the old dog-whistle stuff out-loud (Birtherism, The Wall) shows that Xenophobia was always the most unifying thread on the right. Not some small-gov't "philosophy."
Really, Mr Douthat's article is a window into how small movement conservatism really is, and how much magical thinking is necessary to believe otherwise. Which is sad, because there is a lot to be said for limited gov't and communtiy-based development. But the GOP has for decades favored big-money, racism, and controlling people's sex lives over any other values they've claimed to have. Maybe it's time for guys like Ross to realize that.
7
"Are American businessmen basically public spirited, eager to compete on equal terms once government removes its heavy hand"
Why compete, when you can have the government guarantee they'll crush your competitors? The whole idea of this country being a pure meritocracy is a sad joke.
2
No offense but I prefer Thomas Jefferson
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”
and Ronald Reagan
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
View on Government than Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez Nanny State Views.
3
@Sara I've always wondered what person was terrified to hear "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." I'm guessing no one ever – except maybe an IRS agent visiting the 1%.
2
In the Immortal Words of Stephen Colbert, spoken to the very face of Power, GWB himself:
"....Reality has a well-known Liberal bias..."
1
I had a multi-layered comment all ready to go, until I got to the very end of this column and read: "improve on Trumpism with clearer blueprints and smarter cadres."
Trump has been a horrific blight on our decency and humanity as a country - in addition to attacking our civil rights, our environment, women's reproductive rights, our schools, and healthcare. There is no improving, there is only erasing and starting again.
3
Ross, Ross, Ross. When were the Republicans for limited government? Ever hear of the Iraq War? Ever hear of St. Ronald's arms buildup? I guess that doesn't qualify as big government?
Perhaps you're thinking of Eisenhower? Hoover? Coolidge?
4
@Bunnell Not Eisenhower, he was for massive infrastructure spending, e.g., the interstate highway system.
@Chris Everett true, but he did show restraint on the military front, as only a true soldier could. Contrast that to the chicken hawks who followed.
3
All those words just to say what Daniel Patrick Moynihan said in a sentence: "Government can do whatever you ask, but do you really want it to?"
1
Re: your title: Good riddance, as markets have repeatedly proved incapable of making the economy work for everyone, instead of the other way around. We need markets; markets need managing.
1
Without a coherent cultural ethos--and multiculturalism ain't the answer nor is a Grand Collective of handouts--it really doesn't matter what "conservatives" or "liberals" care or think ought to be the use of government.
At this point, what matters most is the Bill of Rights--and the assault on that continues from the deep-swamp to our Sovietized mass-media and its "big brother" Google et al.
3
The phrase, ". . . leaving evangelical Christianity as an isolated bastion with little culture-shaping power. . . ." has me completely baffled. Who cares about the culture-shaping power of evangelical Christianity? I have observed a fair number of evangelical Christians. Their culture-shaping influence lies principally in perpetuating ignorance and waiting for(and possibly encouraging) Armageddon. Evangelical religion is a source of power for the leaders and an opiate for the members.
7
Since when was there ever limited government?
It's incredible that such a seemingly intelligent person like Douthat can actually believe this tripe.
Strip this article of its flowery language and superficial intellectualism and what you have is this: In the past, conservatives favored "limited government" because it was in their interest to do so. Non-government institutions were more sympathetic to conservative values and goals. Churches, corporations, community groups, etc. were generally hostile to liberal (read: non-discriminatory and populist) causes, so restricting their power would benefit liberals and was therefore bad. Hence, "limited government" was important because it maintained conservative power.
Now, however, corporations are less conservative (some in fact are liberal), churches are less important, and other community groups are less conservative. Thus, the "limited government" philosophy is no longer as effective in maintaining conservative influence and power, and is therefore expendable.
This article clearly demonstrates that, despite what Douthat wants to believe, the conservative ideology has no governing principle beyond accumulation and maintenance of power. Douthat's mental gymnastics and sophistry are simply him trying to justify why modern conservatism can and should betray its most basic "principles" and "philosophies." Oddly enough, the new guiding "principle"--that the government can be used to help all citizens and improve society--is something liberals have believed forever.
6
I'm not convinced that conservatives/Republicans were _ever_ in favor of small government, though of course they like to claim so. Giant DoD budget, capital punishment, and forced birth all seem like prime examples of big government to me.
3
best way to ensure American "community" is to keep control of the "state" out of the hands of the right.
3
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the communitarianism of the '50s was predicated on the viability of the single-income nuclear family, enabling (and constraining) women to dedicate their efforts to domestic ends. With the liberation of women, the scales shifted. Two incomes are now required for the majority of families to make ends meet, and domestic life has suffered correspondingly. The US government cannot, and should not, attempt to return to the era of female subjugation, but it can, and should, constrain the damage that modern economic realities inflict on domestic life by providing a strong social safety net where life's most important projects, such as raising families, caring for elders, and the like aren't also the most economically perilous.
"Defending the written constitution."
I can't believe you just wrote that down. Let's review shall we:
Scalia dies while Obama is President. Who picks the next Supreme Court judge?
Constitution says: Article Two of the United States Constitution requires the President of the United States to nominate Supreme Court Justices and, with Senate confirmation, requires Justices to be appointed. ... he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the supreme Court...
Okay here's another one for ya. Who controls the power of the purse strings within the US government?
Constitution says: In the federal government of the United States, the power of the purse is vested in the Congress as laid down in the Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 (the Appropriations Clause) and Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 (the Taxing and Spending Clause).
This morning I watched a Senate Republican from Wyoming complete ignore the question as to why he objected to Obama declaring a National Mergency and why it was okay for trump.
Pleases Ross. Stop. Wasting. My. Time.
6
How does the myth that Republicans favor limited government persist? Federal spending as a percentage of GDP has grown as much grown under Republican administrations as under Democratic.
4
Well, we certainly needn't worry about Republicans limiting government. What little they appreciate and understand about it stops with politics.
The GOP is good at winning elections, and by whatever means they can get away with. But when it comes to governance, they collapse.
Our conservative movement once was responsible and engaged. Now it's cut the arteries of revenue flow and throw away the tourniquet. What's left is limp and bloodless.
1
It is astounding the difficulty which many persons who don't have to worry much about money have in understanding how the lives of people who do would be vastly improved if they also did not have to worry so much. For the record, the federal government in the fifties and sixties intervened regularly and strongly to ensure that the minimum wage kept pace with productivity increases, until it stood at more than $11 in today's dollars around 1968! It now stands at $7.25! Does anyone seriously believe that the state of America today has little to do with this elementary fact?
4
Here is how Samuel Huntington described conservatism back in 1957:
"... society is the organic product of slow historical growth, and existing institutions embody the wisdom of previous generations; man is a creature of instinct and emotion as well as reason, and evil resides in human nature rather than in any particular societal institutions; the community is superior to the individual, and the rights of men derive from civic responsibility; except in an ultimate moral sense, humans are unequal, and society always consists of a variety of classes, orders, and groups; the settled schemes of government based on human experience are always superior to abstract experimentation."
This describes a prudent, traditional and skeptical temperament, more than an ideology trying to "get somewhere!" It describes the temperament of many non-ideological, apolitical, pre-Rush Limbaugh Americans, even many mainstream Democrats.
Ironically, in its reaction to liberal social experimentation and overuse of Big Government, it became ideological, radical and non-conservative. It's absolute fealty to free markets and shrinking the responsibility of government virtually everywhere only conserves the power of wealth.
1
The Progressive Left will always win this battle at the voting polls...They can always offer more...That's what has happened here in CA. We have the money, at least for now, to pay for it; thanks to our Internet lords.
It's too late and no one has a moderate/conservative approach. Thanks for the good try, though.
2
What, exactly, would "state-power conservatism" be conserving? It's not possible to conserve social institutions that no longer exist.
2
Another example of the erosion of conservative principles is currently playing out in Missouri. "Clean Missouri" amended the state constitution with over 62% statewide approval. The new law makes state legislative records sunshine-able, provides a different process to address gerrymandering and places limits on campaign financing and gifts to elected officials. The Republican majority currently is putting forward legislation to undo these voter-approved amendments. This is the ultimate hypocrisy - governance by the elite. Those pesky Missouri voters had the gall to place limits on the profitability of public service, and must be overruled.
7
By identifying the origins of modern conservatism as being from the 1950's, it's very telling which non-state institutions are held up as exemplary...religious organizations, business associations, charities, etc... are all institutions that could not have flourished in the Soviet Union. Taken to it's conclusion, these institutions (one could argue) were being celebrated precisely for this reason.
Without suggesting that these institutions don't merit respect, the fact that there cited at all, while others were excluded (unions anyone!) suggest that they were simply arbitrary to begin with and conformed with the Republican / Petite Bourgeoisie values of the time.
Some institutions evolve, and some disappear and get replaced by others. But it's not the size of government that forcing these changes, it's society.
4
The Republican party is and almost always has been, except for its 19th century roots, the party of the merchant class, the stock holding cohort, the top 10 percenters and those who are climbing the economic ladder and hope to join those ranks. As the late actor Carrol O'Conner put it, it is a party for the aspirational who believe they are joining "a better class of people".
It is, then, fundamentally about protecting money and social position. The masses are dragged to the ball by the false promise of tax cuts (you can't cut taxes enough to make a real difference in most people's lives) and the belief that Republicans are on their side in racial, cultural and religious matters. It is the impression that counts whether or not the Republican party can provide in actual relief in the cultural wars.
So, we have a swirling pool of intellectuals trying to construct a backdrop, an underpinning, for what Republicans want to do anyway. Regardless, the tide of forward moving history is about to sweep their constructions away.
Just as there are no atheists in fox holes, there are no ideologs in the aftermath of hurricanes. A hurricane looms in our future. Providing access to health care is the single most positive thing govt. can do to "provide for the general welfare". Dealing with the developing crisis of employment in the technological, robot inhabited world will call on every resource we have, including big govt. Someone should tell the Republicans the 19th century is over.
3
In 60 years of living, I've never met a conservative who claims to hold the lofty goals ascribed to the movement by Mr. Douthat at the outset of his article. None were worried about preserving some perceived institution from the past, or held some ideas of personal responsibility beyond complaining about "others". No, they just didn't like paying taxes for things they didn't understand and didn't care for people who didn't look like them. Period. Full stop.
10
A freemarket conservative can support government programs that are effective if they also maximize free choices by both individuals and firms. Thus if we accept climate change as a common problem, carbon taxes or cap and trade programs should be greatly preferred to detailed government rules and schools preaching vegetarianism.
But the use of government to encourage nationalism is a different type of conservatism that many of us strongly oppose.
4
"Conservatives" may preach what Ross says, but let's not pretend they are preaching to today's Republican party.
5
The idea that conservatives are for limited government and a balanced budget is laughable. Reagan and Bush drove us into debt to win the cold war while giving huge tax breaks to the wealthiest among us. Clinton at least made some progress to get us to a projected surplus which Bush 2 squandered on wars fought on the country's credit card and in the end nearly collapsed the economy. Obama got us out of that rut but the rescue did add to the deficit but at the lowest percentage of GDP seen in years. After complaining how much Obama and Dems spent, Republicans fired an opening salvo of the GOP Tax cut which favored the rich and corporations at the expense of the middle class ( As long as Netflix doesn't have to pay any taxes I guess).
I learned long ago, both parties spend tax dollars, the only difference is Democrats spend them on ways that at least I get some benefit (socialism), Republicans spend them on ways that don't benefit me at all at best or at worse cost me more (Corporate welfare).
I became a Democrat because I think that if We the People aren't going to share in the profits of Exxon/Mobile drilling and selling oil, we shouldn't be on the hook paying to help them find it either. A position, no Republican I know of would support.
6
"How can commercial activity and technological development continue to be turned toward the common good, and toward our own strategic advantage?” “What can we do with the reins of power, that is, the state, to ensure the common good of our citizens?" Uh, Green New Deal?
4
The struggle between freedom and equality is the Tocqueville meme. The world Douthat yearns for was one that used freedom to crush equality. Extremes of either is not good. The mission going forward will be to craft a state where minimum levels of equality provide the American experience for as many citizens as possible while enabling as much freedom as possible for excellence.
1
We can only hope the era of limited government is over.
Thirty-five years of trickle-down Reaganomics has made the rich, richer at the expense of the rest of the country.
The other first world countries don't have the poverty we have.
They have better schools for the working class.
They have better economic mobility than we do.
They have universal healthcare. We have parts of the US with infant mortality rates of a second world country.
Germany is known for high-tech manufacturing and they have faced the same globalization we have.
After 35 years of trickle-down Reaganomics, we got an opioid crisis.
7
Anyone who has looked at how large corporations behaved in the 19th century knows that there has been no decline in the "communitarian system" for checks and balances. It never did work; that is just a conservative myth.
3
All this essay says is that there is an old, unenlightened, conservative ideology that must be forced upon the country by any means necessary. It is observing that, until recently, the chosen method was to try to push the public to favor 'limited government,' not because conservatives believed in it, but because they thought that 'civic institutions' shared their agenda and would be more likely to enforce it. Now that civic institutions are showing signs of growing into a more modern alignment with what our twenty-first century populace believes, the limited-government means to an ideological end won't work. The bald-faced conclusion is that now that most people are in favor of a more modern, progressive agenda, it's time for conservatives to use the power of the state to enforce their ancient and arthritic ideology. The implicit admission in this is that these conservatives have no fundamental beliefs about the nature of government; their certainty in the 'rightness' of their ideology deludes them into thinking that democratic decision-making is secondary.
8
It’s difficult not to laugh out loud at this ethereal, mishmash of theory and posturing. The conservative movement represented by the post Reagan GOP has shown itself happily and readily to use state power to punish, humiliate, undermine public education, deny health care, deny the vote, coddle and subsidize large private corporations and at the state level (i.e., North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, Alabama, etc.). It has been particularly hard on African Americans and other minorities, and often outright racist (police shooting of African Americans).
Symbols of this abound: Willie Horton ads, the lie about John McCain’s love child, the birther lie that not one powerful Republican has ever attacked or condemned.
It’s lovely to speak of mediating institutions, of which I am wholeheartedly in favor.
It’s another for Congress and the President to allow, if not applaud the systematic use of state governments to destroy the well being of the poor, single parents, women, and minorities, and to actively undermine their ability to vote.
Give me a break, Douthat. Get down and live among real people for a change.
13
Replacing a neutral government that has no vested interest other than keeping us behaving like humans and not animals, with corporations and churches is what they want. Limiting religions and corporations is what is needed.
6
By their actions, I always thought conservative limited government meant rolling back the regulations that blocked the greed of big bank, that protect consumers, and that protect clean air and water.
3
Good food for thought, thanks for the references. My view is that at root is the conflict between free-market or unfettered capitalism and the common good. (Just search for "libertarianism versus common good", and marvel at volume of backpedaling and intellectual gyrations.) After four or so decades of tilting in the direction of the free-market ideology, we see the resulting decline of our common good. A new direction is needed.
4
Douthat espouses an effective abandonment of politics as we've historically known it - negotiating between factions to come to an agreed-on result - in favor of a coup de main against government in which all branches are effectively redeployed against a presumed enemy, e.g., anyone who disagrees with the post-Trumpian standard bearers. Implicit in all of this is the noxious deep state paranoia, in which it is necessary to root out anyone less than supportive of these views because they frustrate this hegemony. Douthat has previously shown a tendency to view politics like religion - if you're a true believer, anything short of 100% is heresy. Now we have it in full flower. This is moral corruption of the highest order and a disguised justification of Trumpian politics.
4
If you were to amass all of the fiction written by American authors in a year, it would be dwarfed by the output of conservatism. Conservatives like Douthat generate fiction:their descriptions of what is and what was (history), their religion, sociology - all fiction. It is fiction in service of elites who want to amass power and wealth, who want to control the lives of non-elites and keep power out of their hands.
5
The phrase "limited government conservatism" is a convenient, if not elusive oxymoron.
For the last several decades many of the so-called conservatives advocated that the federal government should, for the most part, stay out of the regulation of everything, except national defense and the Post Office. Of course, when the issue was important to a new base of supporters, e.g. the evangelicals, the principles of conservatism were conveniently aborted to insert the government into predominately cultural or personal issues.
It is laughable to suggest that conservatives have been or are in favor of limited government. There have been just as many judicial activist opinions from the conservative branch of the Supreme Court as the liberal wing.
We need to focus on the very complex but important task of defining precisely what role government should have in the administration of our economic, commerical and civic affairs. Mr. Douthat's waxing sentimental about religious influence reminds us that until we keep religion out of politics, that is not going to occur.
6
@Dr. Strangelove
Aren't you mixing up the effects on citizens from different government branches? Just because the judicial branch of the federal government may take an active role, it doesn't necessarily mean that legislated activities, like social programs, need to follow suit at the federal level. Couldn't more local government take active roles, in this case?
1
An apologia for craven conservatism. Not a true conservatism with the health and spirit of helping others with the discipline to meet obligations. No. But the other conservatism where I control the community through religion and the productive means, inert and human. The Simpsons Boss at the nuke plant, Burns.
Lament away Ross as these essays point to cruelty, arrogance and sir, totally unaware of the reality of life.
Conservatives/Republicans have had the power for Fourty years and this is where we are at? Will you take no responsibility for the war debts and life taken around the world to satisfy your lust for control, because that sir is what you advocate, a religious/corporatist top down society. You sir do not live in a free market system, you live in an oligarchy and call it democracy.
Really Ross, it’s 2019, not 1019!
5
One can often find glimmers of truth in Mr Douthat's writings, despite the constant use of hyperbolic strawpersons.
"Already-liberal institutions — universities, Hollywood, the big foundations and the mass media — are now more uniformly allied with the left than even the very recent past."
Mr Douthat and his ilk's recurring problem is their failure to accept that liberal bias is actually reality bias.
6
“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”
—Daniel Patrick Moynihan
2
Sorry Ross, but the only parts of government that conservatives want limited are the parts that protect ordinary people from being completely hammered by the wealthy, right wing religious nut cakes and other misanthropes.
6
The entire conservative movement has always been without principle despite Ross's imagining of it. And in the last quarter century or so they have gone down the rabbit hole of pure madness. The only principle the GOP has is using racism as a shield against their unpopular tax cut policies. They are not even pro free markets they are just pro corporation and pro rich person.
5
Ross predicates his argument on the racists Charles Murray and Tucker carlson. Need anyone pretend anything further needs be said to discredit the balance? Well yes perhaps this: too many whites continue their racism in just this way -- blithely endorsing white supremacy as the foundation of their thinking. Thank goodness blacks are increasingly unwilling to have a conversation premised on such racism. Instead we stop the rant and demand unprejudicedd premises. When we don't get them we know ross, bret, Brooks, bruni, Kristof et al for what they really are-- defenders of white privilege.
1
Mr Douthat's disclaimer that state friendly enforcement of right wing recipes for shaping society would not be fascism is indeed right out of Mussolini's play book.
3
Two things gave me pause in Ross's argument:
"But as civil society has decayed over recent decades, its remaining power centers have also become increasingly left-wing."
The standing of the Catholic Church has certainly dropped, even as Francis is doing what he can to save disgraceful the institution the other is a warning that "Instead limited government but Civil society has decayed?
And then there is the bogey man to scare us all: "Instead conservatism may give way to an attempt to improve on Trumpism with clearer blueprints and smarter cadres for the same reason that changes often happen in political ideology — because the people whose thinking is changing feel that they don’t have any other choice."
The world is moving inexorably forward, religions my do a lot of writhing but in the end they will lose. Read the writing on the wall, Ross. I hope it happens sooner rather than later so that more people will be saved from the fear and loathing that go with the nonsense that your church and the rest of the "religious" establishment preach.
Is this not one of the weirdest Douthat columns?
3
In your utopia of a smarter and more nuanced limited government, where does the family-intrusive stance against Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider or family reproductive health adviser fit? Just asking...
7
I ask you: Haven't you always feared the state more under Republicans than Democrats?
4
Ross still doesn't understand, he's the one fool still all dressed up like a thoughtful, benevolent, ideologically pure "conservative." Some day soon, he will see that Trump, McConnell, Bush, Ryan and their message makers, have played him for the rube. They all talk small, limited government, right up until they're in office. It's all just a marketing message. Douthat still thinks they have an underlying ideology or principle. Finally, if anyone thinks Trump has any strategy or political roadmap, they are willfully ignorant too. Just look at the Chinese tariffs and the subsidies for farmers. Small government? Puhleease.
5
The piety in America has been hijacked by those who worship the dollar and have no idea who Jesus is. The right is dragging everybody down.
5
Did you perhaps mean the "Error of Limited Government? "
3
This column seems to be an apology for a coming fascist state. It seems to be saying that since a fascist state is coming, why don't we conservatives take over the fascist state and control the direction it moves. Grab the power before the power grabs us. Let's see how that goes. Oh, my. I hope it goes better than the last time people tried fascism.
4
For balance, The Benefits For More Government should have been made clearer
They include:
The 93 Trillion New Green Deal,
The 32 Trillion Medicare for all
No Tax Breaks for Rich Companies providing 1000s of jobs
Reparations for African Americans and Native Americans, Caribbean Americans, Mexican Americans,
Government Mandated Bathroom Policy
Be careful what you (vote) for. As a wise ex-president famously said, Elections have Consequences
3
Conservatives need to start calling themselves Federalists; then begin to realize that government has different roles in differnt states and regions. Saying you are in favor of small government is stupid when you want a strong defense. Rather, it is energetic government within the confines of its constitutional arrangement.
2
Ross, let me fix this for you... limited government= Increasingly unfettered corporate control.
At least that’s how it has all played out since 1980.
5
Philosophical discussion of the best way forward for “conservatives” is a parlor game until “conservatives” figure out how to pry the GOP out of the hands of the wealthy wackos whose brainwashing machine supplies 85% of Republicans with their daily dose of alternative facts, defining their understanding of “reality”.
4
Bumper sticker version of Douthat's piece: "Trump Ruined Reagan... Bring Back Ike!"
3
Ross, this sounds a lot like you're saying the conservatives are letting loose of their libertarian roots and getting ready to embrace full-fledged fascism. Otherwise, you seem to be saying that they are slowly realizing the liberals have been right all along. I'm hoping it's the second of those.
3
Ross's categorization about what "conservatives" believe in/should believe in seems to me to miss the central issues upon which conservatism has foundered in the last 200 years: 1) "Conservative" limited government enabled slavery before 1865 and Jim Crow/Separate but Equal Schools/Voter Suppression after 1865. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were both necessary government interventions against the "small" government mantra. 2) "Conservatives" used to believe in a limited government until the Depression and the New Deal - Social Security has become an essential part of what we see as a critical government role. Medicare and Medicaid are still challenges to conservatives, but not to society as a whole and 2018 demonstrated that for re-election conservatives best also support many aspects of the Affordable Care Act. 3) "Conservatives" generally have had no problems with the Christian religion being included in public life (prayers in schools, etc), but get deeply offended when it is pointed out that there are non-Christian citizens who would like a more equal playing field (like the recent Alabama Muslim inmate who wished to have an imam with him going to execution. The major challenge to Conservatives today is not big vs small, or rural vs urban, or rich vs poor, it is owing that the approaches they have historically taken have enabled deep harm to their fellow citizens, and then figuring out how to structure a "conservative" but "equitable to all social" contract.
2
Trump was elected exactly because the voters came to the same conclusion: the Republicans have now joined the Democrats as statists, and enemies of federalism.
The Republican voting base tossed out many of the statists at and just after the conventions.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have no hope.
The statist socialists have run off all the classic liberal Democrats from the party heirarchy.
The big surprise will come in 2020. The statist progressive left believes (as crypto-Communists always do) that their promise of free everything for everyone will get the voters to give them centralized control.
It won't.
Voters are smarter than that. The 2016 election demonstrated that the coastal elitist lefties, and the urban minorities kept under the thumb of their local Demicratic machines, cannot overcome an energized silent majority.
A recent Gallup survey showed that in fact, liberals are only an actual majority in six states.
Their overreach in recent administrations has guaranteed the continued emergence of the real majority: conservative American federalists.
Words, words, words.
The romanticism of small civic institutions has nothing to do with our current politics, and when it comes to the Republican Party and hasn't for a least a century. Nature, and political systems, abhor a vacuum. What limited government has given us, certainly since Reagan, is an immense shift in wealth upwards. The concentration of wealth and power amongst the corporate elite reflects the fact that the checks and balances against that elite- what we call "our" representatives have been bought off by the wealthy.
As David Leonhardt illustrated in yesterday's Times, since 1980, the top .01% increased it's income by roughly 420 %, the rest of the 1% about 170%, while the 90-99 % essentially tracked the GDP at about 80%. The remaining 90% lost out, especially those in the bottom half of the income scale.
That shift in wealth is what the GOP has been about, while guys like you and David Brooks (and Republican candidates) pontificate about "civic engagement, freedom from the state," etc.
It's all about the rich getting nearly all the wealth generated in society while the rest of us flounders or falls behind. The rest is irrelevant commentary. As Thomas Frank put it in What's The Matter With Kansas, you provide the irrelevant rhetoric, while the rich collect the spoils.
5
For those of you who are who are concerned about government interference in your lives, here are a few grass roots measures you can take to minimize its intrusion into your affairs.
1. Don't claim Social Security or Medicare. Fund your own retirement and pay your own medical bills.
2. Stop supporting our troops and start supporting peace-promoting organizations.
3. Don't call public safety -- solve your own problems and put out your own fires.
4. Don't use public roads.
5. Pay for your own education. This will require going more than rack rate at most institutions.
6. I am assuming that you have already done all you can to minimize the amount you pay in taxes.
There, you eliminated about 75% of the government's role in your life.
6
The problem with right-wing supported deregulated capitalism as a stabilizing power in our constitution is that capitalism left unchecked is corrupt. Unchecked, the end of share-holder and individual wealth justify any means. There is no social contract in American capitalism. Look at the latest social media behemoths like Facebook break every privacy barrier imaginable to increase value and power. Go back 10 years and look at the mortgage industry corruption slinging flimsy loans for a quick buck leading to the Great Recession. We have learned our lesson -- from Tucker Carlson to AOC -- we have learned our lesson. Government needs to check and balance Facebook, the mortgage industry, big oil, big pharma, and on and on. And this check and balance should help individual families.
5
All those mental gymnastics when we already know what works but have spent the last 50 years running away from: a progressive tax structure.
6
"Instead limited government conservatism may give way to an attempt to improve on Trumpism with clearer blueprints and smarter cadres..."
Improve on Trumpism? Conservatives are sitting around the dinner table while Trump is reaching across and grabs their dinner. Instead of a prayer before supper, each one is obliged to offer praise to the Dear Leader much like the spectacle of Trump's Cabinet meetings. The only way to improve on the president who places a large poster of himself on the dinner table is to dethrone the King.
The authoritarian tendency that is on the rise in the U.S. and in much of the world needs to yanked out of the ground, root, trunk, branch, and leaf. There is nothing wrong with liberal democracies and open societies. Conservatives and liberals need to converge around those values and fight the growing control of societies by hate, fear, suspicion, greed, and insularity.
4
Plainly, the Conservative Movement has operated in bad faith since Nixon. It has been gaslighting America with duplicitous marketing slogans — energy exploration (which is really drilling) , pro-life (which is really pro fetus), job creators (which is really corporate executives), supply side economics (which is really low taxes for the rich), ad Infinitum.
“Limited government” was just one of those slogans. They only applied “limited government” to argue against spending money on services for the poor, the destitute, the ages. The argued limits government to limit funding for education healthcare social security and other stabilizing benefits. They argued limited government in support of tax giveaways to their political donors. But Republicans expanded the military industrial complex, expanded the CIA, expanded the power of the executive, and turned the Supreme Court into a political agent.
Conservatives have never really been for limited government — it’s a myth — and so too is your opinion —- a fantasy based upon a myth.
4
Ross Douthat should examine the books of Catholic theologian Margaret Starbird, who provides convincing evidence that Jesus was NOT celibate but was married to Mary Magdalene. Like an evil fairy tale, the Catholic Church has exalted the mother in law Mary over Mary the bride, providing the false logic for idealized celibacy and virginity for all generations.
Paul wrote that few have the gift of celibacy. Paul as an itinerant preacher, who traveled thousands of miles on foot across the Roman Empire, practically required a celibate lifestyle. But few need or want such an unnatural mode of living, especially not clergy who are parts of fixed communities.
Celibacy benefits the Catholic Church as an organization but not its individual priests. Celibacy allows the church to treat its priests like soldiers in an army, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice from one parish or diocese to another or even internationally from country to country or continent to continent. The church can move its personnel at whim without worrying about the needs of a large clerical family like those in the Orthodox Jewish rabbinate.
It is possible to view Catholic priests themselves as victims of an abusive system that forces this unnatural way of life upon them. And, if so, then each and every Catholic parishioner, by supporting such an abnormal and unhappy system,would be guilty of abusing these priests
Praying our economic and social ills will never work. And neither will leaving our economic and social fate to the wealthiest conservatives. Just sayin'.
I "pray" the era of limited government is over - limited to enriching the already too-wealthy at society's expense, destroying our environment to enrich the filthy rich fossil fuel klepto-barons and too costly to maintain wealthy. Instead, government should provide benefits to all it's citizens - that's what it's for - not limited by and for the elite. You know, THE COMMON GOOD - how socialist!
The religious branch of conservatism should keep its preaching and dogma to itself and stop inflicting it on civil society and others. Indeed, religious belief should be kept from minors until the age of consent.
"They envision a larger communitarian panoply — civic associations, religious denominations, charities and universities and private schools" all to promote their dogma and regressive propaganda. Again, all of it should be restricted to themselves, especially since they're biased toward one brand of religion.
Activist judges. Religious conservatives want judges to enforce and inflict "the unwritten American constitution it imagines" ignoring the REAL Constitution separating their religion from the people's state. Say no to a Christian version of Israel, Saudi or Iran here under an unpatriotic auto-pious selfish leader. Religions need keep to their believers instead of "make-matters-worse kind of role" on everyone else.
So, in other words, if conservatives cannot convince the majority of Americans of the wisdom of their views, let’s use the state of force these views on them. And let’s not forget religion, religion, and religion as the main brainwashing ingredient necessary to transform America to these views: One nation, under their God, with bibles and churches for all; preferably catholic ones if Mr. Douthat has anything to say about it.
Funny what happens when, all of a sudden, conservatives believe that they have a Supreme Court ready to embrace their agenda!
5
What does conservative mean in the age of climate change? Who are the conservatives and what do they stand for? In the House and the Senate, people like Rohrabacher and Inhofe could be counted on to say genuinely stupid things about climate. The Cato and Heartland folks would cheerfully cheerlead the race to the utterly ridiculous. These people have no shame when it comes to saying things that they know to be wrong and things that are going to haunt their own grandchildren. They serve oil, coal, the Russians and Saudis by feeding their constituents outrageous lies about the laws of nature. Trump is setting up another example of performance art in the theatre of the absurd with his National Security Review of climate science.
So where do conservatives stand? With the First Law of Thermodynamics or with a con job that threatens their own posterity?
We know that humans are changing climate. Experienced changes signal us that the changes expected by 2100 in the world that Trump wants to build are harrowing. Their sole bulwark that conservatives have against this future is the lies that they tell. They trot out Dr. Curry's and Dr. Christy's lower climate sensitivities as if these numbers take the heat off. We can hope that they are right, because at our current pace, we need the time they offer. But the chances are low. We know that globally unified action is needed to avoid the worst. So where are conservatives on those topics? What do they believe about whats needed?
Mr Douthat's description of the supposed "unwritten constitution" of the United States of yore feels somewhat incomplete to me without an accompanying discussion of America's foundational racism and sexism. The civic institutions Douthat references may not have been governmental, but they were also all controlled by - and often largely comprised of - straight white men. Women, people of color, and other marginalized groups certainly formed their own associations, but these groups generally did not wield influence in federal policymaking until they started organizing with real ferocity - at which point the first order of business was generally to attain the same rights long enjoyed by the aforementioned white men.
It is easier to achieve consensus within a group than across a population, and groups are defined in contrast to the broader population. There have certainly been modern policy choices that weakened some institutions such as union-busting, the failure to protect news media from the content-thievery of the tech giants, and an insufficiency of free time, public space, and accessible transit that would enable people to actually gather together; but it often feels to me that conservatives have a notable blind spot about why their movement so happened to emerge just when long-oppressed groups started to be genuinely enfranchised.
2
Mr. Douthat you are calling for an American Otto von Bismarck, the conservative Prussian Junker and Chancellor of the German Empire who after failing to arrest socialism with jail sentences decided to co-opt it by inventing the welfare state. Problems: 1) We are a still a Republic and subject to obtaining agreement from disparate sources. 2) We are a post-industrial society beset by accelerating automation -- this is a landscape sociologists and economists are having trouble envisioning. 3) Name one Republican politician comfortable with this. 4) Name one major Republican donor who would tolerate such talk.
1
So which party is going to realize that less Big Government and more Small Government is the way to go for a country our size, so dehumanized by corporate capitalism and globalization? The organizing principles of our economic system should be based on bottom-up, rather than top-down, processes. Wherever it can, government should be delivered and administered at the source, in communities, towns and counties. Likewise, economic activity/commerce should also be promoted at this human level. Domination in America by federal and corporate scales of actvity are not doing us well. National identity is still overrated, despite its problematic history . Regional identities tied to geograpghy and culture is more humanistic and fulfilling.
2
you mention, but gloss over, religion in America. for decades, the right has struggled against the scourge of "big, intrusive government" on two front, economic and social. economically, the objective has been to free business, especially big business, from any kind of government controls and from any kind of responsibilities, including the payment of taxes and avoidance of
environmental degradation. socially, the plan has been to let traditional religion constrain Americans' behaviors. clearly, both these objectives have met dead ends. time to get off that train and board the one headed for the future, not the imagined past.
So what I get from this is that since the poor and middle class communities are breaking down, the solution is to try harder to control individual behavior. In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
The Republican Party has been trying to do the social control thing for 60 years. What they’ve also been doing for the past 25 goes along with the belief that the only good government is a dead government, which means that when elected, they are absolved of the duty to actually do a good job governing. So you end up with Hurricane Katrina, then a dozen years later, Puerto Rico. And environmental disaster piled on top of disaster. And healthcare and homeless crises. Even the transportation infrastructure is broken. And we have no hope of fixing anything without wholesale regime change.
2
The conservative movement had its moment to coalesce around something like what Douthat describes, but it was 18 years ago. In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W Bush had the opportunity to call on Americans to serve one another and their country, to lead by example. Think of JFK, or even Reagan, in the same situation. And we would have worked towards a stronger civil society.
Instead, President Bush told us to go shopping. That moment, when the bully pulpit was advocating consumerism over a common national goal, is when conservatism in power was tested and found wanting. It also served to strengthen the divide between the military and the citizenry, another fissure that has never recovered.
Perhaps there is a way out of this, and if there is, it likely starts with a national service requirement (David Brooks also argues for one in his column today). Such service could be military or civil, with a longer time requirement for civil, and it would be required of all citizens upon their 21st birthday or graduation from college (18/high school could work too). There is nothing that creates a stronger democratic populace than shared sacrifice and the appreciation of freedom that comes with it.
2
If Republicans were actually shoring up the ACA so that it worked for average, middle-class families instead of for insurance companies, they might have a chance at decentralized government. Instead, close to 70% of the country is ready for Medicare for all.
If the Republicans actually protected the environment instead of tainting our air and water to help their big-donor buddies, the country wouldn't be demanding that the government step in.
I used to joke that the fastest path to single-payer health care was the Republicans -- who were continuing to undermine literally every single other program. If we are entering an era of big government, it is because the Republicans sold out the little guy, and the government is all the little guy has left.
4
"Is America still a nation of thriving local communities and energetic civic life? Is America still a deeply religious country, with strong churches and growing denominations? Are American businessmen basically public spirited, eager to compete on equal terms once government removes its heavy hand, and natural allies for a political movement wedded to patriotism and religion?"
I think the first question is whether ANY of these were ever true.
Conservatives have historically paid lip service to the notion of small government and maximizing personal freedom. But other than constantly trying to cut taxes for the rich and social programs for the many, they have never really embraced the notion of government staying out of people's lives. On the contrary, their policies seem more oriented toward forcing people to live as conservatives think they should, rather than towards embracing personal freedom. Oh, and cutting taxes for the rich.
2
Anyone who has seen the documentary "The Devil We Know" about DuPont's nefarious pollution tactics when ushering in the profitable Teflon to our cookware and other products will argue for more regulation and control in the markets. It is estimated that the cancer causing agent C-8, needed to create Teflon, is now in everyone's blood on Earth -- Douthat's, mine, yours, everyone's. Thanks DuPont. This fact is one of many supporting "big government" to regulate conservative lauded free markets of yesteryear. Simply put, the CEO that decides weather or not to dump tons of C-8 into our environment may care more about his 3rd vacation house in Aspen then birth defects and cancer rates 10 years down the road.
Global warming has also changed the free market/big government equation. We can no longer let profits of the few regulate the air we breathe, the climate we want, the water we drink.
The stakes are too high to uphold, maintain 1950's free market conservatism. Big government is here to stay, thank goodness.
3
Limiting government creates a power vacuum that the large corporations are happy to fill.
1
Sorry, Mr. Douthat, but the conservative ideology needs to regain trust and that is going to take a very long time. Primarily because today's conservative most visible leaders have preached anything but a limited state.
With federal and state power, they wish to further control a woman's ability to make health care choices according to her own wishes. Similarly, and primarily at the state level, they attempt to impose a religious curriculum mandate on public schools. At every level, rather than attempting to conserve our natural environment and resources, they are doing virtually everything they can to satisfy business exploitation.
Regardless of the wisdom of the essays and texts you reference, until Americans see conservative leaders actually reverse course (or at the very least, execute a course correction), revolt against conservatism as they see it, will continue and magnify.
3
It appears that fantasy and poetry are Ross' forte and run of the mill conservatives have both feet above the clouds but just north of NY State is Quebec where today's American conservatism held sway for centuries and the Catholic Church put its seal of approval on everything.
In 1776 6% of the population lived in cities and urbanization is now the way of the world.
I started reading the Ecologist in the 70s and like my neighbours here in the hinterland of Quebec climate change is real and although the technology has seen our food production skyrocket every year sees the crops developed for what was our climate become hit or miss and an understanding that food crops to be a livelihood must be grown in greenhouses.
Conservatism in times of radical change is the definition of suicide. For the orchid growers it is not the jungle where orchids are developed but the greenhouses utilizing what was the waste energy of aluminium smelting where all those orchids come from. It is not poetry it is not God it is what is.
I knew the reaction AOC would receive from the GOP. If she is only half as smart as I think she is, she is still twice as smart as the conservatives of my age cohort that run the GOP. This is not a disaster because ideologues can't run anything. It is not ideologues that are the problem it is moderates who tell me radical change is impossible when those that measure, weigh and count know we have at most a decade to implement radical change if we want a future.
1
"What can we do with the reins of power, that is, the state, to ensure the common good of our citizens?”
Good question. That this line of thought seems to, only now, be dawning on the so-called conservative movement, tells you all you need to know about the movement's failure. Apparently, the commonwealth, a concept enshrined in the the Constitution's opening statement, is just now seeping into the consciousness of movement conservatives.
Conservatives have discovered that providing for the commonwealth is a defined purpose of the constitutional government they are always railing against. This is not as hopeful a sign as one might wish.
Most likely, the "common good" will just be dumbed down to a new talking point and inserted into the conservative mantra. It will be as free of policy implications as "family values" and just as insincere.
Only when conservatives develop and advocate for policies clearly designed to actually provide for the common good, should anyone take this new "awakening" seriously. Another round of tax cuts and deregulation won't cut it.
1
This is an interesting piece of writing and I enjoy reading Ross because it is often the closest I get to understanding conservative thought. The article gels with my own observation of conservatives in the Trump era. A certain segment of conservatives seem to really find it rewarding when Trump throws his weight around. Even if its somewhat belligerent and divorced from any real governing philosophy. It also doesn't seem to matter who he targets, other Republicans, institutions like the justice department (that had once been trusted by conservatives) are all fair game. It's clear to anyone watching that this is a population that feels increasingly powerless and delights in just exercising power. The article rounds out very nicely the oversimplified narrative that the rise of Trump is all racial and economic (or the huge amount of time we've spent arguing that its economic and not racial or vice versa). I would add that technology is acting like an accelerant of social and economic change, political and religious conservatism have traditionally acted to slow these forces and that's now becoming less effective. I expect this is a very jarring and frightening time for those who primarily view the world through a political and religiously conservative lens. I'm a bit weary, as conservatives seem more and more willing to float democratic norms to hold on to power. Conservatives must find something to believe in other than trumpism and work within democratic norms to realize it.
Mr. Douthat didn't mention that the John Birch Society was birthed in the 1950's and has actually taken over the 'conservative' movement resulting in Trump, the wannabe gangster and conspiracy consumer, in the WH. So there is ample evidence that Big Money wants to push the balance towards Mussolini, we know Trump wants it. Sugar coating it with terms like "Gaullism" doesn't change it. Mr. Douthat would do well to read Michelle Goldberg's "The Republicans of Gilead" for perspective.
2
Today's conservatives should do us a favor. Pick a period of American history when everything was hunky-dory without government regulation and management; when good Christians and charities took care of all the unemployed, hungry, sick, orphaned, mentally ill, homeless, disabled, and old, not just the ones within reach but all of them; when the strong, traditional family provided the education of the young and trained them for self-reliant work, the means to purchase or build a first home, and care for the elder members. Government has stepped up and stepped in, by demand of the majority, when traditional institutions have performed poorly. That includes capitalist institutions as well as religious and social. It is essentially American to see a problem, injustice, inequality and human suffering and come together to remedy it. Our democratic government IS our communal project. It is who we are as a nation, not just a congregation, a community, or a state.
4
"Yet conservatives can still win the White House and the Congress....... "
How exactly would they do this in the post-Trump era? They have shown themselves repeatedly to have no confidence in winning elections fairly and squarely -- even in strong-hold regions like North Carolina. Will they now "use" the state to suppress voter turn-out? Or use the state to disenfranchise millions of "non-real Americans"? If conservatives are all of a sudden interested in "big government" these are legitimate questions to raise.
2
We should start with asking the question "What is the purpose of government?" It is most basically an attempt to organize and contain power struggles so that conflicts can be worked out without violence, and to take on tasks that are necessary for the good of all (infrastructure, defense, a structured system of laws). The purpose of a democratic government is, further, to represent citizens and their needs to provide them with power they would not otherwise have in the face of economic and military forces with their own agendas.
From this point of view, one of the primary tasks of government is to ensure that those with huge economic power are not allowed run roughshod over the needs of ordinary citizens. The agenda of the Republican party for many decades now has been to sideline the needs of US citizens by dismantling as many restrictions on corporate power as possible. Citizens United was the turning point, allowing essentially unlimited money into the political process.
Mr. Douthat seems to think that civic organizations would do fine if they were just left alone to thrive. In fact, civic organizations need protection by the government (and restrictions on how they operate) in order not to be taken over by big money.
If you want to see small government, look at Somalia. If you want to see government by big money (read mob bosses and oligarchs), look at Russia. We need government that represents *people*. Start with an election system that actually promotes voting.
2
The era of massive conservative intrusion by government will never be over until they give up two (2) major tenets of their platform :
1. Control of a woman's uterus.
2. Socializing corporate welfare and tax cuts for the rich.
Until that happens, the era of BIG government has never gone away in the first place.
4
"Corporate America happily donates to Republicans because it fears a Bernie Sanders presidency..."
"Corporate America happily donates to Republicans" the way an employer happily gives a bonus to a top employee. Republican office holders follow orders. They were told by their wealthy elite donors to pass a corporate tax cut in 2017 and they followed orders.
The only political action of interest in the GOP is when Trump's base and corporate interest divide. How far can Trump go disturbing international trade before the plutocracy pulls the plug on him? NAFTA 2.0? Trade with China? How can Trump convince/fool his base that he has "won" without threatening the corporate elite?
2
Interesting - the idea of unwritten understandings.
The refusal of McConnell to even allow a hearing for Judge Garland violated one of those long understandings. It wasnt illegal or even unconstitutional. But it violated an understanding that a sitting president gets to nominate. The Senate then gets to debate and vote, but to not even do anything at all with it, that broke something.
It's like a pickup basketball game, where you play without a referee. Everyone knows the "rules", and you just play. If players begin to ignore the rules, because they can, because there is no power there to enforce anything, then the game falls apart.
Do you think that if the Democrats should get the Senate in 2020, and a Republican becomes president, they might say "Well, you know, there have been so many judges and justices named by a Republican president in the last 4 years. It has put our judicial system out of balance. We need to hold off on any further appointments until the next election. The electorate plainly deserves the chance to keep the courts fair and balanced.
That kind of excuse would be no more of a smoke screen than what McConnell used.
2
Limited government is a myth and a masterful manipulation of language by conservatives. The legislative and executive branches of government working together to limit regulations, etc. is not a representation of limited government but actually the government benefiting a class of people and harming another.
It is the government who is limiting its own powers to regulate, which is a lot of work!
1
At the turn of the century, the progenitors of modern conservatives were mocking and threatening women and people of color who were demanding basic rights. They were threatening and bribing elected officials who were trying to remove toxic food additives from grocery shelves. They marched by the thousands in white robes, spreading hate and fear. With their mantra, "protect the individual and the individual states from big government, they fought social security, universal health care and civil rights. They were then--and are today--largely concentrated in the red states, where federal tax dollars disproportionally flow to support the highest levels of social disfunction, poverty, and illiteracy in the country.
There is a good reason for why modern conservatism is a bankrupt philosophy: it subverts the very notion of the common good.
2
Ross, since when was "limited government" under Republicans ever anything but a ruse. One look at real federal spending per capita or growth in government employment since Reagan ... comparing GOP tenures vs Dem tenures .. should cure anyone of that notion. No, limited government, like so many conservative bromides is little more than a dog whistle to limit spending on .."those people". Its that simple.
9
This is annoying. There is no intellectual coherence to the notions of "conservatism" or "liberalism". First, there are clusters of people to whom we apply the labels. If you tell me how someone feels about gun control, I can predict their positions on a whole range of issues, like the ACA, but there is no logical consistency. The contradiction between a "pro-life" anti abortion position and support for the death penalty has long been noted, but somehow they fit. George Lakoff's "strict family--nurturing family" model in Moral Politics is probably the best discussion. Second, there is consistency in the political actions of parties we describe as "liberal" or "conservative". Republicans have dominated national politics since 1980. Can anyone point to any achievement of that dominance other than three large tax cuts for the richest one percent that have left us with a trillion dollar structural deficit? Huge deficits do not match my idea of "conservative". Democrats used the four years in which they controlled the White House and Congress to give us a period of real prosperity, the last balanced budgets we will ever see, and access to health care for millions--also to prevent a second depression. My conclusion: In terms of real actions, "conservatives" look out for rich people; "liberals" for everybody else. We should drop the terms from our conversations, but that would leave Ross Douthat without a job.
5
Conservatives have neglected a logical source of power to their detriment: state and local government. In my youth, conservatives I knew tempered their cries for limited federal government with the palatable suggestions that there be a power transfer from the federal to the lower levels. Of course, those suggestions turned out to be largely fluff: it's not as though conservative state governments are pro-regulation.
But imagine a world where conservatives were opposed to DC vs. Heller on the grounds that the gun controls were reasonable exercise of local police power; a world where conservatives supported strong state-level environmental controls as they looked to deregulate the EPA; a world where conservative states took the lead in demanding proper wages and protections for their citizens; where child care and schooling are the number one issues in local elections, with taxes to support the measures.
Conservatives could take the stand of "we take care of our own locally, thank you." Instead, the position has largely become a drive for a big federal government that supports nationalism, forced social conservatism, and corporate wealth, with nothing other than strong police enforcement to support the health and well-being of the community.
As an independent, I'd like to find some common ground with conservatives, I really would. but it's getting harder and harder to NOT think of fascism when I think of modern American conservatism.
2
The concept of "limited government" is muddled and conservatives frequently are the "muddlers."
Government is primarily about social, economic, environmental and national security policies/actions of the nation. LImited government regarding social policy would be "libertarian" - let people do what they want to the max extent, including drugs, prostitution, partner gender, contraception. But authoritarian conservatives often favor government intervention in these decisions, effectively mixing church and state.
Limited government economics can mean corporate tax rates to address inequality, e.g. employee ownership is incentivized (e.g. 50% lower tax rate for companies owned at least 50% by non-management employees?). Not more govt per se - just stimulus for different private sector decision-making.
Limited government re: environment? Require prices and companies to "tell the truth": include externalities in prices, make transparent to customers (1) ownership, (2) supply chains, and (3) compensation schemes. I.e. fulfill the Econ101 rule of when markets work well: perfect information. Lots of env regulations could go away (though admittedly, government would have to enforce "prices telling the truth").
And true conservatives would support strong climate change actions as part of sensible risk management (e.g. buying insurance). Yet "conservatives" oppose it.
Conservatives offer lots of 19th century solutions for quite different 21st century problems.
4
A smart essay. The only problem is that the audience of present day Republicans who should be reading it may not understand it. From what this country has seen of their performance in Congress and the White House (off and on) these past twenty years or so - intellectual? Not so much. They preach small government, spend like big government, and accomplish and produce nothing.
3
This is the key reason why I, a life long conservative and Republican, dumped Trump in 2016.
His presidency has not been as disastrous as I expected (mostly because of his ineptitude), but he continues to act on his pro-centralization tendencies, most recently with the declaration of a National Emergency for a pet project while facing no real threat and offered a democratic (small d) means of enhancing border security. Instead of taking what the Democrats offered back in
It is the Republican Senators’ and voters’ consistent backing of Trump that has me particularly worried though. The damage Trump inflicted to the country could be mended in future generations. However, the conservative movement appears to be permanently warped. Once standing as a bastion of limited government and free markets, it now stands as an means to glorify a single man and consolidate power, fueled not by a dedication to liberty but by nationalistic/racist impulses and rampant corruption.
What future check on government will there be? Who will stand for an active, sensible foreign and national security policy? And how can I even be confident that the GOP will continue to stand by certain key policies, such as gun rights, when Trump and Republicans everywhere have become so capricious and mean-spirited? It is no longer my party or political movement.
1
American conservatism is unique in emphasizing small government. Most right-wing movements in Europe and elsewhere have been very happy to use the power of the government of shape society in a particular way. And this has been even truer of left-wing movements. So you might say that American conservatism is now reverting to the mean. But there is a danger in bothe right-and left-wing embracing unchecked power of the government. In his recent book “The Square and the Tower” Niall Ferguson shows how great advances in science, governance, finance and politics (including the American Revolution) were due to decentralized networks rather than to hierarchical structures. The mythical small-town America is gone, and good riddance. But an overpowering government that imposes either cultural or economic preferences of the majority on various minorities is a recipe for disaster. Neither the fascist “corporate state” nor the socialist planned economy worked. The question is how to preserve freedom while using the power of the government to moderate excesses of the market.
Mr. Douthat and conservatives want to go back to the days of de Tocqueville and the unending blss that apparently existed in the minds of conservatives at least. They want to take us back to the days when slavery ruled half of the nation under the largest state-run economy in the world at that time. The idea that slaves could leave the plantation was illegal, and poor whites or left to fend for whatever else was left over in this pre Civil War economy. Women fared hardly better, as they were without the vote, had little prospects in life other than marriage, children, and the peril of childbirth. There were indentured servants, and when an economic depression came along, people died. There was adject poverty on a level that would rival some of the poorest third world slums in existence today. And those busy Christian folks, were taking land away from Native Americans, and doing little to protect them from extinction. Ah, yes let's go back to those halcyon days of yesteryear.
4
Thus has it always been throughout recorded history, and likely in pre-recorded history as well. The colonies did not create these conditions; they were the human condition. The founding fathers created a government of laws, not Utopia. America is, and was, a work in progress.
1
You can't be for authoritarianism and limited government at the same time. The two are antithetical.
But that conflict isn't something Trump invented. The right wing wants to ban abortion, restrict birth control, force the Bible into public schools, force people to salute the flag, persecute gays and even regulate who gets to use public bathrooms. It takes big, intrusive government to carry out the right-wing social agenda.
The right isn't even serious about lowering taxes, except for their beloved top 1 percent.
3
In the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, Congress granted ten square miles of property for every mile of railroad built, as well as funding the armed forces that were needed to put down any Native Americans who happened to be in the way. These were just two of the many ways that massive state power was used to benefit the accumulation of private wealth in the Gilded Age.
Mr. Douthat is well known in these pages for his fluffy rose-tinted vision of American history, but in this piece he disconnects from reality entirely.
7
Every single aspect of the policy Ross's party supports is designed to serve the donor class at the expense of working Americans. The Democratic Party gives only slightly more than lip service to the needs of working Americans, for the most part serving their own donor class. In short, both major parties serve their donors first, and then distribute the remaining crumbs to various favored groups as a token gesture.
In 2019, the focus of both major parties is to serve the donors, regardless of which party is dominant. That has become obvious to all who actually pay attention, rather than residing in an ivory tower bubble, reading scholarly books, and commenting on them......
Take a look at the New Deal and you will have a practical example of the political-social system you discuss. My book "The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt" is one statement. Essentially, the national government created agencies that funded locally-organized projects and some federally-directed ones. All of them emphasized citizen participation. I'm sure you have noticed that the nation is rife with civic projects or all kinds, many supported by federal grants. This is a mechanism already in place a vision of a cooperative commonwealth but you have to be sure that collectively they will fulfill that vision instead of fracturing it. You also will have to take off partisan blinders, especially those created by Ronald Reagan and other "government is the problem" ideologues. You will also have to realize that special interests will try to take over your program. Good luck.
1
Even more important for America's economic and political future than the rise of China (and India behind it) is the rise of the robots. With McKinsey predicting that by 2050, fully 47% of ALL American jobs will be lost to tech, there is no way we are not going to have a major transformation of American politics involving "big government" in the decades in which we'll first have 15% of all jobs lost to tech, then 25% (the unemployment rate in the Depression at its worst), and so on. Either we'll have a fascist police state run for the 1% keeping the increasingly impoverished mashes in their place with terror, or we'll have a gigantic redistributive state raising ever more taxes on the rich and corporations on the gigantic profits from higher and higher productivity tech will give them, and sending the proceeds to the larger and larger number of workers who will never work again.
1
Jeff Hart's recent passing, and the NYTimes obituary for him, can be read in the context of Douthat's opinion piece. Hart's answer to the changes in American conservatism, was to leave the Republican party.
In my opinion, Hart stayed true to classical American conservatism, while the Republican Party, in its own pursuit of power, left it.
Our national politics are deeply dysfunctional -- IMO, an indication we are in a prolonged transition, with an uncertain end. This time, Douthat does a better job staying away from a screed-ish tone. He brings some interesting points to the discussion. But his solution -- that Republicans should seek power over the state -- has already happened, and not just since GWBush, but since Reagan.
Douthat, and Republicans, would do well to reconsider the Constitution's Preamble: its explicit aspirations for collective behavior and responsibility, in order to reach and expand simply-stated goals. Our national aspirations never were about 'small government'; Hamilton won that argument long ago, and his victory then means our aspirations are embodied not in the Articles of Confederation, but in the Constitution. The more recent embrace of 'small government', of neo-libertarianism -- the more recent substitution of John Galt's aspirations, contrary to the Preamble -- those are true representations of our national malaise.
3
It is continually disturbing that you "normalize" Trump. Let's do "Trump" one better, smarter, better blueprints. Will we ever balance out what we believe might be good for a future society vs. how we can win and take power? What is the conservative view of the desirable society? It used to involve small government, conservative fiscal policies, states' rights, family values, and rugged individualism. Now what is it? Is it simply about a pursuit of power? Is it such a terrible thing to promote better health care, education, safety nets, higher wages for the working classes, and cleaner air and water? What is it the conservatives, or the right, really wants? Maybe this should be articulated again and made more public. Another Trump, a "better" Trump, a single minded strategy for power? Seems patently un-American to me.
1
Conservatives are only concerned about conserving their own power at any cost, preserving the wealth of the wealthy, conserving the power of corporations over workers. They are not concerned about conserving the environment or the climate, they are not interested in conserving runaway wealth so inequality wasn't so horrible, they are not concerned with conserving human life or individual human rights. Quite to the contrary, they are violently opposed to conserving any of these. They are also not interested in conserving the Constitution or they wouldn't be running roughshod over the First Amendment to promote theocracy.
3
Pretty scary set of thoughts, Russ. Most libertarians have seen this coming for some time. The Republicans have never had any real principles--they have hated big government when it was helping minorities and lower economic classes, but have been okay with it when their own tribe is at the helm.
I think Republicans should ditch the phony rhetoric about limited government and come out of the closet as true collectivists/fascists. After all, if Republicans quit stealing (and contradicting) the central idea of libertarianism it may contribute to the growth of a political force of real libertarians, something this country desperately needs.
4
Mr. Douthat’s column misses the mark, trotting out the well-worn trope of “limited government,” the mantra of Saint Ronny and centerpiece of Conservative thought for at least two generations of Republicans.
The issue isn’t “limited government” at all. It’s *who* the government works for, the 1%, or everybody? Obviously, right now we’re very much in “1% mode,” what with budget-busting deficits and debt piling up higher than the snow in Buffalo.
Ross, no need to flail around trying to find a direction for “Conservatism” to march off towards. The answer is right here in the NYT from one of your fellow columnists. Will Wilkinson, of the libertarian Niskanen Center, had this to say about this issue:
“As Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and James Robinson of Harvard show in ‘Why Nations Fail,’ ruling elites in pre-democratic states arranged political and economic institutions to extract labor and property from the lower orders. That is to say, the system was set up to make it easy for elites to seize what ought to have been other people’s stuff.
In ‘Inequality and Democratization,’ the political scientists Ben W. Ansell and David J. Samuels show that this demand for political inclusion generally isn’t driven by a desire to use the existing institutions to plunder the elites. It’s driven by a desire to keep the elites from continuing to plunder *them* [italics his].”
Right now, the 99% are being plundered by the GOP Party of Trump. How about “inclusive small government?”
3
"The Era of Limited Government Is Over"
The Era of Unlimited Corporations is Over
"Why American conservatism after Trump may learn to like the state."
Why American conservatives after Trump will be going to prison.
3
"Thus when conservatives preach about the virtues of “limited government,” it isn’t just Herbert Hoover’s rugged individual that they imagine themselves defending. They envision a larger communitarian panoply — civic associations, religious denominations, charities and universities and private schools — which needs protection against the jealousy of a centralizing state."
Oh, please! Trying to justify GOP rhetoric, which exists to fool the gullible into voting against their own interests, is shameful.
When so-called conservatives preach about the virtues of "limited government" they mean zero aid for the poor, the elderly, the disabled; they mean lavish spending on weapons, not education; they mean power and control for corporations and oligarchs, not for a woman over her own body and destiny.
How "limited" was Bush's three trillion dollar folly in Iraq?
4
Douthat seems to truly believe that our Founding Fathers were intent on creating a Theocracy. Nothing could be father from the truth. They were keenly aware of the danger religion posed to society. Religious wars destroyed Europe. Religious mania encouraged European invaders to exterminate indigenous peoples on every other inhabited continent and island.
Just because the Puritans fled Europe to have religious freedom and then tried to enforce their religion on all others doesn't make them right. It makes them religions bigots, just like those whose power they fled.
Religion is a choice. A choice enshrined in the Constitution. Get over it.
3
@Maureen Steffek
This is a view espoused pretty regularly in conservatives circles. It's not so much a theocracy but the assumed (and false) understanding by the founding fathers that there would good Christian base going forward in the country. My conservative dad's stated position is that the Constitution only works for a "moral people" (his words). Basically, some conservatives live in this hypothetical world where they think large government is unnecessary due to the ability of good moral Christians to police themselves.
Of course, that approach simply doesn't work in the real world. Not everyone is interested in becoming Christian, and more importantly Christians can be bad people just like the rest of us. And that's ignoring entirely corporations that are beholden to no code but their investors and the law.
Let’s just get rid of the electoral college. Problem Solved.
3
"Limited government" conservativism has always been a load of bilge, at best the stuff of academic exercises among a few writers. The real Right has always been about three things: white supremacy, big business, and religious extremism. No one shrank from deploying state power to enforce slavery, then Jim Crow. And more recently, the cry of "limited government" has been used to attack every effort to give equality and justice finally to Black Americans. No one shrank from using state power to crush unions in the days of such Robber Barons as Rockefeller, Carnegie and Frick. But "limited government" forbids minimum wage and worker safety laws. And of course, as soon as any right-wing administration comes in, big corporations get a tax cut and freedom to pollute and cheat. And all along, the Right is delighted to force you to live your life as Jerry Falwell wishes. Some liberty. So, Ross, stop pretending the Right ever cared about limited government.
3
"And they tend to assume that keeping the American corporation embedded in this communitarian system is a better way to balance productivity and innovation and public-spiritedness than just trying to regulate and micromanage businesses into good behavior."
This is news to me. I had always thought the conservative assumption was that with minimum regulation the "invisible hand' of the free market would enforce good corporate behavior. In any event this corporate embedding has not worked out well. And, yes, it does sound to me like a Fascist ideal.
1
Oh lord. The buzzwords in this piece are enough to remind me of my sophomore year high school English classes. Gaullism, Hamiltonian, Tocquevillian? What do these ideas even mean? Sure, you could say "democracy," "separation of powers," and "centralized government," but you could argue any democratic theorist into the 21st century would advocate for these ideas. I wish Mr. Routhat would take the time to really flesh out one of these ideas instead of bombarding us with a bunch of cryptic, uncontroversial ideas coupled with musings of fascism.
3
"Limited government" is code for:
"Let businesses pollute, and exploit, suppress, discriminate and rip-off Americans."
Of course conservatives keep pushing for gov. control over every other aspect of life.
3
Corporate stooges who masquerade under the guise of being 'conservative' have been eviscerating the government for ages. They love 'big government' when it comes to socialism directed towards big oil, big farming, big pharma, and women's freedom. These subsidy-socialists use religion and fear of human pigmentation to advance their causes. Republicans love a powerful government. In fact, bang-for-buck, they use government power far more than any other group. It's just used to help the few over the many.
3
Conservatives are slowly but inexorably coming to realize what the left has been shouting from the rooftops since the '70s... Multinational business has no civic instinct, it is a machine that controls itself, and as George Soros put it, it's a wrecking ball swinging wildly and out of control. (In invoke Soros with trepidation, because we all know he's a communist infiltrator bent on wrecking the Constitution and slandering the Founding Fathers. But hey, maybe he was right!)
In the absence of a civic instinct, what is there to rein in the machine of global (one-world) capitalism? Surprise... the GOVERNMENT. This is what governments are for, and what they HAVE been for since before the birth of Christ.
I'm so happy for the conservatives who are finally waking up and smelling the coffee. Now watch them take credit for it. Oh, and watch them brand everybody who used the same language for the past 50 years as SOCIALISTS. That will be a fun bit of gymnastics to watch.
4
Assuming for an imaginary moment conservatives really do want to use state power for building community, making lives better, maybe get back to basics.
Small government (G) now, big G is the only countervailing force against global businesses. Shrink corporations, bring them back to their historical single mission, no holding companies, etc.. perhaps federal incorporation for globals. Then no need for a giant G. Ditto for agribusiness- before it destroys our lands, waters. One lettuce recall hits 20-30 states? Consolidation here is not beneficial. Bring back small....processing, slaughtering, etc.
Civic, aka, religious institutions. Stop forcing religious dictates on all of us. Abortion, LGBT issues...build that wall of separation and leave us to go our own way. Whatever size of government, it has no business in...our religious lives. Here is where the real issues of individualism, privacy should actually focus.
Economics- unrestrained greed, of any size, is not a good thing. Conservatives could have a real role in oversight of crooks, scammers, con artists.
There is room for conservative ideals, but conservatives have to give up racism, sexism, corporatism, greed. Not holding my breath.
1
Ross forgets that conservatives don't change with the times and events. He also forgets that conservatives are controlled by big money such as the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson, who want nothing less than to make the country safe for pollution, guns, discrimination, bloated military budgets, corporate frauds, etc. I don't see a philosophical change, particularly as Trump now owns the Republican Party.
2
Douthat's musings are confounding and misleading. Republicans, the now ultra conservatives of American politics, publicly claim to desire small government. The reality is vastly different. Government has been greatly increased under the last several Republican administrations. What they really seek is agencies, institutions, and courts dominated by ultra right-wing conservatives who will govern, conservatively, to impose their economic, monetary, judicial and religious imperatives on others. They also want to exploit the cultural issues and divisions of America through their administration of government.
Conservatives seek dismantling and reduction of the IRS, Immigration and Customs, Social Security, Medicare, the Federal Housing Administration, the World Bank, access to abortion, education, federal lending for 30 year mortgages, college financing, grants to the arts, the food stamp program, the Interstate Highway system, building of roads, bridges and tunnels, operation of the ports, and at the same time provide less control and administration of agencies that protect public safety such as the Environmental Protection, and the Consumer Protection Bureau. Oddly conservatives achieve their goals by expanding the agencies in order to expand their control and obstruction. That is at odds with the goals of small government. But, it results in greater, but ineffective government that they then criticize in order to be re-elected. Republicans are successful doing that.
3
If your definition of community is enlarged, then America IS still a nation of thriving local communities and energetic civic life. The difference is that "local" now means something other than a geographical place. Communities are now built on common interests, common political goals and shared work, but these cross physical and geographical boundaries, encompassing a diverse and even international community. Going back to nationalism in the face of the immense changes wrought by electronic media is doomed to fail, or to end up in oppression. We need to look outward for community, and our governments need to follow suit by taking a back seat - regulating, adjudicating, enabling, but not trying to shape - the new evolving communities.
2
Mr. Douthat, this is fascinating. So many intellectually based ideas about what conservatism might mean in the coming years. I particularly enjoyed the McCarthy’s description. But this is the most disconnected from reality piece I have ever read.
Trump cares about his base and their adulation. Republican congressional representatives are apparently bought and sold by corporate money. Mr. Douthat, you and I and some readers here may care about meaningful philosophies of conservatism but no one in power does. And I don’t see how that will change.
5
It would seem the goal of conservatives is power and control of everything in both national and state arenas. It is about winning at all costs. This involves ignoring the will of the people who vote and manipulating circumstances to usurp the will of the ordinary voter and to kowtow to the interests of the big money overriding the citizen's choice of leadership. Witness MCConnell's actions in the senate, Utah and Maine ignoring the citizenry who voted to expand Medicare, Wisconsin and Minnesota making laws to tie the hands of the elected officials when they are not conservatives. (By the way do the do away with their legislation should a conservative win the next election?) McConnell and Ryan constantly refused to bring legislation forward because it wasn't to their liking. Every election lost by a conservative, the conservatives call fraudulent as in Florida elections. When they won there was no more talk about fraud. Conservatives continue to try to limit voting rights instead of expanding them. All of these actions lead to the conclusion conservatives think only their ideas, beliefs and votes should count. These ideals are the dangerous and the very opposite of democracy.a
9
I completely agree. And for me, it is horribly disappointing, as opposition to ever expanding power was why I was a conservative. The movement, it seems, has moved on from its core values. Certainly the party has.
"they tend to assume that keeping the American corporation embedded in this communitarian system is a better way to balance productivity and innovation and public-spiritedness than just trying to regulate and micromanage businesses into good behavior." - ahh, would that American corporations lived up to that ideal...
4
"Is America still a deeply religious country, with strong churches and growing denominations?"....One of the misconceptions is that America has always been religious since its inception. This is not true. Few of the founding fathers expressed a deep religious faith. The growth of religion in the U.S. came with the westward expansion. As land for farming became readily available small towns sprung up across the prairie. Far from government, the local churches became a source of organization and social interaction. The local priests and ministers were often one of just a few people in the area with any formal education and were important local leaders. With mechanization farms grew in size and industrialization saw migration to the cities. As the small towns declined, the general population became more educated, with radio and television, and rapid transportation, at the local level the need for the role of the church and associated religion has slowly disappeared. The conservative movement described by Dothat was a last desperate attempt to cling to the way things used to be..
1
Too bad conservatism in the 2010s has completely abandoned defending the written American Constitution as exemplified by but certainly not limited to trump and McConnell. Better refocus on that before attempting any sweeping changes to the social constitution.
3
This subtle reader knows many businesswomen who are public spirited and eager to compete on equal terms once the government removes its heavy hand.
For much of my life conservatives has first foremost about ensuring that White straight Protestant males maintained power and that money flow to the rich. Only David Brooks seems to have realized that capitalism undermined the status quo. In so realizing it Brooks supports a more authoritarian culture to hold back the changes wrought by capitalism. Dougthat doesn't seem grasp the contradiction of being a capitalist and a conservative.
1
I am always troubled by the notion that a healthy America necessarily has to include the "church" as key player in communities or that the decline of the church is partly to blame for our troubles. Clearly, believe in God is not universal, and certainly not belief in a Christian God, or a personal God, so whenever conservative writers try to place the church at or near the center of the argument it appears that they wish to create an America that is relevant only to Christians. We cannot expect to bind ourselves together in a healthy, inclusive way if it is centered on belief in the supernatural.
5
What a word pudding!
What, please, does “embedding the American corporation in ... communitarianism” mean, in terms of government action, if not regulation? Because Douthat supposes conservatives favor something else “instead”. I guess he thinks if government doesn’t “micromanage” corporations (as if!) then they’ll have more time to be good citizens. Never mind that CEOs regularly say their only obligation is to the shareholders.
Douthat recognizes belatedly that recent Republican administrations were anything but “small government”. Still slow on the draw, he ponders what “conservatives’” newfound putative appreciation for the power of government might be. He overlooks what’s already manifest and staring him in the face: legalized corruption. What else were those administrations about, if not dismantling protections and enriching the wealthy?
Douthat’s quaint idealism supposes there’s some form of political conservatism that could shape national policy in the national interest. That would be beguiling in a college newspaper. In congress though, in elections, not one Republican senator represents any such thing. That’s the reality we live in, no matter how many books pretend to suggest otherwise.
5
Another way of stating it would be that the only thing protecting us from a handful of billionaires and their predictory practice of controlling the body politic and thus every aspect of our lives would be the government. However, it is our neoliberal government—the one that is supposed to represent our interests— that is working on behalf of the billionaire hegemony.
9
The fundamental difference between the parties positions is that Democrats want to use the power of the state to remove the impediments, restraints if you will, to universal participation in American prosperity. When individuals are forced to remain in the same job in order to have health care, or forced by the high cost of child care to remain out of, or are forced to be less active participants in, the work force, those individuals cannot become entrepreneurs or pursue career advancement, etc. Repulicans, on the other hand, want lower taxes so individuals can afford to pay for and personally control the impediments to their advancement because while they trust individuals to act in their own self-interest, they have no confidence in the collective will to do so. In short, they are anti-utilitarian. On the long road-trip that is American life, a Democrat is content to sit in the back seat and share the driving, a Republican must be at the wheel. What the Trump era has shown is is that yes, we need limits on government, but we also need government's help. Ironically, insecure and faced with the collapse of community and desperately in need of restoring the balance lost, the struggling Americans elected an insecure, unbalanced narcissist. And they got what they bargained for.
4
I believe, in watching "conservatives" in the past three years of the Era of Trump, that most find themselves at odds with the conservative mantra of limited government of the past few decades. While they thought they went along with the ideal of limited government as Republicans, they found themselves on the worst outcomes of that ideology. So when Trump came along and said he would "fix" their pain, make it all better, they saw a savior. Never mind that what Trump implied was that it would take him, an arm of the government, to fix their problems. So we have this schizophrenic thought pattern that has taken over many on the conservative side. On one hand don't touch their government controlled health care (medicare) or their government controlled retirement (social security) but get government out of helping the younger generation get health care. Let's use government to pick economic winners (coal) over losers (wind and solar). Let's have government use its power to control women's reproduction choices, but don't let government set limits on my guns and ammo purchases.
I truly don't believe that average American's ever wanted "limited" government. But most modern day Republican voters have been sold a bill of goods by the supply siders and limited government libertarians that now own the message.
2
Very good op-ed, Mr. Douthat; what I liked most about it, is that you did not write glowingly about the solutions proposed by the radical left-wing opposition, which are only meant to garner votes in a desperate attempt to win back the White House. The radical left wants to expand the administrative state further than it has ever been expanded before, an expansion that will require an enormous increase in taxes, which frankly I and millions of other hard-working Americans do not want to pay. It was such a delight filing taxes this year, the generous $24,000 standard deduction afforded by the Trump tax reform was a welcome relief from the onerous taxation of previous administrations. But the left wants to get rid of that and impose even more draconian measures on Americans who, like it or not, make more than most of us. Well, I do not have a problem with their largess and, in fact, offer them congratulations on their success. The radical left wants to penalize success and shame those who make more than the next guy. I believe that much of Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America in the 1830s still rings true today, and as you conclude “limited government conservatism may give way to an attempt to improve on Trumpism with clearer blueprints and smarter cadres for the same reason that changes often happen in political ideology.” In short, improve upon Trumpism. There is hope for Trumpism! America first! MAGA! Thank you.
2
@Southern Boy
Really? I guess we don't need "the administrative state" to keep our water, air food and workers safe, clean and healthy. I am so glad that Trump and his crony cabinet members are so supportive of the population and not just looking out for their themselves. As for your favorite tax cut, the 1% are partying while the national debt is mushrooming. But as you say, thank you, Mr. Trump (and Republicans). Btw, the CSA doesn't exit anymore, thank goodness.
4
@Robert,
The CSA exists in the minds of those who do not live in the South, because that's the way y'all perceive us. For that reason and others I use it as my location. Thank you.
2
The "conservative movement" hasn't had a new idea in 40 yeas and given the intellectual lights of the movement, there isn't much chance of one coming along anytime soon. Once you get past the greed of unfettered capitalism, there is nothing left but bigotry. Indeed, the base of the Republican part is aging, shrinking, and those reviled big government services like Medicare suddenly become very important and the "conservatives" display the cognitive dissidence of railing against leftist socialism on the one hand and "don't touch my Medicare". Propped up on the twin political pillars of greed and bigotry, American 'conservatism" has proved itself a failure.
5
My proposition is let’s define middle class economically and give everyone at and below that dollar level a massive tax cut. NOTHING ELSE. THATS IT. And let’s see where we are a year later.
1
What I got out of this essay is a nod to Big Brother. That’s where we are heading if we allow Republicans to continue in power. I am not for this. But, Democrats need to get it together to effectively stop them.
3
I think the underlying assumption here is wrong. I don’t remember a time when conservatives ever wanted limited government. You can’t get married to whom you want, you can’t control your own body, you can’t live within certain zip codes if you are the wrong color, and on and on.
It has been a long held myth that Republicans want to keep government out of people’s lives. We need to let the myth go.
If the foundation of the argument is off, how can any of the rest have any credibility.
11
The era of limited government is a figment of Ross's imagination. Conservatives liked limited government as long as it consisted of deregulation, allowing monopolies, giving maximum latitude to the financial industry, and didn't allow unions to flourish. However, when it came to abortion, religion, climate change, gun ownership they favored government interference.
For abortion they want to prohibit it under almost all circumstances. Religion and money and campaign support need laws to allow them to contravene the laws to lobby officials to deregulate which requires some government work. They have forbidden research into gun violence, attempted to end research into climate change unless the research favors their point of view, and so on down the line. And let's not forget how many feel about the death penalty (require it), one person one vote (crush it with government intervention).
If they want limited government they ought to stop trying to enforce any portion of the Bill of Rights even if it helps them. In truth they want government to work only for them and no one else. They don't want limited government at all. They want government of, by and for conservatives.
9
Good to see Douthat recognize that Conservatives support some unwritten Constitution in their heads. The rest of us have long ago realized they prefer their imaginary Constitution to the real one. Something all but a handful of GOP Senators will prove once again by refraining from opposing Trump’s wall “emergency”.
6
The history of this country is full of instances of a non limited government. The Erie Canal,land grant colleges, land given to the early railroads. Child labor laws. The g.i.bill, medical and scientific research that only happens with the help of government funding. Government by the people for the people has been taken over with government by special interests for special interests. The issues we face today,climate change,quality health care,access to education,are complex and expensive. They can be dealt with only by a more “collective “ approach. The fisherman of Louisiana invited the farmers of Iowa for a weekend of fishing. The fisherman wanted the farmers to witness how over fertilizing effected their fishing grounds. The conservatives idea of individuality don’t work well in a world that is becoming more complex.
3
Conservatives are the ones who have suffocated our civic/religious etc supports and networks.
Conservative economic policies have ensured that working folks do not have the time for such luxuries as belonging to community/religious etc associations.
Thanks to 30 years of flat wages that gov. economic policies have not addressed, most people must have full time jobs (and often second jobs). Working folks are too exhausted.
Conservatives' sabotaging policies supporting quality childcare and parental leave have ensured that parents then must spend time scrambling to find care for their kids.
Conservative have made sure that vacation time, if you have any, is devoted to family, if it wasn't eaten up by their poor/non-existent policies supporting sick time.
There are many things gov. can do to address our lack of time and energy to nurture community involvement.
But Conservatives do their best to kill every one of them.
6
Taxation is the area where it is most necessary for conservatives to reconcile conflicting beliefs. If they want to use the state to shape and support civil society, then they must abandon their desire to starve it of funds.
7
"Instead limited government conservatism may give way to an attempt to improve on Trumpism with clearer blueprints and smarter cadres for the same reason that changes often happen in political ideology — because the people whose thinking is changing feel that they don’t have any other choice."
That is a truly dismal vision for the future of Conservatism in the US!
3
As is the case with so many conservative rallying cries, the calling card of limited government is a practiced shell game aimed at achieving the goal of deceit by label.
It has never been about smaller government, per se. It has been about Darwinian priorities, those which are aimed at aiding and abetting the wealthy, powerful and corporations, who have historically funded conservative campaign coffers, while programmatically stiff-arming those with less, who would rely on government to close the gap between a comparatively meager existence and what to them is otherwise unattainable.
Limited government is not about institutional limits, per se, but about keeping societal limitations in place on people already saddled with less, while keeping the sinecures of elected conservatives firmly in place. It is about who in society benefits from public spending, and who doesn't.
It is, in short, about preserving, protecting and defending the haves, while leaving the have nots to fend for themselves.
12
I have such a sense of cognitive dissonance reading this piece. The current president, who is perhaps a Republican, is profoundly hostile to every aspect of civil society—a free press, independent judiciary, even the necessity for paying taxes (the absence of which is a defining feature of failed states.). The current president , who has the overwhelming support of the Republicans party, is incapable even of treating his fellow citizens with the most minimal respect. He views the administrative state as his enemy, to be infiltrated and controlled by former corporate lobbyists. Please spare me the weak theorizing about Hamilton and De Tocqueville. The current president seems never to have read a book. Rather than worry about the limits of big government, America would be better off trying to overhaul its ramshackle 18th century electoral system and devising a system where a minority no longer controls the majority.
10
This is frightening. I get to the bottom and am confirmed in my suspicion that Ross wants the government to impose the theocracy that evangelical Christians, who gave us Trump, and Catholics of his stripe have always wanted, minorities and women be, literally, damned. Tell us what this looks like, Ross. Ban abortion? Repeal same-sex marriage? Re-establish the patriarchy? Go back to the 1950s, with the only difference from Trump being that you'll also accept the tax rates? Be honest.
6
I live in rural area of Minnesota that voted for Trump. I am a liberal and have been pondering why smart and thoughtful people I know voted that way. And I am personally well read about various political philosophies. I have concluded that the vast majority of voters simply have zero interest in any of these. And that the older ones have watched the Washington paralysis that is now of long duration. They decided “hell with it, let’s vote in somebody very different.” Instead, they simply want politicians to pragmatically solve our many problems. And do it in the very same way they decide themselves decide whether to plant more soybeans and less corn. Right now, in fact, they are trying to decide what to do with all the stored soybeans they delayed selling because of the trade war with China. Please provide an example from the last 40 or more years where political theories and philosophies have elected anyone. Instead, power opportunists like Mitch McConnel grab the moment to put in as many ideological judges as possible, while likely destroying the institution of the Senate, and, likely, the Supreme Court itself. (Notice the obvious worry of it’s Chief Justice about his legacy.). McConnel is the embodiment of the right wing’s deliberate drift toward fascism. I am astounded at the press’s foolish front page coverage of Trump’s every utterance (NYT’s much better approach) while nearly giving this Darth Vader actor a pass most of the time.
8
I'm neither libertarian nor particularly liberal. However, I'm certainly hostile to big government conservatism. The first thing you need to recognize is conservatism's "unwritten constitution" only represents a very specific vision of American culture in society.
By this I mean the white Christian nuclear family of the "Leave it to Beaver" variety. Everyone else is pushed to the side. The "unwritten constitution," in addition to be socially destructive, is therefore also explicitly unconstitutional.
Second, I happen to live in a place where big government conservatism is practiced largely without interference. Non-government institutions, specifically the LDS Church, influence and control the state apparatus. That's great if you're a practicing LDS member. For everyone else though, even other practicing Christians, outcomes are far less desirable.
I wouldn't describe the feeling as fascist. Fascism implies a general sense of urgency and commitment. There's some cause greater than yourself which demands the full authority of the state. Big government conservatism is a much softer influence although no less constraining and destructive.
It's like running full sprint into a glass door. You don't realize the walls are there until you run into them. Suddenly, you're finding walls everywhere. Your liberty has been taken away without your consent. You're a prisoner constrained by someone else's ideology. That's what big government conservatism feels like.
9
@Andy
Very well said: “It's like running full sprint into a glass door. You don't realize the walls are there until you run into them. Suddenly, you're finding walls everywhere. Your liberty has been taken away without your consent. You're a prisoner constrained by someone else's ideology. That's what big government conservatism feels like.”
It is also what big government Progressivism feels like for those who are conservative or libertarian. Small government, whether liberal, conservatives, or progressive, is more tolerable for the political minority.
“Conservatism” never has been about ‘limited” government. It has been about leveraging the power of the government to protect the interests of the few over the well-being of the many. FDR’s New Deal and the ‘liberal’ programs of the Western democratic nations after World War II upset that apple cart.
“Conservatives” have been using all of their considerable money and power to sabotage government for the many and to hijack representative government for their private advantage ever since.
Mitch McConnell’s response to proposals to remove practical barriers to the exercise of the right to vote - like making Election Day a day off for millions of working class Americans so they need not trade their income and job security to cast their ballots - is all you need to know. He called that a ‘power grab.’
You’re darn right, Mr, McConnell. You’re darned right, ‘conservatives.’ The people will grab back their power. There was only so long ‘conservatives’ could sell the snake oil that has resulted in the concentration of nearly 50% of this nation’s wealth, and with it power over ‘the people’s government,’ in the hands of the richest 1% of the population.
It’s about time that the government began to represent the views of the majority of us; and that it addressed our common welfare - not the burgeoning wealth and power of ‘conservative’ demagogues who have parlayed ignorance, fear, and a ludicrous ‘trickle down’ myth into dominance of the rapacious few over the rest of us.
12
Has it occurred to any conservative, anywhere, to stop asking how conservative ideals can be revived and look at more liberal enclaves that work— and perhaps admit that some liberal ideas might work better?
Plus, Douhat needs to write more simply. Orwell and Churchill would roll over in their graves.
9
The era of limited government end in 1864.
3
A lot of tailoring and embroidering went on in writing this piece to fashion a conservative ideology that does not exist. The ugly predatory instinct conservative are visiting upon the rest of us currently, is not an ideology but the result a collective personality dysfunction and a system built around it. To demonize the Government by the People by calling it "Big" is priority one to them so that unbridled control of power can be obtained. Conservatives today are acting like looters during a riot. Not interested about how bad their belly ache might be tomorrow.
6
Ross,
As the reader WFGersen said, there are many things that would need to be addressed before most working people could find the luxury of time for past family values. Not saying that those things are the solution, but I guess that even if you don’t think they are too far to the left(or just liberal propaganda) then you probably know people who are just too fundamentally and ideologically stunted to ever accept them as a solution if they were one. Most of us are totally economically oppressed, with very limited upward mobility.
From what I can gather, the only time in history that some countries had time and prosperity for family, community and society enough to feel nostalgic about it today, was the post war era. I believe that the thriving society that you correctly conclude is no longer happening, was the product of the unspeakable horror that your Greatest generation endured, that they then shielded from their families, with all their love. They knew how quickly an ideal could turn into death, and how what was really important could so violently be torn from you no matter how hard you held on to it.
That’s not to mention the sacrifice the unreturned gave.
When I look around, I see lessons not learned, people who know better but still choose dark over light and history deliberately forgotten.
I am ashamed.
You should be ashamed.
We all should be ashamed.
5
There is no "after Trump" for American conservatism. It will now and forever be all Trump. Try to accept that, Ross. It's sad to see you struggle like this for so many years. It is a morally and intellectually bankrupt party, just like your president and leaders.
5
Oh boy, lots of light shining is this column defending conservatism. With that spotlight light sweeping through the darkness placed on the American landscape by Trump and his Republican abettors, it never seems to stop and examine anything other than broken monuments to a past that only existed for, who?
A conservative idea of what big government is a cash cow. The pile of cash it generates is just too enticing to be left to liberals and commies and now socialists.That individualism of the past is, and always has been a grab and go.
Get over it, we need roads, subways, water systems rebuilt. What is holding the Republican Right back? There is so much money to be made for there donors.
2
It's absurd of Douthat to claim conservatives favor limited government.
Conservatives like government doing stuff they like. Conservatives dislike government doing stuff they dislike.
There's no conservative objection to gvt spending on defense, police, jails, etc. But there is conservative objection to gvt spending on welfare, health, schools, etc.
Way past time for Douthat and others to acknowledge their own hypocrisy.
13
Who decides what’s written in the ‘unwritten’ Constitution? And is it subject to literal or living interpretation to reflect changing times?
2
Douthat admits the central problem of America!
Republicans don't follow the Constitution, but seek to replace it with their own "unwritten...cultural or social constitution..."
This is why, just like the Confederates, when they get outvoted, they resort to violence and terror .
The Constitution says that Congress should tax and regulate trade. Republicans demand the opposite. They are not against spending. They raise spending while the cut taxes, and when Bush I refused to do that, they abandoned him.
Instead of spending on justice, tranquility, defense, the general welfare, liberty and posterity, they spend on "law and order" imposed by a violent militarized police state, a violent global offence to protect corporate profits, the particular welfare of the super rich whose taxes they cut while they gorge on cost plus federal contracts, call the Bill of Rights Technicalities, and trash our only planet.
Republicans don't want to "check" the separation of church and state. They want to make their bible the basis of our laws. That is why Roy Moore won nearly half of the votes in Alabama. This, even though they are against most of what Jesus actually said (healing the sick, helping the poor, and that the greedy are unlikely to go to heaven).
There is no other constitution. Waving the flag and singing the anthem while you take the side of a hostile intelligence agency against our own intelligence agencies doesn't mean it's not treason.
Read the Constitution and follow it.
8
The GOP has never been against "big government." That was a dog-whistle for not interfering with Jim Crow legislation, segregated schools, and other "local" issues. It was Nixon who welcomed the old Dixiecrats into the party, and then once in the Presidency, tried to declare himself above the law and rule (sic) the country as an autocrat. Without the charisma of a Ronald Reagan, however, he could not bring out the latent longing for monarchy that pretty much characterizes modern "conservatism." Serious people have said with straight faces that Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43 and now Donald Trump are God's chosen vessels, and that opposition to them is therefore sacrilege. That is textbook monarchism, and it's been a widely accepted philosophy in the GOP for four decades.
5
It has been said that the difference between the two parties is whom they wish to control. Democrats want to control large entities such as corporations and government to offset the differentials in power.
Republicans want to control individuals. Stand for the Pledge. No kneeling. No abortion. No sex-ed. Religion sets the rules for everyone - Christian religion that is. Losers and minorities have few rights and need to be controlled.
Ross ignores how conservatives use state power. They certainly are not family friendly, especially single parent families.
629
@uwteacher all of that individual control to me seems like so much smokescreen for the actual agenda of continued wealth reallocation to the very wealthy through protection of minimally restrained capitalism and wealth-friendly tax policy.
The funders of the GOP genuinely don’t seem to really give a fig about abortion, preventing women from receiving birth control, or immigration, etc. - they just don’t want to be taxed or have their business practices too closely scrutinized for silly reasons like public health or fairness to employees.
So if they can tell social conservatives what they want to hear to win their vote, that’s fine by them. Social conservatives, perhaps because of the sincerity of their beliefs, have proven to be useful tools for these interests (“Well, education is unfunded and we have no healthcare or rights as workers, but at least we’re not voting for the baby killers”). The great tragedy perhaps is that the “using state and national government institutions to bolster and safeguard civic and religious institutions” conservatism withered on the vine.
Liberal or conservative, I think we can find some common ground in the notion that, if we want future generations to thrive, providing better education, healthcare, and childcare would be strong steps to take.
78
@uwteacher Ross Douthat should examine the books of Catholic theologian Margaret Starbird, who provides convincing evidence that Jesus was NOT celibate but was married to Mary Magdalene. Like an evil fairy tale, the Catholic Church has exalted the mother in law Mary over Mary the bride, providing the false logic for idealized celibacy and virginity for all generations.
Paul wrote that few have the gift of celibacy. Paul as an itinerant preacher, who traveled thousands of miles on foot across the Roman Empire, practically required a celibate lifestyle. But few need or want such an unnatural mode of living, especially not clergy who are parts of fixed communities.
Celibacy benefits the Catholic Church as an organization but not its individual priests. Celibacy allows the church to treat its priests like soldiers in an army, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice from one parish or diocese to another or even internationally from country to country or continent to continent. The church can move its personnel at whim without worrying about the needs of a large clerical family like those in the Orthodox Jewish rabbinate.
It is possible to view Catholic priests themselves as victims of an abusive system that forces this unnatural way of life upon them. And, if so, then each and every Catholic parishioner, by supporting such an abnormal and unhappy system,would be guilty of abusing these priests
13
@uwteacher - Very well spoken. Conservatives in general use government to punish out-groups (ie. anyone who doesn't conform to the current conservative archetype). I was actually thinking of a more mundane example though.
Mormons and alcohol. Orrin Hatch would go on lengthy tirades over the evils of encumbering business and innovation. He's obviously never tried to start a business with an alcohol license in Utah before. The rules of propriety are suddenly suspended whenever they are applied to conservative principles.
Ross Douthat just admitted as much. Conservatives don't believe in the Constitution. They have their own separate constitution that means whatever they want it to mean. Never mind whether their actions are legal or not so long as they get their way.
18
The hypocrisy of the GOP talking about “family values” while decrying social safety nets and family planning and “fiscal prudence” while slashing tax revenue without reigning in spending has been on display for years. Under Trump this hypocrisy has reached epic proportions and mendacity and racist/bigoted dog whistling are celebrated as the key to MAGA. 2020 must deliver a Democratic White House, Senate and even stronger House in order to begin repairing the damage done at home and abroad. No third party candidates need apply. Staying home November 2020 is tantamount to complicity in Trump’s malfeasance.
5
Lots of great comments here pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of some putative Republican project to assist the common weal. In the words of a great Canadian (though he spent his career advising US Presidents):
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
...or as Mark from Rocky River says, "It was a giant wealth transfer. To the top."
8
So the first question that pops into mind is where Jim Crow, institutionalized anti-Semitism, homophobia and all the other jewels of our past and present fit into Mr. Douthat's erstwhile (and fictional) "Tocquevillian dream"? The second question is why anyone, Mr. Douthat included, would think that the Republicans of yesteryear actually supported limited government? They did not; and those of today do not. They support a government that operates in their self-interest; that shifts risks away from business and onto workers; that privatizes profit and socializes losses. Indeed, the epic economic debacles of the savings and loan meltdown, the dot.com meltdown, and the Great Recession are the natural result of these "limited government" policies, and there never was a "'silent majority' of hardworking, pious, culturally conservative blue-collar families" except maybe on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. What there was was a populace that accepted the patriarchy, which populace is now disappearing, which is the only thing that Mr. Douthout truly laments.
7
"Is America still a nation of thriving local communities and energetic civic life? Is America still a deeply religious country, with strong churches and growing denominations? Are American businessmen basically public spirited,.."
That was the 60's and 70's. It all started to change in the 80's, particularly the businessmen got greedy with bank deregulation. And it all spiraled down after that.
5
Douthat still doesn't get it. The ideological centers that once held the American story together-Biblical Christianity, government of, by, and for the people, and free market capitalism-are NOT collapsing because of some conjured liberal threats, but because the very leaders and practitioners of these ideologies have demonstrated, in abundant measure, that they themselves cannot either believe or follow the story line. Church leaders by the thousands have now proven to be grossly immoral and protectors of immoral predators. The smallest men now occupy the highest stations of our government, demonstrating brazenly everyday that they work in their own best interests rather than those of the nation. And what else is there to say about the practitioners of an economics that gives them the lion's share of reward while risk is dumped on the public. If they believe so much in Adam Smith, why are they always paying Wash. D.C. For legal protection and bailouts. If America is good enough to live in, why do they need to hide their monies in dark money havens?
Douthat is now irrelevant, a man spewing hot air in an attempt to resurrect a dying dream. Open your eyes, man.
11
As long as conservative is not a bad word, humanity will suffer. Non-changing true-believers are the worst problem for dynamic and vibrant societies. True-believers also enable fascists and dictators. Fascists and dictators do not rise in a vacuum, but on the shoulders of the true-believers.
3
President Hoover instituted the RFC the first direct aid to private business.
2
I must say that having followed US politics for many years, I have not seen much commitment to small government by conservatives. They just emphasize different aspects of government than liberals. DOD is part of the US government, after all. Subsidies to fossil fuel companies (from an accounting perspective, tax cuts are equivalent to subsidies) versus renewables. Conservative farmers saying “get the government off my back” as they rely on federal crop insurance and other government programs. There is a long list, but it the hypocrisy of the claim that is, in some ways, the most irritating aspect...
604
@Richard best comment by far..Conservatives love government that allows industry and the rich to pay no taxes, to despoil the earth with no monetary consequences, to control womens reproduction and work while endorsing men who 'grab them by the ***" , so, you are so right, Richard of Albany, since when are 'conservatives' for small government?
35
@grace thorsen: Since ‘conservatives’ want total control of all government, oh, & workers too, & that is easier with 5 for fewer conservatives controlling the country. So down with the congress, up with conservative controlled military, imminently used to control individuals in this country, as has been anathema since 1775. Soon to move on to abolishing states, so the federal, i.e. ‘conservative’ government can control every person in the country. We will see things waffling back & forth over the years depending on what they need. Banning of birth control & abortion for any reason, when more workers are needed. The wealthy allowed both all the time. To times when birth control is mandatory & only those who are the correct color, age, ableness, ethnicity, & political party are allowed to procreate. All others must remain, if not celibate, then unmarried & childless. Need more workers, ban birth control, more automation arriving, more birth control & even sterilization is needed. As if We the People are not their employers, but, just a crop to be manipulated as needed.
4
@Richard many of these kind of corporations get both tax cuts and taxpayers subsidies.
3
"...leaving evangelical Christianity as an isolated bastion with little culture-shaping power."
I sure like the sound of that!
It is utterly bizarre that, in the 21st Century, so many adults still believe in magic.
5
".... that the one power center they can hope to control is the one they are notionally organized to limit — the administrative state."
Either the US and our global civilisation will continue as they are heading towards ecological and social collapse, or a time will soon come when Movement Conservatives are moved to wonder "Why don't they arrest us? Why don't they put us in chains? Why don't they put our heads on pikes?"
History is not a test-run. Humanity has been engaged in a trial of its ability to progress to an advanced state and sustain itself there, and Movement Conservatives have not only wilfully sought to inhibit its ability to organise itself to that end, but not had the foresight to realise that eventually "knaves and fools" would put themselves forward and be elected to do so, representing Humanity clearly very poorly. "Why?" indeed.
Fortunately for them we've moved on from medieval means of dealing with such people. Ironically, in the United States, respect for "limited government" by Movement Conservatives has not extended to limiting its ability to execute its own citizens. Funny that! They may well soon come to rejoice in the fact that their opponents also have respect for "limited government" - though not nearly so absurdly severely and inconsistently.
Yes, a "changing" of "thinking" is rudely required.
4
Douthat says that universities are liberal institutions, and in the past they were. But I think that the rise of adjunct faculty getting low pay with no benefits, and with no real influence over the institution, shows otherwise.
Authoritarian money grubbers are not liberal.
5
@DL
They are “progressive”, which has become decided anti-liberal.
The era of "limited government" may in fact be stymied by the costs associated with paying for an "unlimited government." Everyone wants all this stuff that the "rich" are going to pay for. Want all this stuff? 20% VAT? 40-60% tax rates of $60K incomes? This is what Europe pays. We will too if want "unlimited government" - for some reasons many Americans think all of this is "free" but nothing is free.
Has it occurred to you that we already pay for that stuff already? We have a health system that eats up 6 percentage points of GDP more than Switzerland does. Other developed countries spend even less of their GDP. That translates to at least $1.2T in annual spending. For that we get mediocre outcomes.
We pay for education by posing crippling debt on our young.
The only people benefiting from this is the top 1% who make money off lending for student loans and gaming the healthcare system for outrageous profits.
5
@Sarah99
What I want is more financial security and less financial anxiety. If that means higher taxes for more social safety nets, I'm all in.
I also want more security/less anxiety about safety. I'm currently much more afraid of gun-toting white Americans than dark-skinned people, no matter where they were born. The stats show my fears are rational. More regulations on guns please.
1
I fear that the fault is in the American character.
In the time of my youth (60s, 70s) the nation was full to overflowing with an entire panoply of local sub-cultures. Whether it was Appalachian rockabilly or farm families dressing up in wooden clogs to celebrate their Dutch-ness (and the Queen's b-day!) or Brooklyn Italians celebrating the saints days of their ancestral home towns, identity, community and place combined to provide the social interaction humans need to be happy.
But culture was replaced by commerce. We were all willing participants in our own degradation. We allowed ourselves to be turned from citizens to consumers.
I only wish that someone had kept a record of it all; the spring cleaning rituals, the lasagna making rituals, the dirndls and lederhosen...
The only connection with politics is bipartisan. Both parties and all the political actors (including pundits) always favored large national corporations over small local businesses. As I said, the fault is in our own character.
4
This completely misses the point regarding why the call for limited government is failing. The problem isn't, and never has been, one of culture or community decline. The problem is that the services provided by the state that those who call for limited government think should rather be provided by either charities or the private sector are not services that charities can scale up or that the people what the private sector profiting from. The call for limited government has always focused on cutting services for the general public and the poor. A call for limited government is a call to cut welfare, to limit social security, to privatize education, to keep government out of health services, etc. Conservative talking points say that these services can be provided by the private sector or charities, but those working in charities all know - and state publicly - that private charities can provide state level welfare or social security functions for the poor and elderly. Cuts mean leaving people behind. Private insurance continues to cost people enormous amounts of money and denies people care. Under funding public education hurts the public and our economy as a whole. People have heard these calls for decades now and are recognizing that conservatives are not putting forward viable alternatives to state services. The only beneficiaries of limited government calls are the rich, and that is where conservative orthodoxy is failing.
11
Your musing that conservative statism in our time might resemble 20th century fascism is correct. It does. It must, because to retain control it must rely on negative and divisive messages, that go against our better human impulses. It must pit groups against each other.
What are the alternatives? First, let's rid ourselves of the scourge and deceit of religion. It has always harmed us, notwithstanding its anachronistic claims. Freed in this way, we could create communitarianism based on real values, not on lies, fairy tales, and fear. Trump's natural antagonism to all religious principles and beliefs may help us in this, although his replacement of them with purely corrupt and selfish interests, and with anger and meanness, does not help at all to show what is possible.
In the post-industrial, globalist world, why a fervor for "nationalism," the most destructive habit of past centuries? In the future, nation states will whither away in most important respects, when the more important connective attributes of economy, culture, intellect, humanism, science, and development can make them irrelevant.
Douthat, like other conservatives, moans about "liberalism" in universities, and among our smartest and most forward-looking people. That's funny. Those who think, plan, study, and analyze the most are "liberal" in their views? Do the math; there's a reason for that. Those are the people who best see a productive way forward for our people and communities. It isn't the "old way."
131
@AM
Yes, thank you.
The Supreme Court made a decision that at public, government meetings, I must listen to the prayers and gods and Canon of others in the invocation. I often must hear the specific name of their god in that payer. I do not want to hear that nonsense because I'm an atheist. So I do not go to any government meetings where that happens. The ordinary men in black robes who made that decision said it was "tradition" to do this. Slavery was once considered a great tradition in America and other parts of the world. And you can think of hundred of "traditions" that were in fact horrid. Religious folks obviously are insecure. But that will have to change if America is going to thrive and be free. Note that I do not go to those meetings anymore but I think I could contribute greatly to them. Many stay home and are excluded so you do not have a real sample of America at those public meetings.
13
@Frank You could go to the meetings and read a small book as you do in a waiting room. It doesn't always keep the noise out, but it helps. Then you could be part of the public discourse and that might improve things.
1
@Frank: So just like religionists you want it all your own way. I agree no prayers should be given at any public meeting. But, if there is a group who desires to rub blue mud in their naked belly buttons & intone unintelligible sounds (to me), I will fight for their right to do so. I will fight for your belief to believe in nothing also. In school I learned something marvelous. I learned to sit quietly & ignore what others are saying/doing, if I thought it was untrue, boring, or a waste of time. So, if you don’t go to public meetings for any reason, that is your problem. Your need to never allow yourself (or actually you’ll be happiest when you can keep everyone from hearing anything you don’t think is right) to hear anything you don’t agree with. Personally I believe in a Creator, I don’t believe He, She, It (though It is kind of disrespectful, but, English doesn’t provide a non gendered, respectful singular pronoun) wishes us to worship Her/Him/It.
In short, since no one need listen to a prayer or other religious ritual, just be polite. Think about something else, even read a book, magazine, or snack box.
1
Douthat writes about the trees and misses the forest.
The most important distinction between liberal "big government" and conservative "big government is this:
Liberals or progressives believe that one role of government, as promised by the Constitution, is to judiciously limit the incursion of other institutions into shared governance. Thus the 1st Amendment prohibits establishment of religion. Liberals have set limits on private corporations through regulation, anti-trust legislation and restrictions on campaign contributions. Even with higher education, influence is moderated by prohibition of political activity by tax exempt organizations.
Conservatives idea of "big government" is quite the opposite. Religion is invited into the halls of Congress and White House. Religious values are privileged in judicial appointments. Corporations are "people" and have full rights within the conservative "big government." Tax exempt churches are encouraged to be political actors.
Liberals understand the importance of institutions of civil society remaining at arm's length from our representative democracy. Conservatives want select institutions of civic society - religion and corporations particularly - to replace the mechanisms of representative democracy.
16
@Barking Doggerel
In line with your remark that, for conservatives, "Religion is invited into the halls of Congress and White House," I make the suggestion that present and future, Democratically-controlled Houses of Congress vow to "disinvite" chaplains from their premises. Even as a (sometimes-believing, but more often doubting) Christian, I have long been troubled by the reach of religion into our sacredly non-religious government.
And as for the occasions when religion takes a political stance? There is the precise place where those institutions should lose their tax-free status.
3
Ross is wrong about one thing. The non governmental institutions of American civic life ARE written into the constitution in the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights in which those powers not given to the federal government or reserved to the states and “the people.” These institutions are “the people.”
But no good deed goes unpunished by an army of bureacrats and litigants. Progressive statism has succeeding in punishing people involved in non-government community life to the point that those institutions have become subservient to progressive statism or been hollowed out. Try to open a food bank or free clinic and just watch the gnomes show up! Keep time of the time you spend doing the work you set out to do versus dealing with the system.
So “the people” of the tenth amendment now stay home in front of the TV and leave everything to the state. Community action, when taken, is almost entirely confined to attempts to influence state action.
1
Remember what John Dillinger said about robbing banks...."It's where the money is." Politicians are just beginning to get it.
Mr. Dillinger would have done much better had he been born 50 years later. There are no conservatives any longer. Only the progressive panderers.
2
That quote is attributed to Willie Sutton. Its first attribution to him appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1951, and has been repeated frequently over the years. Is it apocryphal? Made up by the reporter? Who knows or really cares; it's an accurate assessment and endures. BTW, in 1976, Willie denied making that statement.
2
This essay assumes most GOP members are guided by higher principle, but their recent behavior establishes that they are not. Acquisition of more money and power for themselves is their overriding motive. Hypocrisy and corruption are inadequate descriptors. Treason seems closer to reality.
5
The fraud of small government conservatism shines through in this column. The only overt grassroots conservatism in the past 50 years has come from the gun lobby (which is hardly monolithic) and the anti-abortion movement. The rest is largely illegitimate racism (much of it dressed up as “religious freedom”) or driven by self-serving oligarchs who refuse to pay taxes but understand the need for national security. The conservative movement is largely a failure. Look how scared so-called conservatives are of AOC. She threatens their house of cards.
4
You got that right, Bernie Sanders has the libertarians searching for cover. Maybe a little (socialist) softening of their wolflike image will do the trick.
4
Today's "conservatives" don't want limited government as much as they want weak and ineffective government. They see our government as a tool of the masses used to enslave the wealthy. When they say they want "freedom" they don't want freedom for us- they just want freedom for themselves. They want enough freedom so that corporations and business and the wealthy can economically enslave the rest of us.
321
@Geraldine
That is better than the state enslaving people to the collective, for then they have no exit. Corporate economic slavery is self-imposed, or at least passively accepted. The slavery of progressive collectivism is enforced by Tazer, shackles, and guns. The economic slavery of corporations is enforced only by one’s own fears and weaknesses and lack of fortitude.
Let those who want to be slaves be slaves and those who want to be free be free.
3
@KBronson How does one (or the collective we) wrest the control the corporations have into the public sphere. How do we, as a country, stop passively accepting the corporations?
Your comment does not make sense to me but I would welcome a response that explains it clearly.
13
@KBronson
Are you seriously arguing that the slave who sells himself into slavery is somehow "more free" than the slave who had slavery imposed upon him by another? What nonsense. Slavery is, well, slavery, irrespective of how the condition arises.
8
Does Douthat intentionally use a difficult to decipher writing style to conceal the lack of meat on the bones of his pontificating?
I tried but could find not a trace of actual policy ideas in this article that conservatives could or are embracing to better serve the widespread economic needs of Americans.
I'm sorry, but it isn't enough to show a kind of intellectual concern for the growing percentage of Americans who are not benefiting from the last 40 years of hugely expanding overall wealth in our nation.
Progressives on the Democratic side have actual proposals to correct the widening wealth gap in America and other social problems we face.
If Douthat believe's he's offering up a substantial conservative counter-agenda, I'm afraid his writing is far to abstruse for me to decipher his code.
7
@alan haigh
He's taken a page from David Brooks's book.
You are living in a bubble. Limited government never happened. It was merely a cloak for Republicans allowing our Treasury to be looted. That is their only defining measure of "Conservative." It was neither "limited" nor "conservative." It was a giant wealth transfer. To the top.
11
@Mark
And they're still after Social Security. Just think, all that money deducted from every paycheck and funnelled to a government fund to be paid out at a later date to the contributors. If only that fund could be transferred to the overlords for 'safe keeping'.
"Conservatives" never really wanted limited government. They just wanted the government to only help certain kinds of people.
5
It is telling that Ross Douthat refers to a longing for a deeply religious America as though that was a historical reality. But it wasn’t long ago that the religious right was created and faith was weaponized. Many of the people who decry “political Islam” are totally comfortable with “political Christianity” or to be more accurate “political Evangelical fundamentalism”.
So let’s not kid ourselves about what State power means in that context. We already see how State (federal) power is wielded by those who are in charge of individual states. Like women’s rights? Too bad. Like scientific inquiry? Guess again (literally). Respect people of other faiths or no faith? Contemptible. Want to educate your kids in the Liberal Western tradition? Not with Those books, thank you very much. Accept the humanity of people with different sexual or gender preferences? Not while my God is in charge.
No, the deeply religious country that Ross Douthat remembers has changed from what it once was, which was bad enough, casually oppressive and unselfconsciously self-satisfied. Given the reins of power, the transformed and politically activist religious zealotry that we see today will know no bounds, least of all the Constitution, as history itself will be rewritten so that the fiction of America’s founding as a Christian nation can at last be made a reality.
8
I don't think it is at all hostile to worry about economic nationalism morphing to fascism, a word used here to ward off all objection, as if fascism were an American impossibility (i.e, "it can't happen here"). Rather, it is irrational not to worry. If this author is supporting Tucker Carlson's notion of rewarding single parent families with tax breaks, he is supporting social engineering, America's newest import from authoritarian regimes. The term just doesn't suit the good intentions here.
1
The Republican version of "limited government" has been a disaster, enriching the rich while beggaring the poor. It limits spending on health care, infrastructure, education, the social safety net and scientific research, removes environmental protections, ignores climate change and condemns children to four-day school weeks in retrograde states like Kansas and Oklahoma. It's time for government to do what it was always meant to do, protect, nourish and nurture all of society, not just the top 1%. Only Democrats are able to do so. Trump certainly can't, and by supporting this tin pot dictator the GOP has consigned itself to the dustbin of history.
5
Unfortunately, Conservative values in the form of laws are all around us. Why don't states legalize prostitution? Clearly criminalization has never worked. The pending arrest of Bob Kraft demonstrates the absurdity of these laws. If the criminal justice system has nothing better to do than arresting Bob Kraft, all involved should be terminated. What a waste of time and money? The police/lawyer/jailer/religion lobbies remind us about the horror of human trafficking, while knowing full well it is not going away. The real answer is legalizing/taxing/regulating. Welcoming sex workers into society will benefit the workers, their health, customers’ health and society with much needed tax revenues combined with reduced expenses. It is far more moral to legalize prostitution than to criminalize it.
Decriminalizing gambling, prostitution, and drugs are obvious revenue sources as well as opportunities to save money by eliminating wasteful and useless government.
3
Conservatives like Ross Douthat seem to have serial amnesia when it comes the origin of the Conservative animus toward "big government". The triggering event motivating the conservative war on " big government " was the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Within a generation (Clinton in 1992 excepted), the American South, as LBJ had presciently predicted, essentially flipped from Blue to Red. It involves a seemingly endemic conservative racism which conservatives attempt to smother under a blanket of ideological platitudes.The dispositive " big government" issue was race and the evidence is overwhelming. This Conserative pathology continues today with voter suppression, racial gerrymandering, immigration issues, and the assault on PPH.
6
A little long winded, esoteric and obtuse for me Ross.You kinda lost me after the first few sentences.
IMO, here is what is going on.
Generic Conservatism (or liberalism) didn't start in the 1950s. It has basically gone on in cycles since 1776. One group takes over after abuse and then in a period of time abuses their power and the next group takes over.
The latest three waves were liberal 1933-1980, conservative 1980 to 2008 and liberal 2008 on.
Even within these waves you have people/oddballs who buck the trend momentarily and either come close or get elected like "Barry the bomber" Goldwater and the ego maniac demagogue Trump.
3
The recent "big government" Republican presidents (including Saint Reagan) had "visions," for sure. Vision without resources is hallucination. Each of these presidents gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy, eroding the government's resource base. A sad and disgraceful hoax perpetrated on the nation.
4
Republicans have always been hypocrites about "government overreach", just as they have always been hypocrites about fiscal policy. It is only government overreach when it is a regulatory constraint on their ability to profit at the expense of others - not when they are trying to limit women's access to abortion or control of their own bodies. In the same way, they only become deficit hawks when they lose control of the purse, but reliably squander resources on foreign wars and tax give-aways to their wealthy puppet-masters the moment they come to power.
3
Well, Ross is off tilting at windmills: could the “conservatives” gain power by shifting their views to accept power as a potential force to achieve their goals?
The real issue for “conservatives”, assuming there are still some out there, is how to pry power out of the hands of a few bonkers billionaires who control the GOP by infecting 85% of Republican voters with propaganda from an unequaled brainwashing apparatus. Until these lemmings can be weaned from the consumption of alternative facts, discussions of “conservative” approaches is a parlor game.
7
So even Douthat admits that American Conservatism is dormant if not downright dead. You all make your calls of imperial and kingly against Obama look down-right knee-jerk ridiculous. Go right ahead and predict the change in conservatism--now that it's already happened under Trump. Just one question, when will you start using the correct terms for the type of government the current administration wants to install--autocracy and dictatorship?
3
This editorial is nonsense. The "Right" long ago changed its view of the state. As far as the Right is concerned, the state exists to impose its views on those who have the temerity to disagree with its values, values such as unlimited access to guns for all, no access to abortions and birth control, hatred of women and minorities, no freedom of speech for those who disagree with its principles, and unlimited ability to buy politicians.
The average right wing conservative voter shrieks "Keep the government's hands off my Medicare." The tragedy for us all is that this voter does not recognize the profound hypocrisy of his position. And remind me which presidents in recent years have run up the deficit. . . . No right wing individual can argue successfully that supporting Trump and the current Republican Party is anything other than wildly inconsistent with the purported idea of small government and lower taxes.
I have a bridge for sale--connects Brooklyn and Manhattan. Any Republicans out there want to buy it?
5
If there is a silver lining to the Trump regime, it is that it has pulled the mask over the "conservative'' movement, which was never really an intellectual movement but rather an obvious attempt by rich white men to protect their power and status by cloaking it in constitutional mumbo jumbo like "original intent'' and such. The hard truth is that the movement's founding father, William F. Buckley Jr. was a bigot. His 50-cent words and pompous elocution couldn't disguise the fact that he was a virulent anti-Semite who opposed civil rights. The hypocrisy over abortion is another example. Republicans have no problem using the power of the federal government to regulate abortion and impose their will on millions of women. These "principled'' conservatives were never particularly principled, and Trump has exposed them as the frauds that they have always been.
4
Honestly Ross, what did you think Citizens United would do for the country?
7
Intellectual conservatives are blind to the ravages of inequality induced by the war against the mixed economy waged since pre-Reagan days. They hailed Reagan's assault on government as the enemy. Preached supply side economics. Allowed a takeover by fossil fuel darlings...hypocritically dog whistled and fear mongered while clinging to the outward pious attachment to the Church. Closed their eyes to Bush/Cheney's oil and revenge wars. They failed to see the breakdown of the family and communities due to capitalism. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Seas are rising. Conservatism is about profit and power to maintain profits for the few. It's time to stop praising Conservatism for something it is not. It stands for empty platitudes that have been a still are masks for dark realities of erosion of the thriving mixed economy. If corporations want less government, they should have remained connected to community and labor. Just look at the difference between George Romney and his vacuous son Willard Mitt Romney. Therein lies the path Conservatism has gone down in the last five decades.
293
@Al Singer I agree with you. Mitt Romney is as vacuous as the "coffee" served at Dunkin' Donuts, a Bain Capital creation. Ronald Reagan increased the budget deficit by expanding defense spending and severely cut funds for public education, perhaps the most disturbing trend in the undoing of our communities, our children and families. Tragic. Will we recover? Wait and see.
27
@Al Singer
I just don’t care about inequality. Not one little bit. Envious people scare me.
23
@Al Singer Good points. That said, inequality has been a bipartisan project at least during my lifetime. If the Tweedledee-Tweedledum divorce on that front is really happening, I'm ready to see it.
3
It means the end of getting richer helps the poor.
2
My God what a mass of misconceptions.
America has not lost its diversity of culture and power -- certainly not to the harm of the kleptocrats. It has, thru one bad court decision -- Citizens United -- and the fact that TV and paper news is financed by advertising, given the corporate rich and Wall Street control of national politics.
If you want diverse voices to be heard and listened to, end the roll of dark corporate money in politics. Outlaw advertising and the harvesting of personal data on social media. Watch the miraculous new vitality of local print media.
America is far too large and diverse for 'big-state' conservatism to be anything but increased domination of the 'flyovers' by the coasts and a few inland megacities. This column was not written in rural Kansas. An administrative state controlled by conservatives has already been tried. Its most benign form was called fascism, and its leader did not end well. Don't go there, Mr. Douthat.
11
What people want to "limit" is largely a matter of perceived "worthiness." Consider the venerated American military and veterans, and its scary socialist system of healthcare and college assistance. The military recognizes that it is in their selfish interest to look after their own, and there is political will to follow-through on this.
There is no need to appeal to higher values. We all benefit from taking care of each other.
4
Mr. Douthat weirdly assumes that the wealthiest class hasn't used governmental power to achieve their aims, since Reagan. No doubt slashing taxes on the rich has been part and parcel to the societal decline. Gerrymandered districts, inherent gross unfairness of Senate power, trashing of unions, decline of middle class incomes, now culminating with Russian meddling in democratic system, R establishment's ongoing obfuscation of the facts, puts Grouch and Kavanaugh in power to trash the will of the majority. The Trump era, rife with corruption, may be Peak Corporate Welfare. A massive leftward wing swing, we hope, will use levers for education, health, environmental health, social safety net - not propping up the richest of the rich.
6
This is a very revisionist history of the USA.
We have had three constitutions in this country, the first being the Articles of the Confederation, which merely committed a group of breakaway British republics into a somewhat centralized structure for purposes of defense. The 1789 Constitution created an actual federal-state structure, while still respecting each State's sovereignty. The 1793 amendments later called the Bill of Rights were enacted to further protect the States from federal encroachments, and were necessary for ratification.
That notion evaporated pretty quickly, producing a civil war, and a new set of amendments that completely redefined the role of the federal government as setting the floor for minimal standards of individual liberty in all States.
What Douthat calls the unwritten constitution is actually our second constitution, nostalgia for which has continued unabated among a significant population. Waving a banner of local control, of returning governing to the grassroots, is nothing more than a quaint throwback to the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. That's why the misleading term "Originalist" is so popular among conservatives.
3
Another possibility is that many of Trump's 2016 votes came from white people who panicked when the US elected a competent black President. Many of those people came from the working (or even non-working) class, but the more pertinent identifier was age: Trump got old-white-people votes. Those white people are dying at a regular and predictable rate. Trump is not going to win in 2020. The Democratic party is going to dominate US politics in the foreseeable future. Government will be asked to play a bigger role in the economy and society--but much of that will be to accomplish things that neither markets no social institutions can accomplish: Global Warming in particular. We aren't going to be fascists. We are going to be Americans. Trump voters--many of whom, let's face it, would indeed have supported Mussolini--will run things in Alabama and Wyoming. But they aren't going to run the executive and legislative branches of government. The Trump-appointed Supreme Court will be more and more hated by the majority of Americans as the next few decades progress. Whether government can be used to improve the lot of poor people--white or otherwise--is yet to be seen.
3
@David Bullock: what blows your theory is most of those "evil old white people" VOTED FOR Barack Obama.
They flipped to Trump because Obama disappointed them, not because they hated him for being black.
Let's not exaggerate the death rate. Old people always die, but most Trump voters are not 90 years old. And young people are dying pretty briskly these days from opioid abuses.
The OLDEST baby boomers are only 72 and might well live another 20 years -- the YOUNGEST baby boomers are only 54, and may well be voting in 35 years. Don't be so quick to write us off! Also, Gen X voters are not very different than we are, and will be around quite a while.
Lefty libs also predicted total Democratic dominance in 2016 -- how did that turn out? -- and convinced even GW Bush that "he was the last Republican President in history".
Trump voters are roughly half of the electorate. Don't be so arrogant or quick as to dismiss us. And let's not forget that Supreme Court either! nobody "hates" them except you hard left liberals. Anyways, the whole point of their LIFETIME appointments is that hatred doesn't matter.
When I was growing up I heard of how one of the city's largest businesses loaned money to the city's schools to keep them functioning when the city was nearly bankrupt during the Depression. Nowadays corporate CEO's say their only responsibility is to maximize profits for their shareholders. This change wasn't due to anything the government did, but to increasing greed in what Piketty calls the "rentier class".
Meanwhile one of the country's largest religious groups have virtually abandoned their religious teachings, to worship a foul-mouthed womanizer who disdains their traditional moral teachings but showers them with goodies.
If people are losing faith in the private sector and putting more trust in a powerful government, it's because the private sector has failed, not because of "socialism".
6
Power abhors a vacuum. Either government gets the power, or powerful corporations will. There is no modern scenario in which an anemic government results in more personal liberty. A healthy and responsive democratic government answers to the people and protects basic liberties; a corporation answers only to its owners. The silly libertarian notion that less government leads to more freedom is a fairy tale. What we need is a strong but fair government that enshrines the basic rights of the people. Remember, folks; When it's done right WE are the government.
4
@Jim Well said!
Conservatives and progressives (or liberals) are all human. Garrison Keeler got it right. Everyone wants a strong wife, a good-looking husband and children that are above average. His Lake Woebegone stories are tales of life presented on a human scale. Conservatives insist that we can have the good life in Lake Woebegone if we will just accept the idea of government that exalts wealth at the expense of justice and fairness. Progressives know better.
3
Conservatism is fundamentally based on the acquisition of power. When that power is in the hands of its opposition, then Conservatives are for "freedom". When it is in their hands, they advocate submission to the state. It is all one. It has been thus since the days of Jefferson and the slave aristocracy and it is so now.
4
That the Era of Limited Government Is Over has been evident for a long time. 325+ million people, half of whom don't bother even to vote, cannot remain a civilized society without effective governance. Reagan's idea that "Government is the problem" was a horrible legacy to give to a nation enjoying the best democracy the world had ever known. We've been flying apart ever since under the influence of that civilization-dismantling idea. The modern Republican Party has been dead wrong.
No government, no country.
8
American conservatism has never been as enamored of "limited government" as their rhetoric proclaims.
Some examples of conservatism *not* being in favor of limited government:
- They want to regulate sexual activity between consenting adults.
- They want to force Americans to proclaim some form of Christianity as their religion.
- They want to control the uterus and vagina of women of childbearing age.
- They want to lock people up for smoking weed and other activities that harm nobody.
- They support cops who shoot unarmed citizens who have committed no crime at all.
Generally speaking, what conservatives have meant by "limited government" is stuff like:
- Allow companies to freely pollute the environment.
- Allow companies to freely abuse their work force.
- Allow rich people to not pay taxes.
- Allow white people to freely be racist.
- Allow men to freely commit acts of violence against their families.
22
@Dave, and why is it that the NFL pays no taxes? These big corporations pay lawyers to figure out how to avoid paying taxes. Churches pay no taxes. These big Mega-Churches that seem like covered arena's pay no taxes. Yet people like me and my wife who both were"self employed" paid 52% in taxes. This entire Corporate Culture is corrupt to the core!
2
@Dave Every one of these statements is false and it is sad that it has received 13 recommends so far.
I for one don't want big government running and intruding upon every aspect of my life. I refuse to be forced to eat broccoli (I actually like broccoli) nor be prohibited from drinking "big gulp" sodas if I so choose. Government should be as minimalist as possible yet not so small that it does not provide a societal framework. That's the US our Founding Fathers envisioned and I like their idea.
3
@Mike - But enough about monumentally important issues like broccoli and big gulps; How do you feel about the government legislating what doctors can discuss and do with their patients?
5
@Mike
You really think that the document written to regulate the government of a pre-industrial society that had the horse drawn coach as its fastest communication and allowed slavery is the best guide to the future?
2
@A. Roy You overlook that the Constitution is a remarkably flexible document whose concepts are given specificity through the US Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. Less government is better government. There are plenty of socialist countries around which have implemented the nanny state if that's more your thing.
Modern conservatism (i.e., since Reagan) is based upon the completely discredited idea that tax cuts for the wealthiest will "trickle down" to benefit the rest of us due to increased business investment. This idea has been tried nationally (the Trump tax cuts) and locally (Kansas) with disastrous results.
Leaving the rest of us wondering, what really distinguishes today's Republican Party? Frankly, other than trickle down, there aren't any ideas or policies anyone could point to. When an entire political party exists around a fallacy, and sets its policy goals accordingly, there can be only one honest conclusion about the "conservative Republican Party:" it's a joke.
7
And yet nothing about people having community spirit because they can have time to do more than work all their waking hours to pay for rent and healthcare. Nothing about community businesses being destroyed by competition from massive corporations paying a buck over minimum wage. Nothing about businesses needing skilled workers and investing in getting and keeping them by training and decent pay. I would suggest, Ross, that the table you're building is missing a leg or two.
11
Oh, this is just too much. Look, there are two major forces that shape our society: The market and the government. The only one that the American people as a whole have any influence over at all is the government.
Over the past 40 years "conservatives" have used the rallying cry of "limited government" to deregulate the market and erode our tax base by cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
This kind of "limited government" cuts the daylights out of government spending that actually benefits the people and lets the market run wild.
As a result, the middle class struggles economically and the poor don't stand a chance. Most families need dual incomes to stay afloat, and many people are working several part time jobs without benefits, because the traditional jobs with benefits have disappeared, for the sake of corporate profit.
So good luck finding people with the time and energy to be involved in civic and church activities. Most people are exhausted just making ends meet.
And since the market is less regulated, every now and then we have a big bust that the taxpayers get to pay for.
For the past 40 years "conservatives" have grown the size and scope of government while burdening us with a huge national debt.
Yes, our debt is a bi-partisan creation, but Republicans casting themselves as "conservative" and being for "limited government" is just a farce.
18
One area left out in all of this is how the conservatives have used the state’s powers to define political districts, one of the most important powers of the state. It can be used to bring about fairness, or to entrench those that have gained the power. Overall in this country in 2016, 1% more people voted Republican than Democratic, yet the Republicans garnered 24% more seats than Democrats. Now some of that might be those states which have only one or two representatives, where district populations might be smaller, but that cannot account for much of the 24% difference.
4
@AS Pruyn
Nothing new about this. In my state there used to be something called the "country unit system", which allocated a certain number of electoral votes to each country. Naturally the counties who supported the segregationist government got more votes than those who supported reform. This system was self-perpetuating, and was finally dismantled by the Supreme Court's "one person one vote" ruling. And, by the way, the system was invented by the local Democratic party, and the national party ignored it because it delivered votes for them..
1
Hey conservatives,guess what? If you want to live in a decent society you need good government! Not necessarily big government,but it does need to be big enough to do well the things that only government can do. Government does not sit astride the economy,it is part of the economy. Arbitrarily limiting government helps no one.
10
Perhaps you should add David Wallace-Wells’ new book on the existential threat of environmental collapse to your reading list. It is the anti-government posture of the right that has been retarding action. What an opportunity for your new-found appreciation of the state.
12
Hard to make sense of this jumbled logic probably because conservative goals (ie. Republican goals because that's what we're really talking about...why doesn't Douthat ever use the term) are largely at odds with communitarian ones. We're about the watch the spectacle of scores of Republican congressmen and senators voting to diminish the power of their own institutions and to subvert the constitution in order to accommodate the whims of an incompetent president because he owns them.
19
I cannot help but be a hostile reader when Ross Douthat writes in support of his conservative values. Who in their right mind would want to live under the social and cultural constitution of an 18th century society? It was a big improvement over a monarchy, but today we're not all farmers, craftsmen and tradesmen.
Also, we cannot expect conservatives to interpret the Constitution without putting their own economic and nationalistic desires in the forefront. Conservatives generally use the Constitution as a brick wall preventing us from entering a evenly prosperous future. Sorry, Ross, diversity is bigger than conservatism, and the rugged individual is mostly a myth.
11
@Pauly K
They don't want to go back to the communism of the 1800s when neighbors took care of each other, having barn raisings for newlyweds, etc.
They want monarchy (a unitary executive) on top of corporate theocratic feudalism, with most humans in debt peonage to their global corporations.
And yes, that is fascism.
The Party of Trump wants to Make America Grovel Again.
(Go back and watch the very end of the first Trump/Clinton debate, to see Hillary going around the audience shaking hands, while the Trump Royal Family met in the center of the stage looking regal and trying to avoid contact with the peasants.)
3
Ross, as an aging liberal, I have been reading a number of conservative authors, who, upon reflection, have moved me a bit to the right on the ability of central governments to social engineer solutions for complex social problems, largely being brought on by the disappearance of civil society. Being involved in several local political efforts---school board, county elections---I do see the power in localities developing solutions for particular problems in particular places. So, your piece threw a curveball at my intellectual wanderings into conservative ideology. I now tend to split the difference, seeing central government as an effective tool for addressing purposeful efforts by local governments to deny basic civil/human rights, but a poor tool for social engineering the consequences of those civil rights violations.
2
The opposite of "limited government" is not (not!) "big government." The constitution mentions a few things that the government must do (a Navy, a census) but mostly what it cannot do (inhibit free expression, seize property). The size of government is an open-ended proposition, as it should be. We can (and should) simply focus on doing better as a nation and be wary of anyone talking in high-minded soundbites.
6
@Skip
I used to call my self a "moderate libertarian," because the goal should be that government do as little as possible, but also step in where markets fail. I think I was the only moderate libertarian.
Now, I just call my self a leftist. After decades of watching Republicans lie about what they believe in. Their support for Trump is proof that they don't believe in families, troops, national security, truth, logic, science, ...or even as Douthat admits in the first paragraph, the Constitution (which they sell to replace with their own "unwritten...cultural or social constitution..." Sorry that's not how it works). Trump attacks all of these things and 90% of the Party still supports him.
Centrist Democrats keep compromising with liars that are against the Constitution to protect tax cuts for billionaires by claiming there is no money to help working people.
Progressives understand that demand grows the economy not supply, that demand is dependent on good wages for working people, and that productivity depends on investing in education, healthcare, and infrastructure.
The the left is essentially correct and the right is fundamentally wrong.
It it's time for the left to stop second guessing itself and and advocate and implement good policy. That is how you win elections.
Not sure where Ross has been these past few decades, but the era of limited government ended during the Bush Administration, where Republicans added to entitlement spending. Obama accelerated government's growth to warp speed. Trump has thankfully dialed back Obama's efforts to imposed political regulatory control over the economy, but spending continues apace. There is no appetite on either side of the aisle to contain spending. To suggest otherwise is delusional.
3
This is a welcome perspective in the NYT and an interesting arguement. HOwever, I"d argue that the any changes in the conservative movement are really based on two things:
1. Follow the money. Wilbur Ross et al, will do whatever it takes to continue our tax system (and indeed have enhanced it via legislation). Conservatives don't want to change our tax system because it benefits many of their ilk and donors.
2. Pragmatism. The evangelicals may be isolated (as opined herein) but they are practical. By joining forces with Trump, regardless of ideology or personal disgust, they are winning the ideological war for many years via judicial appointments.
If the state is doing what you want, you support it. If it intrudes on your space (abortion, church prerogatives, gender choice, labor / management relations, etc), then you want to minimize it.
My Senator, Senator Toomey has long been associated with an economic conservatism regarding deficit minimization and a strong emphasis to fix entitlements. Yet he was one of the chief architects of the recent tax cut bill which created one of the largest deficits (during an economic expansionary time) ever. Why? It wasn't a change in ideological thinking that's for sure. Just follow the money and be practical.
5
The slogan of "limited" government is a marketing tool to protect vested money and power interests. The GOP often makes a strong case for being the Party of Cain - "Am I my brother's keeper?"
9
The late Robert Novak defined modern conservatism accurately and succinctly back in the 90's with one sentence. I don't have the exact quote, but basically he said:
"The whole point in being a conservative is cutting taxes."
That's it. This is their goal, their purpose. To them, taxes are the yoke. Taxes are theft. Taxes are tyranny. True liberty cannot be obtained until and unless taxes are eliminated.
These people see no value in social cooperative efforts. But social cooperative efforts are what created and maintain this thing we call civilization. We are an intensely social species. About the only creatures more social than us are the ants and termites. That social connection is written into our genes. It is what has caused us to be as prolific as the ants and bees.
Modern conservatism rejects our need for social connection and cooperation. It knocks out the underpinnings of what holds society together. And no, religion didn't do that either. It helped to bind us into groups, but it also created tremendous divisions, like the Wars of the Reformation.
What people need is an overarching structure to thrive in, and in the modern world, that would be government and the rule of law. That would be public education and libraries or institutions that give access to information. That would be the opportunity to learn a craft or trade. That would be respect for experience.
Modern conservatism chucks all of that. Individualism rules and no taxes.
33
@Bruce Rozenblit
"The whole point in being a conservative is cutting taxes."
Evidence...close to 100% of GOP senators and congressman have signed the Grover Norquist pledge.
4
@Bruce Rozenblit, as always a very insightful comment. I'd like to know how these so called conservatives decided to cut taxes, while at the same time increasing the military budget to a God awful sum? We saw the same thing in GW's administration with numerous foreign wars, at the same time cutting taxes. This is not Conservatism, it's lunacy. These policies serve a very small percentage of our society, and we all know who that is.
4
Wow, conservatives must really be backed into a corner. They have now invented an "unwritten" constitution that requires defending. How about defending the WRITTEN constitution first? You know, the one where a powerful central government is balanced by the state governments in a federalist system. Not an imaginary "unwritten" one where the Founders (who were very leery of established religion) would inexplicably want religious institutions to play this role.
28
@Jim
They have been following this "unwritten" constitution since the Civil War. They is why they opmpose most of the actual Constitution.
Can we stop compromising with those that oppose the Constitution, trying replace it with whatever excuse for hate, greed, and violence they can think up next?
1
There is much to digest in this column. I'm a bit confused though. Mr. Douthat writes "...And they tend to assume that keeping the American corporation embedded in this communitarian system is a better way to balance productivity and innovation and public-spiritedness than just trying to regulate and micromanage businesses into good behavior."
I always thought that the primary purpose of big businesses was the profit and loss margin and that businesses preferred fewer regulations. I guess the coal industry would be supportive of regulations controlling environmental pollution and help with climate change. Sure.
11
@cec - When questioned, every corporation will tell you that their sole purpose for existing is to provide payback to shareholders. They freely admit it. I suggest we believe them, and not shy away from regulating them as necessary.
12
American conservatives have been bemoaning the supposed death of ‘limited government’ since the days of FDR whilst lapping up with relish the benefits there of. They’re vestigial attachment to ‘the best government being the least government’ is now only a public relations stance not a political platform nor (they too realize) a viable response to modern problems.
7
Ross,
I have one simple question.
Can a New Conservatism that embraces government action begin to address...and, yes, begin to solve...the three greatest crises facing America?
1. Economic inequality. 2. Hostility to people of color. 3. Climate change.
Given the beliefs and sentiments of the GOP base that would need to support such a government in order for it to gain power, the answer as you know is overwhelmingly "no!"
More than 40% of the country still believes Donald Trump is doing a good job and we know his record on all three of these issues.
17
I''m 68 years old and during that time "Conservatism" has never been more than a justification for shoveling ever-more money to rich people. The Conservative co-optation of attractive words like"Liberty" and "Freedom" provided another side of the same duplicitous rationale. Freedom for the already rich, freedom for large corporations, freedom for the white, the male, the heterosexual, the gun-wielding, the affluent. In other words freedom for a dominant minority, giving them the power to take away meaningful freedoms from everyone else. Paul Ryan was supposed to be one of the intellectual giants of the Conservative movement, but proved to be the real empty barrel. Donald Trump's rise has removed the respectable mask from Conservatism so it can no longer even pretend to be what it never in fact was.
51
@JSL I would add to your freedoms the freedom of religious organizations to change public policy to reflect their views and to impose them on others, including those within their own flock whom they cannot persuade from the pulpit. Freedom of worship is no longer what they value. It's power.
21
@JSL Through their greed and contempt for others, conservatives risk discrediting the words "freedom" and "liberty" altogether, because of what they use those words to justify. That is a tragedy of truly immense proportions.
1
The founders wish for limited government was in part a reaction to the unlimited power of kings. Thus they designed and alternative where the people retain power in terms of personal rights and the right to sue.
States had rights as well. The notion that government had to be kept small was never completely accepted. So while Jeffersonians (many in slave states) really did want small government, the north did not. But blocked by slaveholders northerners did what they could to build canals and rails and waters systems. During the civil war, with Jeffersonians out of power they began land grant colleges, the transcontinental railroad and a land giveaway to small holders (the homestead act).
Let’s looks at current problems – how about declining infrastructure. Small ineffective government cannot help here.
Nor can small ineffective government fight the wild fires out west.
Nor can it fund scientific research.
Time for the misunderstanding of limited government to die a quick death.
21
Thank you for another piece about the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. This false narrative about limited government has never existed within the party. The GOP is thoroughly aligned with unregulated capitalism, yet it has no hesitation to regulate average citizens, enslaving them with high costs for insurance, healthcare, education, housing, and retirement. Douthat mourns the unraveling of institutions that kept white men in charge of church, family, business, and community, yet he fails to see how capitalism has driven this wedge. The end of blue laws saw the decline of church and family time. Women, now a necessary partner in family financial stability, have little time or energy for civic engagement, their former place in the old patriarchal pillar. Indeed, as traditional male jobs for blue collar workers vanish due to offshoring and automation, all in the name of terms like profit and productivity, women are increasingly going it alone, further dissolving that pillar of family. When the GOP decides to legislate on behalf of the people, instead of for corporations, maybe the party will gain a soul again.
28
Look at China. According to the TV program "60 Minutes" the so called communist government is subsidizing electric cars far more than in the U.S. They are going to put Tesla out of business someday (unless tariffs are imposed.) China believes in big government, lots of public spending, and no disruptive elections that reverse policy every four years.
No one wants to admit that China offers the world an alternative to liberal democratic capitalism. We might not like this alternative, but we can't put our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist.
6
@joe - But we CAN deplore it's lack of transparency, equal rights (on any individual rights for that matter) and undemocratic electrorate.
There's a tie between the economic and political structures - though clearly the US over estimated the tie beteeen market based capitalism and democracy. Everything is fine in China as long as you agree with what the government is doing. And to be clear, there's PLENTY of government owned businesses and influence abounds. The Chinese government is overtly in control of many aspects of life. Like any good communist government
2
The upshot is a that Capitalism doesn’t need Democracy as is become increasingly clear in America.
3
@joe
China has not been communist since.1985. It is a capitalist country without democracy.
China is winning the technology war because it invests in itself and the furure.
China stole our solar industry, while Republicans attacked it to save 19th century technology.
Hmmm - the concept of 'defending the unwritten Constitution'; novel, but disingenuous clap-trap.
And utterly predictable under His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness 45* - epically propped up by toady GOP'ers in the most corrupted administration in all of U.S. history - and we're barely halfway through this mishegas term of Destruction Chaos Derby.
Can hardly wait until a Dem POTUS gets to declare 'National Emergency' over climate change, gun background checks, and the opioid crisis, in order to shift around funds.
21
@R. Law
It is not disingenuous. That is exactly what they have been doing. However it is treasonous, because it is against the real Constitution.
Interesting that the modern conservative movement in the 50s right at the same time that African Americans were beginning to push back on the inequalities that had been imposed upon them. Coincidence, I think not. Especially when one looks at where the movement finds itself today. Essentially it’s become a neo-Confederate movement.
27
Mitch McConnell operates as a Confederate General in a yankee Senate. He is throwing bombs everyday to weaken the Union and bring back a Confederate loving judiciary and legal system. Instead of just the south being under Confederate laws as it was last time, he plans to put us all under them in the grand new GOP government of plantation owners and wage slaves. He is a one man army and he is winning most of the battles so far.
1
Can we once and for all dispense with the silly notion that conservatives EVER wanted small government as an end in itself? Conservatives wish to shrink the government only when it helps achieve their ideological goals (like the elimination of welfare), but will happily wield the cudgel of government to force society into their belief system (like waging war against women's health providers). It wasn't long ago when every election season would ramp up with conservative battle cries to amend the constitution to ban flag burning and gay marriage. Conservatives LOVE a big intrusive government whenever it suits their needs, and they always have.
42
The government needs to be there to do a couple of things:
1) Law and order
2) An independent judiciary
3) Providing everyone access to affordable health care
4) Providing everyone access to affordable education
5) Providing everyone access to a decent job and enough wages to put food ont he table
6) Defend the nation and its people.
7) Tax everyone fairly, including the richest, to pay for all of this.
NONE of these things seem important to the current "conservative" movement that occupies the white house and its team. Nor is it supported by the GOP.
Their recipe is governing without a plan. Starving the government to ensure there is less regulation and more corruption. Giving fat tax "trickle down" breaks to their rich donors, and cutting deeply into entitlement programmes to pay for that.
It's chaos and corrupt. It doesn't help or defend the poorest nor the middle class. And it needs to be voted out of office so that we can elect people that have a vision, plans and are willing to execute them for and on behalf of the people.
43
As bad as Republicans are, how come they always win the elections?
@Bobotheclown
Have you been following the news from North Carolina? Voter fraud, gerrymandering and restricting the franchise in ways that prevent non-Republicans from voting are particular favorites.
1
It has been convenient for many years now for Republican and Democratic politicians and pundits alike to speak of “limited government.” These same politicians and pundits can clearly see that we the world’s largest military - with the largest budget in the world by orders of magnitude - and a massive government that has used that government to project American power and violence into the “Global South” for generations now. There has not been an era of limited government in the lifetime of any living American.
19
The era of limited government over? It's about time, the Reagan supply side has not improved the lives of the vast middle.
Unfortunately for me, as my entire adult working life was within the Reagan model and consequently I have never known or will ever know, economic security.
Just waiting to exhale as it were...
17
Conservatives are in favor of limited government until it conflicts with their own agenda. The religious right's control of the conservative social agenda is ensuring government intervention in personal lives is expanding. To ensure a continued rural base of support, Trump gives a 7 billion dollar socialist hand out to farmers to make up for the trade issues he created, ensuring even more dependence on government. Republican hypocrisy at every turn.
14
This was a fascinating piece. This is the first I have seen of a right wing intellectual groping his way towards a defense of authoritarian fascism. Well done, Ross!
conservative David Frum has recently been saying in multiple appearances:
"If conservatives can't convince a majority of people to vote for conservatism, they will not abandon conservatism, they will abandon democracy."
Here we see the first steps in that direction.
95
@Bobby Yes, this whole article is thrashing around, trying to find intellectual reasons for "conservatives" to embrace of the jackboot. Conservatives want to substitute the judgments of the state for the free exercise by women of power over reproduction. They love "Life" from conception to birth, and then it's on its own. They want to marry the power of corporations to the power of the state, for the benefit of corporatocracy and to make the world safe for corrupt politicians. There is nothing "conservative", in any reasonable meaning of the term, in Trumpism. Trumpist Republicanism is proto-Fascism and Banana Republicanism, pure and simple.
4
The problem is that people are so resistant to state propaganda and laws that force change upon them that the state has little power to shape radical change in a democracy. Republicans won’t be able to force young people to change their views on social issues through the state unless they want to go full Pinochet and take away the right to vote and start arresting or disappearing opposition candidates. The fact that the right may realize this is incredibly alarming. If the state is their last instrument of power, they may attempt to seize it.
4
American government and it's people have placed our nation in profound jeopardy.
We have a dramatically aging population
In 1950, there were 16 workers supported each retiree, it is now 2.9 and trending to 2 over time.
Same issues with Medicare.
We have a government regulated healthcare that has allowed costs to escalate to 2x any other 1st world that is now 17% of the economy.
we have a $22.7 TRILLION national debt and an annual $1T debt.
Government (Federal, state, local) is ~37% of the total economy.
So, while we have fewer workers, huge and growing entitlement problems, the Republicans produce massive structural deficits while the Democrats want to increase taxes on a declining number of workers while making the same workers pay for increased healthcare, universal college (thru taxes), etc. We have two fundamentally irresponsible groups running the country, blaming each other and ignoring the realities they are setting up for our children and grand children.
4
I don’t quite follow the argument. Do we have too few young people supporting retirees because we have too many people living longer lives or because we have too few kids because women can control their reproduction? And how is it that our “government controlled healthcare system” is too expensive when every other much more controlled system is less expensive and more effective?
I think the answer is clear. Let’s go back to the early 1900’s, before antibiotics and hormonal birth control and well before most other medical advances. Everything was cheaper then, surely, and we didn’t have to worry about the actuarial consequences of the not-yet-created Social Security system, let alone Medicare.
No thanks. I would rather live now and work to make our systems better, even in the face of daunting demographic trends.
3
So conservatives ought to love the state because conservatives can take advantage of the gerrymandering embedded in the Constitution to continue their control of things, contrary to the desires of the majority of the country.
4
The problems are complex, and social, cultural, and economic issues are indeed deeply intertwined. However, conservatives can't even begin to address them until they recognize one core fact: free markets no longer think huge numbers of people are worth enough to keep alive, and with automation, that trend is accelerating.
5
The point about economic nationalism is interesting but for the rest of it, I am skeptical. Conservatism is becoming a Party of the State in order to maintain power the minority that it is.
Beyond that, if the DEms win in 20202, it is imperative that they amend Taft=Hartley to give unions a better chance. It was a huge blunder by Obama that he did not do that while he had Congress.
5
"A hostile reader of these essays, libertarian or liberal, might respond that a vision in which right-wing governments seek to reshape culture and mediate between classes resembles nothing so much as early-20th century fascism."
Based on what Republicans (conservatives?) have done in the past 40 years - dismantling unions, nation-building wars, gay bashing (2010 marriage wedge issue that swept them into power), the Garland refusal, massive tax cuts for the rich, sweeping away EPA laws and denial of air pollution, militarization of the police and mocking/scorning even the most sanguine of protests (kneeling during flag worship) - place me in the camp that believes they are nothing more than spiritual brethren of the early 20th century fascists.
96
Conservatism has never been about limited government. Federal government spending increased at a faster clip under Reagan and both Bushes than it did under Clinton or Obama. Trump has just caused the rhetoric to move closer to the existing practice.
18
Yes, the Republican party needs to re-focus on something other than destructive policies that has been the focus of the past two Republican presidents. Adding to Douthat's ideas, I would offer that conservative's small government (and less restrictions ) has been the one failing that has led to the extreme wealth gap and almost eliminated the middle class. This has hurt the Republican base big time.
Yet big government in the form of cultural rules has been the focus of conservatives, willing their harmful policies on all of the US. The indoctrination of the conservative base in being anti-science will also have a long lived affect on policies going forward with any conservative politicians. Will we be able to erase the anti-science ideology that has taken hold in conservatism?
6
Mr. Douthat's essay seems to be a philosophical exercise separate from the realities of American life. The differences between Right and Left are not so much about "big" versus "small" government as about "laissez-faire" individualism versus a framework of more intrusive regulation, and in this we need flexibility.
Let's look at several of his points:
(1) His religious "power center" is a Christian power center. Abortion is one of the Right's hot-button issues, and it is an attempt to turn religious belief into law. Other religions, for example Judaism, define the beginning of life differently. In this case it is the Right who argue for Federalism.
(2) Communities cannot solve the problems of income inequality. How do Rust Belt communities (or entire states) deal with the loss of manufacturing jobs and no-longer relevant skills? This has to be a Federal issue.
(3) Environmental issues spread beyond localities. Pollution (or radiation) gets carried by air currents across nations. In making the choice of jobs versus environment, localities may well make decisions counter to the common good. We need framework.
My point is that you have to deal with issues individually, broad philosophies simply don't get the job done.
13
I think that it's the rise of corporate power and the singular focus on profits that has poisoned American life. Corporations don't make money merely by providing useful products at reasonable prices in competitive markets. Instead, their goal is to extract every last penny from consumers, minimize wages, monopolize markets and change the laws to their favor. In turn, the consumerism of Americans has made our lives dominated by income-producing endeavors--our work--to the point where even the so-called liberals want to subsidize companies to warehouse our kids so we can stay at our jobs. This worship of the dollar must end. We need a revival of other civic institutions and an emasculation of the corporation.
14
Conservative theory suggests that liberal democracy is a manifestation (and in service of) of western (read Christian/Anglo-Saxon) culture. If that western culture is eroding, what does that mean for conservatism?
I appreciate the authors honesty. Just asking these questions is tough:
“Is America still a deeply religious country, with strong churches and growing denominations? Are American businessmen basically public spirited, eager to compete on equal terms once government removes its heavy hand, and natural allies for a political movement wedded to patriotism and religion?”
Personally I think the answer to these questions is “no”. BUT, that does not mean that I am shifting to the far right or left in response. We need a new, more inclusive, set of cultural values to manifest the next generation of American prosperity. (Though I don’t see that happening anywhere in this country).
3
The missing link in this analysis is the Calvinist underpinnings of the conservative/libertarian/oligarchic philosophy.
The reason that, as many people here are pointing out, conservatives can at once claim that they are for limited government when it comes to economic liberty but then turn around and be oppressively fascistic when it comes to non-economic personal behavior stems from the idea that "worthiness" or "deserving-ness" stems from the ability to maximize profit; to be a "maker" rather than a "taker". This comes from the Calvinist idea that God's favor is evident upon those who have been able to accumulate wealth and influence, and that those who have not done so are out of God's favor (and so don't even deserve charity, as it will be wasted on them anyway).
While many who espouse this have forgotten the religious underpinnings, we still see it in our attitudes towards poverty, in our Social Darwinism, in our "if you're so smart why aren't you rich" ethos. And it is not at all incompatible with governmental attempts to regulate personal morality, as that is considered a realm of social control. In fact, it dovetails nicely with being able to label the poor as immoral--God obviously does not favor them.
This view doesn't allow for a pure libertarianism, only one of the pocketbook--and it certainly doesn't allow for a concerted government role in mitigating economic inequality--for how then would we know who is superior?
15
I commend Mr. Douthat for entertaining "big questions" that are rising within the discourse of American conservatism. However, the very way that he and those he cites frame the issues is problematic. In asking whether the era of informal civic associations has ended, he evokes a mythological past in which they allowed us to flourish. The salient question is, "which us?" I am fifty years old, and during the whole of my lifetime, those associations have been locked into the project of sustaining localism in ways which exclude from prosperity large portions of the American citizenry. White towns use them to exclude people of color. Middle class towns use them to exclude the poor. School boards use them to defeat integration and control curriculum that might ground their community's children in scientific and historical realities. Business bureaus have used them to foster the work of white men, to the exclusion of others. That "civic culture" has left us a depleted environment, a racially divided polis, and a concept of community so thin that millions of our citizens are turning to drugs and alcohol to escape the lack of meaning in their lives. Conservatism will be reborn in a meaningful way once it lets go of the myth of past success and seeks to foster genuine community -- the kind we have not yet seen.
24
@Deborah M Well said!
"But as civil society has decayed over recent decades, its remaining power centers have also become increasingly left-wing."
A conservative perspective, indeed.
Another way to look at it is, as civil rights have increased for those outside the hetero-normative white Christian male domain, its *flourishing* power centers have become increasingly left wing.
22
Conservatives and Republicans were never about limited government any more than they were about controlling deficits. They were lies to obtain an outcome, namely a right-wing autocratic government run by and catering to theocrats and plutocrats. Republicans have always been about big government, with massive military spending, massive corporate welfare, and most dear to Douthat's heart, the unconstitutional financial and institutional support of organized religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.
Douthat always writes a treatise, chock full of irrelevant information, when arguing for the destruction of American democracy. Douthat and other supposed "limited government" Conservatives now publicly support the end of limited government because they have a growing right-wing authoritarian government.
Amidst all the disinformation here, examine an early statement by Douthat; "Under this constitution America has three branches of government but a great diversity of power centers — religious and corporate, familial and philanthropic." Wrong. The Founding Fathers created the US Constitution to prevent the rise of religious power centers. The Free Exercise Clause creates a space, centered on houses of worship, for people of all religions to freely exercise their religions without persecution, while the Establishment Clause exists to protect our civil government and society from corruption and destruction by zealots like Douthat through their religious "power centers."
93
Maybe I missed it, but there seemed to be no mention here of the elephant in the room, the Powell memo, the architectural underpinning of the corporate movement to embrace and harness the federal government. The marriage of unbridled capitalism and big government has apparently given rise to a case of intellectual heartburn.
11
Madison and the early federalists were right. A geographically extended republic needs a strong center if its to survive. Our “extended state” is now comprised of not only of our continued continental character but also in our huge diversity of ethnicity, of race, of technological complications, of international obligations and environmental needs. That modern conservatism often overlooked this essential nature in our real history was its fatal flaw. Conservatism’s strength, after recognizing the vital need for centrality, (fighting the opioid crisis) should be invigorated by protecting private rights of diversity. Religious institutions shouldn’t be driven into oblivion because they’ve not embraced the full panaoply of modern individual rights protected by the centralized state. (Abortions mandated for Catholic hospitals)
But I must concede the tenor of much of the commentary to this article may be more correct than an idealistic Douthat is willing to concede; Republican conservatism was never about promoting families and the civil sphere but really about economic dominance and the macho gun culture. Trump didn’t spring from thin air but from a poisoned soil threatening our better angels since the Civil War. The Eisenhowers, Bushes, McCains, Hugh Scotts and Bill Scrantons were always sitting on volcanic soil, even though Lincoln grew from the lush humane plains of the Midwest. May traditional Republicans flourish again from Lincoln’s roots.
4
There was never an era of limited government, unless you count the gilded age, but even then government promoted business interests "unofficially." It certainly wasn't the era of Reagan or Bush, or even the era of Newt.
6
The era of limited government, as conceived here, never started. In retrospect, federal control was weak in the days of the Wild West, but that was largely due to practical barriers to extending power over such a large territory, not any intentional restraint on the part of Washington.
I can't claim detailed knowledge of all the decisions made by the U.S. federal government throughout its existence, but based on what I do know, there's not a single instance of Washington intentionally showing deference to local actors, once the feds had taken an interest.
5
Thoughtful and dense analysis of the need for government (read administrative state) to assist in the management of our economy and society.
So I am now to see a Republican Party that will spend and regulate. Or, maybe I didn't understand what Mr. Douthat was proposing.
1
The delusion that best characterizes the Right is thinking that the absence of an explicit policy somehow isn't itself a policy.
The delusion that best characterizes the Left is thinking that strict policies are a universal force for good.
Our economic structure determines our social structure. Raising the standard deduction is a major blow to charities. Having a different system of income brackets for married couples incentivizes marriage.
2
The problem with the idea of local self-government by civic institutions is that it assumes a moral and competent population. In practice, where there is power, there will be those seeking to abuse it. Trump has succeeded at the National level, but I still have hope that he will be denounced and displaced. But imagine a country of mini-Trumps, perhaps secretly organized, working to either impose their moral codes or to enrich their pockets by assailing the good folks of small town america with promises and marching bands and firework displays for power?
Conservative philosophy will adapt to accommodate any current strategy and abandoned when once loses resonance. Fiscal responsibility, Presidential overreach, small government; the mistake is to debate these points at all when they are merely arguments of convenience that exist as smokescreen, as propaganda, as distraction.
The philosophy change we need is to elevate a responsibility to the common good as a moral imperative. The general Welfare, defense of diversity, freedom from want, liberty from the chains of exploitation, for all. Does your agenda advance such goals, and if not the why are you still pretending to care?
4
The populist right can not co exist with the libertarian right. Trump tries to straddle the divide but it is an issue that will divide the right.
2
The idea that that there has ever been, in the lifetime of any person reading this, any battle between "big government" and "limited government," is nonsense. The slogans have never been anything but way for corporate and financial interests to prevent a discussion about the nature and purpose of government. Our economy is enormous and complex; the government that structures it is also. Those thousands of full time lobbyists in Washington and in capitals around the country are not there to prevent laws from being written; they're there to write laws that privilege their interest over the public's. The Kafkaesque world of debt markets and legalized gambling that brought down the financial system is an enormous legal fiction. Government functions that serve the public or the poor get called "big government;" laws that limit the rights of consumers, borrowers, workers, voters, or people who just want a livable planet do not. As Ms. Thatcher quite openly said, the point of modern conservativism was not to liberate the individual, but to constrain her through economic necessity to the purposes of capitalism.
38
I waded through this mind-numbing series of Republican theoretical ruminations to find a kernel of truth, and sure enough. According to Mr Douthat, the current state of intellectual debate among so-called conservatives, for the "subtle" observer, is simply a back-filling justification for Trump's authoritarianism. Sounds right.
21
American conservative partisan political orthodoxy is deeply embedded and rooted in limiting the power of government to make any one other than white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men who own property divinely naturally created persons with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
As long as America is white Anglo-Saxon majority Protestant that crusading quest will not end.
There are more German Americans than there are any other kind of American by ethnic cultural and language national origin.
3
@Blackmamba how very true.
Isn’t this complaint about the “left” and “liberal” nature of social institutions what the right always complains about? They claim to champion limited government, until they come to power. They champion religion until the religious focus on charity and understanding. And business until businessmen decide they will at least not buck societal trends like tolerance of same sex marriage.
The right wants freedom and liberty to produce ends they agree with. If that doesn’t happen, freedom and liberty are the problem.
32
So, to shift the party in the way you have described, Eisenhower would be the inspiration. Reagan definitely wasn't and started the downward movement of the conservatives while tripling the deficit and encouraging the extreme groups that control the party today.
16
You used the term "American businessmen" to describe corporate power. This misnomer impacts the logic of your entire article. Power in this country is in the hands of those with money. Virtually all "American" business is international in scope and not beholden to national interests. This is the natural result of the economic efficiencies of globalization. The other natural result is the wasteland of rural and small town America. Protecting democracy and the social safety net, indeed strengthening both, is the only chance we have to change the radical decline in American culture. It all starts with income inequality.
25
Absolutely correct! This was my first thought when reading Douthat’s piece. He seems to have the notion that local businesses still exist in a meaningful way and positively impact their communities. In my experience it is the smaller and more rural areas that have lost a critical mass of their local business leaders. Many farms are now owned by corporations, Walmart has decimated local retailers, and main streets are dying. Nationally, our major industries are owned by multinational corporations, investors or hedge funds with no allegiance to any community or nation, only to profit, usually short-term.
This fact alone makes a nonsense of the conservative philosophy described in the column. I have no idea whether Mr. Douthat reads our comments, many of which I find more compelling and insightful than his column, but I hope he does and will respond to some of the critiques.
2
What seems missing to me from this essay is any clear articulation of what conservatives would do with government power once they consolidated it? Reshape culture and mediate between the classes? I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds like trying to force people to think differently.
The left has two very clear problems it wants to solve through government intervention:
First, it wants to save the environment before the world becomes unsuited for human life.
Second, it wants to relieve Americans of the financial insecurity that now seems endemic to modern life, at least for all but the very rich.
The left's project (as radical as it may seem) is still essentially pragmatic, as it's focused on solving actual, material problems. The right's project (to the extent it's defined here) seems focused on changing values and ideals. It is not pragmatic—its purely sentimental, the desire to revert to an idealized past that never really existed and certainly can't exist in today's world.
The real problem that the world faces is that our modern economy—based on technology, mass production, and global scale—is highly effective at producing unprecedented levels of wealth, but is also quickly destroying our environment, our communities, and the financial security of average working people. To avert the impending environmental, social, and economic catastrophe, we need to mobilize government—not just nationally but globally—in fundamentally restructuring our entire economy.
71
@617to416 I was going to make a similar comment, so I'm just going to add one thing to yours. The people on "the left" often have communities that they like very much. Those can be ethnic, religious, professional, or organized around other principles. Any large city will have multiple, overlapping gay communities, for example. Very few people on the left would object to working class white people in Ohio forming that kind of voluntary community to support one another.
But when the political right starts talking about community and culture, they're seldom talking about letting their constituents form associations that make life more manageable within an open, pluralistic society. No, they just want to steamroll the rest of us and break up the communities we already have. You can tell when they start whining about "identity politics." It drives them nuts that there are durable groups that exist without THEM.
36
@Maria
Yes, I get the sense that what conservatives want in communities is homogeneity (of values if not ethnicity), while liberals celebrate diversity. In such a short space, I didn't have the room to fully articulate what I was thinking. My concern with communities is more that our economic system makes them fragmented and impermanent. Generally, communities are created around the means of production—farms, factories, mercantile institutions. In traditional economies, those means of production were relatively stable and tied tightly to a locality, which allowed strong communities to develop around them. In today's economy, jobs move very frequently and freely—and they are not at all permanent, being created and destroyed constantly. People also move frequently to follow jobs. This lack of permanence prevents the development of stable communities. That's socially difficult, but also increases the financial vulnerability of individuals as they don't have a "family farm" (or its equivalent) to fall back on if they lose their job. We are very dependent on income now for survival. But the jobs that provide that income are increasing tenuous, and the communities that might support us when we lose a job are gone too as they also require stable jobs to organize around.
11
“A hostile reader of these essays...might respond that a vision in which right-wing governments seek to reshape culture and mediate between classes resembles nothing so much as early-20th century fascism.”
As Mr. Douthat is probably aware, what he’s alluding to is undeniably fascism. Whether it was the 20th century, or the 16th century, this kind of tyranny is rather adaptive. Form follows function.
That such a dramatic shift in authorial urgency has appeared, seemingly ‘ex nihilo’, and coinciding with what has been described as the biggest scandal facing the Catholic Church since the Reformation is not wholly surprising. But it is awfully alarming.
“If we assume that people tend to seek power...where it can be plausibly exercised and won, then the state-power conservatives may not need the strongest intellectual arguments...”
Brilliant deduction. Did you also know that Donald Trump was elected president?
16
Conservatives often claim that they want to remove the federal government from decisions about spending at the local level, and instead, they want local communities to make those decisions. However, by limiting deductions for local taxes, the Republicans have dis-incentivized the exact activity they claim to promote. Furthermore, by raising the standard deduction and doing away with the personal exemption, they have dis-incentivized charitable giving as well for anyone who has ceased to itemize.
It is not that the Republicans want decisions about helping others to me made within communities, it is that they simply don’t want decisions to help others to be made at all.
54
True philanthropists do not have to be "incentivized" with tax deductions. They give because it helps people and is the right thing to do. Just like paying taxes. Pay your taxes too.
The fundamental principle of movement conservatism is opposition to government except when conservatives are in power. When they are out of power, conservatives will do anything possible, regardless of the results of elections, to get it. Investigation after investigation, putative scandal after scandal, driven by relentless propaganda.
When conservatives are in power, they assume that they can do whatever they want because they think they are somehow different from government. Thus the idea that "businessmen" should run the government, with the assumption that there is no need for them to be public servants in any way. The result: crimes in Nixon's White House, Oliver North et al. in Reagan's, and crooks in Trump's. Note that Bud McFarlane is now back, along with Jared Kushner trying to peddle nukes to Saudi Arabia, just like he did weapons to Iran before.
As for conservatives' supposedly pluralistic panoply of societal associations, etc., that is Mr. Douthat's fantasy. Movement conservatives are social Darwinists all.
20
Ross Douthat writes “the most important institutions in our national life aren’t political ones; they’re the institutions of civil society, which have flourished — or so the conservative argument goes — precisely because government has been kept within limits.”
Unspoken by Mr. Douthat is how central and dominate Jim Crow segregation was to those “institutions of civil society” that he so honors. Now I’m willing to forgive conservatives for their past stand in support of segregation, anyone or organization can be wrong. What I can’t forgive is the steadfast refusal of conservatives such as Ross Douthat to ever recognize, let alone admit, how wrong they were and that maybe, just maybe they need to rethink their basic principles. Or at least at a minimum drop their arrogance that they’re the only ones who can have good ideas for how a society should function.
But admitting you’re wrong isn’t a part of conservative ideology.
38
First of all, Wonkish. You forgot to say Wonkish. (It doesn't just apply to math.) Second, a place in America 'collapses' because the people who live there believe it's collapsing. If they knew the strength and options they had (which Rush Limbaugh once upon a time trumpeted) they would build it up again through some other process. But once the residence believe the shade other parts of the country are throwing on them, they give up. Donald Trump is a Past Master at making people believe their corner of America has collapsed and only he can fix it. That is the biggest lie Trump ever told. As cliche as it sounds, it's the Americans who are there that can fix it.
2
If power is to be in the people, then our republic must be a democracy of communities to exercise that power. Anything else is oligarchic autocracy.
5
I suspect educated Romans had much the same sort of conversation as their empire fell about their 1% shoulders.
They insisted that they had a way to control the chaos and the future, keep their wealth and privilege and move on.
Happened in Athens, Rome, London, Moscow, and it is happening in NYC and Washington...this profiting from corporate redefinition of what an American is, and this abandonment of the very poor and the powerless. The engine of America was formed by and composed of, large industry with great jobs. Those jobs aren't coming back, the investor class won't allow it.
No engine, no zoom zoom.
FDR yesterday, FDR today, FDR in 2020.
There are "no state-power conservatives" who can be trusted by the poor, absolutely none at all.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
98
I suspect that the Ronan middle class had those same arguments about what needed to be done as they realized they had no power to do them and were fated to watch their empire crumble around them. Most of America today are watchers as very few of us have access to the levers if power. This must be how all advanced civilizations collapse, they reach a point where they can no longer hear or benefit from the wisdom of the majority.
4
I always have a hard time taking seriously any discussion about conservative "Philosophy" since the modern conservative "movement" has:
Never had a social mass following.
Was created ad hoc by businessmen looking for an advantage.
Had schools and think tanks created for it by rich people who only wanted more money and power.
Had no roots in intellectual argument.
Proceeded by adapting strategies of the liberal social movements it wants to disempower (and especially using the courts to change society and social behavior).
Had no connection with the arts or anything like our actual culture.
And last, it believes it can shape itself in reasonable ways when its support is based on its alliance with the most extreme groups in our nation (extreme people are bad at compromise).
This "movement" is blinkered and myopic in the extreme and its intellectual arguments are lacking in real depth. It is like a young tree in a forest that believes itself to be an ancient oak. It is ad hoc-ism pure and simple, made up like a sand castle on the beach that will be washed away (eventually) in the tide.
192
@rick Excellent assessment of the reality of Conservatism since the 50's. And yet, I have to agree with Ross that harmonizing institutions (family, religion, universities, community charities, etc.) are on the wane leaving a void that government so far has been unable to overcome.
5
@Horsepower It's not that "government ... has been unable to overcome" the void. It's that government, especially with the increasing power of conservatives over the past 40 years, it's "unwilling" to do anything that would fulfill the Constitutional mandate of promoting the general welfare of the people.
26
@rick
But, Ayn Rand writes the best philosophical fan-fiction, and her books make great doorstops!
8
Ross still promotes the lie that the GOP really believed in "limited government."
Something can't be "over" if it never started.
Magically, and on cue, "government" always managed to issue blank checks to the billionaires, the Pentagon, and profitable businesses, like football franchises.
Yes, it's true that kids' school lunches were indeed "limited," as well as health care, but ironically not limited enough to prevent sinking us into unlimited debt for generations.
92
@David Henry Shall we add oil leases, mineral rights, land for railroads, anti labor legislation of the 19th-20th Century, the give away of government funded research to drug companies, and one could go on.
Conservatism has always supported Government of the rich by the rich and for the rich. And that government be as big as necessary to achieve that end.
22
$22 trillion in the red and rising. I don't hear conservatives concerned anymore, deficits only matter if president is not a republican.
312
You will hear them howl about those deficits (that they made) as soon as a Democrat is in the White House. This is a play we have all seen before too many times, it is time for this show to close out of town. The Republicans need a new everything if they want to get an audience again.
8
@Marcello Di Giulio
Until the consequences eventually matter to everyone.
@Marcello Di Giulio
IOKIYAAR: It's OK If You Are A Republican.
INOKIYAAD: It's Not OK If You Are A Democrat.
2
Here's a couple of ideas on how the "administrative state" could address the concerns of the "unhappy heartlanders" by:
=> mandating a minimum wage of $15/hour
=> providing universal health care
=> outlawing dynamic scheduling
=> creating a 35 hour work week
=> closing loopholes that allow offshore sheltering of revenue earned in our country
By doing this, the "administrative state" would provide workers with a living wage, assurance that an illness would not bankrupt them, the time they need to engage in civic organizations, and the time they need to spend with their families. It would also provide the administrative state with revenues that are now lost, revenues that were supposed to "trickle down" to those "unhappy heartlanders".
But as long as we hold fast to the notion of shareholder primacy we will continue to seek marginally higher profits at the expense of low wage employees... and we will continue to have "unhappy heartlanders".
154
@WFGersen
Agreed! Think Canada and Europe. It is no surprise that the world's happiest countries are those with all those things you list in your comment. Family time, medical care, affordable housing and education are the ingredients for a successful country. The US NEVER had these things and this is why it is the worst educated, unhealthiest, unhappiest, work most hours country in the world. It seems the wealthy in America have won, but at what cost?
28
@WFGersen
Yes! And, impose a responsible estate tax on estates worth more than 2 or 3 million dollars. This will take aim at hereditary oligarchy.
3
@WFGersen, You are referring to a very important reality in the U.S. today: shareholder primacy. Indeed, the interests of shareholders have been given far too much emphasis in recent years. Essentially, the notion that maximizing profits to shareholders will trickle down and help corporations capitalize their businesses (invest more in facilities, training, r&d, etc.) is rubbish.
2
In this time, as I write, corporations run our government. To me, this is facsism. Government operated at the pleasure of corporations and their owners is modern day conservatism. Of course, there's nothing conservative about it, in the pursuit of profit over people.
129
@Carolyn Egeli
Indeed, and let's all keep saying that, over and over, until it sinks in for those who just don't/won't get it:
"There's nothing conservative about it."
9
Ronald Reagan called for fascism with a smile in 1980. In 2000 we got the predatory fascism that we live under today. The people no longer have any voice in the operation of their government no matter who they vote for. You are right about it being fascism. But fascism is designed to last, it is impossible to vote out fascism because it will employ all the violence and trickery necessary to stay in power. Fascism once accomplished is not a choice, it is an end. We are already destined to follow this path or suffer a disastrous revolution. The people still have one last choice they can make but it will be painful which ever way it goes.
Ross, you always make me laugh out loud! I'm so glad that the NYT has a resident humorist.
The entire point of the Republican Party is to deliver to its donor class by convincing middle class and poor people that they don't need health care, education, infrastructure, family planning, equal rights, decent wages, safe schools and shopping malls, etc.
Do you think that the donor class would continue to fund the Republican Party if Republicans wanted to raise taxes to fund programs that would help actual working people?
733
@expat london
Exactly correct. It's especially galling to read garbage such as how the "American right has understood itself to be defending not just the written Constitution..."
The "American right" has one goal: upward transfer of wealth to its oligarch paymasters. That's it.
111
@expat london Douthat is a humorist for sure. I laughed after reading this piece I call, Hypocrisy 101! You don't have to read scholarly books proposing complex theories about what motivates people. People are driven to maximize their personal gain and will adjust their political philosophy as needed to achieve it. So when the right wing found that they are a minority in this society that cannot dominate in a democracy they turn to the tyrant Trump to deliver on their behalf. Trump even improved the deal by promising to deliver for conservatives AT THE EXPENSE OF the people they hate: liberals and non whites.
Douthat debates issues based upon what people say they believe in. But the reality is that what people say they believe in, e.g., white evangelicals, can be very different from what they truly believe. Right wing writers like Douthat have been talking about winning a culture war for decades. But there can be no culture war. The culture will always be what the people want it to be. It cannot be established by laws, e.g., Prohibition.
So the reality is that the country has become increasingly liberal over the years because that is what people want; how they live their lives. Legalizing marijuana and equal rights for gays are examples of how the culture has changed. So, big government morphs into fascism for Republicans. They support Trump no matter how despicable his personal behavior, even when he kidnaps immigrant children to deter refugees from coming to America!
61
@expat london As Republicans might say, expat, you have a "liberal bias" which when properly translated means "common sense."
68
The conservatives have only been "small" government in economical or fiscal terms. Otherwise they have been open to strictly regulate the lives of the USA citizen.
Just look at the abortion debate, conservatives want to regulate, we can go on with LGBT, nudism, segregation, were people are aloud to live and so on. Honoring the flag and pledge.
Conservationism is about enforcing ones own rules and values on everybody else, usually without holding oneself to them.
115
Conservatives are deficit hawks while out of power and profligate at running up the debt when in charge. In other words the conservatives love power with all its manifestations and their greedy remorseless backers demand pay back in deregulation and tax cuts. So small gov't or big gov't it depends on where they stand in terms of power. Small gov't if they want to savage the social safety net but big gov't when they want to massively over spend in the Pentagon. Small gov't when they want to deny global warming but big gov't when they want to open almost entire off shore coast of the US, including Alaska, to oil exploitation.
433
@c harris
Just an observation.
Democrats have been labeled as "Tax and Spend." That tag line has been used by Republicans to tar and smear Democrats for years. Meanwhile, Republicans practice "Borrow and Spend" and run up bills on the national credit card.
Those two types of spending are not equivalent. At least with Tax and Spend, there is the realization that the money have to come from somewhere /someone. It's like at least buying the hole you're digging. With Borrow and Spend, you just keep digging deeper and deeper in debt, with the interest payments continually kicking dirt back in the hole.
That's the whole modus operandi for the Republicans, lots of debt and absolutely nothing to show for it.
35
@JD Ripper
But there is something to show for it: all the wealth upwardly transferred to their patrons via tax cuts, privatization, vast MIC spending, etc.
22
@JD Ripper very well said. I have been saying the same thing for years to my Republican friends, but they have a mental block regardless of how intelligent they are.
I have used the phrase, "cut taxes and spend", but I think your "borrow and spend" is stronger, in describing the Republican con game.
13
What would big government conservatism look like? What institutions would it support? If it means "government policy to make American life friendlier to families, and particularly to single-earner households" doesn't it then become liberalism? Using policy to engorge corporate and agricultural interests doesn't count as big government? I'm confused. The institutions conservatives have depended on to maintain American society in their image of what American society should be may not be failing, just changing, the one thing that can be counted on to explode conservatiives' brains.
16
Call me skeptical. I look at what conservative power has done with itself, and while as Mr. Douthat rightly points out that it has historically eschewed big government, I don't recall that when it's been in power that it often does anything for the "common" good. To the contrary conservative power has sought to increase the power of the corporation at the same time as restricting the rights of individuals, and at the same time, doing it's utmost to ensure the rich become richer at the expense of the middle and lower classes. No doubt my memory is biased but the last really good thing done by a Republican president was Nixon's creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, which the current Republican president is doing his utmost to impede. If this a case of "serving the whole by serving its parts", I say, no thank you.
239
@John from PA
As now Senator Mitt Romney once said, "Corporations are people my friend."
Corporations: Man's perfect omnipotent creation.
/s
4
Your memory is correct. Nixon created the EPA, opened China as a way to weaken totalitarian communism, and reined in the CIA. He was a man of contradictions to be sure (but aren’t all leaders who reach these heights?) but he was a lifetime public servant and an expert politician, a man who could get things done when he could get his paranoia out of the way. Compared to him all subsequent Republican presidents were children playing at the office.
4
@JD Ripper,
I saw this on a bumper sticker:
"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."