Being 75 I have watched the Republican party closely since Goldwater and noticed exactly what this author has observed - the 2 faces of the party. The hypocrisy seriously increased with Reagan's election. Now many seem to have accepted the mainstreaming of the white supremacy and choosing to believe what they wish whether or not based on fact. I can only hope that the election of Trump and the absolute irrationality and craziness of him and his destructive administration wakes the country up to this disastrous force -and soon.
6
Having read this, I still am mystified by why conservatives favor wars in Asia, authoritarian clergy and more people being driven into bankruptcy from necessary medical care. I am just a slow learner, I guess.
9
How ironic that conservatives believe they are the ones who are "free minded" and it is the liberals who would bring fascism. WFB declares he would stand athwart the stream of history shouting "Stop!" ...And this is given credence as a legitimate philosophical and political construct?? He was a self-defined fool, and so are all who follow him today.
6
What, EXACTLY, are they Conserving??? The complete power and control of white males over everyone and everything???? Enjoy it whiles it lasts, BOYS.
16
@Phylliss: If you believe that most white males in this country have power and control, then obviously you are not a white male -- and certainly you never have been drafted in wartime.
3
In the process of conserving-protecting- a targeted value, ethic, object,
process,outcome, event, memory, boundary,situation, law, person,
tradition, place, etc.how far back in time does one go?In order to be truly
faithful to the valued “original which merits being conserved?”Who should be doing this? For whom is it permitted? For whom, forbidden?For whom, an obligation? For whom, a need;existential, or otherwise? For whom, a choice, made with understanding or not?Using what human, and nonhuman,tools? Based on what types of criteria?If humankind’s rooted tradition of seeking answers, of whatever relevance and quality,and
garbed in certitudes, to sate anxieties associated with the unknown,and
unknowable, is preserved, unchallenged by new questions, which may
be “seeds of change,” and experienced uncertainties, will there only be a nuanced THEN? Time which is present and future-free?Sugared fruits and vegetables can be preserved! Bodies have been mummified.Zombie ideas,and documented traditions and beliefs, which violate daily viable- menschlichkeit,mutual caring, trust, respect,help,and equitable sharing of human and nonhuman resources, so necessary for interpersonal and societal civilities,should neither be semantically-sugared,nor preserved!
Semantics, however rich and literary may not adequately help us to consider this issues' complexity.Falling back on the language of images:how would our life be if we were nourished by original feces, transmuted into foods?
"As of last year’s Republican primaries, an array of “Never Trump” conservatives were arguing that the candidate wouldn’t merely be a bad president but a liberal one ..."
I'd agree, Trump is most definitely *not* a conservative, at least not in the classical sense, but he fits no sane person's definition of a liberal, either. As Coaston points out, we have seen the term "Conservative" morph into a strange amalgam. Part reactionary, part fabulist (think trickle-down economics), leavened by willful ignorance, with a big spoonful of racist nativism mixed in.
5
The author barely mentions how strongly fundamental religious belief animates the modern conservative movement - the idea that there is only one right way for humans to live, and that way cannot be fallible because it was ordained by the Supreme Being. How could they compromise, or change their minds, when they see doing so as a violation of Natural Law?
7
Excellent essay - I was an avid reader of the journal put out by ISI when I was a member of the Young Republicans during my college years in the early 80's. Over the next 20 years I witnessed what the author describes - a hollowing out of serious thinking about policy and the proper scope and execution of good government. It became a movement full of resentment and fear, mostly just committed to opposing anything Democrats or "liberals" proposed or thought about.
9
a good analysis, with reservations. Conservatives pay the bills, maintain the property and pay the help. Ronald Reagan departed from those fundaments by disparaging government as "the problem" and by gutting federal revenues in favor of gross income inequality.
We now have a crumbling infrastructure, we are depleting natural resources and we are only ever about lower taxes for the rich. That is not the conservatism of Buckley or any of his mentors.
As for the public debate, Republicans have used fear-mongering and race-baiting casually, so as to demonstrate no understanding of the underlying risk to society. Trump is the result of decades of division.
Now, conservatives are trying to ring the tocsin, while Republicans seem willing to win elections even at the cost of national security.
4
H.P. Lovecraft, who as writer of horror fiction was the perfect man for the job, produced the best description of the Republican Party (and conservatism) I've ever seen back in 1932: As for the Republicans -- how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical 'American heritage'...) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.
11
Conservatism has always been about conserving the power of the powerful precisely because they are powerful for a reason and so should remain that way. Conversely the powerless are powerless for a reason and any attempt to empower them is nothing less than an affront to nature. The only thing that has changed is how blatant and egregious the misery and hatred that has always united and driven them has become.
17
The "conservative" voters haven't won. They might have influenced who got into office, but you can bet that when all the "conservative" policies are put into place, those policies will still reward the rich elites at the expense of everyone else. The elites realize, correctly, that nobody will notice. Especially the "conservative" voters.
9
At bottom, it's just as John Kenneth Galbraith said decades ago- "modern conservatism is faced with the philosophical dilemma of coming up with a morally acceptable reason to be selfish".
55
It seems to me, as an outside observer, that the writer has ignored the central purpose of Conservatism - to defend The Haves: have money, have property, have influences, have prestige and social standing, . . . down to the more mundane aspects such as have shares in companies that support the right political party. Change of any kind threatens The Haves - far from a communist revolution, even recognising that the world (including their world) is under threat from climate change is a step too far.
What seems to have happened in the years leading up to Trumpism is that many marginalised Republicans, whose faith in that party is for them merely an aspect of faith in the nation and flag, have realised that they do not have as much of the benefits of US success as The Haves who reside in Manhattan and do business in Washington. So they have become the Wanna-Haves, with just as much sense of entitlement as their fellow Republicans. And if there is one person who typifies a Wanna-Have it's Donald Trump. SuperTrump to our rescue! Against whom? Well, The Establishment, and . . . immigrants . . . and Hillary Clintonites . . . and ?
There seems one message for Republican politicians in all this: if they go ahead with fiscal bills that give even more to The Haves, and take away even expensive and second-rate health care, expect some backlash. Well, at least when the message bypasses Fox and Breitbart propaganda and filters through.
9
That's my read on the situation: GOP voters are tired of falling further behind under GOP "economic" policies and are striking back at "the elites." Voters ARE being radical, which means to tear things out at the root.
What will the result look like? Your last paragraph points to what is truly frightening for most of us: the right wing media. For decades, the GOP has been more than happy for rage radio and Faux Newz to drum up voters based on fear, hate, and anger, and create a tribal "brand." Old Media trained their voters to accept only their version of reality - anything else is a lie. Trump took that to a whole new level with his "fake news" mantra. New Media - the internet, twitter - exploit that brand and tribal thinking, feeding them ever-crazier stories. Old Media did it for profit, and there were modest guardrails. New Media: people like Bannon are behind that, and there are no guardrails. The big question: what are their motives? It ain't pretty.
The GOP establishment goes along with this, all for the sake of the tax cuts for the rich demanded by their big donors. The customer has paid and wants his "service." There's a name for that.
1
Unless I missed something, why was there no discussion of Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority," and the rise of the Christian Coalition? This is a major omission in trying to understand the history of conservatism in America. (And it's notable that Goldwater hated Falwell.)
Evangelicals flocked to the Republican party with the understanding that, for example, abortion could once again be made illegal (Goldwater was pro-abortion), prayer would be "allowed in the schools," etc.
There's no question this is still playing out: Paul Ryan was all Ayn Rand-y --until he wasn't when the fact she was an atheist got too close for comfort. Similarly, Trump had to say (with what must have been great difficulty) to a rally in the Bible Belt that he liked his own book second to the Bible.
"Values voters" don't really care about much but these social issues, mostly religiously defined. It used to be that Southern Baptists and Catholics didn't get along (the former thinking that Roe vs. Wade was a victory for separation of church and state at the time of the decision). They are now largely united as "conservatives."
5
Conservative friends of mine are still wrapped up with hating Hillary and Obama as evidenced in Congress with ongoing investigations and efforts to upend everything Obama. I've asked why they aren't focused on building a new conservative world order rather than obsessing with the past? Crickets. What's worse is that liberals react to this conservative attachment to grievance with disdain which, of course, only aggravates them further.
The fact is there is a very noisy chunk of voters that need to be ignored. Instead, liberals, easily baited by the far-right, emphasize far left positions that alienate moderates and center-right voters who should be part of their core.
4
I congratulate Ms. Coaston on her awakening. But there are still some gaps. One of them is that not only are the Tea Party, the Alt-Right, Barry Goldwater, et. al. not "conservative" in ANY sense of the word, but the Libertarians are not "conservatives" either. A conservative is slow to be convinced of the advisability of change. The center of US politics today, which almost does not exist any more, is the closest we come to seeing conservatives in action -- kind of a blend of what George W. Bush preached in his first campaign and what Bill Clinton practiced while in the White House. The Libertarian Party's agenda is as radical as that of the Tea Party. It's a radical departure from US political thinking and action since, at least, Roosevelt and the New Deal was in the 1930s.
The first crack in this reluctance to change came with Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights act, which as he predicted gave the formerly "solid [Democratic] South" to the Republicans. The next came with (a) globalization and rapid technological change that increased the value of scarce, highly educated, smart labor and decreased the value of labor lacking these traits; (b) the increasing inequality of income that followed that; (c) the increasing identity politics followed by both parties; and finally (d) the realization by the less-favored folks that both parties had been lying to them for a long time.
Result: for the moment at least, no place for conservatives in politics today.
1
I am sick, sick, sick to death of hearing about these people. They're angry? So am I. And they are not interesting enough to justify all the trees that have been killed for all of the writing about them. They are racists and professional victims and I'm tired of them.
59
"Conservative voters have known this for some time. This is why they voted last year for a president who swore not to preserve but to upend. Since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign for the presidency, Republicans have worked to maintain a two-tiered party — one for the ideologues who believed in Burke and Buckley, free markets and free minds, and one for the voters, who are often moved less by a system of ideas than by id and grievance. It was always the voters, though, who really mattered. And it was the voters who won."
The noun republican is used to describe as a type a changing population including people who at the start described are near about all dead now and others who spent their youth smoking weed.
See the problem?
Nah.
1
More GOP = racists; how original. Fun fact: the Republican party at the turn of the 20th century was for tariffs and isolationism. Political parties oscillate with the times... in case you didn't know. That doesn't allow you to call your opponents "radicals". Speaking of *serious* change, do you know of any other political parties that have undergone extreme changes? Any particular party that once supported legal immigration, the rule of law, science (relating to biological sexes and GMOs), and free speech?
My favorite flip flop is how Mitt (binders full of women, corporate Satan) Romney and George W. (War-criminal) Bush have recently ascended to Democratic sainthood.
"They're gonna put y'all back in chains!"
-Joe (not a race-baiter) Biden
2
To begin, I don’t enjoy being dissed as a progressive, even by a semi-“mea culpa” conservative columnist. You think conservatives are of a “free minds” persuasion? I have found conservatives to be largely mean-spirited and closed-minded. Progressives are, by far, more open minded as well as open hearted. Conservatives are by their nature averse to change, what’s so free minded about that?
William F. Buckley Jr. famously said, “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” That was an assault on intellectualism, and particularly liberalism. Conservatives like Newt Gingrich honed the assault further by promoting a particularly nasty propaganda style of denigrating progressives. The pinnacle of that method was the ‘birther movement’ to undermine the legitimacy of a sitting president, going so far as to suggest that Mr. Obama might be a terrorist sympathizer.
We’re approaching a government run by rabble that has been nurtured by hate, and they’re having no trouble finding candidates to represent them. Anyone with a truly open mind and an ounce of sense would have seen this inevitable outcome years ago. You can’t send a message that basically goes: “hate their elites, but not our elites.” Hate is a powerful emotion, impossible to control.
We will soon have Mr. Buckley’s phone book government. Enjoy your pure and unfettered loathing.
37
But Mr. Buckley's phone book government won't come from the Boston Phone book. More likely, it will be from somewhere in Alabama or Missouri.
7
The two faces of conservatism parallel the two Republican constituencies whose fragile coalition has ensured such success as the GOP has had since World War II. The elite intellectual class develops positions aimed at conserving the wealth and power of the moneyed classes through tax policy, elimination of "burdensome" regulation (is there any other kind?), etc.
Because there aren't enough constituents in this group to win elections, it has been necessary to appeal to middle- and working-class voters who will serve as cannon fodder at the polls. This has been done largely by invoking a series of bogeymen — Communists, blacks, Muslims, gays, Mexicans, hippies, etc. — who threaten this group's way of life.
This coalition has held together for decades, and the Trump regime ultimately is no different despite the "populist" image he cultivates. If the elites don't get what they want (yuge tax cuts) and the rabble don't get what they want (we're still waiting for the coal mines and steel mills to reopen), it's only because Trump is too busy worrying from moment to moment about his own image and fragile self-esteem to follow the GOP rulebook.
4
Over the years I've had many discussions (impassioned but civil) with "policy conservatives." We did not agree often but I felt it was possible to comprehend their viewpoint and vice versa.
However conversations with the troll and grievance based Republicans fall apart quickly. What can be said to somebody only hates and wants to destroy? Or finds it amusing to offend, harm or make others miserable?
And I feel that's where we are as a nation.
26
The voters who "won" are the legay of the GOP's infamous "southern strategy". Angry and ill-informed, infected with blind "patriotism" for a Constitution they don't actually understand, and very often religious and/or racist, this crowd has always been a solid 1/4 of the American electorate. Only Wallace and Trump were shameless enough to openly court them; usually it was left to local actors (and the likes of Fox News) to issue the dog-whistles and code words that would summon this "deplorable" demographic to the polls. These voters have no need, indeed they have no patience, for the intellectual gloss provided by traditional conservative thinkers.
The problem for the GOP has been that, as their support among the broader poulation waned, their primaries have became more and more dominated by this demographic. Trump, armed with a con artist's willingness to lie openly and shamelessly, easily cashed in on the ignorance and gullibility of what is now the GOP's base.
21
Nonsense. Your "'deplorable' demographic" included the majority of white women, many of whom voted for Obama twice. This was reported by this paper, and elsewhere. Are you really going to claim these women are "Angry and ill-informed, infected with blind 'patriotism' for a Constitution they don't actually understand, and very often religious and/or racist..." Or are you just enjoying your rant regardless of facts?
Don't blame me: I didn't vote for Trump. But obviously it wasn't just those knuckle draggers in flyover territory who did.
3
Yes, "the voters won"...but only because the GOP artificially collected them into manufactured districts--gerrymandering--which took those 'radicals' from the parking lots and shopping malls and put them into positions of public power. As the Sorcerer believed he could control his Apprentice, the GOP cynically (desperately?) believed it could control its radicals.
While gerrymandering directly affects the composition of Congress, it indirectly also affects Senate and Presidential contests by lending an atmosphere of legitimacy to politically irresponsible ('white nationalism') and even reprehensible ('white power') ideas, which are further disseminated by for-profit media.
It's early days yet.
If American mainstream ideas have any legitimacy left, the next election cycle could yet turn back the tide. But, if allowed to fester too long, today's radicals will be allowed to define--and keep--a 'new normal', which is really reactionary when seen from a historical perspective.
However, it needs to be remembered: because of gerrymandering, these 'radicals', far from being populist, are really an artificially-empowered insurgency: a MINORITY of voters given the keys to the kingdom by the lazy Sorcerer GOP, setting the stage for political conflict with the majority of (appalled) voters.
The GOP leveraged grievance in order to 'win' elections it could not win on ideas alone, thereby causing the nation and the world to suffer the indignities--and dangers--of poor leadership.
5
In other lands, working people have parties of their own, based on organized labor and a philosophy of their own, Socialism. During the Cold War era, conformist American liberals went along with the jailing of hundreds of Communists and the exclusion of Marxist ideas from the permitted discourse. If now the US workers have no where to turn but the fascists, anti-communist liberals have no one to blame but themselves.
Conservatives are trying to conserve a system that puts economic elites in charge of politics, so they can make themselves richer.
This system extracts resources from the poor and middle class as it underpays them for their exponentially growing productivity with barely growing wages. To keep people voting for them, they can't offer the people what they really want and need, investment in the health, educations, and national infrastructure, so they sell them fear and hate of the other, redirecting blame from the system and elites that run it, to the weak and powerless, and non political elites, like scientists and academics.
The Democrats could offer the people a better system, but instead the centrist Democrats constantly declare defeat and falling for the Republican warnings about debt, refuse to offer the people what they need, and constantly seek compromise with the conservatives who are trying to preserve a system that only benefits elites.
This sets up the Democrats to be blamed for policies pushed by economic elites, for example, Obama Care, which was invented by the Heritage Foundation, pushed by Gingrich, signed by Romney, and then completely rejected by Republican propagandists.. And Democrats keep doing this, begging for compromise with a party that despises compromise.
So neither party gives an opportunity for most people to vote for their economic interests, and that is why many went to Bernie, then Trump, who stole Bernie's platform, but lied.
4
Nice piece but a couple of observations. Ryan, and most of the modern GOP, are not and never were conservative. They are only interested using the power of the government to increase the power of the wealthy and start wars around the world.
Since the days of Nixon, when he actively worked against the LBJ administration in a treasonous manner (look it up) the GOP has not been conservative. That a lie their followers tell themselves to justify their racist and jingoistic program.
4
If conservatives want to be radicals, they should become Biblical Christians
1
Anyone who is a Christian, right or left, is a "radical." Politics forces a contract with the devil, right or left.
If conservatives became “Biblical Christians” we would have crusades; inquisitions; and women, people of color, LGBTQ, etc., executed for witchcraft.
1
The Manson Effect is something I heard about recently. You take an individual or group who are anxious or angry and you turn up the heat on that anxiety/anger. Then you offer yourself as their savior. The group responds from their emotional center, not from intellect. Hitler did it, as did others over the centuries. Well, here we are.
3
What this article is describing in essence is what many on the left have known for a while: the new right (or whatever you want to call it) has no intellectual foundation. It does have lots of "id" -- i.e., ignorance driving emotion driving voters choices. This is all fueled by a profit driven right wing media that can cash in big time by exploiting this ignorance. And this is not to invalidate every stance or opinion of those in this camp; but it's wise to not waste your time thinking you're going to sway these people w/ rational argument or relevant information: it'll just come up against the wall of id. There's little remedy for this other than organizing and voting.
5
Really, really overintellectualizing this. Fear. Trump merely transferred fear of the future to fear of the present. And quit trying to pretend that the base thinks at all. One must possess facts to think, and the modern conservative movement has denied them. There is no there, there.
6
As John Stuart Mill said, not all conservatives are stupid but stupid people tend to be conservatives. Since there is nothing conservative about Trump, his appeal to voters who characterize themselves as conservatives must stem from something else. Perhaps they just respect anti-intellectual bullies.
3
A most perceptive and penetrating analysis of modern conservatism. Your analysis of the beast is certainly more coherent than what I hear from people like Joe Scarborough (please excuse if I have mispelled his name as I am tap tap tapping this out on my iPad and don’t have the inclination to go and check) who decry Donald Trump as not a conservative (in fact, we are given the strong suggestion that Mr. Trump is more simpatico with liberals as we are told he was one until just recently). You have rather precisely proven how wishful that thinking is. Despite the end of your piece you have shown us that this conspiratorial, racebating, xenophobic, red-scare fearmongering strain of the modern conservative movement has been alive since at least the 50s. It might be beaten back into the shadows where it lurkers menacingly, but it is a strong and vital part of conservatism and won’t be dislodged easily, if ever. Now, if only people like Joe Scarborough will both recognize and come to terms with this and confront those malignant elements in his affinity group. Perhaps their conservatism will have a chance.
1
So, better late than never. You didn’t have ny Bolshevik parents. Conservatism has always been a sham. The right is about harnessing hatred for money.
4
I would have liked Frank Chodorov for his view on the futility of military action, and for being skeptical of the hyped up anti-communism propaganda.
Chris Hedges, a war correspondent, said this in his book "Death of the Liberal Class":
War is a scourge. It is a plague. It is industrial murder. And before you support war, especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, look into the hallow eyes of the men, women, and children who know it.
1
If your paper fanned the flames of "id and grievance" you are part of the problem. I hope you're enjoying the results.
3
C Phillips in St. Louis,
Amen to that.
Gosh. A political party rooted in determination to reject progress and cling to a discredited and outmoded past, that derives its strength from hate, and which is supported by people who neither know nor care what actual representative democracy in the modern era requires. What could possibly go wrong for such a party?
10
This is a fascinating read. I would argue all political discourse in America has been reduced to the focus on grievance and emotion of the voter over legitimate ideological and policy discussion. Politicians playing up emotionally charged arguments has created this two team environment where a vocal minority drowns out any meaningful discussion. Politics has become a tornado of ridiculousness where each team always has to one up the other on the scale of stupidity. We now live in a country where a portion of the population legitimately hates the another based solely on politics. Like a tornado it now seems unstoppable and all we can see is destruction in its path.
"Whatever conservatism told me it was intellectually could never compete with what conservatism was in practice."
Doesn't this really sum it up? "Border security" in and of itself is not controversial. Why should it be? But the application turns into something unconscionable. I (acknowledging I am but one person) am not signing up for Trump policies based on the idea that undocumented/illegal immigrants are some kind of imminent threat to our countries precious virtue. I'm all for protecting religious freedom (even as an atheist). I am not supporting a view of religious freedom that promotes a discriminatory workplace. Anyone in their right mind can understand the need to vet refugees. It does not follow that we should give good faith deference to a president who openly declared his desire to ban the entry of all Muslims into the U.S. and has repeatedly indicated that there was nothing wrong with his ill-conceived and unconstitutional travel ban. Even as a liberal (and a minority to boot), I might have rolled my eyes at the P.C. culture during undergrad. Maybe colleges should provide more opportunities to hear conservative viewpoints. It does not follow that places of learning or any other venue should give equal access and respect to the Richard Spencers and David Dukes of the world.
The practical application of modern conservatism seems hell bent on rationalizing one atrocious thing after another.
5
Younger Americans may not recall that President Eisenhower faced the same type of conservative revolt by extremist elements as mainstream conservatives face today. Aside from Birch Society founder Robert Welch's "private letter" which referred to Ike as a Communist traitor, people like Joseph Kamp (Constitutional Educational League) were excoriating Eisenhower for not dismantling the New Deal and Fair Deal of FDR and Truman.
Even more radical types like neo-fascist James Madole (leader of the National Renaissance Party) extolled the virtues of Adolf Hitler and proposed to reurrect fascist state in the U.S.
Frank L. Britton published "The American Nationalist" which could be viewed as the antecedent version of Breitbart.
Lyrl Clark Van Hyning (and her organization, We, The Mothers Mobilize For America" published a newsletter (Women's Voice) whose articles the FBI described as: “The articles are violently anti-Eisenhower Administration, anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic, anti-Catholic, and opposed to present foreign elements in this country.”
There are literally dozens of similar examples which illustrate that our current situation is not as unique as the Trump Presidency might seem.
3
Sorry, but my take is that the phrase "conservative intellectual" has indeed become an oxymoron. As the writer concludes, the "id and grievance" camp has taken over the Republican Party. No room for much thinking, and certainly none for intellectualizing. I think Bobby Jindal had it right when he proclaimed his party as the "Stupids' Party." But what else is new?
5
Good article, but, as usual, the "Christian Question" was not directly addressed. I'd be interested in the words of a refugee from an evangelical church explaining to us why the great majority of the nations white Christians voted for a licentious, arrogant liar to lead our nation. But they have always voted the Republican for at least many decades.
2
What a great article. So accurate.
I was active in college Republican politics at the state level back in '68. The two factors you describe -- the head-in-cloud philosoph's and the callous-fingered sans-coulotte's -- need a third component to describe the Republican Party as I got to know it. You left out the cold-hearted, glinty-eyed professionals who are the actual leaders of the mob.
Remember when Reagan offered amnesty for immigration reform... his end delivered with amnesty but the other end not delivered with immigration reform?
This has been the pattern. Its like the market when it crashes. Everything up to now has been on credit. We vote, we negotiate in good faith, we send representatives to push our interests... and we were betrayed by our idealism in a series of issues that turned out not be what we thought they were at the time. We were betrayed by the Democrats that bargained in bad faith. We were betrayed by our politicians who secretly held us in contempt, gainsaid our beliefs, and then lead us through a series of bait and switch political cycles. And finally and perhaps most painfully we were betrayed by ideas like "nation building", "neo-conservative spreading of democracy", "Free Trade"... etc. The vast majority of which is an invention of the Cold War. We didn't have "Free Trade" prior to WW2. So what are we "conserving" if its actually a relatively new introduction? And as to this global empire we seem to be unable to put down, exactly how is that "conservative". The loudest voices in "conservatism" in the US have always been against "foreign entanglements". Which is not isolationism contrary to its detractors. Trade, communication, diplomacy, etc still occurs. The US would be no more in isolation than is Switzerland.
The term conservative is a poor one for what we are... no space left to explain.
2
Switzerland makes a lot of money with international trade.
They also have universal health care at half the cost of the US.
They also have better education than we do.
All by the government.
And Switzerland ranked number 16 on Forbes best countries for business. The US ranked number 23.
https://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/#tab:overall
2
Independent: Switzerland is a small (though wealthy) country, about the population of New York City, with a fairly uniform demographic (there are a lot of resident foreigners, but they are almost all Europeans). Comparing such a small country to the US is silly.
Also, Swiss "universal healthcare" consists of a law requiring everybody to buy insurance from private companies, and the cost (as percentage of GDP) is actually about two-thirds the cost of healthcare in the US--not half--which is pretty high by European standards.
So you got some things wrong.
Also keep in mind the Swiss spend a tiny, tiny fraction of what the US does on their military, but obviously benefit from the US being the "protector of the free world."
1
Conservatives may lament that they no longer have a party to belong to, but there is a party in which they would at least be listened to by some and where they could have an important influence. It’s called the Democratic party. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003), perhaps the last American politician who could be called a deep thinker, was an avowed conservative and also a Democrat and self-declared liberal. He thought the New Deal had made America great. Were he alive and active today, he would be prevented by leftists from speaking on university campuses because of what he wrote in 1965 about the plight of African-American families; but on the floor of the senate he would receive the thoughtful attention not only of fellow Democrats but also of the remnants of conservatism left on the Republican side. American politics needs conservatives and liberals and people like Moynihan, who are both. I think the Democratic party has a place for all three types, whereas today’s Republican party has no place for any of them.
19
Great piece. However, when you say, "And it was the voters who won," I would point out that perhaps one third of the voters won. Those of us who voted against Trump, or didn't vote at all, have clearly lost.
While politics and religion have always been topics to avoid in polite conversation, politics at least used to be something that could be discussed with some measure of objectivity (at least compared to religion, which is all subjective). But now it seems that politics has become the same sort of tribal, instinctual concept that makes religious arguments so futile. When facts become 'alternative' and the Fourth Estate is labeled "fake", Americans that still want the ability to compromise/govern using logical, science and evidence -based arguments are the ones that have turned into "radicals."
31
In context, she meant that the voters of the conservative bloc won out over their elites.
1
This article explains why I have trouble engaging with ideas outside of my “liberal bubble” and assuages my guilt somewhat. Whenever I try to take some responsibility for my side of our national polarity by attending to conservative writers, I find the same silly notions being expressed over and over again, often using the same clever, disparaging or hostile coinages that the right loves so much. I have friends who base their political thought on the belief that the unregulated market can provide prosperity for all. I pay attention to their conversation for ideas we can actually discuss, and provide positive reinforcement by engaging them. I’ll continue to keep a weather eye on the possibility of the re-emergence of invigorating and productive national conversation between liberals and conservatives.
7
When Jane Coaston writes:
"Republicans have worked to maintain a two-tiered party — one for the ideologues who believed in Burke and Buckley, free markets and free minds, and one for the voters, who are often moved less by a system of ideas than by id and grievance", I would rephrase that as:
"The Republican party is a con job where the elites (like Paul Ryan) provide pseudo-intellectual cover, and the anger factories (like Fox news) provide the fire & smoke, so that the rich get richer and the rest get - well, they don't care what the rest gets, just so long as the rich get richer."
59
I’ve always wondered what it is that Conservatives want to conserve. The only principle I can discern is that they wish to “conserve” something that they have in such a manner that those who don’t have it don’t get it. Most often that something seems to be money or wealth.
14
Power, always power, to conserve their wealth and power. That’s why the GOP Senate and House are sticking with Trump no matter what he says and does!
2
The ISI was just a thin veiled attempt to do away with new deal policies, and bring back the gilded era. I don't care how you want to dress up conservatives the number one thing they want is to tax the rich less and bring back the economic royal class.
15
"It was always the voters, though, who really mattered. And it was the voters who won."
And the entire country that lost as a result.
6
An interesting and a thought provoking article - thanks.
I think myself as a conservative - as in establishment Republican. However, I have many friends who are way to the left and whose views I respect and agree with - e.g. some social policies of taking care of unfortunates who fall on hard times - but for a limited time.
I think the writer mistakes a "group think conservatism" with individual conservatism.
Most people when they see themselves in the mirror don't think conservatism or liberalism as seen through a political eye - but based on their own surroundings and the life they have lived.
No one is actually born a conservative or a liberal but it is more a reaction to what happens around them.
As a result, conservatism continually changes and its focus shifts. For Mr. Burke - preservation of "natural" order was important and it was called conservative. Yet, Ireland became a Republic and a large population of Northern Ireland aspires to be part of Republic of Ireland.
Similarly, today's conservatives are reacting to what happened under 44th and collusion between it and the Congress. The Tea Party was a rejection of that collusion. You may call it upending but it is more a march forward to what a representative democracy should be.
I wish the "liberal" side of our political divide would have, say, a "latte party." - challenging the liberal dogmas - and a hold on their party by Clintons and Obamas in future.
1
The article mentions Ayn Rand as one from whom Buckley had to distance himself. Perhaps so but Ayn Rand was never a conservative and in fact had contempt for the conservatives based on solid philosophical tenets. Further, Ayn Rand had developed her own fully integrated philosophy called Objectivism which separated her from all political persuasions including Libertarianism.
It is amazing to this day that most people who are aware of Ayn Rand do not come close to understanding her or her philosophy.
4
If we are to defeat our adversary - the threats to America's future - then we must understand our adversary. This is an excellent explanation of one of today's greatest threats to the America we dream it can become instead of being dragged back into the kind of America it actually was.
While Ms. Coaston confirms my belief a vote for Trump was ultimately a vote based on hate what she apparently fails to understand is that all the intellectual trappings of conservatism she knew was always no more then a elaborate façade behind which the hate always existed at its core.
Ironically, Ms. Coaston is describing what used to be the arch enemy of conservatism which was communism. Many of the intellectual ideals of true communism can be viewed as having some virtue - i.e. the means of production owned by the workers - but the practical application of communism was something else entirely. Needless to say there is a certain irony that where the Republican Party once loathed Russia they now seem perfectly comfortable with a President who directly or indirectly conspired with Russia to steal one of our most important rights.
It is worth remembering the story of America's founding is largely based on a myth about freedom and democracy when it was actually founded on the freedom to have slaves in the South and the freedom from paying taxes in the north and, of course, the freedom to exploit others and the freedom to hate.
2
Nice analysis of conservatism. Whether "it was the voters who won" is yet to be determined, though. They got their man elected, but may find it not so wonderful to get what they thought they wanted. History has a way of showing us that getting what one thought one wanted is not always synonymous with winning.
1
An healthy political party will have conservative and progressive elements and act as a buffer to one party rule. In my lifetime, conservatism has resisted change, which appealed to my parents but didn't speak to me.
Neither party is offering anything to the Trump supporters who've paid the price for cheap imports; conservatives once extolled the free market, but virtue is no longer part of the bargain.
Conservative values such as family and religion have morphed into bigotry and parochialism. Trumpism doesn't respect values and either party could have been co-opted.
The sooner that political parties shed their affectations and return to serving as part of a comprehensive system of governance, the sooner the next generation won't continue to be driven out of the public sphere.
2
Those voters moved by id and grievance have been systematically influenced by right wing radio/media/web. The GOP and some conservative leaders stopped fighting for a conservative system of ideas as they saw it was far easier to make a lot of money by stoking this anger. Exhibit A is the Heritage Foundation & Heritage Action. What was once a bastion of conservative ideas has become nothing more than a fundraising arm of the GOP and right wing politics.
9
Excellent piece that nicely articulates our present dilemma. If "pure and unfettered loathing" wins in the 2018 elections, we will go down a dark path indeed.
3
I've been saying that the right wing has been radical for about a decade now. Their ideas have little to do with "conserving" anything. I even invented an oxymoron, "radical conservative" to describe them.
I tend to believe a theory that I learned from reading Tolstoy. He thought that both conservatism and liberalism each came with its own set of problems. As long as one holds sway, it's problems accumulate until they become untenable, then the people demand that it be replaced by the other, which promptly goes about fixing the problems, but starts accumulating its own unique set of problems. This causes the political balance to swing back and forth like a pendulum.
This works as long as the influence stays within a reasonable set of boundaries. If the pendulum swings too far off the rails, it can destroy the "civil" in civil society.
Did the Russians have this in mind as they tried to radicalize our political process through their manipulation of social media? After all, Tolstoy was one of theirs.
3
American conservatives and American liberals always based their politics on shared American ideals. And the United States became the most powerful, most influential and most admired country in earth as a result.
Trump is no conservative and he is no liberal. One by one, he is shattering the iconic beliefs and images that held us together for 200 years (with bloody confirmation in a Civil War that forced us to acknowledge that we are all created equal). The Republican Party is no longer a party of conservatives; as the party of the authoritarian Trump, it is now profoundly un-American, substituting “blood and soil” for “out of many, one.”
My suggestion: true conservatives and those of us center to left need to band together in a party of national unity to take our country back, and back to the shared ideals that we were taught as children but seem to have forgotten.
5
Reagan, W. Bush and next the combination of Paul Ryan / Mitch McConnell / Trump leave the next generations huge deficits.
So much for fiscal conservative.
And liberal?
End slavery
Women's right to vote
End segregation
End child labor
Public grammar school and high school
40 hour work week
Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid for the poor
Protect the environment
Protect against predatory lenders
Protect against predatory for profit colleges
LGBT equal rights
And how many of these things, conservatives fought against, even murdered in some cases.
And no liberal friends of mine are against hard work and responsibility and accountability.
We do believe that average people will rise to the level of their environment and we should try to give everyone the best environment possible.
We do believe that government can do good things and see the proof in countries like Denmark who have good government schools and health care and who does not have the poverty and prisons we have in the US.
We don't believe in the Koch brothers inspired false ideas of Libertarian.
We don't believe that people organized as corporations are necessarily any better than people organized as government.
We do believe in common sense.
And if you don't want to help people less fortunate because it is morally the right thing to do, then help because it is in your own long term financial interest. It is better to get people educated and working and paying taxes than pay for welfare and prison.
31
The foundation of economics, politics and faith among the public is always at the intersection of money, affiliation and bias. These biases need not be "bad," but they are based on emotion and easily manipulated... How many of us would prefer to discuss an analysis of policy rather than highly charged gossip?
Conservative "small government" ideas combined with politicians willing to stir the passions of the We-the-People branch of the conservative electorate was what Hamilton warned against in Federalist #1:
"[A] dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."
4
It's not that Conservatives are resistant to change. They want incremental, measured, and proven change, all while realizing that successful small scale changes do not necessarily translate to successful large scale change. For instance, small taxes DO usually result in increased revenues, but large tax increases often result in revenue reductions. Conservatives are also cognizant that small, efficient government is a positive benefit, but that large, inefficient government contributes to resource waste thru redundancy of efforts and the temptation to corruption.
1
Nothing new there, in spite of the good writing. Philosophical, formalized, intellectualized conservatism always has been, is, and will be a genteel fig leaf meant to disguise obscene exploitation of the plebs' lower capacities for political insight. "Standing athwart history", apart from being delusional hubris, is standing against braking the rich's greed, against the poor discovering who really keeps them poor, against the haves being made to help the have-nots. Kudos, however, to Jane Coaston, for having the bravery to stare reality in the face.
2
Decades ago the right-wing realized that language was one of their most powerful allies in their attempts to roll back the progressive policies that had gained traction since the early 20th century.
Today's self-proclaimed "conservatives" are nothing of the sort. They peddle, in Galbraith's words, "a superior moral justification for selfishness" combined with anger and wedge issues to motivate the less-informed voters who can't see that they are the frogs in the heating pot.
Progressives (not "liberals," because that term has been similarly corrupted) need to learn how to market themselves better, because all the great ideas in the world don't matter if you can't win elections.
23
Interesting, but you seemingly missed the fact that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, despite your claim that they are true conservatives, are doing just what the voters did — going along with Trump to further their cause. They don’t care about the havoc Trump creates even though it harms the country and the party.
4
There's some stuff in common between conservative and right-wing, but not all. Goldwater didn't start right-wing populism, but rode it, with 38% of the vote. McCarthy never lost the support of 36% of Americans, where Trump is now. FDR was despised by 1/3 of the country, too. For almost a century, a solid 35% or so fit this category
10%, or about 1/3 of them, are 'real' conservatives. Goldwater, Wallace, McCarthy, and Trump keep some conservatives happy, because they share the same enemies. Ivy league liberals, youth, communists, free traders.
Some things even conservatives can't stand. Wallace never got above 25%, about where belief that Obama wasn't born in the US peaked, and those who believed Bill Clinton was the anti-Christ. This cohort is biggest in the south, among evangelicals, the uneducated. It's the solid 1/4 who are, above all, worried about race.
When ignored, they split the vote of one of the main parties. When brought into a party, they distort it badly.
As for conservatives, they're a minority of a minority, but get lots of attention, because the rich give them high platforms.
9
Stopping progress is a fool's errand and that is why conservatism of the Buckley brand has never been popular. People want help navigating a world that never stops changing, not someone that spends their whole time decrying the loss of the past. Buckley's conservatism is equivalent to an old man complaining about "the kids these days". Buckley was the king of gauzy nostalgia that only appeals to the rich and people that have short memories.
9
The entire universe & all that it contains has been in a constant state of change since "The Big Bang", everything in the universe is open to change except for 1 group of humans on this sole planet & they resist it like it was unnatural.
These same people also resist science, broader & higher education for every citizen & any philosophy outside their rigid & narrow perceptions.
Their embrace of the past is based on their fear of the future & their inabilities to manage & constrain it.
4
Exactly what do today's "conservative" voters want Mr. Trump actually to do? It's fine to say they want him to "raze and remodel" the existing order, that they desire "radical action" - but to what end? What's the new model? If it can't be defined, then how will they know when they get there? Or don't they care, as long as it's "different" and as long as they think it's the invention of Mr. Trump rather than Mr. Obama?
16