"How are you going to persuade more African-American Christians to support what seems like a white-chauvinist formation?" Seems? Nay, it is. That's the real question. What are you going to do about the fact that conservatism's core constituency is now a white supremacist movement? The answer is, nothing. Trump knows that perfectly well, and frankly, so do you.
504
@Archer Ross you are basically to smart to be a modern "conservative". Please, quit trying to use big words to explain a basic failed idea.
24
@Archer Black folks (and I'm one of them) still cleave to Christianity (I'm not one of them) in large numbers (especially women) but that doesn't mean we're stupid. Jesus isn't going to make any African American support a person who plays a white supremacist on TV (& Twitter & in the White House).
43
@Maloyo56 Have a listen to Candace Owens on You Tube. I wouldn’t be so sure.
4
Maybe time travel is real. The conservative thinking seems to provide some confirmatory evidence.
9
But Ross, the true important question is: How many angles can dance on the head of a pin? Conservative intellectuals should get busy on that one.
What does conservatism have to offer, in terms of ideas, to our current political debate? In the words of the great Norman Whitfield - 'Absolutely nothin'!". Your famous economic idea - supply side - has resulted in a massive redistribution of wealth from the lower middle class to the uber-rich. Your geo-political idea - war of choice - resulted in a massive global loss of confidence in American leadership. Your social idea - anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, is nothing more than an attempt to establish fundamentalist Christian principals as the law over us all, and that's in violation of the express wishes of the Founding Fathers, many of whom were atheists. The touted hard-headed intellectualism claimed by conservatives, which could be maintained in a marginal way during the Buckley/Will days, is revealed as a complete sham today. You have no ideas. What are conservatives debating? I'd say nothing of import, but even more importantly, who cares?
40
I think they are debating taking control of the country and then doing what they always dreamed of doing: forcing everyone else to live by their rules, or, on the other hand, figuring out which states to move to so those states can secede from the union and continue complaining among themselves.
14
Douthat is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic of conservatism while ignoring that both approaches still result in the entire ship smashing into destruction. The thinker he should be considering instead of French or Ahmari is Frank Wilhoit, who observed in The Travesty of Liberalism, “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Wilhoit goes on to say, "So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone..."
Douthat is clearly backing not just the wrong horse but the wrong country.
25
Ahmari is arguing for a theocracy. As we have discovered, through thousands of years of history, theocracies morph with every new theocrat. Your theocrat's inquisition might target your enemies and beliefs and behaviors you despise. The next theocrat might target you. And even if he/she doesn't, sooner or later the system will turn. Liberal democracy is the worst of all governing systems except for everything else.
11
Hey, Douthat...George Nidal, who was on his way to say hidy to Hizzoner at Mar-a-Lago this last week, when the FBI nabbed him at the airport on his THIRD kiddie porn charge?
To which conservative faction would you say he belonged, exactly? Since we’re a-movin’ beyond namby-pamby liberalism and all?
9
The conservative cause simply couldn't be in a worse jam if they made a deal with the devil, and perhaps did. It didn't start with Trump or the Tea Party, but wrong-headed, absent-minded and profusely lying conservative news venues that gas on and on for hours on fact-less, divisive and/or blatantly racist nonsense, like Santa Claus is white. Their flock is lost, frightened and armed only with half-baked vitriol provided by conservative news. This isn't the foundation for a new beginning, it's the abyss into which they might very well take the entire country.
10
If this is the state of debate in the Republican Party the right in the US really is broken -- and unacceptable. They're effectively nitpicking over what kind of oligarchical religious tyranny we should have. This in a country founded as a secular nation with an emphasis o liberty, freedom of speech and opportunity.
25
Cool story. By chance where do Alex Jones, Jacob Wohl, and Rush Limbaugh fit into the formulation of a new conservatism?
Given that these and many of the other shysters and charlatans that currently populate the conservative movement are household names, and hold sway over popular conservative opinion in a way David French and the other authors mentioned in your piece, do not and never will.
14
Perhaps the religious cultural conservatives are finally waking up to the false narrative the weathly republican financiers of the Repulican Party, Fox news and the right wing blogoshpere has been selling them.
While our religious cultural consevative friends are more than happy to pay lip service to a small govenment liberal order, they at the same time, do not see the inconsistency in expousing limited govenment while insisting on laws that tell people who can get married, and how they control their bodies. They want the laws of this country to conform to their beliefs even if it does not personally impact them in any direct way and does not conform to what the majority in this country believe.
The wealthy Republican donors saw the inconsistency and sold the limited govenment false narrative just to get votes so they could enhance the power of asset holders and large corporations over everyone else.
And yes, as a group, those wealthy donors really don't care about the moral issues driving the religious right. What they DO care about is protecting their assets. The Donor Class is more than happy to have the religious right worked up about Federalist Society Supreme Court nominees. It is an open question regarding how the current court will deal with abortion but it is becoming very clear that they will use "Originalism" to enhance asset holders and vested interest rights over that of common people.
11
Ahmari says "libertines... understand that culture war means discrediting their opponents and weakening or destroying their institutions". Tl/dr: war to the hilt... because that's what our opponents do.
Just another conservative polemicist projecting his own ends-justify-means world-view on his opponents. Like Gingrich's anything-goes blathering a few years ago about "Obama's Saul-Alinsky-radical"
9
“...there is no way for the Republican coalition to successfully re-fuse around some mix of cultural conservatism and economic populism without not only the white working-class voters Trump won in 2016, but substantially more minority and/or younger and/or female votes as well.”
From your lips to G-d’s ears, Ross.
3
I am a Christian, and I believe in an eternal life; but the specter of an integral government - meaning one in which the “eternal” values supersede over temporal is terrifying to me.
It should be to you, too. There you will see homosexuals hung in the public square, as they are in Iran; you will see non-believers tied to the stake and roasted alive, after being tortured, as they were in Europe before the Enlightenment, and as they are by all religious zealots everywhere; you will see evil hypocrites issuing decrees, as they did in Rome, with no checks or balances, because the hypocrites are the chosen messengers of God’s Will; there you will see real taxation and economic inequality, as all the money must be given to God’s ministers; and there you will see the end of real science, as anything that threatens the scriptures must be destroyed.
The Founders were right, religion must be separated from politics, laws must never be made according to scripture. All scripture is to be taken as symbolic and allegorical, never as the literal basis for laws.
As far as Christianity is concerned, there are only two laws: Love G-d with all your heard and soul, and your neighbor as yourself. What the first part means is entirely up to you, and must never be legislated in any manner, ever. The second speaks for itself; no one in power has ever followed it, so there is never any danger that they might try.
22
The construction of and apparatus surrounding this obscure debate: Isn't it all just one big post facto rationalization of the resounding, morally indefensible Republican support for Trump?
10
This quote from his "integralist" hyperlink is absolutely terrifying and is a perfect demonstration of the bad faith we see of conservatives in today's era;
"rather than retreating to a nostalgic localism, nonliberal actors strategically locate themselves within liberal institutions and work to undo the liberalism of the state from within. These actors possess a substantive comprehensive theory of the good, and seize opportunities to bring about its fulfillment through and by means of the very institutional machinery that the liberal state has providentially created. Then and only then will the liberal state, reintegrated from within, finally and truly become a victim of its own success."
There is a funny irony that the party that feared the fifth column, that fears being taken over from within and having its culture be replaced by something alien and terrible, does itself partake in the sin. This is what compromise with this section will get us - an inevitable and designed cruel conservative sabotage.
11
So small government and personal/religious liberty unless it’s something Conservatives are against, like gay marriage or legal marijuana. Then all hell breaks loose. Just own it.
8
Conservatives were only against legal marijuana because they didn't realize how much money there was to be made. They are changing their tune now.
9
I can sum up the state of Conservatism with one example. Pat Robertson went on TV and told his Christian followers not to make a big deal of Jamal Kashoggi’s murder because too much oil money is involved.
17
Good to see Ross and David opining on the solipsisms of conservatism for a change. You built your own tight little box so enjoy it while the rest of the world moves on.
6
This gave me whiplash, not as in a rear-end collision, but as in a ride on the "Tilt-a-whirl" at the county fair. I had no idea the Right had all of these diverse intellectual sects fighting for power or relevance. It reminds me of the turn of the century inter-family disputes of the socialists, syndicalists, or nihilists, out of power and in exile, locked in deadly verbal combat. However, little morsels of arguments appear such as: "Or they might take the form of the kind of trustbusting culture war envisioned by Hawley, in which the new formations of woke capital, especially in Silicon Valley, get regulated in the name of both economic fairness and cultural conservatism." Wouldn't that be like Trump imposing tariffs on Mexico to apply pressure on the Mexico not stopping refugees problem? It would be hard to fashion a less neutral principal. It looks more like, like Trump, lacking a legal avenue (presidential power) to force Mexico to stop refugees/and Hawley lacking a way to smite persecution of intolerant religion by Google, one grabs the hammer one has, an emergency power to impose tariffs/the anti-trust law enforcement mechanisms. I don't think the Federalist Society covered topics like that at its Judge-prep seminars.
4
So Ahmari flees a theocracy to create one here.
27
This column is ultimately about a tiny group of self proclaimed conservative intellectuals whose main occupation is arguing with one another. It reminds me of the people Joseph Heller satirized in Good As Gold, feckless former leftists (one modeled after Norman Podhoretz) who kept trying to prove they turned against Stalin before the other guys did. Meanwhile, the real world keeps turning, the young reject religion, and American demographic diversity grows each day.
6
I’ve been trying come up with a name for Trump’s GOP. Theocratic Oligarchy.
3
What do conservatives debate? It still seems that they are still talking about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.
Why are conservatives consistently opposed to abortion? Is it a moral or religious question? Is it about social cohesion?
Where do the rights of individuals fit into the conservative vision of the world? Do conservatives have a consistent vision that holds them together? Or is it just every person for themselves.
In her book Hillary Clinton said It Takes a Village and spelled out a vision where people work together to create a better society. Sometimes conservatives seem to have a similar vision, but lose themselves in the void of personal ambition and the lower human natures of fear, anger, and greed.
After reading this article I am still do not understand how conservatives would create a better society.
3
Don't worry Ross, our President will find a way to throw out enough of the Democratic votes to ensure his reelection. Then he will finish converting Republican party to his version of "newspeak". "Defeat" will be relabeled as "victory". "Love" will be relabeled as "hate". All of his opponents will be "loved" to death and "history" will be rewritten so say what our President wants us to believe - that is until he wants us to believe something else. And you will learn to love it too - or else.
2
The article describes this atheist's growing discomfort with the Republican party. In this atheist's view, Republicans have morphed from the small government, low tax (but strong military) of the past into a "we're going to shove the Bible up your nose, and if you resist, step on your face" party we see today.
13
"But a more assertive social conservatism would also pursue the second thing that the post-fusionist conservatives seem to want — namely, stronger state interventions in the economy on behalf of socially conservative ends."
He never uses the F word. but its right here. the only muscular socially conservative movement that can mobolize large numbers of people for conservative social goals + intervention (or control) of the economy = fascism.
you have an entire intellectual wing of the republican party advocating for fascism in all but name. be defination, the winners of the economy cant be the ethnic minorities voting for Dems. it cant be liberal cities. b/c that would hurt elections.
it would have to be a powerful executive working for older-midwestern and southern whites. only with fascism will the conservatives have the power to end ROE, force women out of the workplace, limit immigrants to deadend low wage jobs, obliterate middle class blacks while reconstituting the miscegenation/segregation laws, investigate -arrest - throw out 10 million illegal immigrants (they'll keep the english-irish-white ones).
the ends are Fascism. there is no other system (apartheid, i guess) that has historically worked for any length of time that can do what the anti-frenchers want. saying anything else is to take a train and willingly ignore the destination.
8
I think when you people say 'culturally conservative', you mean theocratic.
As put-upon as you people seem to feel, it's you who want to get yourselves into the intimate details of other people's lives & tell them what to do & how to do it. Most normal people are more live and let live where strangers are concerned.
Man, religion messes up your mind.
13
conservatism is nothing more than hyper-nostagia: a grotesque longing for a time that never was nor will ever be.
9
"that are un-Christian in a particularly naked way"
Trump's lurid behaviour might be un-Christian, but anyone familiar with the New Testament, and honest with themselves, whether they were a believer or not, would be shocked by this final line from Ahmari's essay, given its notionally Christian context:
"To recognize that enmity is real is its own kind of moral duty."
The conservative right in the US has embraced a self-pardoning hatred that has switched out the core of Christian theology and transformed the religion into a platform for a kind of boastful self-regard, and a rationalization of their group's presumed right to social control of other people (perversely, that's what they mean when they talk about "religious liberty").
Trump may be a liar about his own religious beliefs, and he may break rules generally regarded to be Christian, but it's the foundation of Christianity itself that Ahmari and his ilk are corrupting.
8
Strange to read Douthat's account of an intellectual battle over that which no longer exists in meaningful form: conservatism.
It is, as the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland said, whatever a "conservative" wants it to be.
There are no conservative "principles," unless one counts being handmaidens to the wealthy, and, with Trump, the loony and unintelligent.
7
There already a word for what you are calling for: National Socialism. No thanks.
5
Isn't another term for a center-right conservative morality along with a populist economics merged with strong-man leadership as you cite is happening around the world, neo-facism?
4
Mr Douthat -- You would do me a great service by a), explain how "Make Abortion Illegal" is a conservative position (do you endorse expanding spending to fund government enforcement) and b) correct me if your definition of "populism" requires conning ordinary people into supporting the rich and powerful to their own detriment.
It looks to me like you're starting with a false foundation and are concerned about a lack of robustness in the structure you try to erect.
2
Someone wake me up when this article is over.
7
David French vs Sohrab Ahmari; how does one choose between two such admirable fellows, two such incisive intellects?
2
Lawn darts.
10
I'm sorry but right now conservatives are navel gazing. Conservative pundits are asking each other what happened? They forgot that McConnell declared open war on Democrats and liberals 10 years ago. They have forgotten that their policies on economics, military actions, religion, women's rights, gays, blacks, Hispanics , immigrants have driven people so far away from them that they no longer have an audience except among themselves and the die hard "live free or die" types. I really don't care what you debate with each other, just leave the rest of us out of your mess please. We have lives to lead and can do without your smug self righteous interference.
18
Name one conservative social policy that doesn't come down to controlling women's bodies. Conservatives champion free enterprise - until big business sides with the rising social movement giving women economic power. Conservatives want limited government - until women start using birth control and deciding when and how many children to have. Conservatives are pro-marriage - until women and men (horror of horrors for procreation) want to marry each other. Conservatism has one policy - live the way we say, or else.
19
Towards the end of the article Duthart wonders about:
The problem of how a culturally conservative movement can expect to thrive under the leadership of a figure as distant from its official ideals, and as alienating to persuadable voters, as the figure of Donald Trump.
That’s easy. A culturally conservative movement can never hope to have a president aligned with its views because that president would be unelectable. The glory of Trump for cultural conservatives is that he’s only interested in their cultural conservatism in as much as it affords him a menu of items he can deliver so as to get elected; Trump doesn’t care about the arguments for or against abortion, but he’ll be full bore against abortion if he thinks it will get him elected.
A culturally conservative presidential candidate would be catastrophic because he would feel duty bound to make the cultural conservative case and, in doing so, he would alienate more people than Trump.
5
Let's help them resolve their problems and start taxing churches that weigh into politics, eh?
The current form of political participation by the variants of Christian religion seem to think that they should pass laws that others of us have to respect or else. To me this looks like a clear violation of the separation of church and state enshrined in the first amendment. Taxation is the solution. If they want to actively participate in governance, they need to be taxed for the exercise, otherwise the government is "respecting an establishment of religion."
11
Capitalism and social conservatism are fundamentally at odds with each other. Social conservatism is a collective view of the world that wants a group consensus. Capitalism is both individualistic and destructive of traditionalism. Interestingly the only conservative who seems to get this contradiction was David Brooks.
5
It’s nice to see a journalist in the New York Times speaking not of the Republican Party but of “the right“. The Republican Party thanks to Donald Trump no longer exists as we once knew it.
It’s time for Mr. Douhat and others to come up with a new name for the party that has done nearly irreparable damage to our country in these last 2 1/2 years...
3
They see it in the EU's elections but but still don't recognize it, they call it racism and fascism. What is it really? The failure of the ruling elite to bring equality to the working class and poor.
Conservatism is the new counter culture. It's not that want to go back to the 1950's. They don't want to live in elites revamped version of it.
1
How does cutting taxes drastically for the rich create "equality for the working class and poor?"
6
@Benjo
I'm all for my party raising taxes on the wealthy but what does that do for jobs? At least Trump started a trade war but like the leaders of my party, he doesn't care about working people.
Meanwhile, as this debate rages on; Millennials and Generation Z are less 'church-going', less likely to be as financially successful as their parents, concerned about the climate and their future environment and are much, much more tolerant of those who are 'different'; such as the LGBT community, racial differences and yes, even new immigrants to our country.
Rather than a debate, I would argue this is the last dying gasps of an ideology that has to be torn completely apart and rebuilt for the demographic realities which exist in the world moving forward. As soon as conservatives understand that, their debates are as practical as driving a horse and buggy on a freeway.
15
The defining characteristic of this op-ed, as well as the debate it attempts to chronicle, is its sticking its head in the sand about the generational doom facing conservatism that is so well explained in David Brooks' column today.
4
How to tell a conservative? They divide the world into “liberals” and “conservatives”.
How to tell a liberal? I don’t know; there are so many views on what it means to be a liberal.
All views have contradictions and exceptions; it’s the nature of humans to have views that fit there interests.
But I find many so-called conservatives to have self-serving views. Ignore George Washington’s advice about foreign entanglements and get involved in many wars. Call for “free markets” that are favorable to large corporations and ignore the consumer or employees.
In the past, I would split my vote: a Democrat for this office and a Republican for that office. But every year since 1980, it seems to be harder and harder to vote for any Republican. The Republicans seem to be working harder than the Democrats to create the factions George Washington warned about.
Unfortunately, both Democrats and Republicans seem to be ignoring almost all of Washington’s advice.
3
President Trump is no choir boy; but why let the ideal be the enemy of the good? He has slowed the regulatory freight train needlessly harming American business and well-paid American manufacturing jobs. He has cut corporate tax rates resulting in America becoming much more hospitable and competitive for foreign and domestic investment dollars, and therefore more and better job opportunities. He has substantially reduced personal income tax rates for the middle class.
In addition, President Trump has appointed judges more likely to respect judicial restraint, respecting elected representatives and laws passed by Congress, rather than legislating from the bench. In short, he has honored his promises to his supporters; and he has set our economy on a better course for all people who work for a living.
I don't care about President Clinton's dalliances; and I don't care about President Trump's former dalliances either.
2
What?
9
@Stew R
I beg to differ about the so-called “substantially reduced tax rates for the middle class” cited as proof of tRump’s beneficence. Thanks to the Welfare-for-Billionaires Act, I received the princely sum of $50 more in my take home pay. In 2018, for the first time in years, I owed taxes to the IRS. I was lucky that my state tax refund balanced out my Federal tax bill, so I broke even. On the advice of my accountant, I changed my withholding and gave my little $50 increase back to the government.
That’s why I quit voting Republican—they give you ice in the wintertime. Besides, I’m not a fan of having my pockets picked so the CONservative donor class can buy more Greedy Old Pachyderms to game our tax laws in their favor.
10
@Rev. Eccentric Orbit
Why do I suspect that you have never cast a Republican vote? And why do I suspect that you don't earn much money; maybe it's the $50 you're so focused on? I suspect that if a Republican cured cancer you wouldn't vote for him or her.
Regardless, most middle class taxpayers saved several thousand dollars in federal income taxes. This happened by reducing income tax withholding during the year, not by bigger refunds from much higher withholding schedules.
Both seem to be wrangling with the realization (far too late) that Republican platitudes were always utopian thinking at the service of a truly cruel and venal politics. Trump simply shed all the pretensions. Cultural conservatives long ago sold their souls for a revocation of Roe that never came. Now they are genuinely in the wilderness.
4
Where are the conservative voters who recognize physical facts? The First Law of Thermodynamics and molecular spectroscopy and radiation heat transfer makes it abundantly clear that CO2 added the atmosphere since 1970 has provided added energy that exceeds that needed to explain the warming seen since 1970. The cause, added GHGs, is more than enough to explain the observed effect, warming, melting.
So climate change is the fundamental test of honesty.
While conservatives argue over the implementation details of the evolutionary impulse to procreate, emissions of GHGs are setting up those resulting from that procreation for a very difficult time.
The fact that conservatives are unconcerned about conserving essential ecosystems and natural systems that their grandchildren will need makes it clear that they are not serious about anything serious. Sound and Fury.......
3
Please, honestly, tell me who the conservative intellectuals are (I do not mean fiscal conservatives). I would honestly like to inderstand this perspective. I have not found any coherent and rational discussion from cultural consevatives in the US that does not rely on religion. They seem to me to purport to uphold values of civilization and trace historically questionable origins to premodern europe, austere christianity and a romanticized and very off-target view of western history, espousing liberty while maintaining precivilized egocentrism and opressive moral doctrine. This really is the view of a monstrous mind to civilized people everywhere else, with only local fascist populism uniting people between countries.
7
Frenchism, Fusionism, Integralism, Classical-Liberalism..... No wonder you don’t know what you are debating about.
Not mentioned anywhere in this article is how conservatives plan to help the every-day lives of average American citizens. How they can give them a fare shake in the economy and in the courts and in the educational system. No plan to make average Americans feel more financially secure and more secure about healthcare and their children’s prospects.
Your small faction of GOP “intellectuals” have gone off the deep end in pseudo-intellectual abstraction. The larger GOP faction has gone full-bore on the basest instinct of survival: fear, tribalism, and belligerence.
Your party is a mess. Would you please hand over the keys to the country while you try to straighten it out?
7
Ahmari is delusional if he is worried that liberalism is winning in this country.
But I give Douthat credit: no one can play the identity politics game better than he can. He distills people down four to five levels with labels on every aspect of their life.
1
The modern but desperate equivalent of the debates about the number of angels on a pinhead. Demographic changes in America render them increasingly irrelevant.
4
Watch the right wing pundits skirmish as they struggle to rationalize and blame each other for ushering in the harsh reality of fascism and plutocracy in America.
5
"These conservatives believe that the current version of social liberalism has no interest in truces or pluralism and won’t rest till the last evangelical baker is fined into bankruptcy, the last Catholic hospital or adoption agency is closed by an A.C.L.U. lawsuit."
Libs are pro-hospitals, pro-adoption agencies, and definitely pro-bakeries. We just don't think they should be allowed to use "religious beliefs" to illegally discriminate.
4
What often gets lost in the bakery/gay couple debate is that the baker didn’t want to make a cake as they wished. He was quite willing to sell them other cakes.
What if a neo-nazi wanted a cake with a swastika on it or a communist wanted a red star on a cake?
Too much discourse in this country leaps to simple conclusions. Leaping to conclusions may make you fall on your face.
2
@Melvyn Magree Or an obscene cake? I've heard of them...
@Melvyn Magree I’m not sure if that’s true, but it any case, it wasn’t the grounds on which the SC ruled in his favor. It was because they said the Denver City Council showed unfair animus towards HIM. It sidestepped the question of whether a wedding cake counts as expression.
Oh my God.
So the faux-conservatives want to punish those that aren't as "religious" as them.
And they want Government to assist in the punishment.
Truth is the one thing that never seems to enter faux-conservative think-tank conversations.
Lets start with some basics:
1. Dressing like adults, is not the same as behaving like adults.
2. Calling yourself something, is not the same as being that something. As there is nothing Conservative about the republican base. They are not Conservative, instead they behave like a mob of resentful zealots.
A Conservative is studied; an evangelical trumpian is deliberately ignorant and stubborn.
A Conservative would never claim to speak for God; or waste time with Rapture fantasies.
How to identify a Fascist...instead of debate they use character assassination, (petty labels and slander).
The republican base is a faux-conservative charade concealing a dooms-day cult hoping to be raptured. The party of Nixon has embraced greed, corruption, distortion, slander, revenge, and lying.
That ain't God's team.
We want our Country back. Stop the lying.
8
As a white-privileged, Christian, son of Montana, shaman, I have to applaud the Christian right for not actually practicing their religion (pray in private, meditate in community, and love each other as yourselves), and still expecting there not to be consequences.
An ancient Greek pagan gods&goddesses worshiper would have no trouble seeing Trump as the incarnation of a trickster spirit, sent to guide the two dominant political parties into oblivion, having outlived their usefulness.
Meanwhile, even tho' not believed to exist (if we truly believed we would actually be more circumspect) the Holy Mother has the Whole World in His Hands (you know, the guy coming not with peace, but a sword) while delivering a much needed unsettling to the American Heartland (pushing folk out of their complacency, while at the same time truly fertilizing the soil so badly abused by corporate greed. There is purpose to weather we've lost the ability to admire.
Thousand year floods and wild tornadoes = Mom's Broom, to folk not paying attention.
Going to get worse. Politicians don't care, corporations don't care, most religious believers don't care, except for themselves, and the rest of the world can go to hell in a handbasket.
Sorry folks, that kind of stuff sucks all of us down the same polluted drain. She (the Earth as Mother) is timeless. Her Divine Spirit not killable, as is true for all of the creation. All are treated the same: "The Art of God: an actual theory of Everything"
1
"winning victories for tax cutters and business interests while marriage rates declined, birthrates plummeted and religious affiliation waned"
There's a huge difference. Tax cuts and deregulation are specific policy choices that affect certain parties. They are decisions those parties can't make on their own.
Marriage, childbirth and religious belief are personal, individual decisions. Taxes and regulation, whether more or less of them, is clearly in the realm of government. Personal life decisions by individuals clearly are not. I would like to know what Ahmari would do to influence those decisions. It almost surely would run contradictory to his libertarian small-government philosophy. (Libertarians always want it both ways.)
The intellectual debates and scoffing at the clown in the thirties of the last century, did not prevent the transformation from the little painter into the disaster for the world. The parallel may seem too coarse but leaves an apprehension.
2
Raised by conservative Catholics. I concluded that moralistic cultural conservatism can’t exist. Intolerance is not moral. Disregard for the plight or health of a pregnant woman is not moral. Labeling someone a sinner for who they are is not moral. The myth of pulling up by bootstraps, and stepping on others on the way, is not moral.
So I really don’t get Ross stringing those 3 words together.
16
How do conservatives who stress the importance of society having a moral framework based on religion also champion an amoral system like the "free" market?
9
The Christian Taliban are here. Right, Ross ???
11
@Phyliss Dalmatian
England just made it difficult for children to access pornography on line. Is that what you mean?
One of the fallacies that should be exposed is the idea that Christian activism can raise the moral tenor of politics. In reality the reverse is true: immersion of religion into politics simply drags religion down to the worldly level. There is nothing spiritually uplifting about political activism, no matter what the goal or cause. One makes spiritual progress only by hewing faithfully to a spiritual path. Dismantling the fence between religious life and politics inevitably harms the former.
Combining religion and politics also imports the many largely futile schisms of the religious debate into the political sphere, which adds to political confusion without generating an offsetting benefit.
If you are looking for the hidden cause of America's recent cultural and moral decline, the massive entry of churches into politics is a good place to start. Fifty years ago no one could have imagined that a majority of self-identified American Christians would have become slavish devotees of an adulterous, satyric chronic liar like Donald Trump. It only happened because church leaders cynically calculated that a political advantage could be secured through compromising basic religious principles. But one cannot, alas, embrace the liar without also embracing the lies.
7
Would the three people in the universe who care one wet noodle about what these retro-Scholastic people are arguing about please raise their hands?
2
Douthat consistently makes hate speech seem reasonable. This makes him the same as any demagogue he so mildly criticizes.
6
I cant wait for Repubs to go the way of the 8 track. Bye...
7
Let's just stop using "conservative" as a label. These people are fringe ultra-right-wing religious fanatics. Period.
7
A great TED talk...for "conservative"pundits at a Heritage retreat. As important to everyone one else regardless of persuasion as how many angels can sit on the head of a pin. But you satisfied your column quota for a week and the Times can defend itself against charges of bias but for readers a total waste. No. I did not read the whole thing. My eyes glazed over.
4
"irenic"...that's the kind of snooty vocabulary that turns readers off of holier-that-thou right-wing pundits.
2
"The further this reconsideration goes, the more fanciful, Utopian or revolutionary it might seem." HAHAHA...I think the word you are looking for is "delusional."
If you think that normal Americans, that is, the majority of Americans, is going to keep putting up with all these very deeply buried troglodytes and their delusions of going back 500 years into the past, you too are delusional.
3
Before reading this I had never heard of Sohrab Ahmari. Now I know that he is editor of the New York Post’s op-ed pages. What I still don’t get is how a person in such a position can be regarded as an “intellectual”. Or, maybe, it’s how an intellectual could end up working at the New York Post.
6
You insistence on Christians for your argument is almost as problematic as the many Trumpian exclusionary antics.
4
..."between Buckley....and Trump." Buckley was a racist. Reagan was a racist. Trump is a racist. Your chosen party has always had a strong white supremacist element that the GOP refused to acknowledge or eliminate. Now we know why. You and the rest of the GOP are completely comfortable with it.
4
@HoosierGuy Buckley did see the error of his ways in the end.
I read this as do we go back to being neanderthal or cro-magnon. There is no recapture of the past. The reboot becomes some stunted ugly remnant of the original. The country has a different population mix, different communication mode, different technologies and most of all a more humanistic view (hopefully) of mankind. To exclude, constrain, limit and punish will not end well in the long run.
4
It's funny to read this column and David Brooks' article, one right after the other. Ross, you should try it. David's point is that, for a good 80+ percent of MIllennials and younger, these debates are not merely meaningless, they prove the people who bother to engage in them are clueless. And frankly, I agree with all that. The gibberish these people indulge in means nothing whatever to me.
5
May the conservative dilemma continue to spiral down to
Nothing ,taking Trump with it.Hes not conservative anyway.what was your word sybaritic? Good choice.
3
Part of me thinks we should send this guy back to Iran if he wants a theocracy so bad.
7
The social conservative vision is DOA. Young people positively hate the social conservative vision.
3
Most of the commenters here favor progressive acts of economic redistribution to solve the problems of American society. Their tone of dismissiveness towards any conservative idea of community, family, historic continuity, religion is mean, churlish and ugly. Despite the ugliness, they believe in their own sanctimonious progressive charitableness. I find it hard to attribute to them the humanity and enlightenment they claim for themselves and their arms length engineering of government bureaucracy and society.
5
I wish Mr. Douthat would learn to write more simply and clearly. I had a lot of difficulty reading this column, and even more trying to understand what he was saying.
7
@Madeline Conant
it's not you, it's the fundamental incoherence of "conservatism".
5
Exactly.
1
The whole "limited government" mantra combined with social conservativism has created a monster - A Social Darwinist Evangelical movement that has turned 180 degrees from what Jesus actually taught.
The consequence was that American Evangelicals didn't even think twice about selling their souls in exchange for Trump's fifty shekels. Think about it: the goal of banning abortion was so central to the movement that they were eager to embrace an ignorant amoral psycopath who is ready and willing to destroy the rule of law and all the constitutional checks and balances in order to feather his own nest. Nice Priorities! I never thought it would be so easy to destroy American Democracy, but now I know better. Preserving"moral purity" at the cost of democracy! Let me know how it works out for you in the end.
8
Well, this is inside baseball for people for whom I care little anymore.
4
Ross, I have no interest whatever in which different flavors these people come in. But please don't take it personally. I feel the same way about Trotsky versus Stalin or one religious sect versus another. They're all true believers, which means they're all screaming bores.
6
Conservative ideology has always argued for a theocratic oligarchy—conservatives are, after all, nothing more than monarchists who masquerade behind a thin patina of modernity.
4
I don't understand why any of this matters. Today's conservatives are objectively wrong on virtually every view they hold — white supremacism, America as a "Christian nation," helping the rich get richer, holding women and minorities back, stealing elections, etc. They are the knuckle-dragging tail end of the human bell curve and will be swept away in the years ahead. Books and conversations like these are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. A new world is coming. It's demographic destiny. It's plain as day.
4
Does Ross Douhat really think that if most Republicans read this piece they would actually understand it, or care to?
5
Storm in the chipped, cracked teacup of conservative thought process...
They have finally woken up to the fact (underneath the fear, refer to Mr Brooks' article of GOP apocalypse) that the young generation en masse hates them.
Conservatives need to look themselves honestly in the face, not in a mirror on their veiled fascist wall-- who is the whitest them of all?
They will have their answer right enough.
But they are inherently cowards.
They all use medicaid and medicare and then get on the pulpit to scream against socialist reforms.
They commit adultery (white men are among highest percentage) and then bang hammers for anti-abortion laws.
They make climate change laws which hurt us more, and then in speeches vilify scientists who have spend their entire lives showing evidence.
They can see their decline, their actual demise coming, and they should have seen it when they all got behind Trump. That single decision was and will be the nail in their conservative-coffin.
8
Lotsa words.
Why not just list out who the victims would be?
3
This is the second article about this I've read today and it makes my skin crawl. Part of me hopes the party actually does go this way and we'll show these theocrats that yes, they are in fact only useful as foolish voters for the 1%'s tax breaks. Maybe then they'll shut up and go away.
I'm not sure if it's ironic or predictable that the main champion for this is someone who fled regime change in Iran.
2
I think this analysis of Conservative Thinkers may be correct, and it's illuminating to hear about it. But I also Conservative Thinkers are not, and never have been, in control of this Conservative coalition. Conservatism is, by definition, a desire to return to how things were - and this means it is inherently reactionary. These Thinkers may be honestly intellectual, but they're never responding to the current desires of conservatives because that's always changing. So while I find it interesting to hear about these modes of thought (well, aside from anyone honestly supportive of trump) I can't see it as relevant - ever. Conservatives are looking to the past, while Liberals are looking to the future. I know which one I prefer.
3
Conservatives on abortion should not look to libertarians for support, for they allow only laws protecting people and property.
These conservatives would have to involve themselves in the controversial debate about what constitutes a person.
If a fetus is a person, then that satisfies the libertarian requirement about laws. But do we really want to base laws on what is essentially an academic philosophical matter?
Douthat's latest piece, again an uncanny echo of Stephens, comes across as a bit of belletristic dithering that strives to pigeonhole various conservatisms rather than offer practical insights into the electoral coalitions that might influence the 2020 election.
A marriage between political and cultural conservatisms is not necessarily achievable nor desirable. Many voters are politically conservative and culturally liberal or politically liberal and culturally conservative.
A willingness to embrace interminable conservatisms is not a sign of bad faith, but a characteristic of intellectual complexity and maturity.
The desire to synthesize conservatism under a totalizing rubric is a symptom of theocratic yearning.
And we again see the constant and unabashed bad faith of Ross Douthat as he equates litigation that seeks justice on behalf of abuse victims as some literal threat to the entirety of Catholicism in this country. As if a lawsuit on behalf of abuse victims against an organization that actively hid its member's abusive action is an immoral thing.
===
The three demands Ross states are as follows:
1) Want social conservatives to exercise more explicit power within the conservative coalition (and then the country).
2) Stronger state interventions in the economy on behalf of socially conservative ends.
3) A philosophical reconsideration of where the liberal order has ended up.
So, to recap Conservatives want to roll back social reforms in a secular nation, they want to work the government to benefit their specific non-secular agendas, and they want to critique liberalism i.e. the core conception of this very American Experiment.
Thanks Ross, I only hope you become more open about your stances.
Good piece, and actually outlines a conservative vision beyond “tax cuts.”
Douthat seems to elide now important racism and xenophobia are to Trump’s coalition, and far right parties around the world. Also, in this vision, powerful business interests have nowhere to go, and they will obviously go somewhere.
The only interesting part of this incredibly boring piece is the tortured way the author avoids calling a fascist movement, fascist. When it couldn’t be more obvious that it is fascist.
9
The right hasn't produced a valid argument in this country in years. There basic position is that the rich are better than other people, this is obviously because and why they are rich, and this makes them deserving of the loving care of our elected officials.
John Calvin offered the idea up first and the Pilgrims brought the idea over in their blue blood. Nothing new here under the sun.
It isn't just that Republicans now pretend that the 20th Century never happened, or rather offers us no cautionary tales we should take note of — they have erased 3 whole centuries further back and now present not the social and cultural values of the roaring 20s but the faith based link between god and wealth established in the Baroque!
Is there a historical parallel to a ruling class embracing a 400 year old cult? New Amsterdam was not yet founded when their point of view began and yet here we are as they double down on the holier than though again and again and again...
4
"his pro-life convictions have a natural home in a basically libertarian coalition, one that wants to limit the federal government’s interventions in the marketplace and expects civil society to flourish once state power is removed.
Isn't this philosophy inherently contradictory? If you are against the right to choose how can you be libertarian? If you want to limit government intervention, how can you accept the government getting between a woman ad her doctor?
Furthermore, if you expect "civil society to flourish" when state power is removed, you haven't read you're history.
Nuckleheads!
5
The Cultural conservatism goal is basically the defacto elimination of the Establishment clause of the Constitution.
8
Builders of a new conservatism will have to move away from the recent failures of the Republican Party to reign in Trump, pass legislation in the Senate and maintain a cohesive narrative.
There are few "pro-lifers" any more. They are simply anti-abortion.
The conservative movement has become cruel, disconnected from the common citizen and self-aggrandizing.
7
Picture this: Two MAGA hat wearing Iowa farmers are sitting on the roof of their flooded farmhouse watching their drowned hogs and sodden soybean crops float by in the flood. One turns to the other and asks "did you read Ross D's Op Ed this morning? ... well how would you answer his questions about the nature and meaning of conservatism in the Trump Era?"
11
The "fight" is supposedly only about the tactics of engaging with the Left (nice vs nasty), but I agree that the real story is something else. I disagree, however, that this kerfuffle was all that complex, though. In its death spiral, the Right first ejected its intellectuals. That's all this is, a spewing of hatred at any hold-outs who are not glassy-eyed, slavish MAGA-hats.
5
Thoroughly intriguing analysis. This introspection would really pay dividends, if people removed their cult hats and started scratching their heads about these dead-end alleys of Trump, Hawley, and Ahmari. Unfettered conservative views need a good home because a democracy without a relevant opposition party cannot stay healthy.
Voters might be interested in reading Mr Douthat's argument, if they first understood that the party is trapped in the Trump Maze and the exits are closing. If they do comprehend and regain their independent thinking, someone might primary Donald J. Clown.
However, a Republican Party intent on pacifying this childish bully (because, otherwise, he'll go berserk over a primary challenger) will be signing its own warrant -- for a tarp over the GOP name and for a final unceremonious positioning as HIS barge.
1
When does Mr. Douthat think the economic populists will realize that Trump is a globalist whose “transactional foreign policy” means that he works out deals with oligarchs in favor of the multinational corporations who donate to his campaign and frequent his hotels and golf courses?
9
I miss WFB.
Candidly, I enjoyed his humor, I suppose.
He certainly loved to needle this newspaper.
I flirt with conservatism, and libertarianism interests me.
The terminology of "libertarian conservative" and "conservative libertarian" are confusing,
while the phrases cover contradictory bases.
I am so confused by the subtleties that I
think that moderation is best at least for me
and the comments today are fun enough
for this oxymoronic thinker.
2
Trump is the embodiment of all of the characteristics that comprised the Republican party over the last 40 years. Republican's initially thought they didn't like this guy until they recognized themselves in him.
3
I hear people describing themselves and others as "conservatives," but what does that mean anymore? Trump is the poster boy for the American right, and he's not a conservative or an "economic populist." In embracing Trump, the Republican party has abandoned the conservative principles, and the conservative base, that have sustained it since the Civil War. It is a party with a very small and narrow tent, no longer big enough even to accommodate its former icons and avatars, like Ronald Reagan or William F. Buckley. Today's Trumpublican party (there is no otherwise identifiable form of Republicanism) would expel both of them. Others, like Bill Kristol and George F. Will have chosen to disown Trumpublicanism themselves. They have been alienated by non-thinkers like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter -- amateur cheerleaders who couldn't hold their own on a small-market morning coffee-klatsch show, much less "Meet the Press." They are entertainers, spinning plates and juggling bowling pins with their flippers.
Trump has traded principles for the self-serving illusion of "winning" -- even though he loses at every turn. He is a dead end, a dystopian figure who feeds (and feeds on) divisiveness, hatred, and xenophobia. America can't go any further down this road and survive.
8
I guess this was an attempt to answer the question: What do conservatives stand for today?
While it is a worthwhile goal to try to understand them, this attempt falls far short.
How much quicker it would have been to say: "I don't know, and I'm not sure they do."
So far they have demonstrated only political nihilism and zero solutions.
5
Oh boy, when analysis of movement is this complex and twisted, something is wrong. The problem, I believe, is the attempt to use objective reasoning to bring sense to the "conservative" arguments. The arguments should make sense on their own and none of these do, nor do they have any track-record elsewhere in the c-world. Then, by deduction, one must conclude that all this "conservative thinking" is just marketing nonsense to the masses toward the goal of concentrating wealth, which, by the way, IMO, is the only significant social change that's been accomplished in the US in the last 30 years, other than O-Care, and is to its detriment.
"Conservatives" have it all wrong, or backwards, they are the liberals, the radicals. To be socially and economically conservative is to provide for, nurture, support your workforce, provide health care, provide stability, enhance growth and build infrastructure, pay your bills, invest in your future.
Boy, we've all been fooled, let's not be fooled again.
5
One big problem with social conservatism is that its implementation, no matter what the philosophical underpinnings, tends to be coercive and cruel.
9
What’s really behind the breakdown in the old conservative alliance of big business money with social conservatism votes is one simple seismic change:
Social conservatism has become bad for business.
In an age of woke advertising and boycotts, slowly but surely executives are finding the old GOP big tent less and less profitable.
Social conservatism will increasingly find itself viable only in smaller population and/or poorer states. It’s current legislative victories in richer states like Georgia and will only hasten the political reform that will be its demise as was the case in North Carolina.
Social conservatism will likely never succeed without the deep pockets of big business. The Koch’s won’t live forever. Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby aren’t enough. Not when those all important younger ad demographics skew increasingly socially liberal.
In short, social conservatism faces fundamental obstacles as a national force and only survives thanks to population-contrary anachronisms of the electoral college and the senate.
7
As long as money and its accumulation is more valued than human life and the quality thereof, it doesn't matter what they are debating.
7
I can't get past the fact that Sohrab Ahmari wouldn't even be allowed in the country if Trump were president when his family immigrated...
252
@bad home cook The cognitive dissonance is incredible, as always.
29
President Trump’s policy on the travel ban from certain terroristic supportive countries is nearly insignificant in comparison to Democratic Administrations of the past.
Look back in history when FDR and the US failed to take in the hundreds of thousands Jewish people trying to flee Europe as Hitler and his Nazis regime muted their lives.
2
@MDCooks8 are you including the terrorist countries to which Trump wants to sell arms, hmm?
12
To add to others’ comments—all of these “thinkers” Douthat so earnestly cites are reactionary Christian men. Underpinning the intellectual gymnastics is a deep desire to put women back in the kitchen and the bedroom.
16
@Joyce McKinney
Not to mention what they would do to LGBT
5
A libertarian wants enough government to stop people from robbing him but not so much that he can't rob others. A fine line, eh?
10
So this Mr. Ahmari believes simultaneously that the federal government shouldn't be involved in civil society, but believes the invasion of a foreign country without pretext was just and necessary? His cognitive dissonance is literally breathtaking.
6
White, Black. Brown, Yellow, conservatives are only holding all of us down. Their view is of a "Christian America" one with really no Federal Government to stop their beliefs. A Theocracy pretty much like Iran where non believers are imprisoned or worse killed. One must note that since the election of the conservatives former "God" Regan. This country has slid to where we are today with endless war and the worst joke of a conservative president trump. Who has two more years left to destroy this country. Why would anyone vote for this again?
3
I can see why the rule of the 1% over the 99% might now satisfy some social conservatives, much as the Catholic Church was long unhappy with free-market capitalism taht destroyed community.
But the proposal these new social conservatives seem to offer is something like The PiS's Poland! No thanks.
3
Two word, two!, in a New York Times column that I had to look up. I love it.
The term conservative has become synonymous with immorality, wanton greed, disrespect for facts and science and bald face lying. As best as I can tell, the only difference between the two factions of conservatism you describe is the degree of willingness to hide behind the “ holier than thou” sanctimonious charade conservatives put on to cover their true intent. The game is over; we all understand that today’s conservative is interested in only one thing, power over others and the subordination of workers, women, minorities etc... to the avarice of a few obscenely wealthy people. Trump is the perfect avatar for today’s conservative. As much as I loathe Trump, at least he’s dropped the charade. And the folks that still support him because he’ll deliver on their single issue have revealed themselves to be as morally bankrupt as Trump. They’ve sold our future, reputation and democracy down the river for the right to impose their beliefs on all of us. It’s beyond shameful.
12
Here is a very simple thought. Separation of Church and State.
Your religion may indeed be your religion but it may not be mine.
7
It's not unusual for Ross to make me nauseous, but this column reminds me of my fellow patients in the chemo room who would take regular breaks to the lobby to grab a smoke with the overworked nurses. They'd go down the elevator with their headscarves and bandanas and IV's. And they'd all come back smelling of tobacco and death. Every week a new patient would join their club; and two or three would disappear.
1
I see many of the failed liberal mental gymnastics in your conservative philosophy especially as it pertains to abortion.
By outlawing abortions and holding women more responsible for unwanted pregnancies the need will be less and go away. This will not work and it never did. The left wants to throw more money at everything. Double down again and again without any success.
Real conservatives roll up their sleeves and help their daughters. They don’t send their them to homes in distant cities anymore and they don’t have their grandchildren adopted out anymore. They do the house work, baby sitting, and offer financial assistance. These are strong and flexible conservatives. They adapt.
3
Interesting. But I’m still uncertain: how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin??
1
the "fault lines within the right" sounds like all out war that has to won by one group of thinkers while everyone else gets annihilated. sounds like the Republican party at war with everyone who is not of their mindset or mindsets.
a nation is a family. and our nation is a disfunctional family.
but divorce is not an option. compromise and coexistence is possibly the only way forward for a family as diverse as the US.
2
Where are LGBTQ people in this entire debate? What do the social conservatives propose to do with us? There's this idea of returning the country to single earner, two parent families that seems to completely ignore real, lived experience for a lot of us. Do the social conservatives believe that once they've achieved their utopia we'll just cease to exist? Or do they simply wish to once again have the legal tools to erase our identities?
3
I don't often agree with Mr. Douthat but I know good writing when I see it: "These conservatives believe that the current version of social liberalism has no interest in truces or pluralism and won’t rest till the last evangelical baker is fined into bankruptcy, the last Catholic hospital or adoption agency is closed by an A.C.L.U. lawsuit." Splendid. I like the analysis but I wonder how close Mr. Douthat is to a confession that conservatism is not merely stressed, but is collapsing of its own rabid hypocrisies. It's not just the politics: it's the interconnected world, the global village, the well-traveled and the sophisticated that will finally bury it.
1
The most cynical thing about this so called kerfuffle among the right is that it doesn't remotely follow what Jesus and the Apostle Paul did to spread Christianity. When Paul travelled into a city he would go to the largest meeting place, and make his best effort to spread the good news. If he was met with a positive response he would establish a local church. If he hit a road block he would leave and shake the dust from his coat. There were no instructions to take over the school board, get believers into the congress, and there were no instructions to take control of government to enforce belief, It was a free gift that could be freely embraced or rejected. The Irony of the religous right is that they do not have enough faith that the message of Christ is enough, they feel they need control of government to make people believe. They point to the decrease of people attending their churches and instead of examining their own shortcomings they cling to the lie that they need control Of Washington DC to spread the word. Jesus wept.
9
Dear NYT, In 3 years you have convinced exactly 3 citizens who voted for don (sic) to switch sides. His followers wont budge. Probably the spread will be 48/52 right to the election. Why? Because you All had it so wrong the first time, I suggest, try something different? Clock is running.
1
Pompous writing.
10
@KS
Well said!
1
No one cares about conservatives’ endless, pointless self serving me rations about how to trick the public. Nytimes readers aren’t interested. If we want to watch FOX news, we’ll do so, but otherwise spare us the phony Republican propaganda.
6
The Conservative/Republican/Evangelical movement in America is a throwback to the 1950's, financed by a large group of billionaires who wish Jim Crow was still the law of the land. Their view that Christian Sharia law be enacted and that those who oppose them should just "shut up and sit down if you know what's good for you" attitude is their driving force. All these new "conservatives" have managed to do is redefine fascism and push for a police state. Kakistocracy is the term needed, or "governance by the worst". But I prefer defining the new conservatism as putting lipstick on a pig.
8
How many conservatives can dance on the head of a tax cut?
These intellectual gymnastics about conservatism and Trump are nonsense. The Republican Party is interested in power for power's sake and enriching themselves. The party's elected officials have no interest in serving the public or maintaining the country's standing in the world. So-called Trumpism has no moral or intellectual foundation. To attempt to give it one is folly. Trumpism is simply a policy of 'What is best for Donald Trump and his sycophants.'
It funny to listen to this 'debate' when conservatism has sold its soul to the devil in exchange for an amoral president and some court appoints.
Sorry conservatives, the devil doesn't refund your soul once you realize what you lost.
10
Reading this column made me think I was back to the old reductio ad absurdum question about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Ross Douthat, the Jesuitical wool-gatherer par excellence, has outdone himself in trying to parse the differences among this gang of Luddites and morality-free charlatans. By the time I got to "post-fusion conservatives" (huh?) I cried, "Uncle!"
9
as an outsider to this, its hard to take seriously any of the "conservative" strains of thought as they all seem so hypocritical: "small government" but support for using the power of government to force women to bear children against their will; "government closest to the people" is best but support for pre-empting local attempts to boost minimum wages, help immigrants etc; support for "free markets" but vast subsidies for favored industries (guns, big agriculture etc) conservative means "prudent" but support for a crapshoot with our atmosphere rater than controlling climate change emissions; belief in "family values" buy all out support for Trump and his history of sexual assault, philandering etc. The movement in effect is really just about helping the rich and powerful
9
How in the world Christians (or other religious) can square the main aspects of the ideology outlined in the first paragraph is beyond me. "a hawkish foreign policy..business interests and ambitious American-empire builders..." and...the Gospel of John?
Do these deep conservative thinkers ever consider where an issue like health care falls in terms of their ideology? Or for that matter, food stamps? That's an actual question, not just a rhetorical one.
9
As usual, many strawmen and strange definitions.
Here's one: "Conservatism" now means forcing your religious beliefs and prejudices on everyone else.
All this is fruit of the poisonous tree Justice Stevens pointed out 30 years ago; forget the 14th amendment, it's an attack on the Establishment Clause itself. How is allowing the laws of one of the three Abrahamic Gods, as interpreted only by some of his sects no less, being forced into our secular laws "conservative"?
Seems to me to be the opposite.
8
The "conservative intellectual world" you blithely speak of could fit on the head of a pin. They will announce their opinion when Trump gives it to them. Conservatism is morally, ethically, and politically bankrupt. See: McConnell, Mitch; Ryan, Paul; Trump, All...
6
I am a Jew. I do not however believe in the God of most Christians, Molems or Jews. I do however believe in the Bible but I believe its allegorical and poetic truths.
Today's op-ed is a perfect place to begin Torah studies.
The question is, If someone has never tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil can he still be a man?
2
Any conservative political philosophy that in any way supports, excuses or tries to accommodate dreadful characters like Donald Trump is doomed to failure. He is a man without a philosophy, a world view, a sense of history, or a modicum of empathy for anyone besides himself.
Ross might be better served if he were to focus attention on the conservative movement post-Trump. Will it be led by Pence? Rubio? Hawley? The American Catholic Church? Steve King?
Hard to say right now, viewed from the ditch of what used to be an honorable, participating political party but is now a loose amalgamation of anti-government extremists who want to control the private lives of women.
4
Mr. Douthat, I love your self-affirming, transparent view that liberals are so staunchly against pluralism and compromise that social conservatives, with their focus on Roe v. Wade, traditional marriage, and Christian religious hegemony, are better for our society.
I'd like to point out to you Mr. Douthat that the social conservatives you champion are far more uncompromising, judgmental, opinionated, autocratic, and inflexible than progressives. Some examples: no abortion under any circumstance; a family must be headed by a man and a woman; no one with a sexuality other than the more common heterosexual one has any privacy rights; religion should be taught in schools, but only if it's Christianity; Arabic numerals have no place in this country's schools; indeed, nothing of Arabic origin should taint our white Christian culture, etc. Anyone with an open mind and a modicum of intelligence can see through these arguments.
It is astounding to me social conservatives can't see the hypocrisy in their view of the world. If social conservatives really want to engage Black voters they will have to confront their own deep-seated racism for one (anti-Muslim rhetoric is part of it, just look at Africa), their inflexible view of the definition of a family, their ignorant certainty that abortion of any kind must be banned, and that everyone can pull themselves out of poverty by their own bootstraps, racism having nothing to do with poverty.
This type of conservatism has no place here.
4
Can't wait for the upcoming GOP demographic apocalypse, when we can stop caring what the extreme right-wing wants.
2
I like David French and read National Review every day and am a paying subscriber.
French brings an important voice to the debate, but did fall down the media-inspired rabbit hole on the whole Trump Russia Collusion Coup.
At the same time, he aspires for a more civil discourse between left and right, failing to acknowledge that Ground Zero in this huge issue was a Democrat driven ObamaCare...where using a rigged election recount in MN (Franken - 8 recounts) gave Harry Reid 60 Senators for a very short time (before Kennedy-MA was replaced by Brown) to shove through the biggest piece of legislation in American history under "Reconciliation."
This was out and out terrorism on the American people...and it cost 70 moderate Democrats their seats in the House and Senate..let alone untold #'s of State House, Senate and Governorships for Democrats who dared say ObamaCare was a good thing.
If the other side starts the war, you don't let your boot off his throat until he surrenders unconditionally.
And yes...for those of you regular NYT readers..we are in a war right now. A cultural and political cold war that cannot tolerate concessions..only total defeat.
You don't want to give an inch on abortion? That's your right, but there's a price to pay for it.
You want to raise taxes in the middle class? That's your right (as Biden announced today), but there's a price to pay for it.
You want to shove cultural wedge issues down our throat? Go ahead, but be prepared for major pushback
3
Who gets to keep the most money.
3
"The consensus that the manifesto came to bury belonged to conservatism as it existed between the time of William F. Buckley Jr. and the rise of Donald Trump: An ideology that packaged limited government, free markets, a hawkish foreign policy and cultural conservatism together, and that assumed that business interests and religious conservatives and ambitious American-empire builders belonged naturally to the same coalition."
You left out the part about lying to the people about economic data like the so-called Laffer curve, about tax cuts being a stimulus to the economy, about science being the stuff that's true even if you don't believe it, and that women are more harmed by abortion than by child bearing and rearing. That's which vineyard in which the so called conservatives have been toiling since Wm. F. Buckley's time.
2
The Republicans have been anti-family for as long as I've been alive. They are against anything that would give people some sense of security in their lives. It doesn't matter what faction, old or new, they have been against raising the minimum wage, against family leave, against equal pay for women, against subsidized child care, against universal health care and they have always wanted to change social security.
4
Douthat and the various conservative factions are either ignorant of, or entirely oblivious to, reality. Namely, they may hold political power, but they lost the war of ideas a long time ago.
The only two reasons conservatives wield any political power and are even in the frame are money and racism. The first keeps their ideas front and center even though there's minimal popular support. The second motivates their base. Religion figures in as well, but generally, it's racism that brought people to conservatives--take a look at the Evangelical movement; it's largely rooted in the white flight from public schooling post Brown vs. Board of Ed.
Conservatives, even Republicans, certainly don't have the support of the population. Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have managed to win pluralities in presidential elections only twice, in 1988 and 2004. That's a 12% success rate.
It is thus no surprise that Republicans have turned to gerrymandering, voter suppression, and anti-immigrant animus to keep their increasingly tenuous hold on power.
Likewise, it's no surprise that many would embrace Trump, who drums up fear and plays to the aggrieved feelings of the conservative base.
Despite the lack of popular support, conservatives have lots of money and are currently in power, power many conservatives will use any means to keep, and for that reason alone, absurd debates within the conservative movement are worthy of attention.
1
Me Douthat should read David Brook’s Essay today: that is much more on point and the conservative movement, in spite of its iron grip on government today, will only continue to fall under more and more stress as demographics work against it.
How can you I crease your pool when you spend your entire time alienating those whom you need I. Order to succeed?
2
Mr. Douthat makes the underlying assumption that the new conservative coalition is at its core a democratic movement, i.e. committed to persuading voters in an open marketplace of ideas in the context of free and fair voting for political leaders that is open to all citizens.
This assumption is not supported by the evidence at hand, and well-meaning conservatives such as Mr. Douthat should consider the possibility that the ‘new’ right is an explicitly anti-democratic, white supremacist movement that will choose authoritarianism and the destruction of democratic institutions in pursuit of an imagined white, Christian norm.
In short: wake up. Look around: Trump, Orban, Putin. Let’s call fascism, white supremacism and authoritarianism by their names. The question of our time is, which side are you on?
14
@Brian, as the polling figures in David Brooks’s piece today indicate, authoritarianism is the right’s only hope for maintaining its hegemony.
5
Mr. Douthat comports himself rather strangely here. He gives us two models of conservatism, neither of which is quite working for conservatives anymore, and then seems to ponder, vaguely, what else might work. Here is my answer - Nothing. Social conservatism is failing on an increasing scale because it presumes to judge the lives of those who don't adhere to its principles, and in many cases asks the government to do the same. Unless a person's behaviors are causing direct harm to others, there is no inherent basis for judging him or her. Social conservatives will never accept this, but it is an increasingly shared value among Americans. Fiscal conservatives are also too often unable to see a social safety net as anything other than hardworking people rewarding lazy people. Inequality of opportunity does not seem to be a possible or justifiable premise for this safety net among fiscal conservatives. The uncompromising belief that "The Government" and its works are by their very nature harmful, or at least inefficient, also goes unquestioned in spite of a woeful lack of evidence to that effect. This moralizing, often intolerant, often bigoted world view is held by an ever-shrinking percentage of America. Mr. Douthat swims in pedantic circles to try to figure, or at least gesture, his way out of this conundrum for conservatives. What he never seems to consider is that conservatism fails because it is inherently corrosive. It fails because it is inherently inhumane.
14
Government powers should be limited to those necessary to enable a flourishing populace. Unfortunately, once the reality of climate change is accepted, the historical "libertarian" view must yield to the reality that only government intervention, or super-governmental regulation, will address the disaster now taking place. (It's not just climate change, either, it's ecological collapse, but no need to muddy the waters.)
Conservatives need to accept this. If they don't, it really won't matter whether they care more about abortion or low taxes.
6
@mitchtrachtenberg
Not to worry. There is a "market solution" to the problem.
A true new conservatism would repeal Social Security and Medicare as "failed" liberalism. Just wait for that to happen!! All those farmers who voted for Trump would suddenly change their minds.
2
Conservatives are having an internal debate about whether we should be a theocracy or an oligarchy. Great. Let us know what you decide.
706
@EPI
You said it better in one sentence than Douthat said it in a whole essay.
104
@EPI
I asked Putin. He of the Theocratic Oligarchy of Russia. He answered, just like Doublemint his Russia is two nations in one. On one hand Russia is officially Russian Orthodox in word and deed but on the other hand oligarchy allows amorality to come to the fore as needed.
45
@EPI - "whether we should be a theocracy or an oligarchy."
However it is the ones wanting a kleptocracy that seem to be winning the debate.
61
Mr. Douthat is writing about a tiny group of conservative intellectuals debating the political equivalent of the number of angels who can fit on the head of a pin while ignoring -- perhaps to mix metaphors -- the elephant in the room whenever there's a discussion of the modern GOP/conservative movement. That would be racism. There is a straight line from the Dixiecrats in 1948 to Goldwater's ascension in the South after his vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act to Nixon's Southern Strategy to Reagan's starting his campaign in Philadelphia, Miss. and his welfare queens driving Cadillacs to George H.W. Bush's Willie Horton that leads right to "good people on both sides" and Mexico is sending us rapists. While some in the GOP talked of classical conservatism vs. compassionate conservatism, etc., the base of that party simply looked for the signs that its candidates were still on the wrong side of the race issue and voted accordingly. It's a schism that's always been there in American politics -- for one party or the other -- Trump has simply taken off the covers and let all see it. Anyone who does not run in the other direction is showing which side of that schism they are on. The problem is that many GOP leaders know their party disappears without these voters so they keep trying to put the covers back on. But Trump keeps ripping them off. And that's what conservatives are actually debating.
8
Conservatism is supposed to conserve institutions, not destroy them. Today's Republican party is not conservative. It is reactionary.
10
So what I get from this is conservative "thinkers" are debating about how to return to the 50's land of 'never was'.
One side is for 'stuff it down their throats' (inquisition anyone?) the other via convincing people who abandoned the 'good old day's as not so good.
As they continue this type of angels dancing on pins fantasies, the world literally begins to burn about their ears.
Perhaps they should realize that an actual majority of their fellows aren't buying into a faith that seems to be more interested in persecuting the 'other' than succoring the sick and the needy?
3
...But what if “Dr. Evil,” (aka, DJT) “implicates” (op cit) more and more “followers,” (op cit)...?
Then, I say it’s all over for everybody. No more liberals or conservatives. Just Trump. Don’t forget, it’s been done before, and it can happen again, right here and right now.
The only answer is to Constitutionally remove DJT, and then punish him with the utmost severity. Then and only then can we return to whatever politics we choose.
Is thinking that politics should be solving waning religious affiliations even something that should be considered by people who swear to uphold the constitution?
5
Limited government does not go together with free markets, cultural conservatism, or a hawkish foreign policy. Free markets by their very nature are transitory because the end of competition is winning and thereby reducing challengers to petty annoyances rather than real threats. Free markets also develop whatever cultural products are profitable. And a hawkish foreign policy demands a military-industrial complex whose parts work together to maximize the resources taken from the rest of the economy before they perhaps bitterly compete over these spoils and perhaps agree to split them.
A hawkish foreign policy defends our business interests, not our values. This is why we are still allied with the country that was the source and supporter of the ideology that got us 9/11.
What populism can give the people without threatening business leadership of the economy is just enough bread to keep them from revolting, along with lots of circuses and awe-inspiring spectacles. A war or two will generate jobs (make-war jobs are the most popular sort of make-work jobs), soak up excess population, provide a very effective spectacle, and give a reason for cracking down on dissidents .
American conservatives dream of a conservatism that is not Franco or George Wallace. Such a conservatism, if possible at all, will be as ephemeral as the free market that created Standard Oil, JPMorgan, Microsoft, and Facebook. Only powerful and uncorrupted government can keep free markets alive.
4
It's nice to see that some people are still trying to put an intellectual framework around the naked racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, militarism and corporatism that form today's so-called conservatism. But while they are debating whether it's more important to remove people's health care, or to discriminate against LGBTQ folks, some of us are trying to keep our democracy intact while it's under assault by a blatantly corrupt cabal of con artists. I'd like to see some of these so-called conservatives actually try to conserve our country.
13
"But a more assertive social conservatism would also pursue... stronger state interventions in the economy on behalf of socially conservative ends."
Therein lies conservative's biggest con - they aren't pro-small government, they're anti-liberal government. And really, Ross, the 34 -isms and 20+ -ists in your essay can't dress this simple fact up - conservatives are just plain anti-liberal. You are defined by what you are against, not what you stand for.
Also, welcome to the developed world - people want less religion, fewer kids, more freedom and time, and high-quality lives enshrined in the common good. Unfortunately, your philosophy preaches working against all of that. I hope the American people begin see just how much of a threat both of your conservative philosophies really are to the lives they enjoy.
8
Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
6
Just an editorial casually positing that a valid form of conservative philosophy is Christian Male Authoritarianism.
4
The main mover here, however, is the failure of Reaganomics, of supply-side economics, the failure of GOP and centrist economic policy, the failure of austerity in Europe, where they have mimicked the Americans, and the resulting down slide of the working class, and squeeze on the middle class.
3
To all of this article I say...look at the Conservative "Canon", it is all a bunch of Men...Women are either ignored, invisible, a management problem and or decided for. The Evangelicals et. al have a 19th Century version of women and so they continue to stay stuck while the majority of American society and Democracy itself evolves.
6
@Nicky AMEN! I just posted a comment saying something similar.
Saying everything is really a city/county/state issue is like saying we should be like old-school Europe. Get real. Further fracking of our national identity is a truly awful idea.
The Federal government can take advantage of states rights by not deciding anything and outsourcing its responsibilities to the states. At the state level, nothing gets done either. Budgets are stretched beyond the limits, this stupid right-wing ideal of no one should pay taxes gets more oxygen, and pretty soon no one can pay to fix anything.
Federal government should set the laws for the country. It is stupid to have 50+ ways to handle abortion, for example. We are creating ways to have civil wars by trying to go back in time. STOP IT. Government has a real role in society. We all have to abide by the laws, but making more laws to fit the day's psychology and expecting people to migrate to places where their biases rule is destroying democracy.
8
Why not "primary" Donald Trump in 2020? Run a few candidates up the flagpole and see what happens. Who will fit the bill? Rand Paul? Marco? Schwartz from Starbuck's fame? Mad Dog Mattis? Nikki Haley? Cannot you come up with someone, if only to make the point? Or how about a conservative cry for Impeachment? It certainly is deserved.
3
Conservative “intelligentsia” are found solely in the gilded ghettos of conservative think tanks. Conservatism is far too close-minded to debate the intellectual accomplishments that conservatives call leftist and what the rest of us call scholarship in the open give-and-take of universities.
Conservative think tanks are funded by conservative “philanthropists” and corporatists to generate and/or support positions that support whatever agendas the payers are currently pushing. Conservatives in think tanks even give themselves academic-sounding titles, like children playing house.
Conservative intelligentsia is a contradiction of terms.
5
I like Mr. Douthat, but his columns seem less and less relevant to anything that, like, matters. This attempt to figure out some hairsplitting argument going on among conservatives is so far down in the weeds, even as the entire conservative project including the Republican Party is consumed with rampant corruption. (I'm saying this as a former long-time Republican who worked in the Bush 41 administration).
4
Conservatives are not debating it is neoliberals and theocrats that are debating. It was Jonathan Swift the mainstay of the Church of Ireland whose Modest Proposal showed us the banality of evil and the obscenity of neoliberalism and ethics and values rooted in humanity and an ethos of doing good.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton was a conservative, humourist and statesman of the early 19th century. Haliburton summed up the GOP in his famous quote "When a man is wrong and won't admit it he always gets angry."
How sad that America's leader is such an angry person?
4
I worry that conservatives no longer believe in liberal democracy and are thinking of replacing our system with some kind of authoritarian one.
7
This, sir, is a forgone conclusion. Where have you been?
Conservatives are concerned with the liberal policies that the Democrats are proposing or have proposed. Conservatives want to restrict abortion hoping one day to overturn roe v Wade. They are outraged that abortion has been allowed up until birth with no qualms about taking the life of the unborn.
They want to prevent the green new deal from becoming the law of the land which will cost our country billions if implemented. People will not approve once they see the exorbitant cost to them. They also want to stop the flow of illegal immigrants that are flowing into our country that the Democrats are denying is occurring. These illegals have been coming by the caravan loads with no end in sight. It is not beneficial to our country or citizens who are being affected negatively by this influx.
The conservatives want to stop the left wing liberal policies that the newly elected Democrats are pushing on us. They do not care that these will bankrupt our country and cause turmoil which we will never recover from. The taxes to pay for these proposals will be exorbitant for most Americans but the Democrats are known for tax and spend. They do not care that it will hurt our country. They are clueless and must be stopped.
1
It’s interesting that there’s a claim of “bankrupting the country” when the budgetary policies promulgated by McConnell et al have radically increased our deficits and our national debt.
Let’s add that the Green New Deal is and never was more than a road map. It’s simple. You either believe, as the vast, indeed overwhelming, majority of responsible scientistsillions die do (at least those not financed by the carbon-based fuel industries) and you examine the evidence. Or you stick your head in the sand and follow the idiocracy, which you and the Republican Party (bought and paid for by Koch etc). And if you’re wrong? So millions die, large areas of our coastlines are drowned and climates continue to get less and less habitable. Or as responsible adult nations do, we could take palliative measures.
And illegal immigrants? Liberals recognize their existence. By the way there have been illegals since between the wars. And, no Democrats are not advocating open borders. Clinton didn’t, Obama didn’t and the Democratic platform won’t either, despite the lies Trump tells and you lap up. And illegal immigrants aren’t “rapists and narco-terrorists. Actually they’re less violence prone than the indigenous population. Do you think cutting off aid to Central American countries, weakening their governments thus increasing lawlessness helps?
Then again if you are supporting the unindicted co-conspirator, the habitual breaker of legal and moral codes, you welcome increased lawlessness!
2
The writer blythely describes what amounts to a chauvinistic world-view in terms that make them seem reasonable. But what he describes is a movement that, self-centered and resentful, wants to capture the state to force the rest of the world to serve its cultural world view and economic interests. And, because we all tend to think everyone else behaves as we do, for the same reasons, they see the world as their mirror image- they see their interlocutors as engaged in a no holds barred, ethically bereft struggle for supremacy. So, anything goes- jail your opponents, steal elections, undermine institutions. Just win.
This is truly frightening for human freedom. The writer weakly builds a barrier of words between this movement and the success of our current president. But the fact of the matter is, most constituents of this new conservativism aren't sophisticated enough to understand president Trump as he does, or, more probably, they just don't care. If you don't believe me, then how did he get elected? How is it that his base is so firm? The fact of the matter is that cultural chauvinism has always formed a key pillar to fascist politics. And. while it would be an exageration to say we are well on the road to fascism, I'm sickened to say we have some of the key ingredients.
This man must be defeated in November 2020.
3
What Are Conservatives Actually Debating? Who cares?
2
I find Douthat's and Ramesh Ponnuru's confusion over what the debate is about, confusing. It seems pretty clear from the 5th-8th paragraphs of Ahmari's essay and the last 3 of French's response: the debate is over how much to hate people you disagree with. Ahmari wants to rationalize his impulse to view contemporary politics as a war against a reviled enemy, namely liberals; French views politics as an opportunity to argue with and persuade fellow citizens, and views Ahmari's attitude as dangerous nonsense. Most of the ideas discussed in this column seem fairly tangential to that main point.
6
Before making pronouncements on how to improve society, pundits should spend six months with each of six households of one or more persons, which are culturally, religiously, economically, and socially different from each other and where the pundits would mostly listen and take notes and keep their mouths shut.
3
This version of an activist Social Conservative reality is completely at odds with freedom of speech, freedom of religion, civil rights and other Constitutional principles. Why don't all of you all move to Guyana or Iran where you will be happier?
3
Who would know what the debate was about? Conservatives have been yelling in an echo chamber for decades. There is no real dialogue. Oh and the line about "conservative intellectual circles" was really rich...thanks Ross. I needed that.
2
omg.
I'm just so sick to death of men debating conservatism and abortion rights.
There are no women you could consider bringing into the debate?
Really?
3
"Conservatives," as such, are a tiny intellectual minority bolstered by big-money donors that believe conservative principles will help them extract more money and a cadre of retrograde racists and xenophobes.
Those two constituencies give conservatives far greater reach than either their numbers or their intellectual contributions deserve.
2
I think David has missed the point of what is actually driving Ahmari. Ahmari is primarily concerned with this bone deep feeling he has that his side is losing. He isn't concerned about the current state of politics in America. Instead he strongly feels that American culture is leaving behind his ideas and ideals. And his ideas and ideals are obsessions about sexual mores. Specifically trans people. He even admits that the article he wrote came about after he saw a story of a trans person reading to children at a library.
And he is right. The American people in general, despite Trump and his monstrous base, are becoming more tolerant of homosexual and trans people, and other sexual deviations from the historical norm. To Ahmari, this development feels like a route, that his vision of society is being utterly destroyed.
Ahmari conflates his obsessions with Christianity and now begins to feel as if Christianity itself is under siege. A lot of people are in Ahmari's boat. They take their particular peccadillo, be it sexual obsessions or the abortion debate, and transmute it into an attack upon all of Christianity. This has been the character of the vocal right Christian community for at least the past 40 years, in response to the sexual revolution.
Ironically these obsessions have rendered Christianity obsolete. Instead of adhering to calls of compassion and dignity in scripture, Christianity has been stripped of those concepts and soiled, and cannot win modern converts.
3
Conservative intellectuals eating their own - delicious.
3
Referring to Evangelical extremists as social conservatives appears to be an attempt to avoid the fundamental issue. There is a segment of this country that would abandon the principle of religious freedom, including atheism, in favor of a state established biblical law and a kind of liberty they prefer but without liberty for those who don't share their particular religious philosophical view. This isn't unique to the U.S. either. We see a kind of religious fundamentalist backlash against liberalism occurring elsewhere.
This is an old human temptation. We at the world around us and see evils perpetrated by other human beings and institutions we think fail society. Some react by wishing a return to an age and a kind of societal control exercised by what is just a different sort of authority - the church without also recalling the evils perpetrated by the great world religions upon non believers or other sects.
What has remained unique about the U.S. is among other things the principle of religious liberty and the separation of state. This I earnestly hope if preserved.
2
Douthat's deepest and unspoken desire is for a Christian State.
Just say it, Ross.
7
Let me make a stab at this for you:
Your basic problem is that 'conservatives' only talk about 'ideas.' You never talk about people.
Listen. FDR put people to work, Civil Rights made people (somewhat) equal, Social Security made people feel secure, Medicare gave relief to old people needing medical care, feminism moved women forward, gay rights finally got homosexuals like Mr. Buttigieg out of the closet and into government positions--all these things involved improving people's lives---the GOP wants nothing to do with any of that.
Your 'ideas' are always the same: no government 'of the people,' the wealthy deserve to be rich and run things--the rest of you should just go to church on Sunday and shut up. Be happy with crumbs.
You know what that is? That's Saudi Arabia. You're always wanting to turn civilization into Saudi Arabia and the rest of the religious countries where a small fraction of the population hold the wealth and the rest had better just shut up about it.
You managed to get people to vote for this nonsense for forty years....and you ended up with Donald Trump. What an achievement!
So, now you have this new 'conservative' idea that government needs to intervene in our lives big-time so people will feel prosperous and cared-for enough--then you can go back to telling them to go to church on Sunday and just shut up.
You conservatives are just so thick. It's unreal. Go ahead--think yourselves into utter irrelevance.
8
Except for the comments about ‘white males’ the article doesn’t mention racism ... a strong ingredient in Trump’s allure ... why?
1
"Conservatives"? "Fusionists"? "Post-fusionists"?
Sounds of 'the furies' (with plenty of vengeance, but 'not much' female -- and nothing 'like' deities) signifying nothing.
2
How attractive is this new populist conservative coalition? After excluding African Americans, Jews, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddists, LGBTQ, most educated women, most young people who is left? This coalition is only effective at demonizing the above people as well as traditional conservatives and of course the hated liberals. It worked in 2016 but probably is not a lasting solution to America's political polarization.
1
I appreciate that Mr. Douthat has a lot he wants to say to us. Some people are just in the business of writing for a living, they expand and complicate matters under their consideration in accordance with Parkinson's Law: The amount of work to be done expands to fill up the time (space) allotted for doing it. In fact the philosophy of the right is perfectly simple and it would probably attract more adherents if succinctly expressed: Self-responsibility--as opposed to unproductive leftist responsibility-shifting. Why is leftist parasitic responsibility and cost transfer to productive people tolerated, even rewarded? Numbers--there are too many leftist spongers to be ignored, they have to be bought-off to prevent them from disrupting the social, legal and economic structures and procedures needed by productives to make it possible for them to do constructive work; it really has nothing to do with race, gender, religion or class.
2
Since I believe myself to be a productive person with a home who is surrounded by thousands of homeless I must therefore pay the city an extortionate amount of my income in property tax to keep from having to step in fecal matter on the way to store. If that is the basis of shifting personal responsibilities it doesn’t work in SF and I don’t see it working elsewhere either.
The liberal left has always identified problems and thrown my tax money at it with little success or effectiveness. The problem just grows bigger and they double down again and again.
The conservative must stay flexible and strong by identifying problems and solving them with more innovation and less tax money. They must adapt to remedies that prove their effectiveness.
The conservative will not win the race not by outlawing abortions but by the eliminating the need for people to seek them. My conservative friends roll up their sleeves and step up for their pregnant children with financial assistance. They have stopped sending their kids to homes for unwed mothers and having their grandchildren adopted out. My liberal friends will give you a ride to the clinic and maybe a shoulder to cry on with a promise that it will get better.
What do conservatives debate? Not much right now except the ways to save their beloved Republicsan Party from the monsters they created to seize and hold power - the Tea Party and Trump.....
Good luck with that....our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Very entertaining for us liberals to watch the conservatives run around on the deck of their sinking ship like the poor ship rats do. They succumb to their own virulence.
The reason that "social conservatives" keep losing is that there aren't enough stupid people in the US to fall for their con.
The social cons use buzz words like "liberty" to try to disguise their ultimate goal: to force a theocratic existence on the population, where everyone is forced to live according to the cons' religious beliefs and remove everyone who does not submit to their whims from the public sphere.
3
As usual, every time I read one of Mr. Douthat’s columns, I walk away thinking “Whatever happened to the separation of Church and State?”
7
The Democrats sanity?
Conservatism in our time has depended on a partnership between plutocrats and theocrats. However, the Medevial era is long over in the West, and theocrats are the junior partners in this arrangement. Theocrats were once of greater use to plutocrats when religious moral codes served to compel workers to have large families, reducing worker mobility and bargaining power, and to focus workers on rewards in the next world, encouraging docility. Businesses no longer profit from traditional family structures, and businesses with national or global scope, versus local or regional ones, certainly don’t profit from supporting conservative theocratic mores or laws. For all his evident conservative erudition, Douthat can’t seem to recognize that in this world money always wins.
1
With an insistence on legally enforced ideological conformity and state intervention on behalf of corporations, all in an ethno-nationalist framework of resentments, this “New Conservatism” of which you speak sound suspiciously like old fashioned fascism.
4
The embrace of vile, corrupt Trump by any ostensibly moralistic movement is immediately and fully self-defeating in its grotesque hypocrisy.
“The end justifies any means” might be recognized by Machiavelli, von Klausewitz or (more likely) Stalin and Pol Pot, but it sure isn’t Christian.
Enough!
3
Classical Liberals have always feared the day when the religious faction of society would attempt a theocracy. We have seen this in the further and further extremes to which the Right moves. Seeing it actually considered and apologized for in the articles in First Things that the author links to, is probably the most frightening thing I have ever seen. And make no mistake. This is where "Conservative Democracy" ends: in a theocracy. Christian Sharia.
What conservatism is now debating has no different destination than the use of various forms of force to create such a theocracy. And this is all because they have defined living in peace with their neighbours who don't believe as they do, to be the "disintegration of society".
It is their reaction to living in such pluralism which has, in fact, caused our current societal instability. They have embarked on multiple forms of civil war: cultural civil war and the use of the law to strike at their neighbours.
Ross, this slide into reasoned barbarism is the reason we've fought against conservatism all these years. We knew that history might repeat itself, and eventually they would tire of playing democracy and start down the path to ending our lives.
3
I'm curious how a government so small you could drown it in a bathtub can possibly protect the border.
3
So, all of you hypocritical "religious conservatives" just want to be as privileged as possible to discriminate against the people you disdain through tax exemptions for your Catholic Hospitals, Universities, adoption agencies to your heart's content no matter the Constitution, the law, and any dictionary definition of morality? Gosh, what a lovely bunch you are. Good luck to you all, you've sure done the rest of society immeasurable good.
3
The core issue of the debate is how can they retain political power in the face of demographic change and sell their positions to the young. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/opinion/republicans-generation-gap.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
1
You have said nothing new. These arguments are recycled "oh, everything will be fine if government will just get out of the way' neoliberalism dressed up and reworded. But not new.
The one thing that unites "conservatives" is a steadfast refusal to see the world as it is lived by ordinary people. You are moral scolds who believe profoundly that if everyone were just like you, everything would just be peachy. You have no compassion and that makes all your religious blather your enduring badge of hypocracy and your politics cruel to the point of criminality. You are counting imaginary Reagans dancing on the head of pins. When you stare into the abvyss, it's Trump that stares back at you.
2
"How are you going to persuade more African-American Christians to support what seems like a white-chauvinist formation?"
'Seems"?
1
Yawn. No one cares. The Times devotes precious space to a conservative's take on the nuances of conservative ideological infighting. Meanwhile, the officials and judges that conservatives have empowered are destroying our institutions, making climate change worse and fostering racist policies.
2
The problem is that what the post fusionists and frenchists both want is not what most people want! Instead of twisting themselves into knots on economic policy debates they should just throw in the towel and join the Democrats. That takes care of the economic populist aspect.
Now the socially conservative apart from the religious right, who are these people? Even if you're anti gay marriage or antiabortion, these are just two single issues. When you take it out of the culture war silos what exactly then is socially conservative?
1
Thoughts of a 71 yr. old retired military white guy raised in conservative republican upstate NY.
The dilemma for the builders of a new conservatism is that the old conservatism never practiced what they preached. Conservatives have created large deficits whenever they are in power, then assaulted programs intended to help children, the poor, and seniors while preaching the need for fiscal conservatism. Said differently, conservatives have consistently taken money from programs that helped children, the poor, the elderly and the middle class and redirected that money to create a corporate welfare system that supports the lifestyle of the1%.
Trump is not an aberration, he is the manifestation of conservatism actions since the coming of Saint Reagan, the purveyor contemporary conservatism. The great patriots of the republican party have worked hard to suppress the vote, engage in gerrymandering, or rig elections like in North Carolina. The current project of these great conservative patriots is to corrupt the census in an effort to supper charge voter suppression so that the conservative stacking of the courts can be completed.
There is no new conservatism, what Ross is rally talking about is nothing more than a concerned effort to rebrand the republican/conservative party. Now that is something the party leader, Trump, can help with, after all Trump has lots of experience with rebranding because of his endless stream of business failures
17
I found this article interesting. Although it tends to oversimplify conservatism in an attempt to make it easier to digest (which we all do), there are some valid points here. I am also fascinated by the comments and see a lot of fear here while several commenters call out fear and ignorance amongst conservatives. I think we have to be careful not to support an exclusionist "inclusive" culture by rejecting ideas that we don't understand or that don't gel with our world view.
When we indicate that conservative and religious ideals are backwards, lack a basis in current scientific understanding, or are at least "yesterday's news", and are thus unworthy of consideration or even tolerance, we're losing the inclusiveness that progressive society prides itself on, and which most religious and conservative people agree with. I think we're not as different as some emotion-filled posts would persuade us to believe.
As long as this finger pointing continues (conservatives and liberals are both guilty of this)--as long as there is this sense of "them and us" and a feeling that it would be impossible to live with those who think differently than ourselves, our society will continue to degrade. Public discourse will continue to suffer, and as a result the ideas will be absent that we so badly need in our country to continue to progress together.
2
When one group tries to impose its will on another by basing laws on what are essentially fairy tales, there is no longer any room for “discourse”. There is only room for resistance by any and all means.
When you boil it down, the conservative movement today is only about power and money. They want the power to dictate how we all live our lives, while making sure the elite wealth owners in this country continue to get wealthier and contribute to the Republican party.
There is no true intellectual core that ties Conservatism together anymore because the various strands now make no sense together. A true Conservative cannot want “government out of our lives” but then demand that women not be able to make choices about their bodies. A true Conservative cannot spout about entrepreneurs and business opportunity and then sit by while government economic and tax policies allow 40% of the wealth of the country (and growing) to be accumulated by 1% of the population. A true Conservative cannot go on about “free markets” when the GOP has become the party of tariffs. And a true Conservative cannot talk about expanding democracy and freedom abroad while we retreat from our international obligations and betray our allies.
So, Ross, keep writing your intellectual analyses of Conservatism. However, they should be couched as literary criticism, because Conservatism as a political movement today is just fiction.
11
Conservatives have traditionally upheld the wisdom of the 'natural order', resisting calls to use the levers of government for social engineering. This is a key element of Hayek's thinking, for example.
How ironic that Ahmari now seems to advocate the use government social engineering to protect a social order that has changed. In fact, today's conservatives, of the kind Ahmari represents, are reactionaries: scared, angry, and desperate to preserve a social order they thought to be inviolate, but that has changed. Forever.
4
“that assumed that business interests and religious conservatives and ambitious American-empire builders belonged naturally to the same coalition.”
Religion, invented by controlling males many thousands of years ago, should be completely divorced from government. It should be confined to churches, which deserve no tax concessions, and private homes.
The most religious states are the poorest and the most likely to produce teen pregnancies and divorce. It is time to remove this dangerous scourge from public life.
5
Conservatives are obsessed with sex hence their fanaticism regarding barring choice, their hated of gay rights, and their desire to control and regulate technology (shutting down all porn). They could really care less what happens economically to American families and individuals. The main goal is to install a Christian theocracy and regulate thought. Conservatives' goal equals a dystopian future right out of a Margaret Atwood novel.
4
One wing wants a fascist theocracy that will evolve into a 21st century form of communism, the other wants to exploit the world and all its resources. Gee what a choice.
6
Judging by the number of comments, it appears that most readers of the NYT are uninterested in your naval gazing .We know cruelty when we see it regardless of its shadings.
1
Yet another Times op-ed about an internecine spat between little known conservative "thinkers". Are there not more pressing issues to consider?
1
Can't understand a word of this
4
Conservatives aka white right-wing fascist nationalist European Judeo-Christian totalitarian capitalist military-industrial complex supremacists are debating how best to deter, defeat, discriminate and marginalize black, brown and yellow African, American and Asian men, women and children everywhere all of the time.
White lives matter. White lies don't matter.
4
I will even give you Texas. Break away and all of you can create your own country. But you have to agree not to ever come back.
4
I had trouble understanding " ethnonationalists " but now I see it means racist.
But, of course with Ross, it is , like trumps stooges, a 'well-meaning' christian racist.
5
So it’s hypocrisy all the way down.
Seriously, this is a pretty damning piece on the state of American Conservatives. It correctly points out that Trump supporters aren’t conservative, per se, but rather embraced some aspects as long as it fit the narrative they tried to keep alive.
The real question, not addressed here, is how Conservative intellectuals managed to fool themselves that what they believed is shared by their own base. Conservatives used the religious right, who used the white working poor, who managed to vote for politicians who served American oligarchs. Trump highlighted the fraud inherent in all of this and now you have people desperate to compartmentalize Trump the man from Trump the politician from Trump the right-wing icon.
Trump saw the con in American Conservatives and exploited it to get the prize he wanted. Suckers.
3
I question your supposition that there is any such thing as a “conservative intellectual”.
1
The dilemma for the would be builders of a “new conservative consensus” is that their church is built on a quagmire rather than a rock. They espouse liberty while trying to tell women what to do with their bodies and imposing their draconian social views on everyone against our will. They espouse trickle down economics which lacks any credibility at this point. The rich drink the fresh water while the rest of us get what trickles down through the horse. So they espouse lower taxes but don’t have the courage to cut spending because they know it’s political suicide. There’s a sweet spot for taxation and spending that can balance budgets just like the Goldilocks story. They know damn well that lower is not better here but can’t say it because they’ve painted themselves into a political corner and have signed ridiculous promises to Grover. Now the true dive into the quagmire; the Faustian bargain with Trump. When you make strange bedfellows over the decades you must lie with them and they’ve chosen a doozy. This is the immoderate mess the Republican Party finds itself in, must live with and defend. Mr. Douthat actually makes a very good case for a progressive, secular, socially liberal democracy.
Should be required reading for all women and minorities. A bunch of aggrieved white guys debating the best ways to maintain their absolute control over the rest of us. Also, why is economic populism often thrown into these discussions? The only “populism” that currently exists is nationalist and racist. Not a snowball’s chance any of these white men care to reign in Wall Street or corporations, or God forbid, address the outrageous wealth gap.
4
I used to think that John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin was the most ridiculous thing in the world - and it probably cost him the election.
Now McCain is looking pretty mavericky. He was truly a Conservative ahead of his time.
How come trying to explain conservative ideas always sounds like mumbo Jumbo talk? How come conservative "thinkers" always seem totally out of touch with reality? How come conservatives mouth one thing and behave another? How come "Christians" want to lock up immigrants, stop women's rights, reduce help to the poor, support the rich, and follow a immoral man who has done almost every sin that they are supposedly against? How come they support politicians that allow their country to sell arms that kill thousands of innocent people?
1
Please someone explain to me just one more time: How can a group of people who believe in “limited” government also believe that the government can tell women what they can do with their own bodies? Isn’t controlling a person’s physical being the very definition of a government that has unlimited power? When supposed conservatives can explain this totally illogical dichotomy to me, maybe I’ll listen to what they are saying. Until then, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites, fakes and phonies.
7
@Truie
You asked: "How can a group of people who believe in 'limited' government also believe that the government can tell women what they can do with their own bodies?"
That's pretty much the thrust of the article. Those are two different groups. The "control women's bodies" group is not the same as the "limited government" group. They're just allied. The spat at the center of the article is that the first group is feeling they aren't getting enough of what they want from the second group.
Beyond that, the "limited government" group isn't actually about limited government. Rand and Ron Paul are about as close as you get to actual libertarians (though though they aren't that close). The "limited government" group is really the "whatever serves the rich" group, they just talk about limited government because it justifies lowering taxes on the rich.
3
I deeply deplore David French-ism in all its waffling manifestations. Ha! Weaklings.
This is all nonsense.
What I more seriously want to denounces is every bit of American capital-C Conservatism, which is and (apparently) always has been a fake, pseudo-intellectual front for European racism and mixed-up religious dogma. The current exponents of this so-called "movement" are only the most clown-like in a long line of increasingly grotesque public faces for an old coalition of secretive political donors.
2
If these Christo-fascists want to live in accordance with their myths and prejudices in communes or within their private homes and then work collectively to support families and traditional role models with private efforts based on faith and private investment, all the more power to them. But, when they want to impose their minority views on the rest of us, then its a losing proposition and is a call to arms for this non-believing gay man. And when its coupled with they cruelty, hypocrisy, and incompetence of Trumpism, then its loses credibility with a large segment of the US population to the right of a guy like me.
3
It took me a while, but I realized that Douthat actually outlines three groups, not two, and his huge blind spot makes his argument difficult to follow.
Douthat tells us that the theocrats are unhappy they aren't getting enough theocracy for their votes, and that they're arguing that they can leave their unholy alliance with the oligarchs. Which is probably poor strategy because they don't have the votes by themselves.
He then asks "how are the theocrats going to appeal to minorities when the administration is so visibly racist?", and doesn't seem to realize this strongly implies a third block - the racists deeply afraid of scary brown people. Oh, sure, there's considerable overlap between the theocrats and the racists, but he's right to point out that racism isn't at all a platform of the theocrats. You can campaign on keeping women in their place without reference to skin color.
The blind spot, of course, is that Douthat doesn't seem to realize that theocratic goals alienate at least as many voters as racist ones. Like, oh, the half of humanity that happens to be female.
4
"a basically libertarian coalition, one that wants to limit the federal government’s interventions in the marketplace and expects civil society to flourish once state power is removed." Interesting that this description of conservatism makes it look like they only want government to refrain from interventions in " the marketplace. " That is, it's OK for the State, especially in consideration of religious views, to intervene in things like the abortion debate. Ross, I don't see where your emphasis on the input of religion into enabling a civil society comes from. Society can get along just fine without it. The Founders knew this and took pains to keep religion out of the affairs of government.
Reading David Brooks's column today in light of this is interesting. This conservative argument is a tempest in a rapidly-shrinking teapot as rising generations of urban/socially liberal Americans overwhelm the dwindling rural/conservative populations.
They seem to be arguing over what contortions they need to go through to have a logically consistent view of conservatism. And somehow once they get there, maybe they can enlighten enough people to win elections.
After 2.5 years of Trumpism, I'm worn down enough to throw in the towel and say: "Fine, if you can't win nationally, do what you want locally. But at the national level we will fight hard to prevent gerrymandering and voter suppression that gives you outsized influence. Elect Roy Moore, restrict abortion, suppress the vote, and so on. But do it without my tax dollars to subsidize you. Show the courage of your convictions without Medicare and Medicaid primarily funded by wealthier, more liberal states, and without subsidies to dying industries."
If people want to live impoverished lives because of their choices, that's fine. We have room on the coasts for people who don't want that. Maybe we even take some of those tax dollars that we stop sending to Alabama and Kentucky and use it to resettle "Red State refugees".
1
This post hits pretty squarely on the head of the nail.
Conservatism is a morally bankrupt ideology that idealizes greed in the pursuit of personal gain.
Mr. Douthat, to his credit, does consistently attempt to couch conservative principles in fairly reasonable language. His efforts, however, only masks that the reality that the real purpose of conservative thought is to find ways of preserving the status and wealth of those who already possess them. “What is” becomes more important than “What could be,” because the purpose is to protect “What we have.” That way is emptiness.
Why should “conserve” be the key concept? Of course we don’t want to go backward, so I suppose in that sense we ought to make sure we keep whatever gains our society has made. But the American right has always been obsessed with the myth of the idealized loner, and they have convinced themselves that somehow being a hermit with strong convictions is somehow akin to moral greatness. The Soviets, darn them, ruined the notion of collectivism, but nonetheless, humans were not designed to be live as loners in a cave (or on a horse on the lone prairie) but in communities.
We can learn from the past, certainly, but we ought to be careful about worshipping it. Republicans seemed poised to learn the dangers of that stance as history is about to slap them with a dose of reality and render them irrelevant.
1
You want to live in a culturally conservative theocracy? I hear Tehran is nice this time of year.
6
Just admit it, Douthat, there are no conservatives. Anywhere, but especially in the republican party.
What do you want, really?
There is not one serious liberal democrat anywhere in America that will try to stop you from going to Mass on Sunday or to stop you from having as many children as you want.
There are some who will try to convince you that smaller families are better for the planet. Or some who might try to convince you that the patriarchal structure of the Catholic Church is too restrictive for at least half of its congregants.
Some will try to convince you that Jesus was merely a man on a great mission of love. A mission that many so called conservative Christians have completely turned their backs on.
America's greatness has largely been the result of the give and take between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians in an effort to create a "more perfect Union".
Since the age of Nixon the republican party has tried to consolidate all the power to the wealthiest and most powerful, which is resulting in the destruction of democracy itself.
14
They are debating their fears. That's what conservatism is about these days: Fear. Fear of the other, fear of not having enough, fear of loss of control.
4
Ross, again with your obsession with female fecundity. Is it the Catholicism? Replacement births? Women’s autonomy? Or a combination of all the above. Two of my children do not want children because, student loan debt, overpopulation, low wages, less stability worldwide. Why would young people want to have children considering what the future holds with climate change, populist authoritarian leaders and uncertainty that a return to logic and smarts will ever happen. Y’all (conservatives, republicans) have driven young people away with god awful policies and name calling. Why would they trust them to do right by them considering they can’t even do the right thing for the country with the worst president they have lived under. Give it up, republicans have lost the right to ever lecture anyone about their ‘ideas” as they have demonstrated that they have none other than petty, vindictive, punch down policies.
7
Where are the women in this article? Look, if you want to live your life in a patriarchal framework- that’s your choice. It’s a free country. But you don’t get to forcibly impose that structure uniformly across the entire society and demand that government and civil institutions mirror, reify and reinforce that structure. Unfortunately, I think that’s what the core of conservativism is: a collective narcissistism with all it’s egoism, pain, cruelty and relentlessness. Contrary to conservative mythology, patriarchy is not a utopia that produces unalloyed good for all involved. In some cases, it works. In some, it doesn’t.
4
For there to be a war over David Frenchism, a sufficient number of soldiers must know who David French is, and who Sohrab Ahmari is. Sorry to say, but very few people know, and even fewer care, who these two fellow are, despite Mr. Douthat's recency bias to the contrary.
Neither of the obsolete so-called "major" parties has nominated a genuine limited government candidate since Barry Goldwater, and the 98% of legacy media outlets who supported Secretary Clinton certainly didn't do so based on her past identification as a Goldwater Girl.
1
Given that Trump hijacked the Republican Party under the banner of “conservatism,” and that religious and congressional conservatives are enabling him, this whole debate seems pretty frivolous.
3
The religious right in this country wails over their decline in social and political influence, while at the same time closely aligning themselves with overt racism, sexism, religious and nationalist bigotry. Their solution to the decline in their cultural relevance is to support the undermining of the nation's democratic values in order to compel others to obey them.... ultimately surrendering their own value structure in the pursuit of power.
6
Better to make “others” suffer more by comparison than improve your own lot in life and be content with it!
1
By the way, it’s mildly innaresting that Douthat doesn’t mention Buckley’s most famous act as a leader of American conservatives—running the bigots and Birchers out of the GOP.
Seems to me that Douthat’s Debate is really about something simple: they’re back, and they’re being welcomed.
4
At the risk of sounding argumentative, why do these cultural conservatives view themselves as "Christian"? They appear to be much less followers of Jesus than followers of old Popes. It is surprising that Mr. Douthat is still trying to figure out how to fit the square peg into the round hole. The kind of authoritarian, Old Testament, religion he seems to revere is a tool of authoritarians, however they wish to mask their heavy-handed desires.
What they seem to be arguing about is the arrangement of the deck chairs on their own private Titantic. There may be voters out there conservatives might win but they are the confused, the people grasping at straw men, needing daddy figures like Pence to tell them what to do in a world that increasingly ignores Biblical explanations for reality. The only way to make those people a majority is to turn away from education and knowledge and grow a new generation devoted to ignorance.
4
A truly Christian conservatism might be really really attractive.
But it would have to jettison the plutocrats: remember it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. That's because wealth is usually achieved by taking advantage of others, or raping the environment. And Christ was emphatically against taking advantage of others.
And a truly Christian conservatism would have to get rid of racism and misogyny. Also get rid of anti-contraception. (Alternatively men could curb their sexual impulses to match how many kids they and their wife wanted. The wife rules because she conceives, carries, and births the child. )
So, Ross, do you think you could go for all this? Religious conservatives have some electoral power, but most of that power is propped up by the donations from the plutocrats. If you have to give up wealth, can you succeed in American politics?
3
It has to be exceedingly difficult for a moral conservative to wrestle with proof of one of their own tenets; That who you sleep with matters a great deal.
Only then to realize that you have made a truly awful choice because the sex is so good-bad, but it's wrecking the rest of your entire life. Because - to experience this great sex, you've had to abandon every principle you believed in to guide your life.
Further, to realize that the moral high ground pretty much eludes you forevermore, because you have been proven the rankest of hypocrites by your own actions. And thus, to lose your power of persuasion via the normal pulpit - that you are only left with the bully's pulpit.
This is coming from a "wait and see" center-leftist, who started out hoping against hope that the majority of us could count on the moralism and humane convictions of conservatives like French and Douthat from keeping the train somewhere on the tracks with Trump. That Ryan and McConnell et al might actually behave like the moral patriots they have claimed to be forever.
Oops - I/we were wrong too. But at least we admit our errors - and are doing everything we can to rectify things. Alas, most (not all) moral conservatives are too busy enjoying dancing naked in the streets. But everyone can see you. And now, no one will listen when you preach "but YOU must be chaste - while WE enjoy the orgy."
1
Speculation on how to form a new conservative (Republican) consensus is just mental gymnastics. Republicans will rue the Faustian bargain they struck in 2016, and their complicity in trashing long-respected norms --constitutional, societal, political. Trump has no ideology other than power and self-aggrandizement. Republicans (I was one for 40 years until 2016) held their collective noses, and abandoned any sense of decency or morality, to underwrite Trump's appeal to voters' fears and hatreds.
Those that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Hosea 8:7.
1
I went over to First Things and read the Ahmari article. It seems that Ross Douthat is sugar-coating its message considerably.
It calls for nothing less than full-on theocracy, to crush liberals, and to crush a system that allows enough space for people who Ahmari considers "godless" to carry on their lives. He doesn't want a "seat at the table"; he wants to destroy the table completely because he feels that liberals get their way too much. He openly admits his desire to dominate and persecute those who fail to meet his religious criteria.
(Why do theocons never realize that their own fanaticism is the largest contributor to the decline of religion?)
So may God bless David French, and any other conservatives who understand that our Constitution requires us to work this stuff out; and endorses no single religion, because the founders understood that this was a recipe for warfare.
4
The religious right has struck a "bargain with Trump". Another name for that is "deal with the devil". I hope this deal doesn't backfire when they get to the pearly gates.
1
"(French) thinks that his...pro-life convictions have a natural home in a basically libertarian coalition."
You mean the get-the-government-out-of-our-lives coalition?
3
Interesting observation on an issue that is akin to debating the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Conservatism has gone super-nova and is currently powerful and making a lot of noise. But make no mistake, these arguments will be remembered, if at all, as quaint arguments in the age of Trump, that marked the end of (Neo, movement, trumpian) Conservatism and perhaps the Republican party. One can only hope it ends without global crisis, irreversible climate disaster or war.
6
To use the author's own words, here is "conservatism as it existed between the time of William F. Buckley Jr. and the rise of Donald Trump:" In the beginning, young Mr. Buckley famously announced that conservatives needed to articulate some principles for which they could say they stood, or else they'd appear to stand for nothing other than tax cuts for the rich and racism. In the end, Old Mr. Trump and today's GOP have proven that conservatives stand for nothing other than tax cuts for the rich and racism. It took 60+ years for conservatism's absence of principle to be made clear. In the end, it was all just window dressing.
18
@fkcarlson - yup, nothing behind the curtain. What better standard bearer for the conservatives than the third rate carnival barker (ok reality show master of ceremony) and experienced grifter than Donald Trump?
2
Backward thinking.
2
Donald Trump is the embodiment of conservative republican values.
The very fact that conservative religious leaders embrace Donald Trump as a means to their ends exposes their lack of Christian values as expressed by Christ. I'm not religious, but my vague memories of catechism tell me that Christ would not welcome such masters of duplicity and venomous treachery into his realm. There's a reason why Christians once believed that Hell exists for such people.
Nearly everything espoused by the conservative movement today is intellectually dishonest and a Faustian bargain to the extreme.
8
@TDurk. Do you think religious people are going to back democrats and their policies? Nope.
I'm glad Ross finally got around to mentioning race, because the old conservative coalition may have had the intellectual foundations he describes but its political power has rested increasingly on white racial anxiety and resentment ever since Nixon figured out he could win by welcoming Southern segregation voters to the GOP. Indeed, it would be entirely accurate to call the GOP today the white party, instead of the conservative party. That's why it became possible for a white nationalist like Trump to vanquish the Bushes, Romneys and McCains and seize control.
I also suggest that Ahmari is barking up the wrong tree by blaming the ACLU for slumping religiosity. The government might be able to make a baker serve gays, but it can't make anyone go to church, much less believe in God. Now that he's a Catholic, he might wonder why it is that thousands of priests rarely if ever evangelize anyone.
2
I went to college with Mr. Ahmari. His transformation first to a conservative Catholic then to a Trumper is more than a little bizarre in my mind. But it is also instructive to some of what Douthat is ruminating on here.
There is a lot of information here, and obviously Mr. Douthat knows a lot more about this intra-conservative power struggle than I do (I am loathe to go down rabbit holes of reading manifestos of "integralism", e.g.). But the problems "cultural" or "social" conservatives (the anodyne labels applied here) come down to two simple facts: they let themselves be tricked into voting for a bait and switch again and again while in the meantime the citizenry is becoming less and less integrated in their religions.
The simple fact of the matter is that "cultural conservatives" have less and less social power while they've actively abdicated their electoral power by falling for the bait and switch. It's all shown quite well in throwing their lot behind a twice-divorced, serial-lying grifter for whom 2 Thessalonians is all Greek, apparently without any sense of irony at all.
And now the proposed solution seems to be to create a Christian theocracy from their minoritarian position? No thanks.
8
I am perpetually amused by the conservative battle for 'religious liberty'. The US is a country based on freedom of religion and Americans can believe, religiously, in any myth that takes their fancy, from Mormonism to Presbyterianism. I find this all well and good, as long as they keep their beliefs and rituals private and do not enter into the political sphere in an arrogant effort to make others conform to their beliefs and rituals.
What is infuriating about the conservative concept of 'religious liberty' is that they continue to apply the ideas of ancient peoples without scientific knowledge to modern societies. By all means, delude oneself with belief in a god and worship it with incense and genuflection. However, conservatives have no intrinsic, 'god'-given right to remain ignorant of biology, evolution, psychology, geology or physics, etc. or to act on that ignorance in the public or political sphere when their religious mythology leads to harming others, physically, emotionally, intellectually or spiritually.
The desire for power over others seems antithetical to ideas promoted as genuine Christian belief. If you think a woman having an abortion is sinning or that homosexuality is a sin, then just pray for the sinner but stay out of their lives.
8
Douthat of course wants to make the state of modern American conservatism into an elaborate intellectual exercise. The truth is much simpler than that: conservatism no longer works.
This isn’t brain surgery. 2000-year-old biblical paradigms and one laid down in the Constitution 230 years ago for an agrarian population of less than 4 million people and installed a government with propertied white males at the helm, are problematic in 2019.
Tradition, family values, all the bulwarks of conservatism, have radically changed. But conservatism is trapped in a time warp. The institutions that conservatism worships like equality, individualism, and the free market have all proven to fail the collective. Their benefits have proven to be reserved for an elite few.
American conservatism clings to the ideas of Edmund Burke, a British statesman, who laid down a social-political philosophy designed for an 18th century England. It was anchored in tradition and prudence when it came to change. It was political model written specifically for a Britain dominated by an aristocracy and monarchy – a model that Burke himself said couldn’t apply to America as it was a different beast with a streak of independence not shared by Britain.
Conservatism, anchored in the past, believing that time stands still, has failed to adapt to a world that doesn’t care what conservatism thinks. The world moves on. The only constant is change.
Conservatism is dead – at best a cult. Move on.
4
@MichaelI agree and point out that Ross and his ilk are really reactionaries not conservatives.
2
"...the last Catholic hospital or adoption agency is closed by an A.C.L.U. lawsuit."
I don't think that you need to worry about the ACLU shuttering Catholic hospitals: notwithstanding Pope Francis's relatively enlightened perspectives on some matters, the bureaucracy that runs the Church will probably do that themselves by antagonizing the religious women who have founded and formed the backbone of Catholic charities organizations and Catholic healthcare organizations. Remember the hit piece authorized by Francis's immediate predecessor which opined that various orders of nuns had been overtaken by "radical feminists"? As if that's a bad thing.
3
I know what I want, as part of the Right: a world that caters to me and people like me. Is that selfish? If so, isn't the Left simply imposing its morality on me? After all, progressivism is merely a secularized Christian heresy in its universalism and drive for self-abnegation. I have to look out for my own interests, since if I look out for the other guy's interests that leaves no one looking out for mine. You can try to "walk in another's shoes" as much as you want, but at the end of the day you'll still be stuck in your own shoes--the Rawlsian Veil is a fiction.
@Luther Sloan Secularization by definition is not heresy. It is a-religious; it has nothing to deviate from. And yes, people on the Right are being selfish, because they want a world that caters to themselves, irrespective of the imposition of dogma and others, and we want a world that caters to people according to their own beliefs, without imposing them on others. Our government is secular for a good reason.
7
@Luther Sloan
If "the left", or moderates, were hell bent to write into law that you were required to get an abortion, or smoke marijuana, etc., then you'd have a case. As it is it's the far right that is hysterically determined to ram their religion down my throat by the rule of law.
3
Answer: A theocracy with little to no taxes or regulations, a strong military and executive power, without an air of irony.
3
This all comes down to power and money, power and money.
If religious conservatives want to live a life closer to God, they can do that in the quiet of their homes--and in their churches--their hands clasped in mindful prayer, with the rest of society left to its own devices. Non-believers will not care, nor bother them. They won't even notice.
But apparently that's not good enough.
They need to influence the direction of society itself--and come into conflict with others who do not share their beliefs. It's because they want attention for their beliefs, and the power and money that come with that attention.
That is a product of our superstar economy--only publicity and media attention brings in the big bucks.
Show me a religious conservative who's willing to go off on an island somewhere and practice his/her religion alone in a cave and I will believe that person is truly religious.
That what monks do. No spotlight. No think-tank advisory contract. No weekly column in the Post. Just quiet contemplation and meditation with the Creator.
The fact that these so-called religious people want to wage war in the public sphere over the public sphere shows their true interests are secular. Money and power, and publicity.
They do have something in common with Trump--the same need to be the center of attention and the force in the room that everyone must react to and contend with.
I have no problem with their religious beliefs.
But I cannot abide their aggressive pathology.
12
This kind of analysis, which acts as if that there is a deep moral philosophy driving conservatism is exhausting. Equally frustrating is the persistent idea that Trump, or modern republicans represents some kind of aberration on a proud intellectual tradition. The president's agenda is a ham-fisted version of the exact same plutocratic vulgarities, and cultural repression as anyone else on the GOP ticket would have done.
Trump won the hearts of republicans by front-loading cruelty, in a much more naked and visceral way than his opponents. This tactic was, and still is extremely popular among the reactionary, upper-middle class conservative voting core, and shows no sign of becoming less so. If there ever was a meaningful difference between the 'cultural' and 'economic/libertarian' conservatives (I'm unconvinced), he has apparently bridged the gap with a 90%+ approval rating among the GOP voters. My thesis is that Trumpism is an accurate representation of conservative ideals, and conservative ideals have always looked like Trumpism.
It is so, so tiring hearing the plodding verbosities of Douthat, Stevens, Brooks, et al, trying to put an intellectual patina on this wretched ideology. At its heart, there is nothing there but economic exploitation, planetary destruction, and seething cultural and ethnic resentment. We need to stop treating it with any respect as an ideology.
14
There are two kinds of conservatives. Conservatives with a big "C" who, like Republicans, are a political faction interested primarily in holding back any change that threatens the wealthy backers of their cause. Then there are conservatives with a little "c" who are individuals who believe in conservative values that might be summed up under the "Father Knows Best" ideal of American life, who have been lured into voting Red under false pretenses.
The problem facing Conservatives and Republicans is that "conservatives" are finally waking up to the fact that their interests aren't served by these political entities, who in fact are actively engaged in undermining these interests in favor of the interests of their wealthy backers. But the R/Cs lucked out that Trump selected them to be his vehicle to get elected. It was he who captured the "conservative" populism before it could be recaptured by the Democrats who abandoned it decades ago.
But now the "C"onservatives face a choice" to continue to serve the interests of the 99% or to betray their wealthy benefactors by supporting a more populist - and therefore more socialist - agenda. For now Trump allows them to dodge this question, but even if he gets re-elected, he won't be around forever (although I still think he'll try to become President For Life). After Trump (A.T.) how will the R/Cs keep these two competing interests together? That's the real issue they should be debating.
It's hard to read this and not conclude that both kinds of conservatism being described are essentially strategies for establishing a religion, to wit, Christianity. There is no attempt at all to hide the fact that the plan is to enact laws requiring behavior mandated by the religion, and to impose these on people regardless of their belief in that or any other religion. Any "libertarianism" that some conservatives claim to support does not extend to freedom from Christian moral notions. How is this any different from the Iranian system or, for that matter, the Inquisition?
12
“But there’s a plausible argument that even with its broader influence reduced, religious conservatism should still wield more power than it does in Republican politics”
The best thing about plausible arguments is that they must be falsifiable. Thankfully, this argument is dead in its crib, if only because the very concept of a Republic seems to have vanished from the collective zeitgeist of the Republican Party.
“...a more assertive social conservatism would also pursue...stronger state interventions in the economy on behalf of socially conservative ends.”
See above.
1
"But what, specifically, do these conservatives want, besides a sense of thrill-in-combat that French’s irenic style denies them?" you ask?
The "three demands" Mr. Douthat identifies really boil down to just one: they want turn the USA into a theocracy. No thanks. Practice your religion at home.
7
Ha. "conservative intellectuals" it says in the opening paragraphs, as if that's still a thing. Anymore, those two concepts are diametrically opposed; the most oxymoronic term of our time. Even George Will would have to agree.
2
We watched the film “Vice” the other evening. There was one scene that I keep replaying in my mind. It’s the one where Intern Cheney is in the process of attaching to the coattails of Donald Rumsfeld, and being tutored on how to be grasping, smirking and greedy.
During this exercise Cheney asks Rumsfeld, “What do we believe in?” Steve Carell, in his inimitable way, just starts laughing. Continues to laugh. Slams the door in Cheney’s face, still laughing. And continues laughing from behind the closed door to his office at what he considers the idiocy of the question. “What do we believe in?” Lololol.
This a is beauty of a scene. It defines who and what Conservatives really are. Ones who want everything, want everything their way, and don’t care who or how many get hurt, or killed, in the pursuit of those things. Any old ideology or philosophy that gets them those things can and is opted for them “to believe” in at any time. Nowadays, apparently, they’ve spawned a class of pundits that ruminates, straight-faced, on the answer to the question rather than just laugh in the face of it.
5
The conservatives are in two camps, the majority who have drunk the tea of the spineless jellyfish and a smaller contingent who are appalled on a daily basis by the Trump administration and his willing dupes in their party. The two will not mix betwixt and between.
“Conservatism” as you describe it, ‘David French” style or not, is a regression to and rehash of the bible-thumping primitive superstition called “fundamentalist Christianity” and the pseudo-scientific Social Darwinism and eugenics-driven white supremacist “conservative” cant of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s an anachronism, as unsuited to life on Planet Earth in the 21st century as an expansive reading of the Second Amendment is to a world awash in semi-automatic weaponry and high capacity magazines of ammo, capable of mowing down scores of innocents in a matter of minutes.
Conservatism is a dying religion. Trump is that religion in the midst of its death throes. The Republican Party and “conservative pundits” are holding a bedside vigil, muttering religious mumbo jumbo.
You can waste your time and ours counting how many angels dance on the head of a “conservative” pin. Or you can use the same effort and intelligence to start coming up with rational solutions to the real challenges of today, including, but not limited to, toxic income and wealth inequality within and among nations; and the need to accommodate the massive movement of people from one place to another as they flee crime, poverty, famine, political unrest, the effects of climate change and the devastation of war.
11
Your peroration fails to mention that Trumpism also reveals the hypocrisy of social conservatives and religious rightists. All those decades of finger-wagging have given way to the silence of a corrupt bargain that will yield only corruption and shame. The hypocrisy is not complete, as some have remained true to what they value and have spoken out. Their example seems relevant to all of us, no matter where one perches along the political spectrum.
1
What is a poor boy like Ross supposed to do? So many splits among people devoted to making the world an ever scarier, more stifling, repressive, violent place to live and die.
4
"Conservatives?" There aren't any. There are Trump CULTISTS, and there are wealthy and corporate Trump TOLERATORS (they know he's a fool, but he's pliable for their tax cuts and regulation-squashing), Trump FOOLS (the masses who vote for him because they think he's something he's not), and Trump "PRO-LIFE" voters who don't mind that he jails babies. I think that covers it.
4
I have a different idea for the right: evolve.
6
This column is a companion piece to David Brooks’ column today. A shorter version of Stephens’ column might be “ They’re arguing about deck chairs on the Titanic.”
3
which one of them plays with themselves more
1
Here, let me summarize: both factions agree on turning our Constitutional government into a Christian Shariah one, but are at odds over the extent and process.
14
Amen!
I always have to recall Charles Sykes' remark that there were only ever about 200 movement conservatives of the type described here, and that they all knew each other. Almost no one outside of this rarefied circle either knows about their ridiculous debate, or cares. Douthat's cluelessness about the "seeming white chauvinism" that puts off black evangelicals is the most telling aspect of this piece. Righty-tighty pundits like Douthat and Stephens and Brooks have always insisted that the movement was driven by their ideas, and that the dogwhistling of (mostly) racial resentments was a sideshow orchestrated by marginal surrogate shills. What they still refuse to acknowledge under Trump is that it was always about the dogwhistles, and *they* were the shills.
9
Glad to say that the subtle differences between Sohrab Ahmari and David French are beneath my radar.
3
Conservatism is a total con and a fraud. Republicans have sold out to the wealthy and foreign oligarchs to drown the US in debt, transfer profits/assets to the wealthy and limit citizens rights.
All that’s left is to seal it up by empaneling judges for life who were selected by the corrupt federalist society whose job it was to execute the plan.
7
These arguments are akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. They bear absolutely no relation to events occurring in the real world and are nothing more than navel-gazing by people who are unwilling to acknowledge the ravenous ogre their "movement" has mutated into. David Brooks similarly obsesses over the supposed intellectual fervor in conservative circles, none of which is ever likely to be implemented in this or any other universe. I suggest Mr.'s Douthat and Brooks find a new hobby.
4
Question for you Mr Douthat:
In the context of this article, what do you mean by “woke capital,” and why do you associate with Silicon Valley?
May the incomprehensible divisions amongst these folks paralyze them forever.
3
"What Are Conservatives Actually Debating?"
"Hooters" vs. "Buffalo Wild Wings" must be a pretty intense one for you guys, love to be a fly on the wall for that one.
1
Ross, go read the screeds from your fellow conservative Catholics (oops, I mean “faithful traditional” Catholics, who aren’t political at all, no siree)
They can’t stand gays, immigrants (unless they’re the “good immigrants” like their grandparents), Muslims, liberals, and they look askance at anyone more educated than they are.
They will however, defend anyone with a pulse who vows to overturn Roe.
They’re in the tank for Trump, Bannon, and all the rest.
Quit pretending there is an intellectual position beyond that somewhere in there.
4
Not sure epistemological or ontological sophistries are necessary to further elucidate TItanic Deck Chair orientation. Bottom line: it's going down.
Douthat is ignoring the most obvious formulation of the 'new right' that emerges in the wake of Trump -fascism. What is is describing in broad terms (and with many silly 'isms') is essentially fascism, in which a socially conservative, nationalist world order is forced upon a populace for their own good, while using emergency power to provide bread and circus style ameliorations to the lost manufacturing classes in exchange for their acquiescence. This will be lead by someone ruthless but a religious person with charisma and intelligence who is able to use all the means possible to ensure that they get into power with their coalition of older white voters (voter suppression, lawsuits, gerrymandering, intimidation, claims of vote rigging).
The future of the Republican party and conservative movement looks a lot like the reality today but with a non-idiot as a leader. I can't see a return to the old formulation happening -Fox News has so poisoned that path and so radicalized the base that there is no going back. Trump is really hurting America, but this next phase, if it's allowed to happen, will destroy it permanently.
Douthat, rather than engaging in these silly literature reviews of books no one's really read you need to grow up, be bold and use your pulpit to propose a synthesis that can help bring about a non-fascist center right alternative. What do you believe? Si no, après ça c'est vraiment le deluge...
2
Canadian historian, philosopher and writer John Ralston Saul said, "Capitalism was reasonably content under Hitler, happy under Mussolini, very happy under Franco and delirious under Pinochet."
Capitalism or what we now call neoliberalism is dynamic its core idea is economic growth, its core value is growth and change equals opportunity. In the early days of the Irish starvation Robert Peel's Tories split over whether to feed the hungry or let them starve. Peel's government split because enough member's decided The Economist was more important than the Bible and joined the Whigs. One million peasants died and one million were deported as limited government and an all powerful private sector won the day.
If was only after the Irish genocide that the Tories became the Liberals and Conservatives.
There is no intellectual discussion that will ever justify a compatible relationship between a untethered free market capitalism and even the most perverse Christianity. Three hundred years ago Swift's Modest Proposal made clear how preposterous today's GOP really is.
Not long ago the name William F. Buckley meant Franco's Fascism, today William F. Buckley is synonymous with Conservatism and it is Jr not senior that we recall.
Justin Amash is the poster boy for the insanity that has destroyed America. Amash is at one and the same time a Tea Party small government neoliberal and a practising Christian of high integrity, he is the walking oxymoron that screams America.
2
Evangelical bakers being forced into bankruptcy? Just how many gay weddings are you fantasizing, Ross? All while a mentally ill president is viewed by many evangelicals as their best hope for Armageddon, the Second Coming, the destruction of all non believers in fire, and their own ascension to heaven. And while that ill presidents' venal friends and appointees destroy the nations' treaties, alliances, environment, and treasury for their gain. Never mind your internecine Catholic squabbling, Ross, really. Apocalypse is closer than you think, and not from any direction you're expecting.
5
So, essentially the Taliban but with fewer, shorter beards.
No, thanks.
5
You need your own country. Like the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay, all your members can self-select. Good luck. Leave the rest of us alone.
2
Shorter version of the conservative squabble:
Is it better to be covertly racist, homophobic, Islamophobic and misogynistic; or is better to be overtly racist, homophobic, Islamophobic and misogynistic?
What a dilemma!
8
Let's stop the sugarcoating and dressing up this new, violent strain of conservatism in pseudo-intellectual garb. What Ahmari and Trump's evangelical supporters are advocating is American jihadism. Attacks against Jews and murders of transgenders have spiked under Trump, and will move even higher if he is re-elected. This isn't an intellectual movement; it's a mob.
8
Father Douhat is such an intellectual. He forgot to mention that greed, racism and misogyny are the glue that holds all conservatives together.
4
The once viable Republican Party, now a has been, derelict party, is drowning in the Trump toilet. They became more interested in themselves instead of the people and the county. The sooner they disappear, the better for everyone.
1
Ross, what you so eloquently and intellectually describe as some form or another of intelligent conservatism, brings to mind the oxymoron Jumbo shrimp. Intelligence should mean free thinking and open mindedness. Neither of which exist in the GOP nor have since Buckley or even before, as Buckley was solely a white patrician elitist protecting a status quo, and hiding behind some liberal idea of conservatism,which has now morphed into the hi jacking of a whole party by the fundamentally religious, racist mean spirited, fearful, far right.
Religious views are an artifice meant to bind groups together solely to promote themselves above the other in an attempt to appease an unknown entity i.e. god . Peaceful coexistence is all that matters.. how do you promote that, without all the big words or a big deity?
In reading Mr. Douthat's column, I can't resist making the observation that this is much ado about nothing. The "nothing" being the ideological/philosophical ramblings, like "limited government", "religious liberty", and other right-wing mantras repeated so often that they seem trite, and certainly out of touch with the larger world that is passing them by. Much like today's Republican Party, the world at large is leaving them behind. And all I can say is, good riddance.
3
“Marriage rates declined, birthrates plummeted and religious affiliation waned”.
Exactly the kinds of things in which the government has no business.
4
The problem with conservative and libertarian thought is that it does not fit into the fast moving and increasingly interdependent world we live in. How many “individuals”have lost their job because of Amazon,how many “individuals” are in medical or education debt? The issues facing us are relatively new and require a new line of thought. The fisherman of Louisiana invited the farmers of Iowa to a weekend of fishing. They wanted the farmers to see the results of over fertilization on the fishing grounds. We do it as a group or it doesn’t get done. Old fashion conservative and libertarian thought is not very group oriented.
2
Conservativeness need to drop the religious fascism.
Liberalism has yielded mostly peace and trade. It has been highly successful but was hijacked by greed such that all social policy was attacked. If we had a strong healthy social net that let people participate and take care of their families during the transition we would be in an amazing position.
Unfortunately greed was the goal of conservatives and redirecting all profits into the hands of capital away from worker.
The blame game in the rise of Trump fascism arrived using nation/white pride by the very conditions created from the conservative party and blamed liberals. Liberalism didn’t fail, conservatives failed and blamed us by using hate and greed for political power.
I would say our greatest failure though is a lack of respect for free speech. We have a news industry that is quite focused on lying and attacking science, race and other religions. That would be Fox News. They are the true power behind this wave of hate.
3
What's coming home to roost here is you can't get government out of the picture and impose theocracy at the same time, so small government as an idea is being jettisoned by Republicans. Also, that it does not and has never mattered to Republicans that their leaders actually behave in the way the theocracy dictates. That is a feature, not a bug, of a highly patriarchal society. The rules are for keeping the lower orders in line, and the Commanders can fraternize with porn stars and lock up babies as much as they want. Trump just makes it apparent, and those who thought they were working toward something actual "moral" in any sense of that word were duped.
2
What social conservatives want, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, is pure, naked power to remake society in the image that social conservatives believe is correct--tidy rows of white Christians, moms who stay at home and shut the heck up, minorities who stay in the back of the bus, and rich men who make the laws. I just can't decide which America they want -- 1950s or 1850s.
7
(1) Any "winning coalition" in the last 20 years has been a product of the warping effect of the Electoral College system: neither Republican presidential administration won the popular vote, and Republican majorities in Congress have relied on warped representation. The hill that y'all must climb is taller than it seems.
(2) Trump is going to taint conservatives for a long time. Policy-wise, Rs could have elected a brown stain to office for all the difference it would make in what they've succeeded in accomplishing (i.e. dereg and tax cuts), but Trump lays bare the depth of the rot.
(3) What are you going to do about your coalition's real racism problem, Ross? Can we talk about that? How genuinely awful it is?
1
O man. I made the mistake of reading that Vermeule piece you link to.
It makes me think the principled "conservatism" at stake in these debates is in even bigger trouble than I imagined. This group of right-wing (to be kind) intellectuals is simply selling what nobody else is buying. What a disaster.
Apart from being ridden with cliches (itself a sign of intellectual atrophy), Vermeule's piece utterly implausibly imagines some far-off defeat of liberalism modeled on the rise of the Christian Church within the heart of the Roman empire. This will be steered and secured, he says (apparently seriously), by "the invisible hand of Providence."
You have to drink a lot of coffee and forge ahead through an increasingly desperate sequence of "if/then..." conditionals to get to this destination. Which is, I guess, a 22nd century that looks more than a bit like the 13th (?).
Again, big problem: nobody but a few feverish conservative essayists wants this.
Instead, people want what liberals want: health care, good education for everybody, fair compensation and work conditions... and yes, a society where you can't harass women and shout offensive or otherwise hateful slurs without everybody else wondering what is wrong with you.
4
"...reinventing the Catholic anti-liberalism of the 19th century, and embracing the “integralism” championed by..." Amid the faux-scholarly burble of this essay is the same old backward looking, naval gazing fear of women, minorities, change and social liberalism. "Religious freedom" should not mean the right to inflict conservative religion-based views on people who do not share your particular theology - which makes conservative US Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims no different from reactionary caliphates. America is not a theocracy, despite rightwing religionists' desire to make it so.
2
Douthat's ideal Christian conservative Republican Party would:
1. Eliminate all abortion and birth control, make all extramarital sex a crime, criminalize all non heterosexual sex.
2. Reverse women's rights to equal protection under the law, allowing husbands complete control of her money, her body and her movements.
3. Force all non heterosexuals back into the closet and threaten their employment and freedom if they act or speak out.
4. Eliminate equal protection under the law for all non white citizens (reinstate Jim Crow). Then make Christianity the official religion of the country, leaving all others in a position of second class citizens.
Please remember, women's right to vote, civil rights legislation, and progress on LGBTQ protections are all less than 100 years old. A microsecond in the history of human society.
4
Whatever the right, center, and left are debating is nothing but hot air. Logorhea of politicians is no substitute for deeds.
One imagines a Roman scribe analyzing in detail the musical stylings of Nero.
1
What conservatives fail to understand (or are simply loathe to admit) is that the rise in popular conservatism has, since Nixon, been animated not by ideas, but by bigotry. The liberals are right about this, but intellectual conservatives, not wanting to be associated with low-brow hate, have resisted facing the truth. The evidence is overwhelming:
The South was converted from a Democratic stronghold to a Republican one by Nixon's Southern Strategy, which was all about stoking racial resentment.
Reagan's "welfare queen" myth moved the White working class into the Republican party by convincing them that the government was taking money from them to give to freeloading, immoral Black people.
GHW Bush was elected through tactics like the Willie Horton ad which told White voters that the Democrats were unleashing Black killers and rapists on them.
While GW Bush didn't play to racism, after 9/11 his party found a new target to demonize. Fear of Muslims played a big role in building the Republican base.
And Trump bundled it all together, starting his campaign by stoking fears of Hispanic murderers and rapists, promising to ban Muslims, and labelling Blacks who protested police violence unAmerican.
Tightly tied to bigotry are selfishness, distrust of what's unfamiliar or not understood, and general tough-guy belligerence. The intellectuals in the conservative movement are a tiny group who would have no political power at all without the appeals of the right to bigotry.
2
The true silent majority in the United States of America are those of us that will violently, extremely violently, resist any scheme to rope us into some religious or social system with people over us intruding on our lives and choices. It's in our blood as a people to run as far as we can from that nonsense and, if cornered, turn and fight it and all its proponents to the death.
1
Lot's of words but very little tolerance. 18th Century liberalism is thrown under the bus. George Will makes more sense.
My God, doesn’t anyone write without the the deadly use of jargon today? This piece and others like it in recent days are so filled with political labels, which BTW are never defined, that it is hard to follow the argument being made, and when you do it is not truly shocking to realize that that at its core there is a deep hypocrisy: “follow me to a more “liberal” future that is the beating heart of patriarchy.”
“Liberal” in all these cases now seems to mean what’s good for men, good for business, good for money and finance, good for religion— and all of them making the rules for everyone else to live by! Nauseating as well as dizzying.
Just a deeper exploration of CONservative governMENt in action!
What poppycock!
The dilemma for the builders of a new conservatism is that the old conservatism never practiced what they preached. Conservatives have out spent and created large deficits whenever they were in power. Conservatives have consistently taken money from programs that helped children, the poor, the elderly and the middle class and redirected that money to create a corporate welfare system that supports the lifestyle of the1%.
Republican conservatives have never missed an opportunity to enable large corporations to pollute our air and water, or defraud consumers, or to take away labor rights from workers. Keep in mind all this hard work was done by members of the republican party while waving the bible and wrapping themselves in the flag.
Trump is the manifestation of what the republican right has been working for since the coming of Saint Reagan. For some, like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr., Trump has been sent by god to save the religious right from the immoral poor, immigrants, people of color and evil democrats.
The great patriots of the conservative right have worked hard, and continue to work hard, to suppress the vote, engage in gerrymandering, or rig elections like in North Carolina.
More succinctly, money and power are the drivers of the old conservatives and the driver of new conservatives. The bible and the flag are just useful tools to advance the conservative agenda.
3
I had to pull up at "conservative intellectual world."
2
Lets, see...Social conservatism, ethnocentrism, economic populism, immigrant scapegoating...I swear I heard of this mix from pretty recent history...Let me think for a second.
Oh yeah, that's what's called fascism. And it is on the rise, across the world, from MAGA in the US, to Brexit in the UK, to ultra-nationalist governments in Poland and Hungary, far-right parties in Italy, Austria and elsewhere.
If these forces succeed, they will make a worldwide nationalist powder keg, the explosion of which will make WWII look like a small skirmish.
1
This liberal thinks that it’s too late for far-right Republicans to re-costume themselves as normal Americans. Trump has already lowered the prestige of a Presidential presence to below that of the Gong Show, where intentionally amateurish performers used to ham it up as they vied for a no-prize. As Trump’s approval ratings continue to drop, the nastier his fact-free rhetoric becomes.
I remember when the Republican Party was the party of law and order, as well as the party of fiscal responsibility. Now, thanks to Trump and his GOP sycophants, the Republicans are now the Party of Lies, Money Laundering and Porn Stars, as well as brazen racism, sexism and yes, a Justice Department gone rogue, and a Speaker who refuses to allow votes on Democratic bills. Oh, and don’t forget the GOP’s knee-jerk responses when it comes to abortion—which, as I recall, was settled in 1973 by Roe v Wade until Trump exhumed that particular corpse when he needed a serious distraction.
Obama set an example for immaculate presidential behavior—eight scandal-free years here and diplomatic success around the world. Trump couldn’t match that, so he dragged the entire GOP down to his level. We citizens deserve much, much better.
3
Kudos for at least mentioning blacks. Too bad however you don't admit neither side of the conservative divide either acknowledges its deeply racist past or addresses necessary reparations for it. And this is especially important one would think for conservatives who claim that our past contains the keys for our future. Only in matters of race do white conservatives suddenly claim that racism is back in the past and can now be ignored. The hypocrisy of white privilege
1
The author explains the twisted torture of conservatism that refuses to recognize our democracy and constitutional rights and freedoms. Perhaps it’s best if we let them “eat their own.”
1
So the pathway for the future of the Republican party are either reactionary libertarians who want to smoke pot, have gilt free sex and pay no taxes or reactionary religious social conservatives who want to control everyone lives while having their boot on my neck if I morally step out of line beyond their narrow religious dogma...
Both of these governing options you are presenting to Americans are an anathema to most Americans soon to be pushed back into obscurity where they belong ..
1
With the Trump Presidency. Conservative Emperors show they have no clothing just a fig leaf.
Imagine how much simpler life would be if the persons engaged in this preposterous debate got a real job and discovered that corporate America doesn't care whether your kids, born or unborn, eat or not and that bombing third-world countries won't make you feel virtuous.
From that starting point, we might actually have a useful discussion.
Meanwhile, here in Florida the state GOP leadership is debating whether to denounce one of their Panhandle elected State Reps who publicly mused whether the State ought to impose the death sentence for homosexuality. (See Orlando Sentinel 6/4/19). Cultural Conservative: Check. Religious Conservative: Check. Modern GOP: Check
2
This column goes too far down the rabbit hole. Let me put it as clearly as I can: any political movement that rationalizes or tolerates flagrant lies, scapegoating, and gleeful cruelty must be snuffed out. Our world has lived through far too many of these, and we know exactly where they lead.
Imagination a space alien coming to Earth and writing a communique to his people on Jesus' philosophy, using only the New Testament as it's source. It would likely come up with a description so far divorced from the main issues consuming evangelical leaders' political engagement that heads would spin (theirs can). And therein lies the fundamental problem for religious conservatives.
Go ahead, throw in the Old Testament too. Throw in knowledge of how the whole enterprise has developed over the centuries. The truth is that religious conservatism is based on hugely selective reading and interpretation. As with Consitutional originalism, practioners are using their starting beliefs to dictate their conclusions. There is no more intellectual honesty in either endeavor. The arguments detailed in this article are akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Thankfully, our Consititution prohibits the establishment of a state religion and it did not confer personhood on embryos and fetuses (or corporations, for that matter. Slaves got 3/5 personhood, more than embryos which got zero. Born women in practice are almost up to perhaps 3/4 at most).
The most damning failure of religious conservatives is their dereliction of duty in addressing climate change.
Young people don't buy into either of these arguments and roundly reject conservatism. The future is theirs.
3
When the Roseanne Barr scandal came out a couple of years ago, I wondered "Why did Roseanne throw away her career for the sake of insulting somebody I never heard of?" Now here's a guy obsessed with the ideas of somebody named David French. I never heard of David French either.
Who knew that when you look at a Trump rally you were actually witnessing a very not so subtle expression of sophisticated nuanced ideologies with debatable conservative Christian values.
4
Mr. Douhat,
Many of the policies cited (family supportive, jobs/wages ) have been democratic priorities forever. The reason the Democratic version of these policies are not considered by the Christian right are two-fold; #1 The Republican lip service paid to Row/Wade as you mention, and #2 ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ mentality. This supports an incredibly destructive coalition; Evangelicals are the convenient tools of the capitalists, unregulated capitalism provides the collateral damage to fuel the nihilists/fascists, and now Trump is the useful idiot of all above. Unless the Christian right discovers the absurdity of #2 to break this chain, we are doomed to a democratic melt-down.
America needs a new conservative consensus like a fish needs a bicycle.
4
The Pandora’s box of hypocrisy opened by Trump has exposed the evangelical vote for what it always was - the American Taliban waiting for a chance to impose their version of sharia law on civil society. But it also exposed that politically conservative “values” are as fungible as Christian beliefs when putting aside those beliefs is convenient in pursuit of tax breaks and the ability to stack SCOTUS with puppets for the oligarchy.
No one believes evangelicals are Christian anymore. They are the American Taliban. Trump proved it.
No one believes a conservative is a conservative anymore, because Trump bought your values for less than a foreclosure.
1
Isn’t ‘cultural conservatism’ an oxymoron?
2
The underlying conservative principle is, “I want what I want and will do what’s necessary to get it.” Efforts to organize around that principle inevitably trend toward fascism.
1
“religious conservatives, both strongly anti-abortion, both deeply engaged in battles over religious liberty” says it so clearly. “Conservatives” fight for “religious liberty” that complies with their faith. Being against abortion does not translate to religious liberty if your beliefs do not include “ensoulment” at the moment of conception, or if you do not believe in a soul. Conservatives are battling against religious liberty. Religious liberty gives each American the freedom to believe or not believe in what they choose if the First Amendment means: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” Conservatives are the genuine enemy of religious liberty. Conservatives use religious tyranny to subordinate all women. Conservatives are male supremacists, as are Catholics and Evangelicals who fight to impose their beliefs on Americans. In the past, religious zealots forced conversion on a populace at sword point or through the barrel of a gun. Today, religious zealots legislate and adjudicate “conversion” to their beliefs. Apparently, not a problem for Douthat and his companion Sohrab Ahmari in establishing Christian Sharia Laws.
Sohrab Ahmari considers the war in Iraq a just and necessary war, based on the worthlessness of a million Iraqi lives, thousands of American lives, trillions of American dollars?
What unique thinkers! The basis of the founders Constitution may need a re-write. Sophistry.
2
To me, conservatism has been synonymous with, among other things, more pollution, more guns, more racial, ethnic, religious and sexual discrimination, more approval of corporate malfeasance, more judicial hypocrisy and more welfare for wealthy white men. I have seen nothing to change my view.
3
The fact that there is a “war” over David French-ism is a pretty strong indicator the GOP has lost all sense purpose beyond a tribe trying to assert its “morals” on the rest of us, and effectively return us to a feudal state.
When Congressman Amash gets grilled by his own political party over taking a legitimate (might I even say intellectual) stand for impeachment after doing his job and reading the Mueller Report, the GOP has lost its grasp for what it should be and what it was.
I used to think conservatives advocated providing equal opportunity (instead of just handing out). Now it is a party of providing opportunity for those who are rich, or share the “values” marketed to folks who aren’t, but want to make sure they have power over “others”.
2
I'm thrilled that there is an intellectual debate going on in conservatism. I see elements to like, philosophically speaking, in both camps. But until conservatism sees the corrosiveness of its leaders, it has no moral claim to anyone's allegiance, so in that sense I'm squarely in the French and George Will camp. And even in a post-Trump world, it will take a long time, if ever, for this conservative to trust conservatism.
Why do I glaze over when I read about the sectarian squabbles among conservatives? First, there is the impression of a college debate between pompous young men in bow ties. But the main reason is how utterly divorced these doctrinal spats are from the ugly Trumpian reality. Trump gives not a whit about the constitution or so-called conservative principles. He is a self-absorbed, impulsive demagogue, a near-illiterate who doesn’t read, and a cruel, fundamentally dishonest man. He has debased public discourse and the office he occupies, as well as the reputation of the world’s most powerful country. None of the earnest parsing of conservative theory means anything in the face of the damage that this president has wrought not just on his own country but on the world order and the norms of basic decency.
4
Have you forgotten the George W. Bush administration? Remember "big government conservatism"? Remember the war in Iraq, a classic example of what conservatives used to call "Democrat wars"? Buckley had moved away from Bush-Cheney-Rove conservatism well before Bush left office.
Libertarians were completely turned off by most of the big things Bush did at home and abroad, whether it was No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, or wars of choice and nation-building in the Middle East. Some of them returned to the fold during the Obama years, but not because they bought into the ideas that entered "mainstream" conservatism like a plague bacillus in the 21st century.
The conservatism that reigned from "God and Man at Yale" to the election of 2000 is gone forever. What remains is religious bigotry, racial animus, and a slavish regard for the rich donors whose money keeps the Republican machine going. Integrity and principle have vanished -- perhaps not from the conservative vocabulary, but in fact and action.
1
Mr. Douthat, thank you for describing conservative viewpoints and aspirations. The world in which politicians operate is indeed rarified and opaque. I live on the ground among the population where we are concerned with food, shelter, education, healthcare, decent jobs, and freedom from various types of predation, including sexual abuse and the terrible effects of racism. Because of the day to day grind of dealing with the harsh reality that our country’s business, government, and religious institutions cause as they prey on the People, I have to admit to ignorance of most of what motivates politicians who self-describe as conservative or liberal, so at least now I can see some of what the influencers in the conservative movement are arguing about and what they want. It seems they want to return to the society we lived in maybe 100 years ago. White male supremacy would cease being questioned, a very conservative form of Christianity in which women, children, and blacks don’t count would be set into stone. All our silly concerns about the environment, the dangers and excesses of unfettered capitalism, and equity among humans across the board will roll over and die since they have no place in conservative minds. I also notice zero interest in making sure The People have access to basic life needs. I will make sure everyone I know is aware of your fine piece. It is instructive.
3
Thanks for highlighting the small government hypocrisy of your moment - "government intervention is good if it is advocated by the right, bad if advice from the left".
3
The Republican Party will continue to exist only as long as they can con the dupable into believing their demonstrably fake narrative. The Republican Party has always stood for limited government oversight of the wealthy, but strict control over the unruly masses. It has never supported free markets, preferring to use taxpayers’ dollars to pick winners and losers through tariffs and subsidies for preferred industries like agriculture and fossil fuels. The hawkish foreign policy? An excuse for wealth transfer upward through the military-industrial complex with zero concern for the middle and lower class “inputs” who do the fighting and dying. Nor has the Party been culturally or religiously conservative, just reactionary against difference and social change mixed with a “do as I say, not as I do” situational morality.
When your opening argument is a thin tissue of lies, what follows is worthless.
1
There is a word hovering in the background of this whole piece that remains unmentioned: Fascism. Catholic integralism in particular had more than a flirtation with the Fascist right in 1930s Austria and Spain. And while the precise definition of Fascism has been the subject of much debate and the current populist right in the US and Europe doesn't exactly mirror that of the 1930s, there are clear family resemblances. In particular, the marriage of conservative culture war themes, state economic interventionism, and authoritarian constitutional theories is frighteningly similar.
2
This theoretical nitpicking picking is all very nice. But the truth is, modern conservatism and GOP-ism seem to be about just a few things: tax breaks for corporations and the rich; moral regulation of others, often in the service of outdated notions of sex and gender; and removing services and social supports for the masses, while self-righteously professing the "sanctity of life." Oh, and add a nice dose of "lock 'em up" and "drill, baby, drill."
522
@Richard
That's pretty much what the article is about, though Douthat avoids talking about actual goals in any but the broadest terms.
As he lays it out, there's the "moral regulation of others" wing, and the "tax breaks for the rich" wing, which have been allied since Reagan. The alliance is what he calls "Frenchism." The articles is about how the "morale regulation" wing feels shorted by the "tax breaks" wing, because they aren't getting nearly as much dystopia as they want.
He doesn't really address what these groups really want, since he's pretty deeply embedded in the "moral regulation" wing himself, and has no real difficulties with the goals of the "tax breaks" wing.
He goes on to argue that the "moral regulation" wing needs to make a new alliance, since they can't go it alone. Also, that the overt racism of the Trump wing is making it difficult for the "moral regulation" wing to win elections, no matter with whom they ally.
46
@Richard You do know that most of the tax breaks last year went to anyone paying taxes, yes?
Can't wait to see your lead with tax increases for your POTUS election next year.
It'll be a Walter MOndale moment all over again.
"Sure we're going to raise your taxes, but that money is in the wrong hands!"
1
@Richard
There is nothing new here. Three hundred years ago Jonathan Swift a Church of Ireland Priest attacked Whigs or as we now call them conservative politics and religion in Gulliver's Travels and a Modest Proposal.
The starvation that was visited on the 2 million Irish peasants 170 years ago was an economic genocide led by Whigs a political movement that is the essential component of today's GOP and which vigorously opposed Jeffersonian democracy.
Not taking care of our fellow beings is the essence of today's GOP of limited government and neoliberalism. Judeo-Christian ethics and the ethic of virtually all our religions all stand in opposition to belief in the invisible hand and the absence of values in an economics of perpetual growth and no human values. Exxon's leadership in the Islamic genocide in the Central African Republic was not even a subject of discussion in Rex Tillerson's Secretary of State confirmation hearing. Sometimes irony is too ironic to be discussed as people who call themselves Christian Evangelicals elect the most amoral of men to be their leaders.
40
Ross Douthat, like all self-proclaimed "conservative intellectuals" from Bill Buckley to Sohrab Amari, likes to flatter himself by pretending that conservatism is "a movement of ideas." In one sense it is, but its guiding ideas are not liberty, human dignity, or any of the other high-flown terms that Douthat tosses about. Mr. Douthat should acknowledge the obvious reality that the "ideas" that undergird conservatism are racism, misogyny, inequality, and intolerance.
Thankfully, today's column by another "conservative intellectual," David Brooks, indicates that Americans, especially the young, have rejected this "conservative" bigotry. So perhaps there's still hope for our republic.
5
This is the typical intellectual discussion between libertarians and conservatives. It has little to do with reality. Instead, I would like a simple explanation of why it is that all the conservative governments today tend towards fascism? And why the most avid supporters of these governments are so-called "religious" people. Do we need fascists to enforce Christ's teachings of love? Recall that Germany was a bastion of Christianity: Protestant in the North and Catholic in the South. And they enthusiastically supported an army of Christian soldiers who spread the word of god with death and destruction as the Earth has seldom seen. This is not unique to Christianity. All religions use their gods to justify conformity and aggression.
4
Ah, the dark ages and monks and kings counting the angels on the head of a pin. To justify the co-mingling of religion and wealth as virtuous. Rationalization for power.
Mr. Douthat seems to be a ghastly ghost from the past leading the half dead C. C. to the zombie apocalypse.
2
Ross just needs to read today's David Brooks column to clarify to him why the religious conservatives' internal debates over ideology is irrelevant. Young people are increasingly anti organized religion and pro ethnic and sexual diversity. So no amount of court imposed changes in the law will force people to become believers.
What Ross has never and will never understand is that you cannot legislate the culture. If people want abortions they will eventually get them. There is no "intellectual" argument that can convince them otherwise. Either you believe that women have a right to control their own bodies or you do not. Either you are brainwashed to be part of the cult that believes abortion is murder or you aren't. In the end, if religious conservatives like David French and Sohrab Ahmari have a debate among themselves and no one cares, did it really happen? Progressiveness is inevitable. The country will continue to become increasingly enlightened and move forward without them.
4
The extent to which Trump has alienated what we night call “....cradle Republican suburban women...” here in the Northeast cannot be overstated.
They literally loathe him. These women have voted GOP all their lives.
As for what the religious Right wants? It actually is not “...family-centered...” Infrastructure Bills, nor a bigger say in the GOP Coalition. They want Power over the nation. they want their policies to govern, even though they are a minority.
Mr. Douthat should read up on the Dominionists. He should also read the literature abut how the RR sees Trump as Cyrus the Great, raised up as King t protect the Chosen people- as in them, now, not the Chldren of Israel in the Babylonian captivity.
2
The reason evangelicals and other cultural conservatives have made their pact with the devil, i.e., Donald Trump, is race. That would be race, race, race for further emphasis.
It's not economic, it's marginally anti-abortion, but the real key is racial discomfort.
It is why African-Americans, and Hispanics, and Asians support Democrats to such a dramatic degree. They know what the deal is.
There is no conservative vision that will attract them, Ross, until the Republican party addresses this fundamental issue and its living embodiment in Donald Trump.j
3
The term "conservative intellectual" is oxymoronic. Here's why. (Hear me out, Times moderators.)
Intellectuals are those who engage in academic and factual reasoning. They are open to every and any evidence-based analysis and interpretation of the world.
Conservatives - *by definition* - begin their understanding of the world with a bias toward tradition and the things of the past--especially as those things favor white male dominance. The fact that they possess this built-in bias in their approach to the world rules out their ability to call themselves "intellectuals."
Ross, by all means write about the internal squabbles of conservatives, if you must, but please acknowledge that it's the journalistic equivalent of writing about a small group of fifth graders arguing about whether or not we should have nuclear weapons.
And please don't frame any of this as an "intellectual" debate. Conservatives are not, and cannot be, intellectuals.
640
@EB "And please don't frame any of this as an "intellectual" debate. Conservatives are not, and cannot be, intellectuals."
I don't know about that but I understand where you are coming from, but you downplay to the detriment of understanding what progressive thinking people are up against. Douthat makes it plain that conservatism is purely opportunistic with election and support of Trump. The question Douthat is looking at where would they be without their Trump.
I think it is important to understand that as well.
Yes, the underpinnings of the conservative movement is fear: fear of the other: fear of God and Ghosts: fear of freedom: how they work that in their ideology is important for us to understand: We need to figure out why fear trumps hope, so let's listen to what they say.
51
@EB
I beg to differ. “Intellectuals” cannot be used to define “academic,” as you do. Academics are, by definition, conservative, in that their raison de’etre is scholarship. Scholarship is inherently conservative, not in its contemporary political sense, but in its original “fact-based” sense (your phrase).
There are “intellectuals” everywhere, in all walks of life—all of them. You’re using the term as a form of self-congratulation, as do many others, of course, perhaps including Douthat. “Intellectuals” may refer to open-mindedness, but to ideas, not to facts. Academics are not necessarily open to new ideas, nor should they necessarily be. Academics, insofar as they are scholars, and one would think that should be their chief focus, have a job to do and they should do it without the “intellectual” mantle.
Your use of “intellectual” has the air of the 1960s new left, where ideology is seen as legitimate. Leave the notion with the right wing. It’ll hopefully be their undoing.
14
@EB
Well said. I would add that anyone under the sway of religious beliefs cannot be considered to be intellectual. Intelligence uses logic and evidence as a starting point, not unsupported mythology. The self-deception at the heart of all religions has no place in intellectual discourse.
56
Conservatism today is a rudderless amalgam of loosely associated concepts bound only by their ability to contribute money and the power to control. It is a culture of opportunism, willing to take on anything however dissonant with its illusory core ideologies so long as it produces the result of making the wealthy more wealthy and the powerful increasingly despotic. It is likely that "conservatism" has always harbored that secret underbelly. What is different is its unrepentant coming out of the closet, the declaration that greed is good and the thinly veiled embrace of paternalism and even Fascism.
3
This is terrifying.
What Sohrab Ahmari is advocating is a religious theocracy in this country. I think Russ Douthat gives a way too rose-colored and superficial a take on Ahmari's piece. I haven't read all the pieces that apparently being written about this debate in the conservative press, but when I read Ahmari's piece I was made legitimately afraid for this country.
The idea that what was being promoted by Ahmari was "pro-family tax policies" is not what I get from reading that article. (He even scoffs at French's support for "promoting better work-life balance".) I read his piece as "we don't think cross-dressers should be allowed to read to children and we should use the government to enforce that." Ahmari praises Trump for pushing us towards "order, continuity, and social cohesion" and advocates using government power to achieve those means.
This is absolutely disturbing. I cannot fathom why Douthat and the rest of the conservative commentariat do not run screaming from Ahmari's ideas. He is not advocating for using government to facilitate conservative ends; he's advocating for government to declare free will illegal.
6
Save your eye ball time for David Brooks' column. Fewer polysyllabic words and more sense. Also, remember that Mr. Douthat, Mr. Ahmari and R. R. Reno of First Things belong to a group I call iMOP. (I'm my own Pope) They really don't need the Catholic Chuch because they already know everything. They are really too busy bashing Pope Francis to worry about the concerns of everyday people or Catholic social teaching, and they actually consider themselves Conservatives! Also, there is nothing more aggravating than an iMOP convert.
2
As a conservative, I find this whole conversation rather arcane and unenlightening. I know what conservatism means. It means preserving and adhering to our fundamental values--most importantly, the inviolable and infinite value of the individual. It means preserving institutions, traditions, and practices that have withstood the test of time. It means improving government and the human condition through evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, processes.
The real crux of the battle that Mr. Ahmari has picked with David French is one of style. Are we willing to embrace Donald Trump's boorishness, nastiness, forays into misogyny and flirtations with bigotry in exchange for advancement of conservative policies? For a conservative, the problem with Donald Trump is generally not his policies; it is his often grotesquely offensive words. That is the paradox. We have a man who in style violates or tarnishes those ideals which we hold most dear, but whose policies have generally supported those values.
Mr. Ahmari's most persuasive argument is that Trump's style is not a tolerable evil, but a necessary evil. He argues that in today's media environment conservatism will never be given a fair hearing and therefore cannot be successfully championed by decent men like David French and Mitt Romney. He argues that only Trump's obscenities can deny a biased media control over the narrative. Unfortunately, I am slowly coming to the realization that Mr. Ahmari may be right.
1
So this debate that Douthat describes as being so vital and existential boils down to "religious conservatives should have more power" vs. "religious conservatives should have even more power than that"? Jesus. And they say we liberals are the mindless robots.
3
I have long opined that the battle for society, now being fought by the government against citizens, started when the battle was lost in the pulpits.
The religious conservatives failed within their flocks, as the un-churched portion of the population grew and those within the protestant and old testament faiths has been in decline. So having a society matching their faith could not be achieved without finding an ally...local and state governments, and with Trump their attempt at the federal level.
Thinking that nothing has to change, while each generation became more educated, was their mistake. The fight against abortion is really a fight against sex, at least sex not strictly for procreation, which leads to more little christians. So once sex got let out of the bottle in the sixties, they could not put it back in.
Now we have the most non-christian President in history, and the religious conservatives selling their souls in a deal with the devil, because they see the courts and controlling congress as a way to bring christianity back as the American way.
Hopefully this battle will tear the republican family asunder, leaving them as disorganized and unfocused as the democrats, and those of us in the middle can get back to making America America again.
2
Conservatism is basically a luxury.
It is a luxury that can only be enjoyed by people who are totally confident that the vast network of social programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, unemployment compensation, CHIP, Obamacare, etc.) that the Democrats have created since 1933 will continue to function smoothly.
So. . . . . as long as our Social Security checks come on time, and our Medicare claims are processed smoothly, then by all means, let’s have another round of beers and loudly demand that the federal government be “shrunk down to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub”!
2
Anyone that claims to be informed, inspired and influenced by a sect of Christianity-Catholicism-that has systematically and institutionally harbored more child molesters than arguably any other organization in the history of modern civilizations, and continues to do so to this day, should not get a second on the podium to make any claim to "conservatism" and "family values".
First fix your house. How do we know that everything these people stand for is basically not another plot to attract more boys to the "fold" so they can be sexually abused?
3
As an European I´m a little shaken by this column and a very similar one of Mr. Brooks today.
The takeway of both columns is nearly the same: Something that used to be called "conservatism" in the past is gone.
Mr. Douthat has proven it by pointing out many insufficies of - felt - ten "isms" and the views of twenty different names representing a very, let´s say, old school American way of conservatism. His result seem to convincing: There is no way back. In contrast Mr. Brooks doesn´t go in so many details avoiding a formal debate but his finding is almost the same: No matter what it is, never tell it to young adults because the only thing you might get it return might be comprenhensible total rejection.
In my eyes even the last paragraph of Mr. Douthat´s column is nothing but a wordy answer to Mr. Brook´s rhetoric question "The most burning question for conservatives should be: What do we have to say to young adults and about the diverse world they are living in?" In the end this says exactly the same: "American conservatism? No idea, folks. We don´t have a clue at present."
From good old Europe point of view it looks like this indeed. But this unambigous agreement isn´t so pleasing. neverthteless.
Despite growing up in a solidly Republican household, I haven't been able to vote R for many many years. This debate illustrates why. There is no place anymore for folks that just want the government to let people be, want it to be resolutely neutral on religious matters, want us to stop killing people in wars of choice. The Democrats long have not been a good choice for one who is, above all, anti-war. One can vote libertarian, but alas, that party is a bunch of ineffectual whackjobs.
2
I just re-watched S01E02 of "All in the Family" in which Michael and Archie both write letters to President Nixon.
Michael's list of gripes; environmental destruction, corporate malfeasance, rampant racism, sexism, state violence of all stripes - his "list" could have been written yesterday. Archie's list was basically Michael's list, but inverted.
We are living a rerun.
This entire Trump "Thing" is nothing but the current version of that Same Old Song.
And why is it we refuse to learn?
2
When Reagan and Bush sold out to the evangelicals for votes, they forever ended respectful conservatism. What we saw in the nineties with Ginrich and his band of merry thieves was followed by Bush II and his awful governance and now the worst nightmare in American history.
6
The true underpinnings of the new Trump style conservatism (which really is the strongest political force in the GOP now) is "destruction".
Destroy everything his predecessors built, repeal progressive taxes that benefit everyone, repeal healthcare, take back protections for the sick and disabled, destroy American status and image abroad, destroy grace and intellect, destroy equal rights, destroy families crossing the border, destroy whatever was left of a fair political process.
In the past 2 years, the guy has built nothing. Not even the wall - which will only isolate America further.
5
Ahmari's point appears to be that French does not feel persecuted enough and he is not paranoid enough.
Enemies are everywhere and they are trying to kill us all.
1
So, instead it’s a takeover or what?
Conservatives advocate religious liberty? This is right out of Orwell. Liberty does not mean State Christianity.
4
Package-deal advocacy is inherently problematic. Just ask pro-life progressives.
1
Mr. Douthat makes a ridiculous, offensively blind argument.
The Republican Party, since the rise of the Tea Party and even before, has used increasingly frenzied emotional appeals to social conservatives to goad them to the polls, and then conveniently forgotten all the hysterical alarms about gays/minorities/abortion/"religious liberty" (which is nothing more than a determination to use civil laws to force Christian fundamentalism on everyone else) once the election is over.
The fear-mongering has stoked a tidal wave of anxiety that has been left unresolved as Republican legislators have pursued their pandering to corporatists, leaving irresponsible "entertainers" like Limbaugh and Hannity to continue to stoke social outrage in their guise of "journalists". Misrepresentation has therefore become central to both the party and it's shills.
Meanwhile, the economic Republicans want to "minimize the government's intervention in the marketplace" - allow corporations to profiteer - while maximizing state intrusion in people's lives, particularly in denying rights to women and to minorities. This hypocritical, 50s-worshipping, Christian-forcing plan will never be supported by the electorate it seeks to subjugate, so Republicans up the ante on lying and emotion while using every cheating strategy to hold power and impose judges who will override personal freedoms for partisan purposes.
The majority of Americans reject this tyranny, and no "intellectual argument" fools them.
417
BOOM! Agree with everything you said, with the exception that I do not believe the corporate wing of the Republican Party actively seeks discrimination. I think they are entirely focused on gaming the system to ensure tax breaks, regulations and other elements of the “playing field” remain tipped in their direction, and would prefer (perhaps with Hobby Lobby and Catholic hospital types excepted) to avoid the culture wars that Trump has tactically inflamed all around America.
23
@Shar They want government intervention in the effort to control women's bodies, but cry "government overreach" in any effort to minimize the sale of assault weapons.
55
The problem is how do we get rid of them once they’ve gerrymandered everything, befoul elections, and load the courts making it nigh impossible to win at the ballot box? It will be interesting to see if they start to see their protected guns aimed at themselves.
41
Most of all right now, the conservatives paints a hallucinogenic portrait of hypocrisy personified! "Sanctity of Life" proclaimed for the 9 months in utero, but pre- and post-natal care, societal supports for handicapped children and their families, affordable health and child care.......nada. And wages? Nope, conservatives support tax breaks for accruing money, not wages.
Religious values? That perhaps is where the hypocrisy is most stunning. DOn't expect women to take up political parties that make it clear they believe child care, work/family conflicts, caring for sick or elderly family members are "women's problems" they have no interest in addressing.
(Want to end abortion? Available and affordable birth control are the most efficient means....but conservatives really really want to criminalize women's behavior in society, rather than address societal stresses or, god forbid, address the equal partner's behavior in any pregnancy -- the man.)
6
Here is what conservatives like Mr. Douthat are debating:
How do we promote a vision of society that empowers white men without appearing to be misogynist racists?
So, they talk about Trumpism as if it really is a political philosophy, some kind of conservative populism. But, Mr. Douthat, Trumpism is none of that. It is merely a reflection of Trump's extraordinarily toxic personality. There was once something to debate about conservatism. No longer.
5
Douthat quotes lots of folks who are arguing the equivalent of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin," and basically concludes (no surprise) that we need more fundamentalist religion guiding our government. This from the same folks who tell us the Taliban are abhorrent, without a hint of irony. One must wonder if Douthat has ever had to engage in any hard physical work and get sweaty in the process of making a living. Perhaps if Mr. Douthat would start talking to working men and women around the country, he could use his obvious intelligence and (my, how impressive) vocabulary to discuss meaningful policy and governing principles that actually matter to the average working stiff, rather than engage in such intellectual onanism.
1
This discussion sounds like it belongs in a Paris salon in the late 19th century.
From this liberal's perspective, conservatism these days is nothing less than an attempt to impose a theocracy, with economic issues mere window dressing.
Every so-called conservative policy in the past 50 years has been to tear down what took generations to build up. To suppress women and to ensure that everyone is kept down while white males are ensured their place forever, regardless of inevitable change. To deny rational thought regarding climate change, demographic change, and more.
2
“...And they have warmed, quickly or slowly, to the politics-is-war style of the current president.”
Here, and elsewhere in this piece, I think Douthat overstates the view of DJT as something sui generis.
The politics-as-war style has been in ascendancy since at least Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. Nor was Newt something new under the sun. Richard Hofstadters’ “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” traced the extremism back at least a generation before Gingrich.
Nor do I find the pundits that Douthat discusses offering much new thought: alternately a quietism that ignores the rapacious tendencies of capitalism, a tepid awareness that something should be done, or a belligerent Theism that would roll back hard fought gains in civil and reproductive rights.
I have no qualms per with churches following their own light, but any entity conducting a business open to the public must follow rules regarding non discrimination. I have no qualms with parochial schools, just don’t ask for public money disguised as vouchers.
I’m curious where these fellows fall on the growth of the power of the Executive Presidency. I think conservatives and liberals alike might agree that the Presidency has grown too powerful.
1
The rise of Donald Trump has exposed how morally bankrupt many conservatives are at heart. As long as he's cuting taxes for the wealthy and removing regulations that they consider onerous (even at the cost of the survival of the planet!) they willingly turn a blind face to his blatant racism, amisogyny, jingoism, and complete ignorance of American history and governance. Alienate allies that we've had for centuries while embracing despots who murder their own people with impunity? Sure, why not? Your stock portfolio is doing so well. Stand by while he attacks the foundations of democracy, such as a free press? Sure! The list of egregious violations is endless. The utter hyposcrisy of claiming allegiance to socially conservative ideals while supporting this blatantly corrupt regime reveals the true nature of the many conservatives who support him.
2
Sohrab Ahmari had a public online meltdown because drag queens were reading books to children at a public library with the children’s parents’ consent. Spare me the philosophical analysis of a movement based on fear, xenophobia, homophobia and hatred of The Other. There is no there there.
5
I can't help but feel that whatever Conservatives are debating, one can simply follow the money to figure out what they'll do. So many influential Conservatives benefit financially from policies that have been sold as "freedom from govt intervention," or the like. Allowing the exploitation of our land and water for profit, for instance. Issues like abortion and gender rights (ie; which bathroom a person is allowed to use,) are boondoggles meant to rile up a base.
So easy to say you believe in family values, while making it impossible to earn a wage that could support even a small family; easy to suggest personal responsibility in youth getting an education while making it prohibitively expensive and allowing banks to charge 8% interest rates for student loans. Conservatives work for corporations, and their pockets are lined with corporate money, no matter what they and their intellectuals blather on about.
4
An interesting read (much more engaging than a David Brooks column). But it demonstrates one thing: that conservative intellectual thought has been reduced to mere strategy and tactics. It offers nothing new and attempts to cloak in pseudo-intelectualism the simple notion that if we just go back to how things used to be everything would be fine.
5
Well then maybe this entire conservative ideology should die a well-deserved death; as usual this is a race-blind intellectual discussion, and I do not mean that as a complement. An inability to articulate a realistic way toward true racial justice after centuries of gross injustice is merely the most obvious of its failings. As this ideology is dead or dying, what will replace it among the right is a statist, implicitly racist set of principles that were last tried in Germany in the thirties, and as we know, didn't turn out too well
5
How long can conservative writers go without making even a token attempt to address real problems faced by people in this country. This column may be close to setting a record for most abstract words not tethered to reality.
5
Nobody knows what's going to happen in the 2020 election, but a deep analysis into the 2016 results would reveal that Trump's 77,000 vote margin in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, out of almost 14 million cast, or a margin of one voter out of 200, would not even have occurred without Russia's intervention. Maybe Trump didn't ever "win," but was just assigned the victory out of election fraud perpetrated by Russia in cahoots with the Trump campaign. Since then, Trump has taken on the mantle of incumbency, which is a powerful advantage, but the country has also gotten to know who Trump actually is much better, and that revelation is not likely to help Trump in 2020. I don't think any sort of winning conservative coalition even exists in this country; it's only manufactured through voter suppression and some embarrassing Democratic apathy.
5
Here's the problem: the number of people -- actual human beings -- willing or able to wade through the nuances of Frenchism vs. Ahmari-ish conservatism is minuscule. On the other hand, the number of people who see "conservatives" like McConnell, Cruz, Rubio, Graham and their ilk kowtowing to Trump is legion. If being conservative comes to be equated with blind obedience to a man-baby autocrat, then the movement will pass away with the boomer generation and "pre-fusion" or "post-fusion" will be irrelevant.
370
@Tim C It will pass before the boomer generation passes. The last of the pre-boomers are soon passing, and the next wave of post-millenials, along with millenials, will define the politics of the next fifty years.
Current conservatism is caught in the paroxysm of passing influence.
7
@Tim C
The belief in chosen at birth is part of the Western Canon since Romulus and Remus. It is the core of Western Christianity and a core belief of the European ultra Orthodox Judaism of the 18th century, it is the Buddhism of a divine Buddha.
It ain't going anywhere soon.
I know Grand Rapids and can only guess how Amash juggles his Antiochian Christianity with Calvinism. For Mr French I can only wonder how he reconciles his political economic and social philosophies with his theology where his spiritual leader rails against his political, social and economic beliefs.
3
@Tim C " If being conservative comes to be equated with blind obedience to a man-baby autocrat" guess you missed it. That is over and done with. Repubs are Trumpers and Trumpers are Repubs.
to their shame.
7
Calling for big government intervention is a play for a losing hand. The militants carry on as if the Church itself has not had its own institutional basis questioned under the onslaught of sexual assault scandals. Preaching rationalizations about accepting Trump the savior while judging non-believers with biblical quotes is hardly a way to win converts.
2
"But what, specifically, do these conservatives want?"
Power. Wealth. The ability to control and harm others. A theocracy that would help achieve power, wealth, and the ability to control others.
Conservative used to be a label we thought had meaning. But as it comes to fruition we see it for what it always was. A label to cover its true self. Ironically enough, a PC label, that rides on the coat tails of respectable principles it once espoused as a cover for the real values of ruthless expediency and avarice. They've even cynically used the politically correct "conservative" label to trick people into supporting them as if the old principles ever had any real value as a means to gain the power that is what they want.
270
@Marie I'm 63, and all my life, conservatives have dressed up their true goals in noble sounding terminologies that sound like principles. The tell is: What happens when those principles are applied for goals other than theirs?
So states' rights apply as long as states are immiserating the poor and denying votes to minorities, but not when they want stronger emission controls. First Amendment purism defends alt-right bigots but not those concerned with the practices of factory slaughterhouses. Small government keeps their taxes low, but it needs to be big enough to invade your bedroom. The plain words of originalist constitutional interpretation apply until someone wonders about Trump's emoluments. Judicial activism is a cardinal sin until the instant Republicans own the judiciary.
821
Yes, control, that is always the conservatives’ polestar. “You shall do as I say, even if I do not do so.” You live by my rules, but I don’t have to because I control you. A one-way street. Where is the individual here?
39
@Bill Camarda “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” -- Frank Wilhoit.
38
Ross
There is no debate because the conservative cause has morphed into an alliance with powerful entities for the purpose of maintaining a profit- as its fait a compli. So nothing really to generate a sense of duty or ethics. The profetal life movement is simply a guise to maintain white male power/privelege- also lets not forget that past repubs were much less interested in social engineering as "conservatism" e.g. what you do with your personal life- is just that
2
This is very deft analysis outlining noble ideals but ignores the fact that the United States was founded as a secular nation--a fact that has been a source of great strength for our country for hundreds of years. Any attempt to inject "Christian values" to our governance is a betrayal of the founder's intent. And let's be honest here: Donald Trump has proven beyond a doubt that the "Christian values" angle is nothing but a cynical attempt to divide us against each other so that the same group of billionaires can grab all the money and pollute the earth as much as they want. I don't doubt the sincerity of the voters object to abortion, but they are being played liked rubes at the county fair by the GOP.
375
@mscan I think mscan in Austin has touched on a few good points. I'm not a Douthat fan - his essays often remind me of a debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Christian fundamentalist preachers describe money as the root of all evil. Ironically, they also tell us we can fix that by putting more money in their collection plates. Perhaps money and religion are neck and neck for the race to be the most evil. These same preachers support the rich and evil Trump and dream of their theocracy.
Republicans have gone down without a wimper and Trump has taken our country ever closer to his role model - Putin and his oligarchs. Trump's oligarchs are licking their lips.
19
@mscan
Oh, typo. You meant "daft" analysis.
4
How can Mr. Douthat use the terms "libertarian" and "social conservatism" in the same context? What? He wants government out of the corporate boardroom and into a couples bedroom? What manner of libertarianism is this? Further, he and most social conservatives have molded their version of Christianity to fit their politics. Not the other way around.
489
@John Palmieri To complicate the libertarian/religious conservative cognitive dissonance even further, note that AFTER the religious conservatives force a woman to deliver a baby against her will, the libertarians will then defend to the end the right of that woman to deny life-saving medical care to the now-born child if the mother’s religious views so prescribe it.
79
@Lee N
Suddenly, it’s clear to me why there aren’t any Libertarian governments in the world.
Society, absent the social contract, is called ‘anarchy’. Conservatism, absent the eponymous trait for which it is named, is called ‘nihilism’.
37
@John Palmieri
You cannot expect someone who allows an ancient book of myths, legends and politically expedient lies ("God gave us that good farmland and gave us permission to kill the people already living there") to control his perception of reality to have clear thought processes.
It is no accident that our modern concepts of science and fact-based knowledge grew out of an ancient culture that, while it had "gods" and mythology, had no sacred text that was claimed to be the "inerrant word of god" and to possess all that needed to be known.
Ultimately, humanity needs to grow beyond the constraints on rational thought imposed by the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), the Koran, the Vedas, the Sutras and all the other sacred texts and so-called religious "books of knowledge." It is truly a case of "grow or die."
20
A renewed understanding of Federalism is in order. This means an energetic but narrowly focused Federal government whose job is to save us from enemies foreign and domestic and to ensure that the states are not violating an individual's natural right to live a virtuous life. The role of the states is the ensure the same but in light of local/ regional issues and their communitarian interests. Conservative and Liberal are relative terms that have lost all meaning; perhaps reading John Quincy Adams's inaugural address would be instructive of the Whig perspective which captures the type of conservatism of old but could be made anew if it was realized that what people really want from government is best acomplished at the regional/state/local level. Conservatives and the GOP need a name change to help sharpen an ideology for the 21st century, Federalist an old name but perhaps a new idea for many and maybe more unifying. Let Massachusetts be Massachusetts, and Idaho, Idaho.
13
@Gregory Whigs and an Articles of Confederation-like federalism, just what the 21st century ordered. Let (wealthy) Massachusetts be (healthy, safe) Massachusetts and let (poverty stricken rural areas in) Idaho be (abandoned by the federal government in) Idaho. Something tells me the red states won't like that brand of conservatism as much as they think.
50
@Gregory
An excellent point. My favorite was to illustrate this is to ask people what was JFK's view on abortion. They don't know. I ask why not? They know Carter's, Reagan's etc. IN fact they know the view of all presidents elected after Roe V. Wade and none before.
People will usually say "It wasn't an issue back then". To which the response is: (a) then how did we get Roe if it wasn't an issue? and (b) it absolutely was a front burner issue going back to the time of the Civil War. It was hotly contested and debated by Sanger, Anthony and countless others.
The real answer is that it was a State issue until it was Federalized by Roe. Roe didn't create the debate over abortion it just moved it from the States to the Federal government.
But it was a state issue
5
@Gregory Gee, your proposal will certainly be a challenge to global warming.
10
Just want to point out that "religious liberty" (extremely dangerous to human intellectual development, and actual freedom) and Freedom of Religion, as described in the 1st amendment to our Constitution, are two entirely different ideas. "Religious Liberty," a benign sounding proposition, would allow so-called religious people to insert themselves into our government, schools, and of course politics, to discriminate against other religions, while doing the "pick and choose" method of Bible quoting. This is primarily a feature of American Evangelical "Christianity," a hopelessly UN-democratic way of life, and "thinking.". My hope, and daily effort, is to completely eliminate this dark ages scheme from this country, and the world. It does nothing but harm to its victims, and adherents.
577
@ChesBay you actually didn't make a clear distinction between your two terms. Instead you went on a riff about one of the terms and ignored the other.
1
When all these people say MAGA, and love Trump, they’re thinking of a midsize city or town in the South or Midwest in the early 1950s where straight white “Christian” men ran everything and everyone else shut up or was forcibly put in place. It’s not that hard to understand bullying and the thirst for dominance. Don’t dance around describing this ugly movement. We’ve seen where it comes from and the vast majority of us have no desire to bring it back.
2
Summary: Under Trump, conservatism has dissolved into a befuddlement of falderal.
67
@Jeff . Thanks for a great laugh. My head was spinning as I tried to hold my understanding of all these isms in my mind - or hold what they once supposedly meant as well as what they seem to mean now.
6
"religious conservatism should still wield more power than it does in Republican politics": o boy. . . . Isn't this pretty much the working thesis for this columnist? Don't we already have a Supreme Court packed with Catholic conservatives? We need more Catholic conservatives in government? This seemingly subtle and nuanced piece is undermined by a monolithic agenda.
Why do right wingers like Douthat refer to a desire for legalized bigotry as “religious liberty”? That is the intent behind the innocuous slogan.
Religious liberty should mean the right to go to the church/synagogue/mosque of one’s choosing, not a green light to publicly hate those who are different.
4
So this is where we are at a point in history that has no comparable menace to our Democracy? Does anyone reading the opinion section really give a hoot about a war of conservative versus conservative? Our nation is polarized and fully on the road to Authoritarian rule and this is what is debated in the Times. This is a huge waste of time.
3
In short, these post-fusion conservatives are following the fascist model of Europe's far right power. They are also indulging in an entirely delusional vision of a society organized around religious/moral tenets shared only by a minority of the American public. Conservative Catholicism doesn't command the active support of a majority of Catholics much less people of other Christian traditions, different religious backgrounds or the "nones".
130
@NCSense: Yes, we've done this before. It was called Francoism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francoist_Spain#Francoism
It eventually fails. But it can last a long time and do a lot of damage.
13
Douthat notes that:'Sohrab Ahmari,...An immigrant whose family fled the Islamic Republic of Iran.. ex-Marxist secular neoconservative at The Wall Street Journal editorial page and has since become a traditionally inclined Catholic" while failing to consider what this means. Anyone whose "beliefs" has covered the entire western intellectual spectrum is likely unstable intellectually and emotionally. He is acting out his mental health issues in his political writings. He should be taken no more seriously than Ted Kaczynski or Stephen Miller. These people are having a prolonged and extreme adolescent identity crisis. They need therapy not a public platform or official job. My advice to a substantial number of "conservative" intellectuals is grow up please!
4
Social conservatives like Ross just want to tell other people how to live their lives based on stories in a holy book, to control what other people think and what other people do in an attempt to make those other people conform to the narrow conservative worldview. The only wall we need to build is a more robust wall separating church and state.
6
Douthat's claim that post-fusion conservatism lacks coherent political goals or rallying cry is almost correct--there's no clear policy program on offer, no vision of a better world to be had--but there is a shared central concern that explains both the strange absence of economic, pro-family populism and the lack of a positive vision: conservatism as currently constituted is united almost only by grievance and retribution. This is why anti-abortion legislation is thick on the ground while pro-family policy is nowhere to be seen. Why economic populism and the cry for dignified jobs with a breadwinning wage exist only as a smokescreen for plunder and deregulation. The new (or at least the present) Conservatism is about taking yours and making sure your perceived enemies suffer while you do it. The post-fusion right could and should be about more, clearly, but to claim that it lacks a raison d'etre is to ignore things as they really are.
3
According to Mr. Sohrab:
“Here is the problem: The movement we are up against prizes autonomy above all, too; indeed, its ultimate aim is to secure for the individual will the widest possible berth to define what is true and good and beautiful, against the authority of tradition.”
Mr. Sohrab has decided that only he and his ilk are capable of defining what is true and good and beautiful and that anyone who declares otherwise is an “enemy” against whom the right must “war.” In the name of The Authority Of Tradition.
What conceit. How ironic, given that the God of the Bible loathes man’s pride more than any other sin.
6
I have a hard time buying the premise that over the past 40 years there was an uneasy trade off between the cultural conservatives (cc) and the economic conservatives (ec, championing economic "freedom" in the guise of "individual" freedom). Having lived through those years, to me both factions led the conservative cause of their time.
E.g., where were the cc published cries as jobs left the mid-west for the south, and then southeast asia? (If they existed, they were far and few between). Where was the cc support for family leave, equal pay, and child care policies as many women had to join the work force to support their familes, as a result? That "Jeanie", now released from the bottle, can't (and shouldn't) be put back. What cc could do now is propose or support programs (however structured) that provide real and effective child care, family leave, and healthcare to ease the burden on their brothers and sisters.
That might lead to too Democratic (with a big D) a pill for some to swallow. But remember, Jesus also first fed the masses before preaching the Gospel of Love.
Ross’ column needs to be read in tandem with David Brooks’ column today. Whoever wins this struggle Ross describes will win a Pyrrhic victory because whatever side prevails neither will win over the youth of this country (see David Brooks).
As a result among other things conservatives have been forced to use gerrymandering and voter suppression to stay in power because their powers of persuasion have also abandoned them.
I also find it ironic that some of these conservative ideas involve spending lots of government money on things like infrastructure projects with a “socially conservative” aim. Or paying Americans to have more children. But any discussion about eliminating student debt is against conservative principles?? Eliminating student debt would really help home ownership and the nations fertility. But I guess it is not socially conservative enough and so off the table.
Everything has to pass those prickly conservative litmus tests. We can spend lots of government money but only if it looks like we aren’t.
14
@Quizical Your commentary is brilliant and on the mark. I just hope that Tump's foes (left, right and center) don't rip themselves apart and hand him a 2nd term.
1
Conservatism - at least the American version - is about three fundamental things: the promotion of oligarchy, militarism, and white christian nationalism. Sure, they can spend time down in the weeds arguing about the details, but for decades their broad program has been obvious to all who care to look.
And one essential thing to notice about it is that democracy is not on the list.
16
What Douhat will never acknowledge is that American conservatives have been almost always on the wrong side of social progress: opposed the New Deal, opposed Social Security.
opposed Medicare, opposed Civil Rights legislation, opposed choice, opposed Obamacare, opposed minimum wage legislation, opposed raising taxes on wealth, opposed safety regulations. The list is very long. In fact I cannot think of any legislation they ever proposed that benefited anybody other than the wealthy and corporations. What so intellectual about all this? Trump actually won over working class Republicans by deliver what the establishment GOP failed to do. Those who voted for him still hoping he will actually deliver on his promises in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
10
@serban Unfortunately, the working class Repubnicans are looking at TRump as the equivalent of a hail-Mary pass (religious reference indeed). They are at the point of anything is better than what was.
The Democrats, unfortunately, are playing their own game & not hearing the centre. "More is better" no matter what.
Because both sides of the political spectrum are for the most part radicalized, the majority of the population will suffer. Common sense cannot prevail at this point.
To the outsider it sounds as if the debate is largely about who can be more effective and more strident in opposing abortion (and, sub silentio, same sex marriage.) Like it or not, there are many who believe ourselves to be as "true" conservatives as anyone and who do not oppose either
1
It sounds like what's breaking down here is the unnatural alliance of free market conservatives and social conservatives. One wants small government. The other wants government so small it fits in your bedroom and your doctor's office. How any of this qualifies as "intellectual" is a mystery to me.
8
Gosh, Mr. Douthat.
I feel certain you have explained all this as well as anyone could. But "opaque" is the operative word.
"Opaque." My goodness, this stuff is opaque. It reminds me of rival kings and potentates in a lunatic asylum--forming coalitions, striking bargains, breaking up, coming together--
--as they go to war with imaginary kingdoms and imaginary armies.
All this to preserve something called CONSERVATISM. As if it were the name of a country.
Where do "hearts and minds" come in, Mr. Douthat? When do "conservatives" actually start trying to persuade people? Get into their mind, their conscience? Create conviction where there was no conviction? Energize people. Get 'em to march--take a stand somewhere?
Evangelical Christian speaking here. But I am light years away from the ruthless, no-holds-barred capitalism espoused by libertarians and the Koch brothers.
And I am none too happy with my fellow evangelicals ever plotting and maneuvering as they thrust this or that "conservative" judge onto this or that federal bench.
What to say, Mr. Douthat?
If the "hearts and minds" of the American people are massively at odds with this or that "conservative" ruling from this or that "conservative" judge--
--well, sir. They gonna DISOBEY it. Wholesale. Across the board. I'm not sure I'd blame them.
I'm a "moderate", Mr. Douthat. An old-fashioned moderate.
Where are the moderates nowadays?
We need them.
Badly.
7
Consider the parable of the mote in one's eye. In the analogy, the one seeking to remove the impediment in the eye of his brother has the larger impediment in his own eye, suggesting metaphorically that the one who attempts to regulate his brother often displays the greater blindness and hypocrisy.
Republicans say they want less government interference in our lives - unless you are a woman, in which case you are considered chattel to be controlled by the state.
10
The current GOP is not conservative. They are reactionaries.
9
This piece quickly devolved into another Douthat Catholic Church insider debate about number of angels dancing on a pinhead, foreign to us outsiders.
However, I do wish these religious conservatives could be more like the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses - out there trying to persuade people one person at a time, rather than hijacking our government to force us to act or pretend to act as their religion would prefer.
8
Ross, I plodded through your essay. When you write:
"There are voters out there that a moralistic and populist conservative right might win but a flagrantly hypocritical and ethnonationalist conservatism cannot."
You miss or refuse to recognize that these religious zealots that you call conservative will stand shoulder to shoulder with the David French brand of conservative to deny voting access to the millions of young/minority voters who would keep them from power. Until the folks on the right -- far or near-right- come to terms with Republican support for voter surpression, all of the analysis won't matter. These religious zealots who think abortion is the cardinal sin, yet turn a blind eye to a court and government that supports harm done to living babies, are just short of evil in my book.
8
The problem here is the conservative coalition—like the liberal—was always uneasy. There are costs to an internal debate, but isn't it one worth having?
These people who want cultural conservatism better be prepared for more blowback than they currently imagine possible. For many of us, our lives and personal integrity depend on making sure they fail so conclusively that they never try again.
8
All these fancy words are irrelevant window dressing. The story of conservatism over the past 40 years has been of two different minority groups, both extreme, one of which is looking for an outright ban on all abortion, forever. The other group, just as ideological, wants to extract as much wealth from a vulnerable as possible in favor of those who are already extremely, obscenely wealthy.
The only other factors are those of us in the majority, who look to align ourselves with one minority group or another, hoping to be hurt as little as possible. All of the high-minded philosophy and speechifying, like this column, are the waste product of the engine of those two minorities who have captured government, and are pursuing their ultimate visions for the U.S.
The founding fathers would be horrified at what they wrought, because never in their wildest dreams did they imagine we would take their flexible, moderately wise constitution, and turn it into a mechanism of totalitarianism through capture of government by money and extremist electoral threat.
4
Douthat's parsing of Conservative "thought" is kind of funny since he misses the true core of today's Conservatism: joy in the destruction of your "enemies" above all else. That's the heart of Trump's support and is best exemplified by the old joke about the Russian peasant to whom God offers the following deal: the peasant will get anything he wishes for, but God will double whatever that is for the peasant neighbor. After some thought, the peasant finally blurts out: "Oh Lord, please blind me in one eye."
6
@Yo I call them suicide-belt voters. Yes, they'll get screwed, but as long as somebody they hate gets screwed, too, they are happy with the result. It's not only in America-in the UK, Brexit supporters will bear the biggest economic hit but are willing to accept that as long as some educated London white collar "elitist" loses his/her job, they are happy to accept it.
1
The conservative movement needs new and real leadership. It is a movement bent on making silk purses out of sows ears in its current form. The direction suggested here is not going anywhere that will attract young people or anyone else with a sense of pleasure and adventure.The current form smells like a con and that is why it has accepted Trump and his stench. The new direction suggested here is out of touch and has zero resonance with woman who are handling the realities of family and self.
2
I think it is hilarious that the GOP doesn't realize that it is their tendency to beat the poor for the profits of the rich that has killed families and decreased birthrates. In actuality, these may be planet saving policies. By making life so miserable for the poor, the GOP is helping to discourage them from having children. Thanks GOP for your population control policies.
As for what the GOP is debating, their real problem is how to keep the base ignorant and hateful and on their side. They work for the wealthy and beat the poor. If there is anything to debate it is how to change the narrative so that the ignorant poor people that vote GOP won't wise up and see the truth of the GOP leaderships loyalty.
More precisely, the GOP needs to figure out how to convert liberals as they age. It seems that many old people forget what they were and become cruel and evil as they age. However, the GOP needs a lot of these old people to convert to insanity. That is going to be a big problem, because they no longer put lead in gasoline.
2
Well I am glad that I now understand this debate. This country is based on racist and greed. Minorities populate for profit prisons .Charter schools make huge profits for white management embraced by Wall Street profit making machines. White/ men ,women are telling other women what to do with their bodies. Family safety nets are being destroyed.
We celebrate historical victories this week where real people died. The country is alive with real issues directly affecting the quality of life.
The audience for this article are rich elites who inherited their wealth or destroyed companies to gain wealth. We saw the do nothing Trump family members yesterday trying to pretend they were royalty on Tv as the con man imposed more tariffs.
The rest of us are trying to curve out a decent life despite the racial and economic policies, barriers that have been enacted to keep us from achieving any type of security.
College students loaded with debt already should be studying this article for further clarification on the state of intellectual America.
2
For the rest of us, conservatism is full of bald assertions that have no basis in fact – for example, the notion that a limit to the federal government’s interventions in the marketplace would cause a civil society to flourish. Funny too about the Catholic adoption agencies. In their heyday, they brought so called orphans from Ireland to the US, children stripped from their shamed mothers.
Even now, where the notions of social conservatism reign, we see more out of wedlock births, not fewer, and clerical hypocrisy as men who pretend to goodness end up in sexual affairs anyway.
By the way, fiscal conservatism often goes too far but that is another matter.
Most of us are not in any camp. My wife and I vote Democratic, but don’t accept the nonsense of the left’s gender theory; nor are we happy with illegal immigration (but wish to treat will those who came here and made a life).
The more one reads of theory, the more wants to scream that it is often hot air and pointless.
2
Obsessions with protecting the interests of homophobic cake bakers is a distraction from the underlying problem facing “cultural conservatives”. I’m a secular left-leaning Democrat who doesn’t want to force anybody to do what they don’t want to do, even bakers of wedding cakes. But evangelicals must confront the truth about their aims. Despite the wedding cake controversy, it really is possible for a small minority of socially conservative Christians to live in a secular free country on their own terms, living with their own prejudices and attitudes; conservative Jews, Muslims, and Mormons, among others, have done this for generations, after all. The question is what do evangelicals really want? It’s power. That’s really it. Too many confuse freedom with power. Evangelicals have sacrificed their moral position in favor of a survivalist strategy; they think they’re under attack, so they threw their support behind the odious and amoral Trump. The consequence is a further erosion of their influence over society. But they seem to think political power will make up for it. It’s a bad strategy that can only drive more people out of the church, just like it did me years ago.
3
What in earth is meant by “Or they might take the form of the kind of trustbusting culture war envisioned by Hawley, in which the new formations of woke capital, especially in Silicon Valley, get regulated in the name of both economic fairness and cultural conservatism.”
I’m terrified by that sentence, and it’s just thrown in there haphazardly.
1
Douthat should clarify that “pro-family” refers only to a subset of families. Same-sex couples (and their children) and households with women who work outside the home — among other families — do not qualify.
And even those families that meet his litmus test will lose their health insurance, get a below-subsistence minimum wage, have no Social Security or Medicare, and get underfunded public schools. But at least the Right-wingers will save us from those anti-family Democrats...
1
As far as I can tell, conservatism is primarily about stoking racial and cultural resentment in order to motivate working and middle class white people to vote for endless rounds of tax cuts for billionaires. It works all too well so what are all these people wasting their breath for? It’s like a bunch of medieval theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Meanwhile there is a little thing called climate change that every flavor of conservative is completely ignoring. Any sane person would realize that that is a much bigger issue than arcane debates about David French-ism.
Conservatives are intellectually and morally bankrupt. It’s fitting that they are led by a con man who knows all about bankruptcy.
5
“The problem is both moral and practical. Moral, because Trump implicates his supporters in policies and personal behavior, from birtherism to child separation to adultery with porn stars and sexual assault, that are un-Christian in a particularly naked way. Practical, because even if you argue that these compromises are politically necessary, there is no way for the Republican coalition to successfully re-fuse around some mix of cultural conservatism and economic populism without not only the white working-class voters Trump won in 2016, but substantially more minority and/or younger and/or female votes as well.”
And herein lies the dilemma for this Republican party,— offering a body of beliefs about the ordering of societal structure and social norms to be applied to everyone not part of their hierarchy, led by an amoral dishonest manipulator who embodies all of the imperfections they detest in others and refuse to acknowledge in him.
They will never have widespread appeal among the diverse body that makes up the American people. Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, I would even add William F. Buckley would find no home with them.
2
So the most popular commenter at this moment says:
"The term "conservative intellectual" is oxymoronic"
It is fair to say that sometimes Mr. Douthat has trouble minding his own business both philosophically and morally, just like the identitarian left who blame every ill on white patriarchy and want to dictate that I be "woke" to their specifications. Still, I find his columns uniformly interesting to read and they provoke me to think whether I ultimately agree with him or not.
The first few to comment on this, however, are as close-minded as the people whom they label ignorant cretins and to whom they appear to feel deeply superior, intellectually and morally. The left suffers from just as much hubris as the right, and is less willing to face it in their ideology, insisting that they look at facts and conservatives do not. Which facts?
What many "progressives" forget is the our culture is like a building, built laboriously one piece at a time. It may have taken years to put it together, but it can take only minutes to blow it up or burn it down (Trump). Accordingly, when revolutionaries are successful, we all end up all homeless, metaphorically and morally, and often literally. We are then at each other throats to scramble for what is left in the wreckage. Read history for evidence.
An understanding of this basic principle is both conservative AND intellectual. Rational and thoughtful conservatives, of whom there are many, allow this principle to guide their thinking.
2
@D I Shaw Do you think there are any rational or thoughtful conservatives supporting Trump? Keeping in mind that his support in the Republican party is about 90%. Because I don't.
1
@Rena
Please make a distinction between Trumpism, a cult of personality, and conservatism, which is more a habit of mind, and a way of approaching change carefully and incrementally.
Please also bear in mind that progressives have made it very difficult for those of that habit of mind to support Democrats by scolding and hectoring candidates into supporting policies that are anathema to many independents and nearly all Republicans, me included. Perhaps it would be helpful for progressives to understand that most of the rest of us come to our opinions in good faith, and without evil intent. As far as I can tell, America is a mostly conservative (small "c") country, and a majority are suspicious of performative blasts of moral outrage.
Said Montesquieu, among others, and a note to progressives,
"Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien".
This is generally translated as,
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
As do we all, progressives would benefit greatly from leaving their morally condescending echo chambers and actually talking to, but more importantly, listening to the rest of us rather than telling us to sit down and shut up because we are not "woke" to their specifications.
They might learn something, modify their own opinions and policies, and perhaps help prevent a rerun of 2016.
Stop pushing people into corners out of moral vanity. That never ends well!
Whatever the reasons that "Christians" might have for selling themselves to financial interests, the culture wars were and are, for the oligarchs, a political tool, not a moral one. They do not see this as hypocrisy, because their ideal of democracy is a society driven by markets, not debate. Truth is whatever profits them, and lies are what depress profits. The rich can be trusted to act altruistically, while the poor must be disciplined to see their errors (or, rather, the middle class must be taught to see the poor, rather than poverty, as the enemy).
Whether by luck or inexorable market logic, the Republican party embraced economic fundamentalism at the same time that capitalism, from Fox news to Facebook, discovered that much of the public would really rather be manipulated than entertain the idea that they were susceptible to manipulation. Henceforth selling could replace debate, truthiness could replace truth, entertainment could replace politics, and even the most ludicrous of snake-oil salesmen could become president. Even Democrats now dutifully debate not what democracy should be or do, but who can outsell Trump. Trump looks like a contradiction only to a handful of intellectual conservatives who work in the media, who still believe, perhaps because it is their job to do so, that rational argument still has a role in the marketplace of politics.
1
Sounds to me like an argument between a Stalinist and a Trotskyite, though not in Odessa in 1930 but last week in a Coney Island nursing home. In other words, Who cares?
Movement conservatism is, as they say here in my adopted Australia, cactus. Such intellectual foundations as it ever had, which were always pretty flimsy, have long since crumbled away. You have the editorial staffs of a few magazines that no one bothers to read anymore, vanishingly few academics outside the distinctly unserious Liberty U and...who else? The Heritage Foundation? Come on. That’s just a lobbying organization for extraction industries.
Read your colleague David Brooks’s column from today. Whatever the outcome of such squabbles as you describe the future of American conservatism is irrelevance.
4
A number of the comments already submitted point out the lack of intellectual consistency to the notion of "conservatism" and the hypocrisy of its supposed proponents: Individual liberty is great until sex in involved, etc. Here's the reality: The Republican Party claims to be "conservative", but there are basically two Republican parties. One is the real Republicans who represent wealth and who have engineered three major tax cuts for the rich since 1980 and given us a trillion dollar annual deficit. The second is composed of uneducated, uninformed, voters who have been conned with "social conservatism" over decades. This base provides the votes that allow real Republicans to look out for rich people. The arrangement worked until Donald Trump showed up and starting acting on the bigotry that held the base together. People who write for a living can kick the concept of conservatism around all they want, but it will not alter the reality: the Republican Party is presently under the control of a bunch of bigots and dim bulbs who have been recruited by the Party over decades, and an increasing number of Americans are horrified.
2
Please stop pushing the canard of "limited government conservatives." There is no such think, at least when it comes to actual conservative governance. Each Republican Administration since and including Reagan's dramatically expanded the government's size, reach, intrusiveness, and indebtedness.
2
Oh, thanks - I think I get it now. So basically: one side wants an oppressive theocracy where big business is left alone to create prosperity and the elites are above the law - like Saudi Arabia. And the other side wants an oppressive theocracy where business and elites are also subjected to religious authoritarianism - like Afghanistan under the Taliban. In practical terms for most of us, it’s the choice of whether to be summarily beheaded for blasphemy on a paved street or a dirt one.
Great minds, these conservative thinkers.
7
Well I had to read this twice. No easy task for a progressive to try to picture the thinking of conservatives, divided as they seem to be. My advice:
1) Social conservatives- give up trying to use force (of law) to grow your influence, your religious views. Embrace personal choice, but lead by example. Nothing hurts your cause like hypocrisy.
2) Economic conservatives- make peace with a mixed capitalist/socialist blended economy that we’ve always had. Your role is that of....oversight. That old tripartite, ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ will grow as necessary government regulation grows. Make it work for us, not grifters. Be the auditors, investigators. Not happy with making common cause with big government? Shrink corporations, ban holding companies, etc.
All the rest- outdated. As your Party currently is. Join with us. Choice, wise spending, not a hard sell, I would think.
1
The Flat Earth Society is having a debate. Meanwhile, the rest of us have lives.
6
The foundational tenet of conservatism is honesty. Honesty is conspicuously missing in Trumpism and all the other shades of that political suasion
Those Republicans who embraced Trump have lost the right to call themselves conservatives. Now they're just "opportunists."
1
Perhaps if the Religious Right were not in charge of our supposedly secular Government, this would not be as much of a problem. The mere fact that there is no longer a Separation of Church and State is a huge problem.
Add to that, the Religious Right and Republicans in the Congress are behind gerrymandering, taking away Voting Rights, staking the courts with Ideologues, undermining and trying to eliminate the ACA, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other Social safety nets, does not say much about their purportedly beliefs that we are to help our fellow man.
The real problem with the Conservatives and the Religious Right are they are hypocrites, show no compassion or soul, are for only those who are like themselves. They will not even entertain that this Country is for all who live here, not just for them.
How can you compromise with these sort of actions and thoughts by the Conservative movement.
Republicans used to be a noble bunch with policy differences with Democrats. They have now shown us that they do not live up to their Oath of Office to put Country above politics. This is what is killing the Republican Party. Not only Trump.
Get Religion out of politics and put it back where it belongs. In churches. All the Religious Right has proven is they think they have the right to shove their beliefs down our throats. They do not have that right, as the real separation of Church and State is what is Constitutional, not their ideas of how to run a country.
4
In other words, the only thing wrong with Trumpism is Trump. Not likely.
The conservatives I know are not debating "David French-ism." But these real world conservatives, a mixture of Trump with a little Bush thrown in, would have no patience with trying to unravel the ideological twists and turns of national review columnists. No, they are clear about what matters to them: close the border, go toe to toe with China, eliminate any form of gun control--the more the better, give us back our bathrooms, recognize it is a man's world--I could go on, but these are the meat and potato issues I hear in public places, where, it should be noted, Trump conservatives now feel comfortable in public pronouncements of their racists and misogynists views.
3
There won't be any new American conservatism that decent people can get on board with any time soon for the simple reason that the last four decades have left it in such a state that the only people capable of retaining any affinity for it or its political party are either hopelessly ignorant or morally stunted.
It will take a new generation growing up under a left that has descended into its own version of madness for that to change.
Yikes. These nutballs are truly frightening.
Out here in the real world, the “liberal order” is failing because it has been unrelentingly attacked by conservatives, to the tune of the decimation of the social safety net, public education and infrastructure and environmental protections.
The idea that “civil society will flourish” if we just remove government is the most dangerous fantasy. ONLY government has the power to counter the more pernicious impulses of huge corporations and religious zealots. Under Trump, we’re also seeing exactly how bad things can get how quickly if the government is also allowed openly embrace corruption on the part of its leader.
We don’t need a big intellectual debate to know what works. From WWII until 1980, liberalism brought about the wealthiest, longest-lived and most politically powerful middle class in human history. Conservatives have been busy destroying it ever since.
By the way, while you’re debating this nonsense... climate change.
7
“But a more assertive social conservatism would also pursue the second thing that the post-fusionist conservatives seem to want — namely, stronger state interventions in the economy on behalf of socially conservative ends.”
Social conservatives may salivate for what is essentially Christian Sharia (“Christian” being used in the American Evangelical sense of the word and not in the sense that it has anything to do with the teachings of Jesus), but in doing so they are driving down their political influence. The vast majority of American voters are repulsed by the idea of a theocracy. Those of us outside the Evangelical-conservative Catholic bubble don’t want the government dictating our sex lives, health decisions, family lives, etc. Those who vote Republican for the pro-business ideology are going to drift further away from the Republican Party the more theocratic it gets (see, e.g., the Koch brother’s recently).
1
So, the debate on the right is on how much government should use its power to impose the beliefs of a single religion on its citizens? Sounds as though they want to impose an Iranian-style government structure - with the Bible replacing the Koran.
Please note that they want the ability to impose their beliefs on others, while deeming it morally wrong for anyone to oppose their beliefs. They’re marketing this religious tyranny as “freedom.” I guess God was kidding when he said “ do unto others as you would have them do unto you,”
2
It seems to me that conservatives are inching toward fascism. Fascism offers all the parades, patriotism, military spending, and warfare they want. Military spending supports the industrial economy while enabling extortionist treaties with intimidated foreign suppliers. European-style fascism also provides government-supported health care for the domestic population. Abortion is illegal because many babies are needed to replenish losses on the battlefields. Women are needed for this work, and the patriarchal family structure is fully enforced at home. Strike a "Concordat" with the religious authorities, burning liberal books, and all the elements of the conservative coalition get what they most wanted.
4
This is a dilemma for sure, but I would argue it’s not as bad as the one facing the left right now.
Because in the case of the left, there isn’t a single tenable example of what it is they actually want. Cases in point...
1. Progressive local communities are kind of terrible in their own unsustainable way. The gulfs between rich and poor, safe and unsafe, and the insolvency and high costs of their governments usually mean net out-migration, and zero desire among others to replicate it.
2. Progressive and socialist national communities offer no more of a future. Open borders, socialism, and economy killing regulations are and will continue to be rejected.
3. What about progressive corporatism? The kind we find at Google, Facebook, etc? It’s a paradox to the left - firms that are painfully white, and painfully rich. You could hold them up as signs of meritocracy in action, but progressives are increasingly about reparations for victimhood, and against rewards for success.
So my conclusion is that the left has the bigger of two dilemmas, and the right’s dilemma is far easier to bridge. It’s basically a matter of either going back to Fremchism, or doing Trumpism without Trump. Since Trump is one in 8 billion (as every individual is, but he’s particularly “unique”) I think we’re going to get Trumpism without Trump. Which will be sustainable and which is globally popular. I don’t see a return to Frenchism.
And I definitely don’t see the rise of the left anytime soon!
Let's distill this down a bit. If I understand correctly, post-fusion conservatives are essentially seeking a plurality within conservatism while ignoring the non-conservative side of the political spectrum entirely. The full fury and wrath of big government against my enemies; no government for my friends. In a sense, the position is quintessentially Trumpian. This even without Trump the individual.
Post-fusion conservatism obviously appears a willful call for philosophical incoherence. However, it also ignores the central fact that this country is not inherently or uniformly socially conservative. We are a nation founded on a healthy dose liberalism and no amount of judge appointments are going to change that fact. To advocate post-fusion is to advocate an end to the American experiment in democracy.
That's the problem post-fusion conservatives can't reconcile. They are assuming single-party rule when we already live in a pluralistic society. Liberalism keeps the wheels turning. That's why post-fusion conservatives can't figure out what they're really asking for. What they want can't properly exist in this nation as currently formed. It's a paradox.
11
I very much appreciate this column. But what Douthat omits from the debate between Ahmari and French is the irreconcilable difference between them according to Ahmari as reflected in this quote from Stanley Fish: "The religious person should not seek an accommodation with liberalism; he should seek to rout it from the field, to extirpate it, root and branch." There is no accommodation in the view of Ahmari.
3
In my humble opinion, the argument appears to be about whether support from minorities and “progressive women” need to be included to successfully implement a retrenchment to the 1950s culture and whether Trump is too toxic for this to happen. At least there is acknowledgment that Trump is doing damage.
So Conservatives want an outsized role for civil society to take on the responsibilities unmet by shrinking government? They are now for pro-“family” tax benefits and a “family” friendly industrial policy that pays “breadwinner” wages.
A few questions:
What guarantees do we have that “civil societies” won’t discriminate based on religion, race or gender?
Does a “smaller government” protect against state level abuse of civil rights?
What types of families are targeted for these benefits, where do they live?
Can a family have two breadwinners?
What are the rights of women in this?
8
As usual, Douthat does something in his near infinite wrongness to bring light to a reality that he wasn't even considering. In this case, he demonstrates once and for all that there is absolutely nothing that closely resembles "cultural conservatism," as he clearly reveals that ingenious PR term for what it truly is: cultural authoritarianism.
The fact remains that there is a vast imbalance in the morality and legitimacy of the "Left" and the "Right" in the so-called "culture war," and that such a "war" would be better described as a persistent terrorist campaign of a hate-filled and totalitarian cultural hyper-minority against the vast majority of Americans who simply want to live their lives in peace and extend that same right to all of their neighbors. Frankly, if any group were acting in the traditionally "conservative" sense (ie limited government intrusion, individual freedom, etc), it is the "cultural left" that does so. No one on the "Left" is telling anyone who they have to like, what they have to do, or what they have to believe, and as such have the Constitutionally correct stance and moral high ground. It is only the far-right which seeks to unconstitutionally legislate their religion, bigotry, and discrimination through an authoritarian and anti-democratic tyranny of the minority.
23
Except force my kids to use the same bathroom as kids who are biologically different.
1
@Bob B So your home has separate bathrooms for the males and females of your household?
3
@Bob B
Sure, Bob. Get over it. I had bashful bladder when I was a kid - I just waited until the bathroom was empty. Besides, why not turn it into a conservative economic boom by building more bathrooms? I'd be more worried about my kids being force d to have children of rape or incest or other kids they don't want. But the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy of conservatism marches on....
2
I may pick up Ahmari's memoir because it is likely a fascinating tale about how someone obviously has a need to find a tribe and so keeps morphing into someone who fits into movements that have strong moral/religious components. Having a cloak of righteousness and a battle to fight is important for people who are uncomfortable with themselves and struggle to win the battle within.
The passionate (and desperate) efforts of social conservatives to control the preferences and behaviors of others reveals their own deep dissatisfaction with their inability to effectively govern their own desires. Those who are able to repress their urges and appetites are resentful of those who are able to comfortably live as themselves and so want to make them conform as well. It would all be pitiable if it wasn't so harmful to the rest of us.
10
If you want to understand the split in conservatism you only need to understand this. Referring to the religious right,
"...that it goes along with legislation written for business interests...and that it generally acts like a junior partner even though it delivers far more votes."
Perhaps the religious right is finally waking up to the fact that the political right NEVER actually cared about their concerns. From the start the right has been at the service of a small group of oligarchs who want to enrich themselves.
They only need the religious right to deliver votes. Period. And therefore they pay lip service to the social conservatives as nothing more than a bait and switch. Leading republican politicians care nothing about abortion or who sleeps with whom or who will or will not bake a cake. They do know, however, that their economic policies could never get them elected, thus the big con. The irony is that for most of these religious conservatives, their pocketbook interests, healthcare interests, environmental interests, lie much closer to the progressive left than to the right, which addresses those interests not at all.
16
So much spilled ink over this conservatism or that conservatism.
One might as well be arguing over the arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic.
Yes, we currently see a lot of GOP/conservative power. It is because of the electoral college, our system of giving each state two senators regardless of population, extreme gerrymandering, and the very successful grievance industry peddled by Fox and other propagandists.
But as the GOP's more and more desperate measures to suppress votes demonstrates, the trend against conservatism is undeniable.
Younger voters despise the GOP and we are seeing a continuing retreat from religiosity, and an expansion of those claiming to be atheists. The great majority of younger people despise discrimination based on race, gender or sexuality, and laugh at the very idea that religious liberty should be grounds for permitting it.
Yes, I know - the demographic deluge has been predicted for a long time. But it's coming.
22
What exactly do conservatives 'conserve' other than their own privileges? Call them radicals, call them reactionaries but don't call them conservatives.
20
I would like to hear Mr. Douthat discuss Conservatism in the context of impending and current climate change. All this talk of "how we ended up here" is not relevant. It does not plan for the future, nor give suggestions.
If Mr. Douthat would comment on this, then he will begin the process of relevance in a dawning era of destabilization.
8
I suppose I'm one of those on the "outside looking in" - but I feel I can immediately see where the two sides come from in this, what would be generous to call a debate. I have no doubt that those on the right will vehemently disagree, but most defenses I've observed - including from the author and others here like Mr. Brooks, tend to end up mired in cognitive dissonance.
In my lifetime, being born just at the end of Carter's presidency, I have observed a steady parting of conservative discourse from objective truth, a sort of propagation of political tenets designed to supplant once-held conclusions and conventional wisdoms in service of forming and maintaining the very coalition that Mr. Douthat describes. And in this particular disagreement I see only differing degrees to which each faction has embraced this conservative political (and religious) fundamentalism. They are points on a timeline, and not substantive disagreements over policy or principle.
From out here, I see an unlikely coalition held together by propaganda and fear mongering (read: propaganda), and designed for a sole legislative purpose: to advance the interests of America's most wealthy. And so indeed, there is no real difference between Ahmari and French in terms of which version of the Republican party possesses a different political aim, there is only a difference in which bargains have been made and which messaging has been deployed in seeing through the very same interests since Reagan.
16
Separation of Church and State. It is in the Constitution. Very intelligent, those Founding Fathers. Separation of Church and State means that religious conservatives should have no right to legislate or pass judgment in the Supreme Court over my right as a woman to make decisions about my own personal life and fertility. That means, stay out of my uterus. Ross, when will you get the memo that Catholicism is dying because it is a flawed male-dominated machine that preaches fairyland stories and whose practices has little to do with most of the man Jesus's teachings? And please re-read the Constitution. The real takeaway here should be that neither French or Ahmari have any business making decisions about the private lives of their fellow Americans. That would sound like Very Big Government to me, in fact it would be tyranny. If you don't like abortion, don't have one.
13
@Julie Metz Actually it's not in the Constitution. Jefferson coined the phrase in a letter.
@Julie Metz -- I suspect that, at bottom, all the movements to re-vivify conservatism rest on a cultural and economic return to a violent, effective patriarchy.
Women are less frequently bamboozled by "family-friendliness" or whatever they're calling the new political superstructure these days. Family is, in conservative hands, a mechanism of control.
Catholics might intimidate Hispanics into voting for "protection of the little babies" over their economic interests, but again the power dynamic is naked.
We have minority rule now, and it may worsen. As the conservative intention to oppress becomes obvious, celebrated even, resistance will stiffen and the fantasies of the little men will be seen for what they are.
1
@Julie Metz
"If you don't like abortion, don't have one." Will you allow me to apply that policy to the gun laws as well? If you don't like guns, don't have one? Stay out of my gun safe?
If not, you are just as authoritarian as you accuse Misters French and Ahmari of being.
Currently, the conservative right is supposed to be represented by Republican Senators. But nothing could be farther from the truth. McConnell's "never respond yes" policy, brings all actions, debate and thoughts to a stop. It makes little difference where conservatism is now, if no one can tell. Voting in Congress is important to get work done and to inform voters of where their elected officials stand. This is lost on the current brand of conservatism in the House and Senate. Instead, we get gerrymandering, rollbacks of laws and regulations, appointments of right wing extremist judges and a refusal to vote on anything sent up from the House. This is not any form of conservatism or liberalism; it is just extremism. Like Trump, it is their way or the highway but I want to know what their way really is.
11
When the women wake up and start to realize that the anti-abortion issue is mostly anti-women's rights and that the next phase, should that be won, is to take away women's right to vote. Recently a Congresswoman from the mid-west stated that "we are not equal, it's not in the constitution" but of course it is in the Preamble and mistaking equality in human rights for equality in abilities is a very fundamental mistake so many hard core rightists make with their very concrete thinking.
8
The subtext for this debate is "never let the facts get in the way of a good opinion." Similarity to climate change is obvious. When making immediate money is more important than long term financial stability and people's lives, supporting immorality in expectation of short-term legal responses while losing possible support from tomorrow's voters follows the same thought pattern. Am waiting for any of the Democratic candidates to offer a fact-based, well thought out alternative.
1
You know, if, in 2016, I got everything I ever asked for -- a Republican President, a Republican senate, a Republican house, a conservative-dominated judiciary, Republican gerrymandering, money-is-speech -- and it turned out to be a horror story, I'd resort to internal squabbling over minor points as well.
33
What is striking about the complaints of the social conservatives is that they are primarily about the choices of individuals: “while marriage rates declined, birthrates plummeted and religious affiliation waned”. Similarly, the role of businesses in cultural change comes down to companies doing what is profitable for them, or what is desirable for their corporate leadership.
It reveals the inherent lie in conservatism- they don’t want small government when it means that people can use their freedoms to make liberal choices. They don’t want to let the market work if it turns out the market favors liberal approaches or opinions. They don’t want to let people make their own choices about their own lives.
Social conservative’s wants are not compatible with small government or freedom, and they’re realizing that now that they’ve largely lost the war of persuasion. What they actually want is a Christian theocracy, in which they can force individuals to make choices that conform to their particular Christian beliefs, which cannot be reconciled with our constitution or traditions.
113
@MEW
As I read your post, I found myself nodding "yes!". You have articulated exactly what I have been feeling for a long time. Thanks.
7
Talk about a tempest in a teapot!
Both cross-country comparisons, and trends within the USA, show clearly that almost every plank in the various "conservative" agendas is on the way out. Religion is the most stark and obvious; even in the outlier USA its adherents are steadily diminishing as a percentage of the population (see e.g. the Pew Polls).
There does seem to be one exception: nationalist, jingoist, "us vs them" politics which have been gaining power in the US, Great Britain, Poland, Hungary, India, and maybe elsewhere. This is surely a reaction to several components of globalization, especially in labor markets, and it's fed by our inherent genetic hardwired "us vs them" tendencies. It's unlikely to disappear any time soon but I would not be surprised if history sees this current "trend" as only a bump on the longer road to the expansion of "us" and the shrinking of "them" that prosperity, communication, travel, common technology, etc, plus the planet-wide phenomena of global warming, pollution, growing shortages of water, etc. that can be approached only internationally.
To be concerned about doctrinal differences within the American right is truly polishing the brass on the sinking ship.
13
Good article--thank you. What I am left wondering is where these deep thinkers of conservatism debate on oligarchy? I think this is relevant on two fronts. It is important to acknowledge that preset day conservative political outcomes are shoving us in that direction. Indeed, we may already be there. Also, is conservatism destined to always lead to oligarchy? This seems plausible given the limited role of government to which these thinkers subscribe.
11
Seriously? This is what it boils down to?
- "They want social conservatives to exercise more explicit power within the conservative coalition."
Lust for power is not a policy goal. People who want power for its own sake are precisely who should not have it.
- "Stronger state interventions in the economy on behalf of socially conservative ends."
So it’s income redistribution. Fine. But that starts with raising taxes. Somehow the right-wing ideologues are going to have to backpedal on the issue of taxes and fairness. Don’t hold your breathe on that one!
- "A philosophical reconsideration of where the liberal order has ended up."
That is not a policy goal, it’s not even a coherent philosophical project. It sounds like whining by people with no actual ideas.
30
@Paul And that's exactly right - these are calibrations to a propaganda effort that has created the very unlikely political coalition that Mr. Douthat describes - and from people so deeply immersed in that propaganda that they can no longer see anything like a forest for the trees. Ironically, in attempting to present this as some sort of substantive, albeit obscure, debate on issues - Mr. Douthat ends up being part of the very same cognitive dissonance.
4
@Paul
It's worth the time to read the Ahmani article in First Things, because Douthat only tap-dances around the true message of the article which is:
Theocracy! Crush the infidels.
It's all about using their power to force religious conservatism upon everybody. And Ahmani does not sugar-coat his message or try to hide.
“He (French) thinks that believers and nonbelievers, secular liberals and conservative Christians, can coexist under a classical-liberal framework in which disputes are settled by persuasion rather than constant legal skirmishing, or else are left unsettled in a healthy pluralism.”
I suspect that French embraces this position because as a religious Christian conservative he understands the nature of idolatry according to his faith - placing something other than God at the center of one’s attention; one’s being.
Other religious conservatives have proven so obsessed with winning, as opposed to leaving some issues unsettled in a healthy pluralism, and so willing to strike any bargain in order to do so (spending their time forging anti-anti Trump defenses for the indefensible Trump) that it is difficult not to entertain the thought that they are really worshipping, first and foremost, an ideology.
Secular and religious liberals are actually being charitable when they charge the anti-French conservatives with hypocrisy.
8
We are facing existential climate change, a million species at risk of extinction, sea level encroachment, worldwide pollution, CO2 gas emission records and ongoing environment despoilment. Sea mammals and sea bird colonies are dying of starvation. The largest Emperor Penguin colony has 'disappeared'.
Rather than heed or at least soberly consider the urgent warnings of scientists, some social conservatives want MORE of the 'old time religion', anti science, anti secular, anti humanism, anti responsible reproduction, misogynist, God-gave-us-the-earth-to-plunder philosophies and practices to be exhorted by and enforced by the State - because some of us millennials have the good sense to marry later or maybe not at all, refuse to bankrupt ourselves to have a brood of children supported by a single breadwinner and decline to pack the pews.
These zealots' flagrant defiance of science in the face of overwhelming evidence and their social engineering concepts endanger us all.
58
@Cal Genesis 1:26 says man is given dominion over the whole earth. Republicans, trumpists and anti-science fundamentalists interpret dominion as mere power, and ignore the responsibility that power necessarily implies. Would Christ approve the win-at-any-price, God helps those who help themselves mentality of the religious right? What did he say about entry to the kingdom by those who obsess over earthly riches?
7
Just to be clear: the harder religious fundamentalists push for a theocratic state, the more forcefully these efforts will be resisted by those of us who do not wish to return to the Middle Ages. Will the West ever move past the Crusades?
49
One item missed in the pre-trump conservative ideology list is the idea of fiscal responsibility. You remember, the notion that conservatives were for balanced budgets, etc -- a notion that flies squarely in the face of reality. Starting at least with Reagan, GOP governments have actually been worse than Democratic governments in terms of fiscal responsibility.
Nay, you may say: Obama had the biggest cumulative deficit in history. True, but that is almost entirely due to stimulus spending to get the US economy out of the disasterous mess he inherited from his predecessor -- which he did.
In comparison, trump inherited a strong economy and is on track to blow the budget deficit record out of the water. And what do his mostly-conservative billionaire/corporate friends have to say? Thanks for the tip.
32
There are nuggets of wisdom in this piece that suggest liberals and social conservatives could find common ground. However you statement that current conservatives need to drop their ethnonationalism is not nearly adequate. there will never be compromise if women can't have abortion on demand and basic democratic rules and norms aren't followed like allowing a super court nominee to come to a vote.
10
Let me guess. How to make the super rich and powerful even MORE rich and powerful, at everyone else's expense?
20
All I can see among these various strains of conservatism is that they want to force their beliefs in their gods on my family, in particular on my daughters.
They believe in 'free markets' in domains where even A Milton Friedman would acknowledge the market failure of externalities, eg climate change as a result of the gases spewed into our common atmosphere at no cost to the beneficiary producers.
The no return point of The Fall of the Republic will be dated to McConnell's denial of the Garland nomination, At that point, if nit earlier, conservatives demonstrated that their true goal of conserving, not liberty, but their power.
Douthat can dress up this reality in scholasticism all he wants, but his apologetics have become more than tiresome. They've become irrelevant and boring, but, I guess, to stay on a payroll with employer provided medical insurance is motivation enough.
71
@Eben. It is critical to human dignity to asset our freedom from the religion of those who seek to dominate others. The time for respect for superstition is gone.
3
A very thought provoking piece. Thank you.
Perhaps you could follow it up with how the new conservatism might share values with Millennials and Gen Z. The important role of community, economic populism, and a social contract where government supports people in their communities over businesses and their shareholder profits.
For this realignment to take hold there would need to be a more open acceptance of difference.
6
The term 'social conservative' has evolved and is now difficult to define. For example, a typical conservative is in favor of the death penalty...but is also against killing embryos.
And so-called conservative christians love to talk about Jesus, but fail to follow the simple teachings of Jesus.
And for 'social conservatives', family values seems to have little to do with conserving the natural environment for our children.
Perhaps we need to replace 'social conservatives' with a new term. How about 'moralizing pretenders' or 'sanctimonious frauds'?
98
@Barnaby Wild -
You realize this argument is tired. An embryo in the womb is an innocent life. Someone on death row has been convicted of a capital crime and therefore deserves justice. Apples and oranges.
@Barnaby Wild
Perfect! The Christian right ought to be familiar with another term as well, but it appears to me that they haven't actually read about the Pharas.
3
@Jeffrey S.
Is only life you deem innocent worthy of protection?
1
The great, sad irony is that Christian conservatives, straining to hold back the rising sea levels of secularism, are actually eroding the faith they think they are saving. Secular Americans, "nones" and those who identify as spiritual but not religious increasingly perceive American Christianity, particularly evangelical Christianity, as the militant wing of the Republican Party and as people who want to send women back to kitchens and birthing rooms, LGBT people back into the dangerous shadows, and immigrants back to their countries of origin. Their perception isn't wrong. But it's sad because the religion that Jesus taught boils down simply to the inseparable commandments of loving God, loving neighbor, and upholding fairness, equity and dignity that is the birthright of all human beings as fellow children made in the likeness and image of God. This is authentic Christianity, but it's not the Christianity proclaimed by the loudest Christians. Thanks to the conservatives who want to take what was a social theocracy 100 years ago and turn it into a formalized political theocracy, Christianity is suffering from a massive case of brand confusion, and potential new consumers are rejecting it. American Christianity needs a massive Reformation.
33
Though politics requires labels, the labels are in the end an 'academic' (and not in the intellectual/educated sense) exercise.
That one of the most recommended Comments here states that "The term 'conservative intellectual' is oxymoronic" seems not only needlessly insulting, but totally off the mark and illogical. And I'm a "far left" progressive, just to give it a label.
I don't care much about French and Ahmari. What brings me down is the collapse of any meaningful dialogue between those of opposing views, no matter what those views are. I find Trump's and McConnell's politics diabolical, but if I won't ask my Republican neighbor about his new red pickup truck, I know we'll never come close to talking about climate change, let alone anything more political.
The left and the right both are like exhausted boxers in the tenth round: punching randomly and stupidly, expecting their lame blows to bring the other one down. The problem is, no one is around to ring the final bell.
4
For all the erudite verbiage in this piece, for all the conservative philosophical comparisons, the underlying premise of both refutes the the intent of the Founders and overwhelming view of present-day Americans, that religion be removed from the body politic.
Remove this separation, even as insufficiently as it is now done, and you remove the essence of our Founders genius. They refused to be dominated by Kings... or to be separated by theocracy.
When Conservatives enfolded religion, they distanced themselves from the Constitution. Temporary power... abandonment of principle.
39
@Phil Zaleon
""They refused to be dominated by Kings... or to be separated by theocracy"
"the intent of the Founders ... that religion be removed from the body politic"
Incorrect. At the time of the ratification of the US Constitution, 11 of the 13 ratifying colonies had official state sanctioned and supported Churches.
Massachusetts (whose constitution is the closest model tot he U.S. Constitution) officially disestablished its official Church in 1833.
In the the establishment clause, the Founders were focused on the role of the Federal government, not "the body politic" as it pertained to the States or municipalities. And indeed the freedom of exercise clause was primarily intended to protect the latter.
@Sean
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776:
"And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing, that as men and Christians, ye many always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America."
Yes, states established official religions, but there were plenty of founding fathers who desired more separation of church and state. By the mid 1800's, there were no more state sanctioned religions.
Now that we are a nation of many religions, not just white, land-owning, male, Christianity, we would be wise to heed Paine's words. There would be a good deal of unrest in this nation if an 'official' religion were thrust upon us.
1
Ross should read today's David Brooks column, which shows that the younger generation is overwhelmingly opposed to the moral strictures of the conservative movement. Ross is slicing and dicing all the -ist factions that make up the right, a group of conservative intellectuals sitting on the railroad tracks and squabbling while the train of the near future is bearing down on them.
17
Real conservatives, like me, know that the only solution is to return to our basic moral and political hierarchy. In that spirit, we really need to give ourselves back to England.
4
@moishe Trump's visit to GB reminded me of a recurring fantasy: if we asked nicely, do you think the Queen would take us back?
The problem with the conservative coalition is that it is neither conservative nor a coalition. It is merely a temporary alliance of authoritarians, reactionaries, and hucksters who despise each other only slightly less than they hate democracy and human progress. They talk about religious liberty while conspiring to deprive 50% of the population of the ability to control their own bodies, and promising to ban all Muslims from entering the country. They espouse states’ rights while promoting policies that punish states for adopting progressive agendas. They are enamored of “small government” because a smaller government is less effective at protecting individuals from the depredations of big business and the rising aristocracy. They look at 100 years of human progress -- including prohibitions on child labor, advances in public health, enlarging human liberty and enacting social security insurance programs – and they see nothing more than a target rich environment for turning back the clock to a time when America was poorer, sicker and, above all, beholden to religious doctrines that kept the lower classes in check.
59
What I hope is dawning on some portion of the religious right is that a strong social welfare state is the best pro-family, anti-abortion policy plank available to them. It's Christlike without violating the 1st Amendment (which seems anathema to the discussion Douthat is leading). It's just and will stop giving those secular businesses so much power. Perhaps DSA should get them on the horn, because conservatism doesn't seem to have much to offer working families these days.
7
What do religious conservatives want? From the perspective of a religious liberal, it looks like they want a theocracy, specifically a white nationalist form of Christianity that enforces its own rigid hierarchy through the state, one that privileges men over women, rich people over the poor, and white people over everyone else. They appear ready to abandon democracy altogether. It allows too many secular, minority, or liberal ideas about equality to prevail, largely because they are popular. Thus they seek "stronger state interventions in the economy on behalf of socially conservative ends" and a strongman to force such unpopular, undemocratic ends down the majority's throat.
77
it is amusing to watch Mr. Douthat's contortions to avoid clearly stating what the Ahmaris want, since many of them are now saying the soft parts a little too loud: they want a Christian state.
They are not simply trying to change particular rules (laws) of a democratic society, but the meta-rules, the foundational laws that determine how the laws are made, and how power is distributed. And so it make sense that they view politics as war. They are attempting to overthrow the Enlightenment. Many of us have no desire to return to the medieval state, and will fight them tooth and claw.
149
@veblen's dog: I agree entirely with your assessment of what most conservative politicians and pundits want, but I would not characterize that end as "a Christian state." It might be characterized as "an Evangelical, theocratic state" or as "a pre-Vatican II Catholic theocratic state." There's nothing essentially "Christian" as in accordance with the essential teachings of Christ about their dream state.
I call my self an agnostic, Franciscan Taoist. I'm opposed to almost all forms of organized religion. Yet I believe that if everyone followed Christ's essential teachings -- love God (the creative spirit from which the universe and all life sprung) and love His/Her creation, and love your neighbor as yourself -- we'd make the world worthy of the "Second Coming." We'd have what Christian teachings call "the Kingdom of God." Don't hold your breath.
With churchified pseudo-Christianity in its most fundamental expressions dominating the landscape, we'll have a long wait for a reign of peace and love and we're likely to spark an ecological implosion while we dither and folks like Douthat split hairs over the proper expression of conservatism. Peace.
12
How many conservative angels can dance on the grave of Americanism? The answer, it turns out, is: quite a few. The debate Douthat goes on about is an internecine squabble about which dance is superior. Is it the waltz, the tango or the quick step? Liberalism didn't destroy families. A century-long assault on the American labor movement has transferred wealth from the middle class to the wealthy at an astonishing rate. The conservative response to family stress is an assault on family planning and all social safety nets that might prop up those who struggle to remain moored to an intact nuclear family. The viciousness that assails multiculturalism, diversity, immigration and public education shreds what it means to be an American. There is no real debate about ideas in conservatism. The debate is about the size of the cudgel to be used against the powerless. Trump has shown us his.
69
Here’s a challenge for you. What is a conservative solution to the problem of mass shootings in this country?
The only solution that I hear from Republicans is more guns, but that by definition is not a conservative solution.
Trying to solve any problem without changing things is impossible. Conservative intellectualism amounts to this: take credit for things that are good, blame liberals for things that are bad. It’s no wonder there aren’t many conservatives in places where this version of intellectualism has to stand up to scrutiny.
31
@Geoff--Problem is that "conservatives" have nothing to point to that is actually good, except where it benefits them over everyone else. Readers, if you differ, name one thing.
25
@Geoff
"The only solution that I hear from Republicans is more guns"
Might want to adjust your news feed. Many, many conservatives are calling for more attention to mental health issues. Their argument (in brief) is that gun availability has been a constant in American life since the colonial period, but mass shootings are almost entirely a phenomenon of the 60s on.
I won't attempt to debate that issue in a comment (there's good arguments on the other side) but just point out that if you're not even hearing that conservatives are proposing it, your news feed is probably filtering out their views. Which you may prefer, but if you do, then saying "The only solution that I hear" becomes more a statement of self-reflection than an observation about conservatives.
@Sean
The only accurate equation is: More Guns = More Death. Conservatives are doing NOTHING about that, quite the opposite, in fact. And claiming to support mental health initiatives while shredding the medical safety net is typical conservative hypocrisy. We hear what conservatives are "proposing" all right; we just see it as the smokescreen of lies it actually is. Spending money on others is anathema to today's conservatives; tell me how that squares with your bogus "mental health" policy investment.
3
I think there are times and places for conservative points of view (so long as they do not trample on anyone's human rights). I say that as an unequivocal Liberal Atheist.
The problem of course is that said conservative views have morphed into a radical right extremism that does trample on people's human rights, by evoking ''religious liberty''. Further more said points of view are being used as a cudgel to propagate a minority point of view on the majority.
I am an old school kind of lad, that thinks any point of view should be debated in the light of day, and then voted upon accordingly with there being a clear one person, one vote.
Of course, we do not have that now, and almost any ''conservative'' idea can only win by manipulation of the voting rolls, which in turn allows those that come to power to manipulate the court system/judiciary into their own image.
We have such a skewed view of the political landscape/spectrum, that we now have columns about who is the most extreme on the right - as if that was alright.
This is where we are - unfortunately.
21
How do Christian conservatives feel about arresting people who bring water to border crossers dying of thirst in the desert? Do they feel that all human beings, regardless of race or immigration status have basic human rights? Or are these rights only given to those who are deemed by these same Christians, as "worthy" of consideration as human beings?
40
I think you hit the nail when you described the French version of conservatism as "irenic", at least compared to the Amhari version. That new form is combative, aggressive and looks at politics as a zero sum game- my way or the highway. What that will get us is even more polarization than exists at present.
The antebellum period prior the Civil War is an instructive analogy. Then attitudes were completely inimical with no way forward to compromise and that is where the religious right is leading this country now. They ought to consider what the future consequences for this country are of their doctrinaire positions before it is too late.
13
This piece shows the inherent problems with so called conservatism. We have the conservatism that wants to return the US to the land of the 19th century, economic laissez faire, where workers are nothing more than a machine to be cast away, the poor are poor because they are somehow inferior, and if the government has a role in business it is to socialize failure with bailouts while not socializing the profits corporations make. The religious conservatives exist in this coalition, and in the process they sat on their hands while the GOP demonized the poor, gutted the social safety net, and wiped out decent wages, while they didn't care about the sharia law the religious right wants.
The religious conservatives (ironic one of its mouthpieces is Iranian) want to turn back the clock, too, they want to recreate 1950's America where because of strong unions, progressive tax policy and unique industrial status, anyone could get a good paying job w benefits, while on the other hand trying to turn society back to the middle ages. More importantly, they try to claim that if we bring back basically Christian 'morality' as our legal basis, that it will bring back the 1950's, will bring back male dominated workplaces, stay at home moms, and the mythical world where sex was only in marriage.
Neither one works, and maybe the answer to social conservatives is instead of being obsessed with forcing your faith on law, maybe try to fight for economic justice, 'heaven on earth', not Sharia
26
Good points.
As a note, Christian “morality” includes, and was founded on: a powerful male has his way with a girl and impregnates her without her consent.
Some people call this act divine, others of us call it something else.
Given that, it’s actually not overly surprising that some religious groups can rationalize Trump’s behavior.
7
There is not one faction Douthat describes that I would want to see influencing or governing the lives of my children and my children's children. What they all have in common is that they attract the Trump type - they have and always will be a breeding ground for autocrats and dictators.
40
Please stop labeling the GOP as ‘Conservative’. Conservatives typically worry about unintended consequences; the responsibility to govern seriously; extreme rhetoric and demagoguery; the rule of law; fiscal prudence; science and objective facts; and the protection of institutional and constitutional norms. The GOP in its current incarnation, not so much. The founders, rooted in the Enlightenment and Edmund Burke [the founder of Conservativism], would most likely ascribe the term Radical to today’s Republicans.
55
The desire for "a more assertive social conservatism" is exactly what we need to protect society from. If we go any further down that road we'll be living in a full blown theocracy. I'm getting older now and I hope I do not live to see my country descend into that quagmire. Why can't we have economic fairness and pro-family industrial policy without the religious overtones? What does religious conservatism have to do with infrastructure spending or manufacturing support? Americans already live under a yoke of Christianity that's ingrained in our government and public life, which is why the accusations of the assaults on "religious liberty" are particularly cynical. Injecting more religion, especially social conservatism's Christianity, into even more aspects of life in the US is not what will save us. It will divide us even more. If I believed in God, I'd pray to be saved from it.
44
There’s is something odd as well with some people who seem to be supporting the US moving toward essentially a theocracy - the assumption that their religion, specifically their version of a religion, will be the one in power or at least a version not discriminated against.
There is a history in this country of discrimination against certain forms of Christianity. Imagine the US as a Christian theocracy, an evangelical Protestant theocracy, which realizes that vilifying other groups is a powerful tool (that’s how they got into power). They dredge up all those anti-Papist rants and question whether Catholics are even really American as they follow the Pope (remember the push back against Kennedy).
One wonders if Catholics who are currently hopping on this “going back to traditional values” and unification of Church and State bandwagon realize that, in a US theocracy, Catholics too could very well be considered the “Other” and face persecution and exclusion.
First they came for...
3
@Other
Your wise comment would apply to the LDS and followers of Judaism as well.
1
"Christian conservatives" want to impose law based on their religious opinions, and don't want government protecting other citizens who have different beliefs. "Moderate conservatives" want to impose law based on their economic opinions, and don't want government protecting other citizens harmed by the free-wheeling policies. The fact that neither group wants to take into account that the plurality/majority of American citizens disagree with the "conservative" positions shows that neither of the groups are "conservative" at all. Rather, they are authoritarians who only want government to quash all rights and liberties of others in the pursuit of "conservative" goals.
52
By merely changing a few words, Douthat's pedantic sorting of groups might start to make more sense.
Let's try the term patriarchy where conservatism shows up. It seems to me that then gets to all the social conservatism Douthat loves as well as the "might makes right" ethos of libertarianism.
It also addresses Douthat's huge blind spots. First and foremost where do women fit in. (Ross, you won't win any elections without us.) Where do people of color and non-binary fit in? (Why do libertarians have such a hard time with that?)
24
The libertarians I bumped shoulders with tended to focus on economics. They social policy was nearly anarchy as anything goes. I’ve learned from them in that I believe the violence in the drug war would be eliminated if we legalized it. At the same time they don’t in any way fit in the conservative movement. They are borderline anarchists, not authoritarian.
What conservatives latched onto was the economics because it allowed them to take the pieces of libertarian economics and applying it to labor to destroy unions and worker protections while ignoring such libertarian values for capital.
Libertarians though do tend almost always towards a gold standard on the belief that you are unable to bankrupt a country if you had something of actual substance to fall back on. They also believed gold invokes a sort of natural fiscal restraint on the state.
My opinion is that libertarian philosophy was simply hijacked by republicans to attack labor. That’s the only part they cared about.
1
This dedication to Corporate America and the wealthy has caused conservatives to turn their backs on families and parents. I understand why you'd oppose abortion, but why on earth oppose sex education and the disbursement of contraceptives to ensure that people don't have babies if they aren't ready? Why ignore the plight of young parents, who often both need to work in order to survive in a system where jobs are needed for healthcare or a home in a non-distressed school district? Liberals do have good ideas about policies that could stabilize families. Conservatives profess a love of families, and then throw parents to the wolves in order to make sure rich people and corporations don't pay a lot in taxes.
53
I have always had the impression that Ross Douthat is a decent person. Perhaps that is why he fails to recognize where conservatism is headed. The populist tide that has infected American conservatism is startlingly reminiscent of the "populist" conservatism of the mid-twentieth century. Indeed, the leaders of the alt-right embrace this notorious past. We're talking about fascism. Fascists made the same complaints against secularism and liberalism that we hear in the debates over "David French-ism." Fascists wanted a more muscular defense of Christianity and traditional morality. And they had no qualms about using the power of the state to crush their enemies. Small wonder that Trump's authoritarian tendencies appeal to the nascent fascists among American conservatives. From the neo-fascist point of view, the problem with American conservatism is its classical liberal core. Fascists know that individual liberty is a solvent that undermines traditional structures of authority, like the church and the family. They know that free markets will choose profit over the preservation of traditional values any day of the week. American conservatism has always been an unstable marriage of classical liberalism and traditionalism. Now, it seems, the traditionalists are willing to go back to the future by resurrecting fascism, even if they might still recoil at the name.
17
@Stephen N I know you are afraid, but it is a paranoid fantastical indulgence to call the people you disagree with fascist.
Yes, you are correct that historically fascists such as Franco were motivated by defense of Traditionalism and Religion, but, and this is critical, fascists also believe in the centrality of government, which is an ingredient that is distinctly missing from American conservatives who have been working for decades to "flush gov't down the toilet." They are far closer to being anarchists than fascists.
I am a liberal democrat, and to be frank, I see the threat of fascism coming more from my own side - a side that is determined to dehumanize anyone that disagrees with them as racists, sexists, and fascists. A side that believes in the centrality of muscular big gov't. A side that is afraid.
We are the ones that openly discuss thought crimes and the need for re-education and constant vigilance for problematic members of the community. We are the ones that constantly redefine words till they are rendered meaningless. We are the ones that want to increase the capacity of government so that we may see our own values enforced throughout the land, from every bakery to every fried chicken stand.
@Andrew; I do not use the term fascist lightly. There is good reason to think that the nascent fascists on the American right have tossed aside the old conservative (i.e., classical liberal) commitment to small government and free markets. In order to "win" the culture war they appear willing to use the power of the state to impose their idea of a good society on the rest of us. And as Trump's love affair with tariffs indicates, his brand of conservative is no longer wedded to the free market.
Yes, you are right to observe that some self-styled progressives demonstrate a shocking intolerance as they wage their own culture war. Conservatives do not have a monopoly on unearned moral certitude. But it is not mud-slinging to call a thing by what it is. And the shift in conservative opinion that Douthat points out in his column is moving the American right in the direction of fascism. To ignore that in the interest of being congenial would be worse than foolish.
2
@Stephen N Stephen, I truly appreciate your points. You are of course right to be concerned.
My reason for being too hasty in response to your initial comment might be that since Trump was elected, my progressive peers have been very lazily applying the term fascist, and to be frank, I find it offensive. Not offensive to Trump, but to all those who have and continue to suffer under actual totalitarian regimes.
To be concerned is obviously prudent, but the idea that we are presently in a relationship to power such as has existed under the many actual historic fascist regimes is absurd, offensive, and quite potentially dangerous to democracy in of itself.
Anyhow, thanks for actually knowing something about fascism, and I will be more careful not to fight ghosts.
Interesting, but I still don't know what they are debating. I don't think it even matters what they are debating anymore. The real issue is that people who want something, power, most often, will sell out their ideals and support someone as uninterested in their goals as the sybaritic Trump to get something from him.
Still the oldest human passion plays are relevant.
What is missed, is these ideals seem dangerously close to uniting church and state. There's a reason that was a fundamental thought of the Founding Fathers. Pushing religious-based moral legislation on nearly 300 million people, where most of those people are not religious anymore is wrong. Just plain wrong.
And the more people fight about how to get the power they want, high road, low road, whatever, the less they focus on the ideals of America.
16
"Pushing religious-based moral legislation on nearly 300 million people, where most of those people are not religious anymore is wrong. Just plain wrong."
This is the problem with religion the world over. At some point in time most of the major religions have tried to force those who do not believe or take part in their brand of beliefs to get in line and do what they say. It's been done through wars, force, threats, intimidation and it's been done through governments rules and regulations. Through all of these examples the most devout followers have believed they are simply following, and getting others to follow, a supposed god and that god's plans. Getting others to do what that supposed god wants is all that matters and until that is played out in whatever society it is they will not tolerate anything less than subordination.
I never understood this when it came to a number of things that have been argued about for decades. If you don't agree with the idea of abortion...don't have one. If you follow what you believe your idea of a god wants isn't that enough? May I life my life as I please? NO!!! And there is the problem. The believers want to make the government force me to do what they believe a supposed god wants. Believers...when you ever finally meet this god you all claim to know? Please put him or her or it in touch with me because I have a lot of questions. In the mean time how about live and let live.
The real font of Conservative ideas is Sean Hannity. The intellectuals that Mr. Douthat mentions will rise or fall according to how well they rationalize Hannity for wealthy conservatives.
9
Interesting that there was no mention of the conservative methodology used to achieve these goals by either side, weighting the scales in their favor over the basic tenants of democracy, such as attacking voter rights, demonizing immigrants and gerrymandering.
45
@Alan Papscun. And the addition of a citizenship question because it will help Republicans to redraw district lines to help their white male voters at the expense of everyone else is one more nail in the coffin of the American Constitutional experiment.
1
These bitter inner debates among Republicans is a war for the intellectual dominance of the party itself, and obscures the fact that classical economic liberalism and its social twin pro-abortion politics have always--always--enjoyed a certain cachet among what in the Mid-West is known derisively as "Country Club Republicans." Episcopalian ladies in my small-town parish had a big hand in running both the Church and the local Republican Party. They bitterly condemned me for my public statements questioning Roe v. Wade. And let's be clear, too, about one other thing. Bigly considered, a significant portion of Trump Republicans come from the growing religious "Nones," who are indifferent to Christian teaching and ethics. My own view is that such people actually thrive on the way in which the liberal Protestant Churches are throwing away their own ethics in favor of a raw, secular view of moral autonomy that has little or nothing to do with what their grandparents taught them. This deep crisis in much broader than obscure, sectarian conflicts among intellectuals striving to exercise sway over the few Republicans who any longer think seriously about anything. I'd like to believe the great Lutheran Melancthon who was confident that history proceeds "by the confusion of men and the providence of God." Alas, serious Christians today will claw their way back to that belief only across a big wilderness of mirrors.
3
@David A. Lee
Your average liberal Protestant church these days is a small, committed band of people who staff soup kitchens and food banks, fund and build low-income housing, and welcome the neighborhood into their building to vote and attend AA meetings and preschool.
Quite different from the megachurches that feature acres of parking, large auditoriums and stages, and the Prosperity Gospel.
You might want to spend a Wenedsday night or two with those Episcopalian ladies. They’re more likely to be teaching immigrants English than playing bridge.
2
@kkseattle I spent nearly 30 years among them, Thank You Very Much. The contrast here is not between them and mega-Church bombast, but between fundamental cultural illusions and the real core of the Christian religion.
It speaks to the decay of the Conservative mouvement that many Conservatives see a Saviour in the person of...Donald Trump. Everything else is a side show and no one has yet replaced William Buckley as a thinking conservative.
14
I think a true conservative doesn’t expect the government to solve their problems. In fact, they expect the government to create problems, because no organization, no matter how beneficial, doesn't, and they expect to find a way to live with that – until the problems become so great that something has to be done in order to live nobly enough. When R.R. Reno “describes [these conservatives’] animating spirit as a feeling that *something else is needed*…without any certainty about what that something ought to be”, it's tempting to toss the label “conservative” right out the window. The right is unsettled yet strident, their president's gaze "blank and pitiless as the sun".
1
@Me "until the problems become so great..." Something like Climate Change??
2
@Ed Hubbard, yes. Conservatives may see climate change as a problem a bit later than the rest of us. But they may also be actively pro-environment, without an overt sense of panic. To be honest, those two possibilities can apply to liberals as easily. I know liberals who aren't concerned about the environment at all, while my very conservative, anti-liberal father believes that the Republican party has a massive blind spot regarding the environment.
Ross - you are smart enough, but are you brave enough, to conceive of a political movement that elevates the concept of human dignity as the pre-eminent value. Whether the animus is theological or secular, there has to be a way for us to agree more broadly on foundational values that inform our policies. To nurture and support the best in individuals, families (of whatever creed, gender or color), institutions (private or public) requires a new pragmatism on both sides. And no movement championed by "conservatives" is going to be embraced while its economic policies hollow out the middle class. How does your ilk not see the "walking dead" class of lesser educated, obese, opiod-addicted people tottering on the brink of mental illness as a canary in the coal mine? And from a practical perspective, how can a consumption-based economy thrive if the cost of education, housing and healthcare eats up all the available disposable income? The lack of money to gather in the malls, restaurants and to tithe the churches and secular associations will surely kill what's left of the institutions that bring us together. What's most problematic is that conservatives seem like they just don't care about their fellow humans. Bad branding. Ironically, the people who judge conservatives harshly do so from a core of goodness that is much more real than the one preached from any pulpit.
31
added to all of that, Whether one wants or not, time is moving forward NOT backward and therefore forward type thinking is necessary. Both "factions" seem to either support or rearrange old elements. Not a good prospect for the future!
4
@Pedter Goossens
In a society in which it now requires TWO incomes to support middle class life.....trying to force women to return to staying at home or part-time work (which is about the only way at present to take good care of children) rather than to address the basic societal problems that make every family confront unpalatable choices -- this is the problem conservatives refuse to face.
(Paying someone to care for your children or your sick family members is not an answer as the fiscal equation doesn't work out for most.)
8
@Susan
I do agree!
Another stronger, practical state "intervention' on behalf of "socially conservative ends" would be to permit the use of government vouchers to pay for secular education at religious or private schools. In fact, one need not be a social conservative or any other kind of conservative to support such a program.
2
I'm not of "the right" and not normally a fan of Douthat. However, thank you, Mr. Douthat, for an extremely cogent explanation of what is actually going on between the Trumpists and anti-Trumpists on the right, who previously, at least to this progressive, seemed cut from the same cloth.
2
This particular faction of the GOP is a threat to America. Much too often these folks use the 1st Amendment as a tool in which to force fellow Americans to abide by their beliefs. As a society, we see this by their failure to vaccinate children from preventable diseases which in turn endanger those too young to be vaccinated. Passing legislations that remove the legal right for women with their doctors to make reproductive health decisions. Nowadays they attack the media for trying to keep [their] politicians honest. Sadly, the reason why our fore fathers wrote the 1st Amendment has been forgotten or brushed aside by this group. Separation between church and state must be kept firmly in place across the country on all levels of government!
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The Ahmari and Vermeule articles are very disturbing; they are the image of illiberals who are bent on domination. However, one of their key arguments is that liberals are bent on domination too so a true pluralistic society is impossible so we might as well fight to impose our vision on society.
If we want to keep people like that marginalized, liberals have to defend actual pluralism, where religious people have scope to live the lives they want too. We need to accept that not everyone in society is going to have lifestyles or views we approve of, and let them have the space to do what they want as long as they aren’t constraining others. The gay wedding baker case was completely self-destructive; trying to force a little mom & pop shop to go against its religious beliefs when there were dozens of other places that would have readily prepared a gay wedding cake was very anti-pluralist and contributed to this new feeling by religious Trump-supporting conservatives that they need to dominate the whole society or their culture will perish.
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So I guess it’s Ok to tell African-Americans to just shop at other stores if one store refuses to serve them because of their race? You’re saying it’s fine to discriminate against gay people as long as you’re motivated by religion. That’s just not right. We don’t make exceptions for religiously motivated discrimination for any other group. Gay people shouldn’t have to experience the humiliation of being refused service because of their sexual orientation. Period. The injury is no less because of the religious motivation. You’re saying the religious person is more important than the gay person in this scenario.
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“The little mom and pop bakery” that refuse to bake a cake for anyone, regardless of their sex, political or religious beliefs is dangerous! What’s next? A religious test?! The mentality of the bakeries that refuse to bake a cake or whatever based on a person’s sexuality, is a very dangerous slippery slope. These people are no different than the people who promoted segregation in the Jim Crow South!
If your religious beliefs keep you from serving all of your customers then it’s time to close up shop!
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Douthat poses an important question to this element of revanchist Christendom:
“How are you going to persuade more African-American Christians to support what seems like a white-chauvinist formation?”
The answer is that, in the short term, they’re not. As long as they have Trump, they’re going to have to double-down on the tried-and-true strategy of voter suppression.
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