Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Point/Counterpoint: Conservatism Is Dead/The Future of Conservatism

Baraka_Guru · 02-15-2009, 05:56 PM

Quote:

The New Republic
"Conservatism Is Dead" by Sam Tanenhaus
An intellectual autopsy of the movement.
[EXCERPTS]
Post Date Wednesday, February 18, 2009

[...] What passes for conservatism today would have been incomprehensible to its originator, Edmund Burke, who, in the late eighteenth century, set forth the principles by which governments might nurture the "organic" unity that bound a people together even in times of revolutionary upheaval. Burke's conservatism was based not on a particular set of ideological principles but rather on distrust of all ideologies. In his most celebrated writings, his denunciation of the French Revolution and its English champions, Burke did not seek to justify the ancien regime and its many inequities. Nor did he propose a counter-ideology. Instead he warned against the destabilizing perils of revolutionary politics, beginning with its totalizing nostrums. Robespierre and Danton, the movement ideologues of their day, were inflamed with the Enlightenment vision of the ideal civilization and sacrificed to its abstractions the established traditions and institutions of what Burke called "civil society." They placed an idea of the perfect society over and above the need to improve society as it really existed.

At the same time, Burke recognized that governments were obligated to use their powers to meliorate intolerable conditions. He had, for example, supported the American Revolution because its architects, unlike the French rebels, had not sought to destroy the English government; on the contrary, they petitioned for just representation within it. Had King George III complied, he would have strengthened, not weakened, the Crown and Parliament. Instead, he had inflexibly clung to the hard line and so shared responsibility for the Americans' revolt. "A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation," Burke warned. The task of the statesman was to maintain equilibrium between "[t]he two principles of conservation and correction." Governance was a perpetual act of compromise--"sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil." In such a scheme there is no useful place for the either/or of ideological purism.

The story of postwar American conservatism is best understood as a continual replay of a single long-standing debate. On one side are those who have upheld the Burkean ideal of replenishing civil society by adjusting to changing conditions. On the other are those committed to a revanchist counterrevolution, the restoration of America's pre-welfare state ancien regime. And, time and again, the counterrevolutionaries have won. The result is that modern American conservatism has dedicated itself not to fortifying and replenishing civil society but rather to weakening it through a politics of civil warfare.

[...]

The right, which for so long had deplored the politics of "class warfare," had become the most adept practitioners of that same politics. They had not only abandoned Burke. They had become inverse Marxists, placing loyalty to the movement--the Reagan Revolution--above their civic responsibilities. In 1995, the time of Gingrich's ascendancy, Kristol buoyantly spelled out the terms of revanchist strategy: "American conservatism is a movement, a popular movement, not a faction within any political party. Though, inevitably, most conservatives vote Republican, they are not party loyalists and the party has to woo them to win votes. This movement is issue oriented. It will happily meld with the Republican party if the party is 'right' on the issues; if not, it will walk away." By this calculus, all the obligations flow in only one direction. Parties are accountable to movement purists, while purists incur no reciprocal debt. They determine the "right" position, and the party's job is to advance it. Kristol does not consider whether purists might be expected to maneuver at all or even to modify their views--for the good not only of the party but also the larger polity.

Kristol went on, in this essay, to extol the contributions of two movement subgroups, the neoconservatives and the evangelicals. It was of course this alliance that most fervently supported George W. Bush during his two terms and remains most loyal to him today.

By their lights, they are right to do so. Bush, so often labeled a traitor to conservative principles, was in fact more steadfastly devoted to them than any of his Republican predecessors--including Ronald Reagan. Few on the right acknowledge this today, for obvious reasons. But not so long ago many did. At his peak, following September 11, Bush commanded the loyalties of every major faction of the Republican Party. The big central domestic proposal of his first term, the $1.3 trillion tax cut, extended Reagan's massive "tax reform" from the 1980s. Shortly before the Iraq invasion, Martin Anderson, Reagan's top domestic policy adviser, told Bill Keller (writing in The New York Times Magazine) that Bush was unmistakably Reagan's heir. "On taxes, on education, it was the same. On Social Security, Bush's position was exactly what Reagan always wanted and talked about in the '70s," Anderson said. "I just can't think of any major policy issue on which Bush was different." The prime initiative of Bush's second term, the attempt to privatize Social Security, drew directly on movement scripture: Milton Friedman denounced the "compulsory annuities" of Social Security in Capitalism and Freedom. Buckley noted the advantages of "voluntary" accounts in his early manifesto, Up From Liberalism. So did Barry Goldwater during his presidential campaign in 1964. Bush went further than Reagan, too, in the war he waged against the federal bureaucracy. And his attacks on the "liberal-left bias of the major media" were the most aggressive since Nixon's.

And then there was Iraq, the event that shaped Bush's presidency and, by most accounts, brought both him and the movement to ruin. It was also the event most at odds with classic conservative thinking. It is customary even now to say that the architects of the Iraq occupation failed because they naively placed too much faith in democracy. In fact, the problem was just the opposite. So contemptuous of the actual requirements of civil society at home, Bush's war planners gave no serious thought to how difficult it might be to create such a society in a distant land with a vastly different history. Those within the administration who tried to make this case were marginalized or removed from power.

[...]

In the end, movement conservatives got the war they wanted--both at home and abroad. It ended, at last, with the 2008 election, and the emergence of a president who seems more thoroughly steeped in the principles of Burkean conservatism than any significant thinker or political figure on the right.

What our politics has consistently demanded of its leaders, if they are to ascend to the status of disinterested statesmen, is not the assertion but rather the renunciation of ideology. And the only ideology one can meaningfully renounce is one's own. Liberals did this a generation ago when they shed the programmatic "New Politics" of the left and embraced instead a broad majoritarianism. Now it is time for conservatives to repudiate movement politics and recover their honorable intellectual and political tradition. At its best, conservatism has served the vital function of clarifying our shared connection to the past and of giving articulate voice to the normative beliefs Americans have striven to maintain even in the worst of times. There remains in our politics a place for an authentic conservatism--a conservatism that seeks not to destroy but to conserve.

Conservatism Is Dead

Quote:

Pendulum Online
Spotlight moves off Obama, Republican Party in need of change
by Daniel Shutt
February 10, 2009

As a proud and partisan Democrat, the last few months have brought me a great deal of personal satisfaction. My candidate and my party have won a sweeping mandate to change the direction of the country and repair the damage that former President George W. Bush and the Republican Party have done over the last eight years. As an American, though, I am deeply troubled by the new political dynamics that have emerged. While I may disagree with my Republican friends, there can be no doubt that our country is better off when we hear the voices of all Americans. That is why I am concerned about the future of the Republican Party.

It is clear that the 2008 election represented not just an electoral defeat, but a thorough rebuke of the Republican brand. If Republicans fail to drastically overhaul their approach, they are destined to wander in the political wilderness for years to come.

It is with these concerns that I, a concerned Democrat, offer some suggestions:

Listen to young voters. In November, President Barack Obama won 66 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29. Few politicians in American history have captured the imagination of young people like Obama has, and his personal magnetism certainly accounts for his success. It is clear that Republicans have an outdated set of priorities that do not appeal to the millennial generation. Voters our age want to hear more from candidates about the environment and global poverty and less about culture war issues like abortion and gay rights.

Make peace with Hispanic voters. In 2004, Bush won the Hispanic vote by 12 percent. In 2008, Sen. John McCain won only 33 percent. McCain, a strong proponent of immigration reform, should have appealed strongly to Hispanics. But his individual positions were overwhelmed by the noxious anti-immigrant tone coming from his party. By 2030, Hispanics will be one-fifth of the country’s population. Simply put, the Republican Party cannot continue to be an almost exclusively white party. If they don’t change their tone, Republicans will find themselves marginalized.

Broaden middle-class appeal. When the fall campaign turned abruptly to the issue of economic security and jobs, the Republicans seemed completely lost. As voters became more anxious about their jobs, pensions, homes and healthcare, Republicans gave them the same old song and dance about tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s no wonder polls indicated that Americans trusted Democrats with the economy. With the economy in a free-fall, Republicans would be smart to listen more carefully to the middle class. Put tax cuts for big corporations on the back burner and start talking about healthcare, education and retirement security.

Get serious. At a recent conference on “the future of conservatism,” the headline speakers were Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Joe the Plumber. If any of these people represent the future of conservatism, Republicans are in real trouble. The American people are starved for serious ideas and solutions, not talk-show bluster. What if congressional Republicans offered principled conservative criticisms of the president’s stimulus plan, rather than deferring to the likes of Limbaugh and Fox News? Our public debate needs thoughtful exchange.

Leave Sarah Palin in Alaska. I know, some conservatives want to nominate her in 2012. But her over-heated rhetoric about “pro-America” parts of the country and Obama “palling around with terrorists” are needlessly divisive and ugly. Besides, after eight years of Bush, do you really want another punch line as a president?

Coming from a Democrat, this advice may not mean much to Republicans, and they might ignore it. That’s their prerogative. But I’d rather face a worthy competitor than watch old friends lose their way.

Pendulum Online

This topic has more or less come up a number of times in recent threads in Tilted Politics. Here I have referenced two essays that discuss conservatism and its current status--and possible future. Some conservatives here at TFP have admitted that the Bush administration was a far cry from conservatism, and deplore the Neocon movement.

I'd like to open a discussion about conservatism and how it's changed in recent years.

How far has conservatism been taken from its roots?
What fundamental elements are currently missing from the "conservatism" of the current Republicans?
What sort of policies, changes, etc., both domestic and international, do pre-Neocon conservatives want in the U.S.?

I see a problem even in the conservatism in Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his mentors/advisors are from that same Chicago school that espouses neoliberalism and other elements of the Neocon movement. Much of what's wrong with conservatism can be traced even as far as here in Canada.

Do contemporary conservatives look to Burke's view of conservatism as a starting point? What sort of changes since Burke are reasonable to conservatism and what sort aren't?

Help me get a view as to what contemporary conservatives want. How much work do they have in wresting power from the Neocons?

What is the possible future of conservatism in America? How close are these essays to their mark?