Heroic Conservatism

George Will, one of the most principled conservavtive commentators today, has an analysis of Michael Gerson's new book, Heroic Conservatism, over at Real Clear Politics (click here):

In the 1920s and '30s, the American left was riven by multiple factions furiously representing different flavors of socialism, each accusing the others of revisionism and deviationism. Leftists comforted themselves with the thought that "you can't split rotten wood."

But you can. And the health of a political persuasion can be inversely proportional to the amount of time its adherents spend expelling heretics from the one true (and steadily smaller) church. Today's arguments about conservatism are, however, evidence of healthy introspection.

The most recent reformer to nail his purifying theses to the door of conservatism's cathedral is Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for the current president, and now a syndicated columnist. He advocates "Heroic Conservatism" in a new book with that trumpet-blast of a title.

His task of vivifying his concept by concrete examples is simplified by the fact that he thinks the Bush administration has been heroically conservative while expanding the welfare state and trying to export democracy. His task of making such conservatism attractive is complicated by the fact that ... well, it is not just the 22nd Amendment that is preventing the president from seeking a third term.

Gerson, an evangelical Christian, makes "compassion" the defining attribute of political heroism. But compassion is a personal feeling, not a public agenda. To act compassionately is to act to prevent or ameliorate pain and distress. But if there is, as Gerson suggests, a categorical imperative to do so, two things follow. First, politics is reduced to right-mindedness -- to having good intentions arising from noble sentiments -- and has an attenuated connection with results. Second, limited government must be considered uncompassionate, because the ways to prevent or reduce stress are unlimited.

"We have a responsibility," Bush said on Labor Day 2003, "that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." That is less a compassionate thought than a flaunting of sentiment to avoid thinking about government's limited capacities and unlimited confidence.

Conservatism is a political philosophy concerned with collective aspirations and actions. But conservatism teaches that benevolent government is not always a benefactor.

Conservatism's task is to distinguish between what government can and cannot do, and between what it can do but should not.

Gerson's call for "idealism" is not an informative exhortation: Huey Long and Calvin Coolidge both had ideals. Gerson's "heroic conservatism" is, however, a variant of what has been called "national greatness conservatism." The very name suggests that America will be great if it undertakes this or that great exertion abroad. This grates on conservatives who think America is great, not least because it rarely and usually reluctantly conscripts people into vast collective undertakings.

Read the rest.

Will gets in his digs against neoconservatives (they've never met a foreign conflict they didn't like), but his attack on "national greatness" conservatism is unproductive (just mostly deligitimizing).

What should a post-Bush conservative synthesis look like? The notion of compassionate conservatism has a lot going for it. Perhaps Will and other libertarian conservatives hope to take the U.S. back to long-gone, Lochner-type era that is no longer appropriate for the demands of a massive, advanced post-industrial democracy like the United States.

Challenges Ahead for Conservatives

From Dean Esmay, "Is Conservatism Becoming More Muscular?":

Eric thinks so, but me, I’m not seeing it. Sure, people who call themselves conservatives are more angry right now, but they also seem a lot less thoughtful and well-informed than the conservatism I remember from 10, 20 years ago. A movement once full of stellar intellectual thinkers is now dominated by the likes of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. And while this may increase the movement’s strength in some areas, it diminishes it enormously in others. When the answer to every question, before you even ask it, is either “the market” or “the Bible,” how coherent can your agenda really be once you take power? If the only thesis of your movement is that our own government is always and everywhere our enemy, what exactly is that movement going to accomplish? It’s increasingly looking to me like conservatism is more of a twitch than an actual intellectual point of view. Which I find disappointing and a little disturbing, because it didn’t used to be that way.

The citation for "Eric" goes to Classical Values, "My biggest problem right now is that I can't stand Obama, but that has not translated into loving conservatism." But I'm just going to stay with Dean's comments above (Eric, a longtime libertarian, can't get in all the way with the conservative agenda). The bottom line for Dean is "what will conservatives do with all that angry energy," because they sure don't have much up their sleeves policy-wise.

I'm not exactly sure of Dean's political orientation, but I'll go with a moderately classical liberal, from what I can see of his writings so far.

In any case, the blogosphere and its media-piggybackers had the huge debate over conservatism late last year and early this one. Indeed, with all the jubilation over Barack Obama's election -- and the not unexpected hubris on the left (especially the condescending attacks on right-wing "knuckle-draggers" that continue today) -- I admit to being a little depressed at the prospects of being in the wilderness for a while. Happily, my confidence in the movement was restored with the April 15th Tax Day Tea Parties, and it's been all speed ahead since then!

Readers know I'm no super-duper philosopher. I go with my gut instincts on things, and I apply the real political science expertise I've developed in my training and teaching. As for my orientation, my initial entry at this blog lays out my transition over the last few years. See, "Welcome to American Power." Also, I don't reflexively hate any and all government, obviously so in the case of foreign policy. See, "Constitutional Conservatism," where I cite Peter Berkowitz, who argues that that those on the right need to reconcile with public-goods structures of the American state. That is, a wholesale roll-back of government is impractical, but a limitation of the expansion of the state is an imperative. Those more in favor of a state-centered federalism -- one way of advocating small-g conservatism -- obviously won't have much truck with the Berkowitz thesis. That said, "constitutional conservatism" is pragmatic and firmly based in classic conservative thought.

I've also previously cited an agenda I called "Core Values Conservatism." There I draw on the best short essay published after President Obama's election: Richard Land's, "Stay Faithful to Core Values." (In Land's model, a conservative agenda starts with the unequivocal support for life -- a total pro-life agenda -- that sweeps all the way to a Reaganite foreign and defense program. To top all of this off, I'd simply remind folks that the best book to read on what the right should be doing is Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative. Writing in 1960, perhaps Goldwater was optimistic that conservatives could actually rollback the size of government. I'm less optimistic than he was, and while Berkowitz's "constitutional conservatism" is more up my alley, Goldwater's ideals would easily satisfy the programmatic goals of those on the political right today -- and I'd happily be on board for scaling back the domestic scope of government in exchange for continued support for a robust foreign policy orientation.

But let me address this backlash we see against Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity (cited by Dean), and not to mention Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh, who also bear the brunt of leftist attacks on the movement:

First, if folks are looking for intellectuals they should go to the library (humor alert -- library or not, we're all online anyway). Actually, there's lots of good deep-thinking conservatism around, though it's out of the limelight of the polarizing debates. Berkowitz writes often at Policy Review, for example. He's joined there by a stable of great writers who straddle scholarship and policy studies. City Journal is also quite an impressive intellectual flagship. I think Heather MacDonald and Abigail Thernstrom, two Manhattan Institute scholars, represent some of the best writing on civil rights and social policy today. But talk radio and Fox News are where the conservative rubber meets the road. And that's where it's at today. We're not going back to William Buckley's urbanity on Frontline. And at that, it's not as if Buckley wasn't one to mix it up now and then: Recall Buckley in 1968 against Gore Vidal: "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in you goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered." No, the shock jocks on TV are simply partisan, but what they're doing is no different that what Markos Moulitsas did in the heyday of Daily Kos (i.e., hammer a polarizing agenda geared to winning ideological power).

Actually, my issues are what might be termed the right's vulnerability to racial blackmail. The Democratic-left under Obama has established the race card as its main claim to viability. The party's pushing a non-transparent socialist agenda, but to even mention that word in the context of this administration is to be branded a bigot and lynchman. Look what's happened to Robert Stacy McCain just today. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow advanced Charles Johnson's scurrilous "racist" smear on national television. Maddow's no better that the most demonic left-wing Internet troll -- it's despicable frankly. Here's the transcript:

I do think that there's a little bit of reckoning that needs to happen on the right for Sarah Palin's success. I mean, she was the vice presidential nominee, she is going to sell a kazillion books and she is the biggest brand name in Republican politics still right now. And she's chose ... Lynn Vincent, who's written a book with a white supremacist, to write her book, and she's the biggest name in Republican politics.

This is pure libel. But fighting cheap smears like this is costly, and thus she's unlikely to be challenged -- and hence her attacks are even more insidious. Robert Stacy McCain's just a stepping-stone for Maddow to smear Sarah Palin as a bigot. We've been hearing the same lies since last August. It's riduculous. Contrast to the real communists at the top ranks of the president's administration, and it's almost comical the lengths the Democrats will go in with their racist smokescreens and radical coverups.

Unfortunately, while utterly outlandish, there's an efficacy to these attacks that's disturbing. Just to be identified as one one who admires traditional Southern culture is to be attacked as a white supremist, due to the sad legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction. My sense is that even the most principled conservatives, those who understand that in the post-civil rights era, the South has been the ideological base of the party, while at the same time being that region most thoroughly reconciled questions of race and resentment, would hesitate to claim an openly Dixie-ish ideological heritage (see The Economist, "The Southernization of America"). I have a sense that my good friend Stogie has removed the image of a Confederate cavalryman from his blog's masthead, to be replaced with images of Continental soldiers from the colonial-era, for that very reason. I guess just an image of that history is likely to bring out the race-baiting leftists, who'll defile, libel, and smear good-hearted people without the slightest bit of remorse.

This may well be a problem for conservatives. That is to say, while those of us who are activists engaged in the tea party and online right-roots movements are anti-racist through and through, those few isolated cases of extremism -- often falsely attributed to the conservative right -- are sensationalized as if folks are listening to "Dueling Banjos" all day and calling black folks "boy" or "Auntie" in a throwback to Jim Crow. Of course, the Contessa Brewers of the world world will even lie on national TV in attempting to make the charges stick.

I'd have more to say on this, and to especially to clarify some of the points here, but this post is getting long. Suffice it to say that conservatives are the ones who'll truly lead on those issues Democrats claim as their moral foundation, i.e., civil rights, education, anti-poverty, etc. Conservatives will win debates on these issues because they believe in the power of the individual. But they have to fight hard to beat back down the endless cries of racism coming from the left side of the spectrum. That's all the Democrats have, and they'll attack conservatives with race just like Chicago's Democratic youth thugs beat and killed Derrion Albert last month.

What Is Conservatism?

From Ofir Haivry and Yoram Hazony, at the new journal, American Affairs:

The year 2016 marked a dramatic change of political course for the English-speaking world, with Britain voting for independence from Europe and the United States electing a president promising a revived American nationalism. Critics see both events as representing a dangerous turn toward “illiberalism” and deplore the apparent departure from “liberal principles” or “liberal democracy,” themes that surfaced repeatedly in conservative publications over the past year. Perhaps the most eloquent among the many spokesmen for this view has been William Kristol, who, in a series of essays in the Weekly Standard, has called for a new movement to arise “in defense of liberal democracy.” In his eyes, the historic task of American conservatism is “to preserve and strengthen American liberal democracy,” and what is needed now is “a new conservatism based on old conservative—and liberal—principles.” Meanwhile, the conservative flagship Commentary published a cover story by the Wall Street Journal’s Sohrab Ahmari entitled “Illiberalism: The Worldwide Crisis,” seeking to raise the alarm about the dangers to liberalism posed by Brexit, Trump, and other phenomena.

These and similar examples demonstrate once again that more than a few prominent conservatives in America and Britain today consider themselves to be not only conservatives but also liberals at the same time. Or, to get to the heart of the matter, they see conservatism as a branch or species of liberalism—to their thinking, the “classical” and most authentic form of liberalism. According to this view, the foundations of conservatism are to be found, in significant measure, in the thought of the great liberal icon John Locke and his followers. It is to this tradition, they say, that we must turn for the political institutions—including the separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism—that secure the freedoms of religion, speech, and the press; the right of private property; and due process under law. In other words, if we want limited government and, ultimately, the American Constitution, then there is only one way to go: Lockean liberalism provides the theoretical basis for the ordered freedom that conservatives strive for, and liberal democracy is the only vehicle for it.

Many of those who have been most outspoken on this point have been our long-time friends. We admire and are grateful for their tireless efforts on behalf of conservative causes, including some in which we have worked together as partners. But we see this confusion of conservatism with liberalism as historically and philosophically misguided. Anglo-American conservatism is a distinct political tradition—one that predates Locke by centuries. Its advocates fought for and successfully established most of the freedoms that are now exclusively associated with Lockean liberalism, although they did so on the basis of tenets very different from Locke’s. Indeed, when Locke published his Two Treatises of Government in 1689, offering the public a sweeping new rationale for the traditional freedoms already known to Englishmen, most defenders of these freedoms were justly appalled. They saw in this new doctrine not a friend to liberty but a product of intellectual folly that would ultimately bring down the entire edifice of freedom. Thus, liberalism and conservatism have been opposed political positions in political theory since the day liberal theorizing first set foot in England.

Today’s confusion of conservative political thought with liberalism is in a way understandable, however. In the great twentieth-century battles against totalitarianism, conservatives and liberals were allies: They fought together, along with the Communists, against Nazism. After 1945, conservatives and liberals remained allies in the war against Communism. Over these many decades of joint struggle, what had for centuries been a distinction of vital importance was treated as if it were not terribly important, and in fact, it was largely forgotten.

But since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, these circumstances have changed. The challenges facing the Anglo-American tradition are now coming from other directions entirely. Radical Islam, to name one such challenge, is a menace that liberals, for reasons internal to their own view of the political world, find difficult to regard as a threat and especially difficult to oppose in an effective manner. But even more important is the challenge arising from liberalism itself. It is now evident that liberal principles contribute little or nothing to those institutions that were for centuries the bedrock of the Anglo-American political order: nationalism, religious tradition, the Bible as a source of political principles and wisdom, and the family. Indeed, as liberalism has emerged victorious from the battles of the last century, the logic of its doctrines has increasingly turned liberals against all of these conservative institutions. On both of these fronts, the conservative and liberal principles of the Anglo-American tradition are now painfully at cross-purposes. The twentieth-century alliance between conservatism and liberalism is proving increasingly difficult to maintain...

Keep reading.

Constitutional Conservatism

Peter Berkowitz offers his advice for the divided partisans of today's political right, in his essay, "Constitutional Conservatism":

A constitutional conservatism puts liberty first and teaches the indispensableness of moderation in securing, preserving, and extending its blessings. The American Constitution that it seeks to conserve presupposes natural freedom and equality; draws legitimacy from democratic consent while protecting individual rights from invasion by popular majorities; defines government’s proper responsibilities while providing it with the incentives and tools to perform them effectively; welcomes a diverse array of voluntary associations in part to prevent any one from dominating; assumes the primacy of self-interest but also the capacity to rise above it through the exercise of virtue; reflects and at the same time refines popular will through a complex scheme of representation; and disperses and blends power among three distinct branches of government as well as among federal and state governments to provide checks and balances. The Constitution and the nation that has prospered under it for 220 years demonstrate that conserving and enlarging freedom and democracy in America depend on weaving together rival interests and competing goods ....

The principles are familiar: individual freedom and individual responsibility, limited but energetic government, economic opportunity, and strong national defense. They derive support from Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, as well as from Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, and, in his most representative moments, John Stuart Mill — outstanding contributors to the conservative side of the larger liberal tradition. They are embedded in the Constitution and flow out of the political ideas from which it was fashioned. In the 1950s, they animated William F. Buckley Jr.’s critique of higher education in America in God & Man at Yale, an opening salvo in the making of the modern conservative movement. In the 1960s, they were central to Frank Meyer’s celebrated fusion of traditionalist and libertarian conservatism, and they formed the backbone of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign for the presidency. In the 1980s, they inspired Ronald Reagan’s consolidation of conservatism. In the 1990s, they fueled Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution.” And even though George W. Bush’s tumultuous eight years in the White House have left conservatives in disarray, these principles informed both his conception of compassionate conservatism and his aspiration to make the spread of liberty and democracy a crucial element of American foreign policy.

The article's worth a careful read, here.

I was impressed by how much Barry Goldwater's conservative vision animates Berkowitz's "constitutional conservatism." That vision melds political liberty and traditional morality as a guiding ethical program for society. Beyond this, Berkowitz's piece offers a good review of the conservative canon. He offers two bold statements for movement activists today: One, big government is here to stay, and that the right should stress "limited" goverment rather than "smaller" government as a winning tactic; second, and more controversially, Berkowitz suggests the right should reconcile to the sexual revolution, that, for example, premarital sex and institutionalized divorce are facts of contemporary American life, and conservatives court danger with an obssession toward rolling back the clock in this social arena.

Berkowitz provides a point-by-point manifesto at the conclusion. One point that's interesting is how the article essentially offers an endorsement of neoconservatism without actually mentioning neoconservtism. That is to say, the right can assume as a doctrinal notion that a strong and outward national security policy is the basis for the preservation of liberty and moral order at home. The discussion of Goldwater and Ronald Reagan illusrates that both libertarian politics and moral society depend on robust national security policies and leadership in the international realm.

The debate for conservatives is found then, essentially, outside of a forward, free-trading national security orientation; it is instead the search, on the one hand, for a proposed domestic governance model that can reconcile the rejuvenated demands for small-government activism amid the accession to power of a Democratic Party regime intent on the largest peacetime expansion of the state in American history. Backed by some polling data, the country's progressive left will be tempted to transform Democratic power into a patriarchal state-universalism, with government action, in virtually every sector of American life, sold as a public good necessitated by monumental market failure; there is also the call by Berkowitz, on the other hand, for a conservatism that accedes ground in the culture wars to accomodate a changing society while at the same time not abdicating personal liberty as a priority of a constitutionally decent and ethically vigorous political system.

As a nuanced intellectual argument, I can anticipate some strong reactions to Berkowitz, especially from small-g conservatives. Robert Stacy McCain, for example, has been hammering the commentators on the right who enabled a "national greatness" mindset that accelerated the growth of big government under GOP administrations. On this question I have lined up in agreeement with Berkowitz, although the evidence that government today can be trusted to preserve good government - limited government - in a time of crisis has been notably absent in the trillion dollar bailuot-mania currently the rage today. In this sense, a "rollback agenda" on the right actually might be good politics against a Democratic majority dismissive of any notions of limitations on state power.

And that brings me to the second avenue of Berkowitz's constitutional conservatism, the social sphere of sexual politics and the family. As he notes, "conservatives can and should continue to make the case for the traditional understanding of marriage with children at the center," but he then goes on to say that conservatives "should refrain from using government to enforce the traditional understanding."

This seems self-defeating, for the notion of a absolute social libertarianism in the family sphere provides an opening for the left to advance its secular-progressive agenda, which posits traditional family structures as archiac modes of hierarchy and domination (and in turn offers an alternative "multi-culti" family model that harms both individuals and society).

Despite all of this, Berkowitz makes good use of the various strands of conservative doctrine, and today's right-wing partisans would be wise to start shifting the debate on the Republican future to the realm of ideas and action instead of debating movement rock stars and the politics of "personalist" rivalry.

American Conservatism, R.I.P.?

One of the points I've stressed recently in debates over the GOP is that conservatism is mainly in the down-trough of the political cycle. Politics swings like a pendulum, and it could be some time before the current sense of popular support for the Democrats fades in favor of a return to the agenda and issues central to the Republican Party.

I don't by any means believe "conservatism's dead," despite all the big debates on that in recent weeks (here, here, here, and here, for example).

In any case, Dan Riehl sends us to this powerful, if not a bit depressing, essay on all of this from Jonathan Kay, "American conservatism, R.I.P.":

Conservatism as we know it is dead. Its last bastion of power, Washington, is being overrun as we speak, in a blitzkrieg operation fueled by popular panic and led by a charismatic field marshal. To the extent conservative ideology survives the onslaught, it will be as a guerilla force, making its presence felt on web sites and radio call-in shows but never in the corridors of real power.

Numbers tell much of the story. In fiscal 2008, U.S. federal outlays accounted for 21 cents of every GDP dollar. In fiscal 2009, Barack Obama's budget has that number jumping 33% — to 28 cents. The percentage of U.S. GDP represented by total public spending will shoot up from about 35%, when Barack Obama was elected, to well into the 40s . If you throw in the private share of U.S. health spending, which looks set to be swallowed by the public sector in coming years thanks to Obama's plans for a national health-insurance program, American governments will soon rule roughly half the economy — just like in socialist Europe and Canada.

In fact, from a conservative point of view, what Obama is doing is arguably worse than the well-entrenched redistributionist systems of government in Canada other OECD nations: Ottawa, at least, can pay (more or less) for the country's massive safety net. Obama, on the other hand, is building his net with money he doesn't have. The 2009 U.S. budget deficit — just the deficit, not the budget itself — will be 13% of GDP. In Canada, by contrast, the federal budget deficit is expected to be $13-billion, about 1% of GDP.

Beyond the numbers are U.S. policies that seemed unimaginable just a month ago: a massive, big-government plan to regulate greenhouse gases, huge tax hikes on the wealthy, the effective nationalization of much of Wall Street, a federal takeover of student lending, and — most important of all — the aforementioned plan for national health care. This is more than just a swing to the left — it is a complete repudiation of the political legacy left by Ronald Reagan, the most popular U.S. president in the living memory of most Americans. Obama even had the courage to say as much, declaring trickle-down economics to be "discredited once and for all."

As well as being a disastrous moment for American conservatives — and for their country more generally — this is also an epic turning point in the history of western ideas. Since World War II, the welfare state has made steady gains almost everywhere in the West, with the result that just about every form of risk known to mankind — from sickness, to unemployment, to poverty, to childbirth, to old age — has been socialized. Only in the United States had individuals been left reliant (if only to a certain extent) on their own values and wits. That lone exception to the global nanny state is now gone — the victim of a housing debacle that demonstrated that middle-class homeowners are too stupid to manage something as basic as a monthly household budget, just as Wall Street's brain trust is too dumb to operate an unregulated financial market. Condescension, after all, is the mother of socialism.

Who would have thunk it? From the 1980s onward, conservatism was supposed to be America's muscular ideology, as opposed to the soft liberalism peddled by the nation's elites. Instead, U.S. conservatism died with a whimper — a venerable creed knocked out for good in the space of just five recessionary months.

There's more at the link. I still don't think "conservatism died," but this is good food for thought anyway.

I'll have more later ...

Crush the Progressive Spirit

Here's Markos Moulitsas writing on the eve of the presidential election, Oct 12, 2008:

I've been making the case the last couple of weeks that we can't just focus on winning in November, but that we have an imperative to take advantage of a historic opportunity to break the conservative movement's backs and crush their spirits.

How's that working out for ya?

Broken backs? Spirits crushed?

Not so much. See Peter Berkowitz, at WSJ, "The Death of Conservatism Was Greatly Exaggerated" (via Memeorandum):

In late 2008 and early 2009, in the wake of Mr. Obama's meteoric ascent, the idea that conservatism would enjoy any sort of revival in the summer of 2009 would have seemed to demoralized conservatives too much to hope for. To leading lights on the left, it would have appeared absolutely outlandish.

In late October 2008, New Yorker staff writer George Packer reported "the complete collapse of the four-decade project that brought conservatism to power in America." Two weeks later, the day after Mr. Obama's election, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne proclaimed "the end of a conservative era" that had begun with the rise of Ronald Reagan.

And in February 2009, New York Times Book Review and Week in Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, writing in The New Republic, declared that "movement conservatism is exhausted and quite possibly dead." Mr. Tanenhaus even purported to discern in the new president "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."

Messrs. Packer, Dionne and Tanenhaus underestimated what the conservative tradition rightly emphasizes, which is the high degree of unpredictability in human affairs. They also conflated the flagging fortunes of George W. Bush's Republican Party with conservatism's popular appeal. Most importantly, they failed to grasp the imperatives that flow from conservative principles in America, and the full range of tasks connected to preserving freedom.

Progressives like to believe that conservatism's task is exclusively negative—resisting the centralizing and expansionist tendency of democratic government. And that is a large part of the conservative mission. Progressives see nothing in this but hard-hearted indifference to inequality and misfortune, but that is a misreading.

What conservatism does is ask the question avoided by progressive promises: at what expense? In the aftermath of the global economic crisis of 2008, Western liberal democracies have been increasingly forced to come to grips with their propensity to live beyond their means.

It is always the task for conservatives to insist that money does not grow on trees, that government programs must be paid for, and that promising unaffordable benefits is reckless, unjust and a long-term threat to maintaining free institutions.

But conservatives also combat government expansion and centralization because it can undermine the virtues upon which a free society depends. Big government tends to crowd out self-government—producing sluggish, selfish and small-minded citizens, depriving individuals of opportunities to manage their private lives and discouraging them from cooperating with fellow citizens to govern their neighborhoods, towns, cities and states.

Yes, so let's crush progressivism in November. Let's break Markos Moulitsas' back, and crush the progressives' spirits.

After Optimism? Redefining Conservatism in the Post-Reagan Age

Cal Thomas offers a provocative argument on the direction of conservativism in the post-Reagan era, at Townhall:

This just in: Ronald Reagan is dead and he's not coming back. Now, can conservatives please move on?

Reagan always spoke about the future and its possibilities. Today's conservatives, however, can't seem to break with the past and the nostalgia for the Reagan years. Even in his letter to the American people in 1994 in which he revealed he suffered from Alzheimer's disease, Reagan wrote of his "eternal optimism" for the country's future. Too many modern conservatives seem embedded in a concrete slab of pessimism, preferring to go over a bridge and drown rather than "compromise" their "principles." If you can't get elected, your principles can be talked about on the lecture circuit, but are unlikely to be adopted in Washington.

John McCain, some say, is not a true conservative. Was Reagan? Reagan campaigned as a tax cutter. He cut taxes, but he also raised them. He promised conservative judges and spoke of his opposition to abortion, yet named two justices to the Supreme Court (Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy) who voted to uphold Roe v. Wade. Against the advice of some, Reagan deployed Marines to Lebanon and saw them murdered by a homicide bomber. Reagan engaged in an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. As president, Reagan seldom went to church, unlike his evangelical base. If conservatives knew in advance these things about Reagan, would they have voted for him in such numbers?

Contemporary conservatism has mostly been about saying "no" to the liberal agenda. Suppose conservatives instead begin to circumvent liberals by applying better ideas to achieve ends liberals and conservatives claim to seek?

This is the point of David Frum's new book, "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again." Frum, a former speechwriter in this Bush administration, believes the issues that brought Republicans to power in the 1980s and '90s are different from the concerns of most Americans today....

Frum proposes an agenda that uses conservative principles to actually solve, rather than just talk about, serious problems. He wants universally available health insurance, but offered through the private sector; lower taxes to encourage savings and investment, but higher taxes on energy and pollution to promote conservation; a conservative environmentalism that promotes nuclear power to reduce our need for oil and coal (this would satisfy the Left's misguided belief in "global warming," while simultaneously pleasing the Right by freeing us from dependence on foreign oil); federal policies to encourage larger families; major reductions in unskilled immigration; a campaign for prison reform and a campaign against obesity; higher ethical standards inside the conservative movement and Republican Party; and a renewed commitment to expand and rebuild the armed forces in order to crush terrorism and prepare for the coming challenge from China.

I would add a micro-loan program to help the poor out of poverty, rather than more government programs that subsidize the poor in their poverty and offer no hope for the future.

Conservatives also need to do a better job of storytelling. They should celebrate people who have overcome poverty and hopelessness as examples to others. It is not enough for conservatives to advocate for lower taxes and smaller government if the purpose is for Americans to acquire more money and material goods Americans already have so much they are renting storage units in which to place the overflow. Imagine the economic - even spiritual - revival that might occur if conservatives "adopted" one person or family and made it their goal to help them improve their lives. There are few thrills greater than seeing a life transformed in which you have played a part.

There are number of new books in print on conservatism, in addition to Frum's, making the case for a more active right-wing governmental agenda for the 21st century (for example, Michael Gerson's, Heroic Conservatism, and John Bolton's, Surrender is Not An Option).

I think the problem - which is pretty much evident from reading Thomas' essay - is that this new version of "conservativism" pushed by Frum (and especially Gerson) is not all that conservative.

It's another vision, a movement away from Goldwater/Reagan conservatism to a newer "neonconservatism" without the Wilsonianism in foreign policy. This vision, in short, is conflicted (internally incoherent) and not compelling as ideology (for a review of Frum along these line, click here).

In any case, back to present essay: Thomas places this debate over a post-Reagan conservatism in the context of the McCain ascendancy, and suggests it may be possible to forge a new conservative identity that combines traditional principles with pragmatic flexibility.

The task of hammering out this vision is going to be extremely chaotic and wrenching, if it needs to be done at all. While some evidence is in place that current events now demonstrate the need, indications are also clear on the likely trauma resulting from such an ideological transformation.

It's important project, although in the end honesty may require those on the right to not just redefine, but reimagine what conservatism truly represents.

National Review's Unwise Excommunication of Donald Trump

It's a crisis of conservatism, and the splits are more severe than I've seen since --- well, ever.

I thought it was bad in 2008 when John McCain won the nomination. But folks on Twitter are saying they've never seen anything like this.

Here's Laura Ingraham, who's of course a major figure in movement conservatism, at LifeZette, "National Review’s Unwise Pig Pile on Donald Trump":

I think National Review, in its issue dedicated to taking down GOP front-runner Donald Trump, has made a big mistake. With so much on the line for America, how is it smart to close the door to Trump’s voters and to populism in general?

The folks at NR launched a similar effort to excommunicate conservatives in 2003, with a much-hyped cover story titled “Unpatriotic Conservatives.” Back then it was Pat Buchanan and the now-deceased Bob Novak who were the targets. Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, a dear friend, made the case that these men and others who stood against our invasion of Iraq, had “made common cause with the left-wing and Islamist antiwar movements.” In other words, these “disgruntled paleos,” weren’t truly conservative because they opposed the war in Iraq.

As it turned out, of course, that small band of thinkers knew more about what was in the national interest than anyone at National Review or myself, who was also a strong advocate for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“I never received an apology note,” Buchanan told me on my radio show. “They’re Davos conservatives,” he added, referencing the annual meeting of the world’s elites in Switzerland.

Whatever you think of Trump personally, his supporters are pushing for three big things:

* A return to traditional GOP law and order practices when it comes to illegal immigration.
* A return to a more traditional GOP foreign policy that would put the national interest ahead of globalism.
* A return to a more traditional GOP trade policy that would analyze trade deals from the perspective of the country as a whole and not blindly support any deal — even one negotiated by President Obama.

On each of these issues, Trump's voters are calling for a return to policies that were GOP orthodoxy as recently as the late 1990s.

The matriarch of the conservative movement, Phyllis Schlafly, who likes but isn’t endorsing Trump, put it this way: "I’m not going to tell you that Donald Trump is perfect, or right on everything … but immigration is the top issue today, and he’s the one who made it a front-burner issue."

By refusing to make room for these ideas within conservatism, NR risks creating the impression that the revolution brought about by George W. Bush — in particular, his belief in open borders, his effort to create a permanent U.S. military mission in the Middle East, and his notion that trade can never be regulated, no matter how unfair — is now a permanent part of conservatism that can never be questioned. They are also inviting those who disagree with Bush on those points to leave conservatism and start seeking their allies elsewhere.
This is an absolute disaster for conservatism. It is obvious by now that Bushism — however well-intentioned it may appear on paper — does not work for the average American. It is also clear that Bushism has almost no support within the rank and file of the GOP, much less within the country as a whole. Making the tenets of Bushism into an orthodoxy that conservatives cannot question will cripple conservatism for years to come.

If blue-collar Americans are told that their concerns on immigration, trade, and foreign policy cannot be addressed within the conservative movement, they will look elsewhere — just as they looked elsewhere in the late 1960s after they learned that their problems couldn't be addressed within liberalism. National Review Editor Rich Lowry and his people will be left preaching their narrow doctrine to a smaller and smaller audience.

Back in 2008, another populist was running for president, and ended up winning the Iowa caucuses. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who’s running again in 2016, sympathized with Trump in the NR dust-up. Recalling that the publication also took after him during his primary fight with Arizona Sen. John McCain, he said, "This is a fool-hearty effort … [by] the elitists who live in their own little bubble."

NR is "completely out of touch … [and] represents big business, not the American people," he added, noting NR’s support for the 5,500-page Trans-Pacific Partnership. "Out here in Iowa, they are not representative and their views are not representative."

Of course there is ample room to criticize Trump’s approach and his lapse into sloganeering where substance is needed — as I have done on many occasions. But if NR rejects the Trump voters, it will be reversing the decision by Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, and others to welcome blue-collar voters, Democrats, and independents into the conservative fold. Whatever that means for the country, it will do major damage to conservatism. If the conservative movement devotes itself to defending the legacy of George W. Bush at all costs, it will become irrelevant to the debate over how to make things better for most Americans...

That's gonna leave a mark.

Still more.

Jonah Goldberg on Conservatism

I don't care for the never Trumpers. I do appreciate an intellectual argument, and Jonah Goldberg's an accomplished intellectual (IMHO).

This is a follow-up to my piece from earlier this week, "What's Become of Conservatism?"

Here's the "G-File" from Goldberg, at NRO, "Conservative Facts -- Many Toss Facts & Embrace Meanness":

For liberals/progressives who follow me, I recommend this Jonah Goldberg riff on the meaning & history of neoconservatism. It cuts through a lot of misapprehensions. Warning: If you've never read @JonahNRO it may take a few grafs to get acclimated. https://t.co/oI8WdQpcuO

— Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) December 22, 2018

There was always a yin-yang thing to conservatism. Its hard-headedness and philosophical realism about human nature and the limits it imposes on utopian schemes appealed to some and repulsed others. For those who see politics as a romantic enterprise, a means of pursuing collective salvation, conservatism seems mean-spirited. As Emerson put it: “There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.” That’s what Ben Shapiro is getting at when he says “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” The hitch is that the reverse is also true: Feelings don’t care about your facts. Tell a young progressive activist we can’t afford socialism and the response will be overtly or subliminally emotional: “Why don’t you care about poor people!” or “Why do you love billionaires!?”

The problem conservatism faces these days is that many of the loudest voices have decided to embrace the meanness while throwing away the facts. This has been a trend for a long time now. But Donald Trump has accelerated the problem to critical mass, yielding an explosion of stupid and a radioactive cloud of meanness.

It’s as if people have decided they should live down to Hillary Clinton’s “deplorable” epithet. More on that in a moment. But first, since I already wrote the section below, allow me a not-quite-brief, not entirely non-sequitorial aside about neoconservatism. Feel free to skip ahead to the screed at the end if you’re not interested in the eggheadery.

What Is Neoconservatism?

Well, it depends on whom you ask. But let’s work on some common definitions, or at least descriptions.

Here’s the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia page for neoconservatism:

Neoconservatism (commonly shortened to neocon when labelling its adherents) is a political movement born in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party, and the growing New Left and counterculture, in particular the Vietnam protests. Some also began to question their liberal beliefs regarding domestic policies such as the Great Society.

This isn’t terrible, but it gets the chronology and emphases somewhat wrong (the Encyclopedia of American Conservatism gets it right, btw). The first neocons were intellectual rebels against the Great Society and the leftward drift of American liberalism (The Public Interest, the first neocon journal, was launched in 1965. It was dedicated entirely to domestic affairs, not foreign policy). Unable to reconcile the facts with the feelings of liberalism, a host of intellectuals decided they would stick with the facts, even if it meant that former friends and allies would call them mean for doing so.

The socialist writer Michael Harrington is usually credited with coining the term in 1973 as a way to disparage former socialists who moved rightward, but people have found earlier mentions of the term (Norman Podhoretz, for instance, called Walter Lipmann and Clinton Rossiter “neoconservatives” in 1963. And Karl Marx(!) called Lord Beaconsfield a Neo Conservative in 1883). It’s certainly true that Harrington popularized the label. Harrington’s essay supports my larger point, though. The Harrington essay that cemented the term “neoconservatism” in American discourse was titled “The Welfare State and Its Neoconservative Critics.” In other words, the original neoconservative critique wasn’t about foreign policy, but domestic policy.

According to William F. Buckley, the neoconservatives brought the rigor and language of sociology to conservatism, which until then had been overly, or at least too uniformly, Aristotelian. The Buckleyites (though certainly not folks like Burnham) tended to talk from first principles and natural laws and rights. The neocons looked at the data and discovered that the numbers tended to back up a lot of the things the Aristotelians had been saying.

The original neocons’ gateway drug to conservatism was the law of unintended consequences. Once eager to tear up Chesterton’s fences wherever they saw them, they discovered that reforms often yielded worse results. As Francis Fukuyama wrote over a decade ago, “If there is a single overarching theme to the domestic social policy critiques carried out by those who wrote for The Public Interest, it is the limits of social engineering. Ambitious efforts to seek social justice, these writers argued, often left societies worse off than before because they either required massive state intervention that disrupted organic social relations; or else produced unanticipated consequences.”

Another understanding of neoconservatism is that it was a movement of ex-Communists who moved rightward. There’s a benign version of this story and a malignant one. The harmless version is basically descriptive. Irving Kristol, Seymour Martin Lipset, et al., were once briefly socialists or Trotskyists, and as they grew more disillusioned with such utopianism they moved rightward. The invidious version of this story, still common in some feverish and swampy corners of the Right, is that they never let go of their underlying Trotskyist tendencies and were some kind of fifth column on the right. This version has sizable overlap with anti-Semitic fantasies about neoconservatism. More on that in a minute.

Part of the problem with even the benign version of this story is that there are so many exceptions that the explanatory power bleeds away. For instance, Bill Kristol, the supposed Demon Head of neoconservatism these days, was never a Communist or any other flavor of leftist (and he still isn’t). Neither were John Podhoretz, William Bennett, Jean Kirkpatrick, James Q. Wilson, David Brooks, and many, many others often described as neoconservatives. Another problem: If being a Communist-turned-conservative makes you a neocon, then many of the founders of National Review were neocons too. Frank Meyer, Whittaker Chambers, Max Eastman, and James Burnham were all far more committed and accomplished Communists than Irving & Co. ever were. Eastman was one of Trotsky’s close friends and his English-language translator. Burnham co-founded the American Workers Party with Sidney Hook. Chambers was a Soviet agent.

The idea that neoconservatism was primarily about foreign policy, specifically anti-Communism, further complicates things. Part of this is a by-product of the second wave of neoconservatives who joined the movement and the right in the 1970s, mostly through the pages of Commentary. These were rebels against not the welfare state but détente on the right and the radical anti-anti-Communists of the New Left (National Review ran a headline in 1971 on the awakening at Commentary: “Come on In, the Water’s Fine.”) Many of those writers, most famously Jeane Kirkpatrick, ended up leading the intellectual shock troops of the Reagan administration. But, again, if vigorous anti-Communism and hawkish military policy in its pursuit that defines (or defined) neoconservatism, then how does that distinguish those neocons from National Review conservatism and the foreign policy of, say, Barry “Rollback, not Containment” Goldwater?

It is certainly true that the foreign-policy neocons emphasized certain things more than generic conservatives, specifically the promotion of democracy abroad. In ill-intentioned hands, this fact is often used as a cover for invidious arguments about the how the neocons never really shed their Trotskyism and were still determined to “export revolution.” But for the most part, it can’t be supported by what these people actually wrote. Moreover, the idea that only neocons care about promoting democracy simply glosses over everything from the stated purpose of the First World War, the Marshall Plan, stuff like JFK’s inaugural address (“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty”), and this thing called the Reagan Doctrine.

And then there are the Joooooz. Outside of deranged comment sections and the swampy ecosystems of the “alt-right,” the sinister version of this theory is usually only hinted at or alluded to. Neocons only care about Israel is the Trojan horse that lets people get away with not saying the J-word. Those bagel-snarfing warmongers want real Americans to do their fighting for them. Pat Buchanan, when opposing the first Gulf War in 1992, listed only Jewish supporters of the war and then said they’d be sending “American kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown” to do the fighting. Subtle. (By the way, Leroy Brown must have ended up fighting in the Gulf War after all. How else can we explain how quickly it ended? He was, after all, the baddest man in the whole damn town.)

Even the non-sinister version of the “neocon equals Jew” thing is a mess. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, many of the most vilified neoconservatives were people like Michael Novak, Father Richard Neuhaus, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, William Bennett, and later, even George Weigel. During the Iraq war, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, John Bolton, and virtually everybody who supported the war were called neocons. Funny, they don’t look neoconnish.

Whatever neoconservatism is, or was, its time as a distinct thing has been over for a while. In his memoir, Irving Kristol, “the Godfather of the Neoconservatives,” argued that the movement had run its course and dissolved into the conservative movement generally. This strikes me as inarguably true. Most of the people I’ve checked off — who are still alive — including Bill Kristol, don’t call themselves neoconservative anymore, and the few who do mostly do so as a nod to nostalgia more than anything else.

So today, neoconservatism has become what it started out as, an invidious term used by its opponents to single out and demonize people as inauthentic, un-American, unreliable, or otherwise suspicious heretics, traitors, or string-pullers. The chief difference is that they were once aliens in the midst of liberalism, now they are called aliens in the midst of conservatism. And it’s all bullsh**.

American Smallness

Which brings me to Chris Buskirk’s ridiculous manifesto of conservative liberation in response to the demise of The Weekly Standard. The editor of American Greatness, a journal whose tagline should be “Coming Up with Reasons Why Donald Trump’s Sh** Doesn’t Stink 24/7” opens with “Neoconservatism is dead, long live American conservatism” and then, amazingly, proceeds to get dumber.

Nowhere in his essay does Buskirk reveal that he has any real grasp of what neoconservatism was or is — and the best defense of his insinuation that neoconservatism was un-American is that it can be chalked up to bad writing.

But Buskirk doesn’t need to demonstrate fluency with the material because for him, “neoconservative” is an anathematizing word and nothing more. He says, “the life and death of The Weekly Standard is really the story of the death and rebirth of American conservatism, which is nothing more than the modern political expression of America’s founding principles.” A bit further on, he asserts that “for years, neoconservatives undermined and discredited the work of conservatives from Lincoln to Reagan . . .” This is so profoundly unserious that not only is it impossible to know where to begin, it’s a struggle to finish the sentence for fear the stupid will rub off. Does he have in mind the Straussians (Walter Berns, Robert Goldwin, et al.) at that neocon nest the American Enterprise Institute who wrote lovingly about Lincoln at book length for decades? Does he think Irving Kristol’s essay “The American Revolution as a Successful Revolution” was an indictment of the founding? Were these essays, on Abraham Lincoln published in The Weekly Standard or by its writers elsewhere, perfidious neocon attempts to topple him from his historic pedestal? What about Andy Ferguson’s loving book on Lincoln?

And what of the scores of neoconservatives who worked for Ronald Reagan and helped him advance the Reaganite agenda? Were they all fifth columnists? Or perhaps they were parasites attaching themselves to a “host organism,” as Buskirk repugnantly describes Kristol?

He doesn’t say, because Buskirk doesn’t rely on an argument. Save for a couple of Bill Kristol tweets out of context, he cites no writing and marshals no evidence. Instead, he lets a wink, or rather the stink, do all of his work. He knows his readers want to hear folderol about neocons. He knows they have their own insidious definitions of what they are and crave to have them confirmed. Bringing any definition or fact to his argument would get in the way of his naked assertions and slimy insinuations.

And what absurd assertions they are. I’m not a fan of tu quoque arguments, but the idea that American Greatness has standing to position itself as an organ dedicated to larger principles and ideas is hilarious, given that the website’s only purpose is to attach itself like a remora to Donald Trump, a man who doesn’t even call himself a conservative, even for convenience, anymore. Just this week, American Greatness’s Julie Kelly mocked Nancy French’s childhood trauma of being sexually abused. When I criticized her for it, Kelly snarked back something about how “Never Trumpers” have a problem with the truth. It’s like these people don’t see it. You cannot claim to care about the truth while being a rabid defender of this president’s hourly mendacity...

There's more.

Chris Buskirk's really looking like an idiot, that's for sure.

Uncluttered Conservatism

I've been working and running my kids around today, so I'm just now sitting down to respond to Dan Riehl's commentary on my earlier essay, "Core Values and Foreign Policy.

Dan and I don't differ too much on the basics of our conservative beliefs. I see that Dan's working to clear the clutter from what we want to do on the right, for example:

Personally, I'm for the least powerful government we can afford while being able to retain order on our streets, efficient commerce and project power abroad on a case by case basis as some need might warrant. I call that conservative, you may not. Beyond that, I've no strong desire to lock myself into some preconceived concept of a psuedo-ideology that might only constrict my good judgment, or give political opponents another term of art they will try to use to mis-characterize me and misrepresent my thinking.

Frankly, in some ways the Right seems to be becoming as pre-occupied with labels and hyphens as is today's Left. My instincts tell me that can't be good. But I'm not going to dwell on it as my primary interest remains what's small d democratic and most common denominator forms of communication aimed at the average Jane or Joe.

In the spirit of Barry Goldwater, I can advocate the "least powerful government we can afford"; although following both Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, I place stress on the exigencies of national power in a world of predatory states and totalitarian ideologies, so there are both values to weigh and liberties to preserve in designing a robust conservatism for the 21st century.

But note Dan's rejection of the "preoccupation with labels." This is something Robert Stacy McCain mentioned as well in his recent discussion, "Meghan and 'Progressive Republicans'." McCain, for example, rejects the (erstwhile) neoconservative David Brooks because, "Whatever label you slap on Brooks, he is a first-class peddler of 'noble lies', who labors tirelessly to create a myth of American political history that exactly suits his purpose." But rather than jettisoning labels, McCain proposes his own: "I believe that "libertarian populism" offers a winning antidote to the nonsense of 'national greatness' and 'compassionate conservatism' that have led the GOP astray."

The truth is, each one of us, Dan, Stacy, and myself, wants a winning conservatism that promotes freedom and protects life. Perhaps we could all come together under the banner of "uncluttered conservatism," which is just another way for me to say, "Okay, screw the labels and let's get down to some real ideas." What do we want? As I noted at my essay, "Core Values Conservatism," partisans of the right cannot abandon a poltics of human dignity and social traditionalism. We must put families first, through a pro-life agenda that affirms child-rearing and the historic understanding of marriage. We must also support economic policies that are both pro-family and pro-growth (cut taxes, support children), and we mustn't ignore educational reforms that empower families, engender competition, and procure value in learning.

But we must also be populist, and I want to stress this point for Dan in particular. I'm a professor, but I'm not an Ivy League stuffed-shirt academic. When you teach community college, you're in the trenches of the life-challenges of everday people. Two-year college professors are by definition the un-elite. I chose a career in community college teaching because that's where I started my training; and I identify personally with the recent immigrants from all over the world, the students from working-class families who have deep roots in Long Beach, the inner-city students escaping crime and poverty (the great many of whom cannot read), and the Iraq war veterans who are returning from the conflict. This is the real America. These are the "non-traditionals" people forget about when talking about the freshman application "admissions game" that's the rage of the college-ranking crowd. These are the "Wal-Mart" voters who Ross Douthat talks about but with whom he has no contact, ensconsed in the offices of the Atlantic or the New York Times.

So yeah, I can relate to "populist libertarianism" and the "average Jane and Joe."

But let's get some resolve on those cluttering labels. Well, it's interesting that all three of us, Dan, Stacy, and I, are former Democrats. I don't know what exactly caused Dan and Stacy to reject the ideology of the left, but with me it was foreign policy first and foremost, and especially Iraq in 2003. I simply cannot abide antiwar, anti-American ideologies, and that includes those of the left or the faux right. Sure, it's easy to eviscerate the Democratic-left as nihilistic and anti-military, but we have those who are ostensibly conservative who have made common cause with the Firedoglake-Keith Olbermann-MoveOn.org consitutuencies on the collectivist left. In response to last night's post, Daniel Larison at the American Conservative attacked my "so-called core values conservatism" as some empty pro-war immoralism. That's got to be rich, coming from Patrick Buchanan's flagship, the home of "unpatriotic conservatives" in bed with antiwar libertarians and Washington Independent paleo-postmodernists. No doubt we'll soon see Larison hanging out with Justin Raimondo and Cindy Sheehan (but not Sean Penn) at a Bay Area "peace vigil" once the Afghanistan surge kicks into high gear. These people are not conservative. And that's one reason I really admire Robert Stacy McCain's blogging - he's just not worried about the impolitics of calling the AmCon freaks out, and saying "Fuck you, Glenn Greenwald."

In any case, I'm neoconservative, but the label's not as important to me as is a pro-life, pro-family, and pro-victory ideological paradigm that takes moral traditionalism seriously and doesn't skimp on standing up for what's right, both home and abroad. On that score, I'm thinking Dan Riehl's down with the crew, and I'm ready to hang with him, uncluttered, conservative, and cool.

More Neoconservative Backlash

I don't know if Dan Riehl was as big a Bush-backer on Iraq as was David Horowitz, but Dan's written another interesting repudiation of neoconservatism. See, "Why Neo-Conservativism May Represent a Serious Concern For Israel":

Old line Reagan conservatives have always been something of a firewall for neo-conservatives, siding with them over more isolationist factions within the GOP. The thanks we most often got for that was either to have been ignored, or taken for granted - and now, it seems, even marginalized, as Jennifer Rubin is doing.

I'm not suggesting traditional conservatives will abandon Israel, or one of the three legs of Reagan Conservatism - national defense, most particularly. However, it is going to have to re-assess its positioning as regards neo-conservatism and the more isolationist elements of the GOP cited above. Unfortunately, they are not always a best friend to Israel.

As a result, what the aforementioned third leg of conservatism might look like given some new alignment, or dynamic, within the conservative movement is hard to predict. But with mounting debt and three wars going on, it's most likely to not be a very adventurous one, however hawk-ish it might remain in theory.

That, in the end, could prove to be a serious concern for Israel, one coming at the same time the Middle-east is unraveling thanks to Obama - a time when it can least aford any new concern. Yet, ultimately, neither they, nor anyone else, would have anyone to blame but neo-conservatism. Thanks to their policies, combined with a lack of respect and regard for traditional Reagan conservatives over a decade, or more, neo-conservatives may be bringing about the very thing they most oppose: a more isolationist grassroots conservative movement rising to take control of the Republican Party.

They may even have to revert to being Democrats before long. And one can only imagine the reception they'd get there. Given budget constraints and Obama's own current international adventurism, it's quite possible that neo-conservatism as a driving ideology won't even have a place in any next Republican administration. And that may happen, even if they are successful in helping to elect the next establishment Republican they are bound to find themselves endorsing in 2012 and, or 2016.

That's a block quote from the second half of the essay, so readers need to RTWT for the full argument. I'm not sure if it's just Jennifer Rubin that's the most painful thorn here, or something larger. If you check the links you'll see that Dan's fuming mad at Rubin's hoity-toity dismissal of grassroots conservative concerns on the budget deal. Rubin comes off as a beltway moderate completely out of touch with the ideological currents of limited-government conservatism. And I write this as a fan of Jennifer Rubin. But Dan's got a good point. The tricky thing here is not to throw all the "neocons" in one basket when hammering Rubin. I don't read her as much as I'd like, but she was at Commentary for a while, and she's about as aggressively Zionist imaginable. Perhaps Dan will want to flesh out his argument further in an additional essay. If by "Neo-Conservatives" he means William Kristol and perhaps Charles Krauthammer ... well, they're as beltway as you can get, and with Kristol, sometimes his fervent advocacy of the freedom agenda seems to overtake his better judgment. He's consistent, so give him that. But folks who might otherwise be attacked as "neocons" have been very cautious on change in the Middle East and the effects on Israel's interests. David Horowitz most obviously comes to mind, with his highly publicized renunciation of the democracy promotion agenda in Egypt and so forth. But Victor Davis Hanson personified neoconservative foreign policy on the Iraq war, and he had an inside line to the White House back in 2003, but he's now one of the biggest skeptics on the Obama administration's foreign policy, calling for a degree of realist restraint that's the antithesis of the the neoconservative paradigm.

And that's to say nothing of the domestic neoconservative agenda, especially on social policy going back to Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the folks at Public Interest under Irving Kristol. And the Reagan years are probably a little more of a complicated comparison in any case, considering President Reagan's appointment of Jeanne Kirkpatrick to the U.N. after her breakout article on dictatorships in foreign policy at (the neoconservative policy journal) Commentary.

Anyway, my money is on the neocons remaining a key force on conservative policy circles well into the future. On Israel and isolationism alone, the paleocons will be out to pasture. The real debates will be more on whether we'll see ideological purists within the conservative movement prevail over the moderate progressive-appeasers in the GOP. I'm thinking Newt Gingrich on latter, despite his otherwise grand vision for the Republican Party. No more Dede Scozzafavas, thank you.

Anyway, Dan might head over to Cato Institute to read the batch of essay at the series, "The Rise and Fall of Neoconservatism." And I'd also recommend going easy on Jennifer Rubin for a while. Check her out again after the budget battle dies down a bit. She's a good lady. A lot of us, like myself, were previously on the left, hence "neoconservative," but we're among the most passionate defenders of the Reaganite vision in conservative circles today.

What's Become of Conservatism?

Some time ago I removed "neocon" from my Twitter profile. I'm still neoconservative, though.

"American Power" retains its founding epigram at top, "Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education — from a neoconservative perspective!"

I wouldn't change it even if I knew how, lol. (Blogger's templates are completely changed and I haven't bothered to figure them out, although it's not a big deal, heh.)

I mention this not because attacks on neoconservatives are new (paleocons have despised neocons like forever). What's new is how the most fervent supporters of President Trump have taken to attacking Bill Kristol-style neocons with a fervor that's even more fanatical than what's reserved for the radical left. Why? I guess #MAGA conservatives not only see no difference between neocons and radical leftists, but they're absolutely livid at the perceived treason of those taking the moniker of a "right-winger" while (allegedly) simultaneously working for the destruction of the movement from within.

Longtime readers know that my neoconservativism has been genuine in a number of ways: For one, simply, it's really a "new conservatism" for me, as I was a registered Democrat until the 2004 presidential election — a Truman Democrat, but still. Moreover, I'm ideologically neoconservative across the board, on domestic and foreign policy, and not someone who glommed onto the movement as a rah-rah cheerleader for the (then popular) Iraq war and an ambitious and muscular foreign policy during the G.W. Bush administration. Frankly, most so-called conservatives or erstwhile bandwagoning "neoconservatives" would hardly recognize names like Irving Howe and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It was Irving Kristol who famously defined a neoconservative as "a liberal who'd been mugged by reality."

There's a long pedigree there. I myself have never worried at being attacked as a "closet leftist" or "pseudo conservative" because I've never tried to prove anything to anyone who's purportedly on the right. My writing, blogging, tweeting, and teaching speak for themselves. That said, I've embraced Donald Trump not so much because he's a conservative ideologue (he's clearly and emphatically not) but because he stands up and fights for what he believes in, and what he believes in mostly and so clearly is America and the interests of Americans. If that puts me at odds with "genuine" conservatives, like Jonah Goldberg and the cruise-ship right-wing, so be it.

It's complicated being a neocon Trump supporter these days, heh.

So, why all these pixels to hash out some defense of my persuasions? Well, mostly because I'm disgusted with all the latest bickering, infighting, and hatred I've been seeing on the right. It's ugly and not flattering to those engaged in it, and it's besmirching the reputations of some serious institutions out there. The newfangled populist right flagship "American Greatness" comes to mind. I like the website. Victor Davis Hanson publishes there, and he's among the smartest, most principled conservatives working today (and no spring chicken of the movement at that). But American Greatness is in the business of settling scores, it seems, and policing the right for ideological purity. And it's unbecoming, to put it mildly.

Exhibit A is this over-the-top Trumpist-nationalist manifesto seen there earlier this week, "Death of The Weekly Standard Signals Rebirth of the Right." It's authored by Chris Buskirk, who's the publisher and editor of the website. I don't know Chris Buskirk. I've been involved in what's sometimes called "movement conservatism" for about a decade now, and I've never heard of the guy. Maybe he's paid his dues. I have no idea. But he's certainly got some ax to grind, or he's got something to prove, or you pick your neologism. Here's the first parts from the article, which might be labeled a screed:

Death of The Weekly Standard Signals Rebirth of the Right https://t.co/FnlbRrZeC0 pic.twitter.com/UdD1wRnHcz

— American Greatness (@theamgreatness) December 17, 2018

Neoconservatism is dead, long live American conservatism. That’s what I thought when I learned The Weekly Standard would be shuttered by longtime owner Clarity Media. The Standard was a creature of a particular time and place—the 1990s, the Bush-Clinton ascendancy, and Washington, D.C.’s insular, self-referential political class. As such, it never really fit within the broad flow of historic American conservatism. It was always, and intentionally, something different. So perhaps the magazine’s opposition to Donald Trump, his voters, and the America First agenda should come as no surprise.

Max Boot described the magazine as “a redoubt of neoconservatism” in 2002 and he was right. If the National Review of the 1970s and ’80s was the journal of Reaganism, The Weekly Standard carried the banner of Bushism. But the Bushes never carried the Reagan mantle and were never conservatives. They were always blithely unconstrained by any identifiable political philosophy other than the unwavering belief that they should run the country. They represented nothing so much as the mid-20th-century country club set that was content to see the size and scope of government expand as long as they got a piece of the action. And The Weekly Standard was there every step of the way, advocating so-called big-government conservatism at home and moral imperialism abroad. All of it failed. The Bush Administration was discredited by its failed policies and incompetence so it was just a matter of time before the chief organ of Bushism failed too.

But the life and death of The Weekly Standard is really the story of the death and rebirth of American conservatism, which is nothing more than the modern political expression of America’s founding principles.

As with other more virulent forms of Left-liberal politics, the neoconservatives maintain a sense of aristocratic entitlement to rule despite having killed almost everything they touched. It is their combination of titanic hubris and priggish moralism that is behind their aggressive advocacy of endless foreign wars and meddling in the internal affairs of other countries. For The Weekly Standard, it made sense to send thousands of Americans to their deaths defending Iraq’s borders, but they wouldn’t lift a finger to protect our own. As the real world results of their misadventures came home to roost, conservatives realized that The Weekly Standard didn’t represent them.

For years, neoconservatives undermined and discredited the work of conservatives from Lincoln to Reagan who held to a set of common principles and a common sense understanding that America is for Americans and it is the job of government to protect the rights and interests of the American people—and only the American people. But over the past few years, Bill Kristol became more transparent about his real beliefs. For example, he let us know in a tweet that he “Obviously strongly prefer(s) normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state” and in another that, “The GOP tax bill’s bringing out my inner socialist.” The point is that Kristol and the Standard’s attachment to conservative principles was always provisional and transactional. The Republican Party and the conservative movement were a temporary vehicle for their personal and policy agendas. Now, Kristol and others have moved on in search of a new host organism.

That’s because the world of Beltway neoconservatism of which the Standard was the arch example is only partially about ideas, it’s also about power and more especially about privilege—and that means sinecures. That’s a nice way of saying that it’s what people hate about politics, that it often becomes self-serving and careerist rather than about the American ideal of building and maintaining the institutions of government that allow the individual, the family, and the church to thrive...

There's more at the link, but you get the idea.

While I can agree with some of the attacks here on elitism and stupid establishment sinecures, the attack on "moral imperialism abroad" might as well have been written by Patrick Buchanan, if not Lew Rockwell. It's stupid. Who would ever argue that President Ronald Reagan failed to espouse a moral American foreign policy, which by virtue of its overwhelming materialist power and geographic stretch has been long characterized as a practical American imperialism by such august scholars as the historian Paul Kennedy and the late political scientist Chalmers Johnson (even in his pre-paleonservative days)?

Besides, it's just personal and nasty. Which brings me to this really ugly kerfuffle of the last few days seen on Twitter, featuring American Greatness feature writer Julie Kelly and National Review's David French and his wife Nancy. You can get up to speed by clicking through at the tweet below, but in short, this is the politics of personal destruction plain and simple, and in my experience it's been the ghouls on the left who've mastered this kind of no-hold-barred ideological combat (and now the so-called new wave warriors of the populist right). See also the Resurgent, "David French Defends Wife on Twitter," and "Julie Kelly of American Greatness Attacks a Victim of Sexual Abuse Because Trump."

I told @DavidAFrench to ignore her characterization of me, until I was finally able to admit the pain of her lies. Both @julie_kelly2 and my pedophile equated 'victims' as 'lovers.' I do not fear anyone who uses the language of the sex predator to score political points. https://t.co/tjkpTDfEGn

— Nancy French (@NancyAFrench) December 18, 2018

So what has become of conservatism? Is a conservative someone who's a populist-nationalist, tough on trade type with "blood and soil" proclivities? Or is a conservative really just the old hardcore free-market libertarian with the social ethos of the old Ward Cleaver suburban cultural demographic?

Actually, it's neither of these things nowadays, if a look around at the right's contemporary ideological battlespace is any clue. It's Trump über alles these days. And that includes a lot of hatin' on those who haven't drunk the Kool-Aid. To be a "true" conservative you basically have to hate the "cruise ship" establishment crowd that's reigned in D.C. for a couple of decades now. But hey, forget small government ideology. I mean, what's that? President Trump recently said that he couldn't care less about the size of the federal budget, because "I won’t be here" when it blows up. I guess being "conservative" now is more about who you hate than what you stand for.

These debates over ideological purity come and go. We had a big schism on the right after Barack Obama was elected in 2008. We had more of that in 2012 when so-called "faux-conservative" Mitt Romney won the GOP nomination that year. Donald Trump's unpredictable victory in 2016 produced perhaps the most vociferous ideological schism of all. It's rather tiring to me, but then, I've been but a minor figure at the margins of the movement, it turns out. And when push comes to shove, being a political activist or operative isn't my first job: I'm a professor and teacher of politics first (and a father and family man); a blogger and ideological political combatant second.

But whenever these schisms over ideology break out I always refer to my favorite book on what it means to be a conservative, Barry Goldwater's 1960 masterpiece, The Conscience of a Conservative. What sticks out most for me in that book is Goldwater's unabashed and robust defense of the conservative ideal as epitomized as human freedom. And to achieve that human freedom --- the essential liberty of mankind --- government must be limited and reduced to its core functions, providing public order, basic public goods, most especially the vital protection of our nation's security against external enemies. Interestingly, Goldwater's last chapter is "The Soviet Menace," where he writes:

And still the awful truth remains: We can establish the domestic conditions for maximizing freedom, along the lines I have indicated [in the book's previous chapters], and yet become slaves. We can do this by losing the Cold War to the Soviet Union.

It's interesting to me, then, to finish by highlighting that the true "conscience of a conservative" is to be deeply concerned with America's forward moral role in the world, because by only making national security a core prerequisite for securing conservative ideals can a genuine and true "right wing" ideological program at home succeed. This isn't, therefore, the kind of ideology of the folks at American Greatness or other acolytes of the war on the cruise-ship elites. There are some great current conservative voices that might seem to be in the camp of the Chris Buskirks and Julie Kellys --- like the inimitable Kurt Schlichter, for example --- but they're not really, for they're distinctive in their strong moral advocacy for American economic and military power, and for a unabashed support for America's many forward strategic missions currently in operation around the world.

So with that I conclude. We have a strong and powerful current of conservative ideological belief on which to draw. For me it's less about being a "neocon" than being for a unique American philosophy of exceptionalism worth defending. A true exceptionalism as an ideal different from other so-called conservative countries. It's a frontier exceptionalism that's pure and most conducive to human freedom. And it's a conservatism that need not tear others down in vicious bursts of online ugliness nor a conservatism that wants to roll up the drawbridge, turning its back to the problems of the world. It's the conservatism of both ideals and action, and of standing as the beacon for right and a light unto others, at home and abroad.

That's what I believe.