I posted recently on one of the emerging fault-lines of contemporary liberalism. So I guess, in the interests of being fair and balanced, I should write about the fault lines within conservatism as well.
But alas I don’t know quite what to say.
There have always been many factions and sources of serious disagreement within the modern conservative movement. But they were held together by a commitment to battling evil through promoting traditional values and self-reliance, which entailed opposition to government beneficence. (For an analysis see Reviving the Left)
After the significant electoral losses in recent years, I expected disarray among conservatives, but I don’t see it.
There are changes afoot. The old guard of social conservatives such as Pat Robertson and James Dobson are leaving the scene. Gay marriage is getting a foothold in some states. The public, some time ago, tired of the constant bleating about sexual abstinence, stem-cell research, and abortion.
Conservatives used to promote the virtues of free markets, family values, religious traditions, and military adventurism as solutions to a variety of foreign and domestic problems. In light of their abject failure in the hands of the Bush Administration, they can no longer be sold as solutions. They remain then as beliefs but with no rationale. With no arguments with which to promote a positive agenda, conservatives have have become the party of “no” opposing anything Obama proposes.
However, conservatism is not without recourse. They have always relied on resentment to win votes—resentment toward blacks and their supporters, environmentalists, immigrants, etc., and that resentment is still there in their explicit appeal to a kind of counter-cultural identity politics. Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Joe the Plumber now represent mainstream conservatism, not because they have ideas, but because they symbolize a kind of indiscriminate opposition to the experts, academics, and power brokers who have screwed things up.
Today, all the action in conservative circles is in posturing to display how “counter-cultural” one can be, blaming everyone else for the economic downturn, and threatening to take their ball and go home if they don’t get their way.
The “Going Galt” movement of a few weeks ago has now been replaced with the secession threat mounted by various “spokespersons”, most notably, Governor Rick Perry of Texas. One would normally expect that the Governor of one of our largest states would keep his distance from talk of seceding from the union. The fact that he seems to consider it a live option just shows how loony mainstream “thought” is in the Republican Party, although there is apparently an audience for this rhetoric. A recent Rasmussen Poll suggests that almost 20% of Texans support secession.
Their patriotism is moving.
This is obviously radical politics. But it lacks a vision of the future. I suppose the bet is that the public will become so tired of the “socialist” Obama that the public will have no choice but to flee back to the Republicans. That backlash is surely coming; and resentment can be a powerful motivator.
However, it is hard to see how a political movement with no vision can succeed. The Reagan revolution relied on the same cultural resentments animating conservatives today. But they were packaged and sold as a hopeful vision with specific solutions to specific problems- a way to unleash creativity, entrepreneurship, responsibility, and the march of freedom in the world.
Today conservatism seems like a vast funerary celebration that gives emotional sustenance to the disaffected, a kind of dystopian Haight- Ashbury where disgruntled counter-culture warriors come to snarl, spit, and gnash about in search of some morsel of an issue that will propel them to electoral success.
Of course some of them have guns and like to use them. A few will likely escape the boundaries of their mournful encampment and wreak havoc on their neighbors.
It’s good the FBI is watching.
