E.J. Dionne has a great piece in today’s Washington Post raising the question of “is conservatism dead“?
What might have seemed an absurd question less than two years ago is now one of the most important issues in American politics. The question is being asked — mostly quietly but occasionally publicly — by conservatives themselves as they survey the wreckage of their hopes, and as their champions in the Republican Party use any means necessary to survive this fall’s elections.
Conservatism is an honorable disposition that, in its modern form, is inspired by the philosophy developed by Edmund Burke in the 18th century. But as a contemporary American movement, conservatism is rooted intellectually in the 1950s and the circles around William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review magazine. It rose politically with Barry Goldwater’s campaign in 1964.
[SNIP]
President Bush, his defenders say, has pioneered a new philosophical approach, sometimes known as “big-government conservatism.” The most articulate defender of this position, the journalist Fred Barnes, argues that Bush’s view is “Hamiltonian” as in Alexander, Thomas Jefferson’s rival in the early republic. Bush’s strategy, Barnes says, “is to use government as a means to achieve conservative ends.”
Kudos to Barnes for trying bravely to make sense of what to so many others — including some in conservative ranks — seems an incoherent enterprise. But I would argue that this is the week in which conservatism, Hamiltonian or not, reached the point of collapse.
The most obvious, outrageous and unprincipled spasm occurred last night when the Senate voted on a bill that would have simultaneously raised the minimum wage and slashed taxes on inherited wealth.
The problem with conservatism is that greed eventually overpowers common sense. I do believe in being conservative, but on a liberal front. Our government’s number one priority is to be able to take care of it’s citizens. This is something we have seen greatly forgotten with the Bush administration. You don’t have to think back far to realize this, just think of a year ago and the Katrina debacle.
This isn’t the only problems with this new conservatism that has plagued Washington. E.J. goes on to point out a few more key facts, that even have key conservatives questioning the Republicans in charge:
Last night’s shenanigans were merely a symptom. Consider other profound fissures within the right. There is an increasingly bitter debate over whether it made any sense to wage war in Iraq in the hopes of transforming that country into a democracy. Conservatives with excellent philosophical credentials, including my colleague George F. Will, and Bill Buckley himself, see the enterprise as profoundly unconservative.
On immigration, the big-business right and culturally optimistic conservatives square off against cultural pessimists and conservatives who see porous borders as a major security threat. On stem cell research, libertarians battle conservatives who have serious moral and religious doubts about the practice — and even some staunch opponents of abortion break with the right-to-life movement on the issue.
On spending . . . well, on spending, incoherence and big deficits are the order of the day. Writing in National Review in May, conservatives Kate O’Beirne and Rich Lowry had one word to describe the Republican Congress’s approach to the matter: “Incontinence.”
In that important essay, O’Beirne and Lowry argued that the relevant question for conservatives may not be “Can this Congress be saved?” but “Is it worth saving?”
The estate tax is a great example of this. The Republicans in this session of Congress have stood firmly by helping only the upper 1% of the American people. While there are countless people around the country who consider themselves conservative, they do not prescribe to this sense of Paris Hilton welfare. In essence they are bringing back the old trickle down theory, which Reagan proved did not work and Clinton had to fight in order to fix it.
We’re also seeing that the conservative mindset can not manage the complex budget of this country. During yesterday’s Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing, Rumsfeld said that our defense spending was only a little over 2% of GDP. If this is the case then why are we in such debt? When the deficit is brought up to the administration, they blame the war on terror and Iraq, yet Rumsfeld talks about a small percentage that we spend on defense.
While many are looking to Iraq to be the defining issue for the mid-term elections, perhaps the way Americans perceive conservatism will play an equally important role. E.J. also brings this issue up:
Political movements lose power when they lose their self-confidence and sense of mission. Liberalism went into a long decline after 1968 when liberals clawed at each other more than they battled conservatives — and when they began to wonder whether their project was worth salvaging.
Between now and November, conservative leaders will dutifully try to rally the troops to stave off a Democratic victory. But their hearts won’t be in the fight. The decline of conservatism leaves a vacuum in American politics. An unhappy electorate is waiting to see who will fill it.
This is what it boils down to. Both parties experience divide over issues. The Democrats have a small divide over the Iraq war, but that divide is minimal. The Republicans also share this same divide, but they have an even more devastating one. This divide is conservatism. Numerous Republicans have split from the party because of the conservative movement and how off track it went. They realize that the ideals of these few will destroy the country if they remain in power. We hear daily about more and more Republicans either moving to become an independent or even joining the Democratic party. Of course these are stories you have to dig for in order to find since the American political news front is in Connecticut, where Republicans feel that Joe Lieberman represents a majority of the Democratic Party – a very mislead analysis on their part.
So if the Democrats do take control of Congress this fall, it will signal bigger changes in America’s political mindset. It will not only signal that America is tired of the Iraq War, but also that American’s are tired of this notion of “conservatism”, as been defined by the current leadership. This is the same conservatism that has also lead to numerous scandals and a large number of ethics complaints.