Divisiveness amongst the Right

Keeping any distance in the public mind between conservatism and Trumpism — not just checking his executive power, but continually repudiating his demagoguery and standing beside its targets — will require a Herculean effort in the coming years. Perhaps it will be impossible.

But we should try, most importantly because it is the right thing to do. If doing the right thing isn’t enough, or if it feels politically tenuous, consider it instead a political necessity. An aggressive push is underway to conflate the legitimate objectives of a conservative policy agenda with the unacceptable intolerance, vulgarity, and authoritarianism that Trump brings to the White House.

I feel very lucky to have entered the conservative movement when I did, back in the 1980s and 1990s. I was working at National Review, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. The role models in front of us were people like Bill Buckley, Irving Kristol, James Q. Wilson, Russell Kirk and Midge Decter.

These people wrote about politics, but they also wrote about a lot of other things: history, literature, sociology, theology and life in general. There was a sharp distinction then between being conservative, which was admired, and being a Republican, which was considered sort of cheesy.

These writers often lived in cities among liberals while being suspicious of liberal thought and liberal parochialism. People like Buckley had friends of every ideological stripe and were sharper for being in hostile waters. They were sort of inside and outside the establishment and could speak both languages.

Many grew up poor, which cured them of the anti-elitist pose that many of today’s conservative figures adopt, especially if they come from Princeton (Ted Cruz), Cornell (Ann Coulter) or Dartmouth (Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D’Souza). The older writers knew that being cultured and urbane wasn’t a sign of elitism. Culture was the tool they used for social mobility. T.S. Eliot was cheap and sophisticated argument was free.

Second, conservative opinion-meisters began to value politics over everything else. The very essence of conservatism is the belief that politics is a limited activity, and that the most important realms are pre-political: conscience, faith, culture, family and community. But recently conservatism has become more the talking arm of the Republican Party.

Among social conservatives, for example, faith sometimes seems to come in second behind politics, Scripture behind voting guides. Today, most white evangelicals are willing to put aside the Christian virtues of humility, charity and grace for the sake of a Trump political victory. According to a Public Religion Research Institute survey, 72 percent of white evangelicals believe that a person who is immoral in private life can be an effective national leader, a belief that is more Machiavelli than Matthew.

As conservatism has become a propagandistic, partisan movement it has become less vibrant, less creative and less effective.

"Look, you can't simply go around to wealthy people's homes raising money and expect to win elections," the Vermont senator, who gave Clinton a surprisingly strong run for the Democratic nomination, told NPR's David Greene in an interview airing on Morning Edition. "You've got to go out and mix it up and be with ordinary people."

That picks up on a criticism of Clinton devoting too much time to fundraising — and not enough to on-the-ground campaigning in traditionally Democratic states, like Michigan and Wisconsin. In the general election, Clinton never visited Wisconsin after she became the nominee and visited Michigan late in the game. The two Upper Midwestern states swung narrowly to Trump: Wisconsin by slightly more than 20,000 votes and Michigan by slightly more than 10,000. During the primary, Sanders boasted of his small-donor donations.

"The Democratic Party swallowed the bait," he argued. "They became hooked on big money."

LooseGoose wrote:Good thing the left never has a spat. Who was the new DNC chair?


Oh that's right they can't settle on one.

Turtleneck wrote:Before the election, I mentioned that Democrats needed to be careful. The Democrats were under the impression their party was more unified than that of their Republican rivals. The election proved otherwise. However, we are now seeing some of that same hubris from Republicans. Yet the Republican party is not unified. In fact, it is fairly divided.

The Republican party is divided between a nationalist-populist wing and the more traditionally conservative wing. The former does not easily coexist with the latter. The nationalist-populist wing is more authoritarian than the traditionally conservative wing, does not value constitutional principles the same way, advances what conservatives might consider liberal policies, and, as expected with a nationalist movement, has a narrower definition of who "the people" are. As to the last point, at a rally in the spring of 2016, Trump said in reference to Paul Ryan and other Republicans, "If somebody does not want to endorse, I do not want their endorsement. The only important thing is the unification of the people, because the other people do not mean anything." Consistent with populist rhetoric, he seems to imply "the people" are only those who support him. If you are looking for a good book on populism, I suggest What is Populism? It is rather insightful and helps explain the current global appeal for populist leaders.

So both parties have some tough choices ahead. Trump could certainly reshape the Republican party into a nationalist-populist party and push traditional conservatives unwilling to conform out of the party. Where would they go? Unfortunately, we have seen many conform. I guess their conservative principles were never that strong to begin with. The others, like Evan McMullin or George Will, are sort of homeless right now. But they have another problem: liberals and the Democratic party putting Trump in the same cart as conservatives and the Republican party. If Trump is a complete failure, and conservatives have not successfully put distance between themselves and Trump, conservatism as a whole suffers. For example, from the National Review

Keeping any distance in the public mind between conservatism and Trumpism — not just checking his executive power, but continually repudiating his demagoguery and standing beside its targets — will require a Herculean effort in the coming years. Perhaps it will be impossible.

But we should try, most importantly because it is the right thing to do. If doing the right thing isn’t enough, or if it feels politically tenuous, consider it instead a political necessity. An aggressive push is underway to conflate the legitimate objectives of a conservative policy agenda with the unacceptable intolerance, vulgarity, and authoritarianism that Trump brings to the White House.

David Brooks was spot on this past October. Right now conservatism is without its intellectual roots, or at least it has been hijacked by those who do not value its intellectual roots.

I feel very lucky to have entered the conservative movement when I did, back in the 1980s and 1990s. I was working at National Review, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. The role models in front of us were people like Bill Buckley, Irving Kristol, James Q. Wilson, Russell Kirk and Midge Decter.

These people wrote about politics, but they also wrote about a lot of other things: history, literature, sociology, theology and life in general. There was a sharp distinction then between being conservative, which was admired, and being a Republican, which was considered sort of cheesy.

These writers often lived in cities among liberals while being suspicious of liberal thought and liberal parochialism. People like Buckley had friends of every ideological stripe and were sharper for being in hostile waters. They were sort of inside and outside the establishment and could speak both languages.

Many grew up poor, which cured them of the anti-elitist pose that many of today’s conservative figures adopt, especially if they come from Princeton (Ted Cruz), Cornell (Ann Coulter) or Dartmouth (Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D’Souza). The older writers knew that being cultured and urbane wasn’t a sign of elitism. Culture was the tool they used for social mobility. T.S. Eliot was cheap and sophisticated argument was free.

Brooks goes on to list three important changes in conservatism since the 1990s. The second of the three is a bitter pill for many conservatives to swallow.

Second, conservative opinion-meisters began to value politics over everything else. The very essence of conservatism is the belief that politics is a limited activity, and that the most important realms are pre-political: conscience, faith, culture, family and community. But recently conservatism has become more the talking arm of the Republican Party.

Among social conservatives, for example, faith sometimes seems to come in second behind politics, Scripture behind voting guides. Today, most white evangelicals are willing to put aside the Christian virtues of humility, charity and grace for the sake of a Trump political victory. According to a Public Religion Research Institute survey, 72 percent of white evangelicals believe that a person who is immoral in private life can be an effective national leader, a belief that is more Machiavelli than Matthew.

As conservatism has become a propagandistic, partisan movement it has become less vibrant, less creative and less effective.

Turtleneck wrote:Before the election, I mentioned that Democrats needed to be careful. The Democrats were under the impression their party was more unified than that of their Republican rivals. The election proved otherwise. However, we are now seeing some of that same hubris from Republicans. Yet the Republican party is not unified. In fact, it is fairly divided.

The Republican party is divided between a nationalist-populist wing and the more traditionally conservative wing. The former does not easily coexist with the latter. The nationalist-populist wing is more authoritarian than the traditionally conservative wing, does not value constitutional principles the same way, advances what conservatives might consider liberal policies, and, as expected with a nationalist movement, has a narrower definition of who "the people" are. As to the last point, at a rally in the spring of 2016, Trump said in reference to Paul Ryan and other Republicans, "If somebody does not want to endorse, I do not want their endorsement. The only important thing is the unification of the people, because the other people do not mean anything." Consistent with populist rhetoric, he seems to imply "the people" are only those who support him. If you are looking for a good book on populism, I suggest What is Populism? It is rather insightful and helps explain the current global appeal for populist leaders.

So both parties have some tough choices ahead. Trump could certainly reshape the Republican party into a nationalist-populist party and push traditional conservatives unwilling to conform out of the party. Where would they go? Unfortunately, we have seen many conform. I guess their conservative principles were never that strong to begin with. The others, like Evan McMullin or George Will, are sort of homeless right now. But they have another problem: liberals and the Democratic party putting Trump in the same cart as conservatives and the Republican party. If Trump is a complete failure, and conservatives have not successfully put distance between themselves and Trump, conservatism as a whole suffers. For example, from the National Review

Keeping any distance in the public mind between conservatism and Trumpism — not just checking his executive power, but continually repudiating his demagoguery and standing beside its targets — will require a Herculean effort in the coming years. Perhaps it will be impossible.

But we should try, most importantly because it is the right thing to do. If doing the right thing isn’t enough, or if it feels politically tenuous, consider it instead a political necessity. An aggressive push is underway to conflate the legitimate objectives of a conservative policy agenda with the unacceptable intolerance, vulgarity, and authoritarianism that Trump brings to the White House.

David Brooks was spot on this past October. Right now conservatism is without its intellectual roots, or at least it has been hijacked by those who do not value its intellectual roots.

I feel very lucky to have entered the conservative movement when I did, back in the 1980s and 1990s. I was working at National Review, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. The role models in front of us were people like Bill Buckley, Irving Kristol, James Q. Wilson, Russell Kirk and Midge Decter.

These people wrote about politics, but they also wrote about a lot of other things: history, literature, sociology, theology and life in general. There was a sharp distinction then between being conservative, which was admired, and being a Republican, which was considered sort of cheesy.

These writers often lived in cities among liberals while being suspicious of liberal thought and liberal parochialism. People like Buckley had friends of every ideological stripe and were sharper for being in hostile waters. They were sort of inside and outside the establishment and could speak both languages.

Many grew up poor, which cured them of the anti-elitist pose that many of today’s conservative figures adopt, especially if they come from Princeton (Ted Cruz), Cornell (Ann Coulter) or Dartmouth (Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D’Souza). The older writers knew that being cultured and urbane wasn’t a sign of elitism. Culture was the tool they used for social mobility. T.S. Eliot was cheap and sophisticated argument was free.

Brooks goes on to list three important changes in conservatism since the 1990s. The second of the three is a bitter pill for many conservatives to swallow.

Second, conservative opinion-meisters began to value politics over everything else. The very essence of conservatism is the belief that politics is a limited activity, and that the most important realms are pre-political: conscience, faith, culture, family and community. But recently conservatism has become more the talking arm of the Republican Party.

Among social conservatives, for example, faith sometimes seems to come in second behind politics, Scripture behind voting guides. Today, most white evangelicals are willing to put aside the Christian virtues of humility, charity and grace for the sake of a Trump political victory. According to a Public Religion Research Institute survey, 72 percent of white evangelicals believe that a person who is immoral in private life can be an effective national leader, a belief that is more Machiavelli than Matthew.

As conservatism has become a propagandistic, partisan movement it has become less vibrant, less creative and less effective.