Conservative Coalition-Building
Rod Dreher, in commenting on the David Brooks piece on the future of conservatism in yesterday’s New York Times, writes this:
Let me make a point that’s going to be overlooked among secular conservatives of Reformist impulse: no conservative movement that hopes to be successful can do so without religious conservatives. It will be very easy for secular Reform conservatives to sell op-ed pieces to newspapers, in which they argue that the GOP will not be revived until and unless it cuts itself free from the Religious Right. It’ll be easy for them to sell that point because it suits the prejudices of the kind of secular liberals who run the media. But it’s quite wrong.
While it is always possible to imagine some arbitrary configuration of 51% of voters who have the label “conservative”, Rod’s point strikes me as correct as a practical matter. Further, more important than the question of electoral advantage, is the fact that tens of millions of citizens have deeply held beliefs that should be considered in making and enforcing the law.
I also believe it to be true that a political movement that proposes to impose what is traditionally considered to be a socially conservative agenda (e.g., a near-absolute restriction on abortion, preventing gay marriage, and so forth) on the entire population of the United States any time soon through force of federal law faces a pretty bleak future.
Both sides of these debates, I believe, have to recognize that many people who share the same country disagree in good faith, and are unlikely to be persuaded within our lifetimes. As I have argued at length, I think that the only workable compromise is not to try to force the creation of uniform national law when no national consensus on the morality of these issues exists. Instead, I believe that we should have an agenda of devolving as many of these social issues, as a matter of law, to as local a level as possible.
Politics, properly considered, has limited aims. Attempts to use it to create heaven on earth, whether motivated by secular or religious thinking, usually backfire. Fortunately, most practical people realize this. We should be looking to build political bridges across moral divides by lowering the temperature of such debates, and keeping our expectations of what politics can accomplish appropriately humble.
bzzzt
wrong answer.
not, “religious conservatives”, but CHRISTIAN conservatives.
The Catholics and Jews have already defected.
I think Brooks’ article should be retitled Fundamentalists vs Reformers.
The GOP is retreating into fundamentalism.
The extinction event at the K-T boundary (or the 2008 election if you prefer) offers conservatives two stark choices, a retreat to fundamentalism to prevent percieved dilution of conservative ideology, or memetic evolution of conservative ideology.
Evo theory of culture 101.
Ross’ attack on Kmiec is a fundamentalist classic.
Burn the middle ground to force moderates into the ideologically pure camp, punish and excommunicate defectors and apostates so that they don’t corrupt the “pure” ideology or encourage other defections.
— matoko_chan · Nov 11, 07:28 PM · #
Shouldn’t Brooks’ so-called traditionalists embrace a return to federalism? Given your well-known affection for decentralization, I found it odd that he placed you squarely in the reformers’ camp.
Or do you think traditionalists have abandoned federalism entirely? I seem to remember Fred Thompson harping on the importance of federalism during the Republican primaries. As I recall, he didn’t receive much favorable attention for his troubles.
— Will · Nov 11, 09:07 PM · #
Above: “I think that the only workable compromise is not to try to force the creation of uniform national law when no national consensus on the morality of these issues exists. Instead, I believe that we should have an agenda of devolving as many of these social issues, as a matter of law, to as local a level as possible.”
Well said. Need we add that this is not some clever new-fangled idea but the approach enshrined in the Constitution. It is to our great harm that that document is fast becoming a dead letter. (Background reading: Woods, Thomas E., Jr. and Kevin R.C. Gutzman, Who Killed the Constitution: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush [New York: Crown Forum, 2008])
Subsidiarity is a principle that also needs to be applied by the states vis-a-vis their component communities. For a caricature of state tyranny at its worst, see the Wiki article “Constitution of Alabama” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Constitution.
— Richard Schulman · Nov 11, 09:27 PM · #
Will:
I think that there appears to be a wide spectrum of opinion on quite a few topics within the “reformer” camp. That said, if sure feels like there is some commonality of interest.
I hope that the reformers, traditionalists (and movement libertarians) will embrace federalism / subsidiarity / decentralization.
Yes, he did make a lot of noise (well, relative to his noissiness on other issues) about this in the primaries, and I obviously thought this was one of the strong points of his candidacy.
Richard:
I agree about subsidiarity.
— Jim Manzi · Nov 11, 10:40 PM · #
Jim, from your Corner post:
Buckley was right and wrong. He’s right to value morale. But he’s wrong to hitch morale to outcome, to data, to the nunc fluens (flowing now) — even in arguendo, i.e., as he did with the Dachau comedy.
Obviously, morale is dependent on something; it is responsive to outside forces; it doesn’t go up and down randomly. Insofar as it behooves us to seek out and maintain a high morale, our best strategy is to find a morale that is robust to the accidents of human and cultural evolution. And the best way to do that is to base morale on something constant and universal.
In other words, Buckley’s sights are too narrow: a morale which sinks when faced with reasonable instances of pluralism — say, Springtime for Hitler — is too brittle for a world like ours; as such, it is an undesirable morale unless no other alternatives exist.
A morale tied to history is better, but even that can waiver when collective history loses its force on subsequent generations (or on immigrants). And a morale tied to self-evident principles? I suppose it depends on the principles.
Personally, I’m on your wavelength. We should moralize our governing methodology (like Rawls’ Theory of Justice, but smarter).
— JA · Nov 11, 11:44 PM · #
meh
Federalism is simply not going to address the problem.
How does the conservative party win locally in university towns?
Where the demographic mix is rich with college educated people, young people, and social liberals?
Fresh conservative voters have to be grown from grass roots.
— matoko_chan · Nov 12, 04:08 AM · #
Further, more important than the question of electoral advantage, is the fact that tens of millions of citizens have deeply held beliefs that should be considered in making and enforcing the law.
Have you forgotten the difference between ought and is, Jim? A statement in the form “X should be Y” cannot, strictly speaking, be a fact.
It may be that the deeply held beliefs of tens of millions of citizens should be considered in making and enforcing the law. Or it may be that the deeply held beliefs of hundreds of millions—indeed all—the citizens should be so considered. Or perhaps those deeply held beliefs should only inform our constitutional principles, and only those abstract constitutional principles should be considered in making and enforcing the law. Maybe only our overwhelmingly shared beliefs should be considered. In any case, each of those positions is a view and not a fact. And I think there might even be some debate over which of those views is the most conservative and which is the most Christian.
— southpaw · Nov 12, 04:55 AM · #
“I think that the only workable compromise is not to try to force the creation of uniform national law when no national consensus on the morality of these issues exists. Instead, I believe that we should have an agenda of devolving as many of these social issues, as a matter of law, to as local a level as possible.”
You’re absolutely right. However, the problem is that with the most hot button of these issues, abortion, you’re only going to get this when the current Roe-Casey regime is ended. And for that to happen, you need a national movement that can put presidents in the White House who are committed to appoint originalist/strict constructionist/whatever justices on the Supreme Court.
Plenty of people have made the (in my view, right) argument that it should be in the political left’s interest to end this regime so as to defang the religious right, but for reasons related to its own internal coalition, the Democratic Party pushing for Roe repeal is about as likely as Jerry Falwell being elected president in a landslide (and I know he’s dead).
— PEG · Nov 12, 10:35 AM · #
Cryogenically preserved talking head of Jerry Falwell for President!!!!
Guess what, PEG.
It isn’t the left’s responsibility to defang the religious right.
Do it your bigselves, or let cultural evolution do it.
— matoko_chan · Nov 12, 12:25 PM · #
btw, how about accepting some responsibily for helping elect the well-intentioned evangelical bumbler that just tossed our economy into the crapper and spent 700 billion dollars and 4000 lives from the finest military on the planet to create an Islamic state in Iraq?
Acountability? Responsibility?
/spit
— matoko_chan · Nov 12, 12:35 PM · #
matoko:
It’s not going to any time soon. Fortunately for all concerned, this is not required for winning a national majority.
JA:
I get you, but morale (in the sense used) is neither distributed nor impacted randomly. It is possible for one sub-group to take actions which are extremely harmful to the broader population. To be less abstract, media and political elites can subvert the broader society for the purpose of serving their own ends.
southpaw:
Believe it or not, I thought about exactly this issue when I wrote that sentence. I meant fact to apply only to the existence of the preference. I realized that it might naturally be read as applying to the “ought”, but didn’t see any easy-to-read way to resolve this is the time I had. Sorry for any confusion.
That said, on the broader point that you go into in your last paragraph, I’m very comfortable saying that the preferences of the minority side on any issue that is anywhere close to 50/50 should be very heavily weighted no matter what the issue.
PEG:
I agree with the premise. It seems to me that SoCons, libertarians, economic conservatives and so forth should all agree that we should elect a president that will nominate and a senate that will confirm judges with a more humble view of the role of judges.
— Jim Manzi · Nov 12, 06:46 PM · #
Jim
I think the role of the judges might have evolved into protecting minority citizens from majority citizens.
ahd…..here is a microcosm, a federalist field lab for you……
Engineer Scotty on Oregon
I live in Oregon, which is a perfect example of the phenomenon you describe.
Twenty years ago, the State of Oregon still had, in the Senate, a pair of moderate Republicans in Senators Hatfield and Packwood. Hatfield was the ultimate pro-lifer–he opposed abortion, wafare, and the death penalty. Packwood, when he wasn’t chasing secretaries around the desk, was a pro-choice member of the party’s big business wing.
But an ideological purge during the 90s and 00s has resulted in a state Republican Party that strongly resembles various predictions of where the national party is going–an ideologically inflexible, unelectable mess–and Democrats now dominate state politics. There hasn’t been a Republican in the governor’s office since the 80s; the other elected executive branch positions (Sec of State, etc) are all held by Democrats, both Senators are now solid Democrats with the defeat of Gordon Smith; four of five representatives in the House are Democrats, and the state Legislature is dominated by Democrats. And we voted for Obama in droves.
Oregon mirrors the nation also in that the Democratic power base is in a few cities (Portland and its wealthy western suburbs, Eugene, Bend, and college towns like Corvallis and Ashland), and the hinterlands are all bright red (along with, ironically, the state capital of Salem). And despite all these Democratic gains–Oregon is not a place like New York where liberals simply outnumber conservatives and thus can do whatever they want; Oregon has a large, healthy, independent middle.
But the state GOP has no interest in appealing to those voters. Ideological purity remains supreme, and moderates are persona non grata in the Oregon GOP. The last moderate Republican to run for the governor’s office–Dave Fronmayer in 1990–was undone by a third-party challenge from the right (independent Al Mobley got 20% of the vote), with the result that the Democrat (Barbary Roberts) won. Since then, most Republicans in statewide office (Senator Smith being a notable exception) have been highly Palin-esque in their demeanor.
So if you want to see a good example of where the national GOP appears to be heading, come visit Oregon. We brew the country’s best beer, even if the weather this time of year is terrible.
Still think you can do without the college towns?
Better check out the-map-turning-blue again.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/06/the-blue-map/
— matoko_chan · Nov 12, 09:08 PM · #
Jim:
To be less abstract, media and political elites can subvert the broader society for the purpose of serving their own ends.
True, but why should that affect morale? A morale which depends on the behavior of our elites — rising with good behavior, falling with bad — is exactly the kind of undesirable morale I was talking about. It’s too contingent, too vulnerable to circumstances which are (highly) likely to happen.
Morale should be tied to purpose and paradigm, rather than outcome. What I was saying is that we should define America’s purpose as the perfecter and protector of a highly robust governing paradigm. A morale tied to that should never be in danger.
And of course, the “highly robust governing paradigm” is where all the action is. But I think you’ll find most alternatives excluded by the “highly robust” requirement, when that standard meets our human psycho-socio-cultural realities.
— JA · Nov 13, 02:23 PM · #
Motoko:
Oregon residents of Portland MSA: 1,595,704. Eugene: 143,910. Bend: 62,900.
Compare this to the listed college towns. Coravllis: 52,950, and Ashland: 20,430.
It’s hard to win statewide elections in Oregon without being at least competitive greater Portland; Corvallis and Ashland, not necessarily.
— Jim Manzi · Nov 13, 02:33 PM · #
Speaking of….how about those NRO elites, luxury cruising around while the conservative families they fake caring about are loosing their jobs and homes?
Perhaps K-Lo and the gang are going to dig up another Sarah Palin to hang around the GOP’s neck like some horrorshow rotting albatross?
— matoko_chan · Nov 13, 02:33 PM · #
But that is the point Jim….if the GOP retreats to fundamentalism they can’t win ANY college towns…like say Charlotte or Columbus. It does depend on the direction conservatives chose to embrace.
The Oregon GOP is the fundamentalist model, which Brooks predicts.
— matoko_chan · Nov 13, 02:37 PM · #
And Eugene is actually a college town too.
University of Oregon.
— matoko_chan · Nov 13, 02:58 PM · #