Whither Conservatism?
Michael Gerson–a former speechwriter for President Bush–has written an interesting reflection on the debates within the Republican party about its direction in the wake of the November elections. Gerson has some trenchant observations about those who preach a return to what he calls “the purity of Reaganism”:
As antigovernment conservatives seek to purify the Republican Party, it is reasonable to ask if the purest among them are conservatives at all. The combination of disdain for government, a reflexive preference for markets and an unbalanced emphasis on individual choice is usually called libertarianism. The old conservatives had some concerns about that creed, which Russell Kirk called “an ideology of universal selfishness.” Conservatives have generally taught that the health of society is determined by the health of institutions: families, neighborhoods, schools, congregations. Unfettered individualism can loosen those bonds, while government can act to strengthen them. By this standard, good public policies—from incentives to charitable giving, to imposing minimal standards on inner-city schools—are not apostasy; they are a thoroughly orthodox, conservative commitment to the common good.
I heard Dick Army on the radio making sense not long ago, and people seem to do that more often when unfettered by public office.
In Gerson’s piece, I sense a move away from theocratic Republicanism and toward that old-fashioned, common-sense, self-reliance Republicanism.
As the only Democrat on our public library board for a term, I enjoyed the bipartisan spirit at the local level. There is a sense of common good, common goal. Everyone on the board was interested in good governance, not on pushing politics.
I wonder what would happen if we made it a law that only legislation with bipartisan sponsorship could be considered by our state and federal officials.
Bill McClay has a superb analysis too in the new Commentary. “Is Conservatism Finished?”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.aip?id=10812
Gerson’s principle is fine as far as it goes. Who could rightly object to a concern for the common good? But good principles don’t guarantee good policies. Every defensible policy is something of an experiment. Whether it actually does contribute to the common good is always open to reasonable objection. The proof of the pudding (policies) is always in the eating. At a minimum they have to be digestable (bearable).
Bernard commented: “But good principles don’t guarantee good policies.”
Perhaps you could enlarge on this interesting comment or offer an example.
In thinking about what you said, it strikes me that the presidents who were most sincere and personally religious–George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, for example–and arguably the most principled have been least effective in developing policies that Americans found palatable.
Other, more effective presidents, have framed their policies in more ecumenical terms, though they may have emerged from no less a sense of personal principles informed by faith–The Great Society, The New Frontier, A Thousand Points of Light, and The New Deal.
Even Reagan’s reference to a Shining City on a Hill was seen more in political terms–America the example of liberty and free-market economy–than religious.
I think the Republican experiment with religion and politics has about run its course. I wonder if, in part, that’s because some Americans (me) are sick of feeling as if they’re the object of their elected officials’ missionary work.
Jean,
With all this talk of theocratic conservatism, I think liberals have got it completely backwards. It was not the Republican party that experimented with the “religious right,” it was the “religious right” that experimented with politics, and the Republicans just happened to be the party they could support.
It is interesting that the Republican party is treated as becoming more and more conservative when, in fact, they have stayed the same by and large over the last three decades, and it is Democrats that have radicalized.
The examples are legion. In 1968, both Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy opposed legalized abortion. So did Teddy Kennedy, and most Democratic politicians. John Kennedy’s economic policies looked more like Reagan’s than the current Dem’s. For all the talk of the huge Reagan military build-up, Carter’s five-year budget was pretty much the same.
Contrarily, the centers of personal liberty were in the western, predominantly Republican, states where there was a strain of libertarianism tempered by social conservatism. Most of the states that decriminalized sodomy in the 50′s, for example, were dominated by the Republican party.
The GOP has always had its libertarian, country club Easter establishment, and mid-western – and now southern conservative elements. They wax and wane in influence, but they are always there. Look at the Dems, on the other hand. Even in this election, they had to put lipstick on the pig by running a lot of “conservative” candidates. Do you really think the party leadership has any intention of moving right? A more monolithic political force you couldn’t dream up. Sure, they fight about who will have the power, but there is not a dime’s worth of difference in what they believe. And what they believe does not line up with what most Americans believe.
In short, I wouldn’t be sounding the death knell of the GOP and conservatism just yet.
Jean,
Re “Good principles don’t guarantee good policies.”
It’s tough to be brief aboutg this matter, but, at the expense of some precision, let me try.
First, there is a logical link between principles and policies. One can’t make full sense of either of them alone. Genuine policies are always applications of some principle or set of principles to some delimited situation. second, even genuine policies can be either good or bad, depending on how well they fit the situation thaey aim to address.
Third, it is always possible that more than one policy is a good application of a principle. Of course, there can also be more than one bad application.
Some examples: 1. Assume the political principle ” Every adult citizen is entitled to vote.” There can be multiple genuine policies that apply this principle, specifying conditions for absentee voting, voting by mail, etc. To determine which of thes is good, one would have to examine the circumstances in which it was to be applied. Woud the policy unfairly burden some eligible voteers? Would it open the door to fraud too widely? Etc.
2. More generally, assume the moral principle “Everyone is entitled to What he or she needs to live a normal human life.” Here again, therre can be many genuine policies that claim to implement this principle in some particular situation. Again, some of these can be effective and therefore good, While others can be counterproductive, and therefore bad.
Finally, note that there can be reasonable argument about how one should properly enunciate even the most basic of principles. For example, should one phrase it in negative or positive terms? And of course, one can also reasonably debate the adequacy of the formulation of any policy.
I hope that what I say makes some sense.
And Happy New Year to you and all of our fellow chatters.