Comeback conservatism

"Every great cause begins as a movement,” political analyst Pat Buchanan recently said. “[Then it] becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

Even before the rout of Nov. 4, prominent commentators on both sides of the political aisle were emerging to lament the deterioration of the modern conservative movement. The “conservative intellectual tradition,” wrote Mark Lilla, “is already dead.” It is trapped in an “ideological cocoon” (Adrian Wooldridge), has fallen “behind the times” (David Brooks) and consists of “ideas that simply haven’t worked in practice” (Greg Anrig).

Many are wondering: How could a movement that swept through both houses of Congress and the White House eight years ago, now find itself on the cusp of political extinction? The verdict, it seems, has been written: The Bush presidency single-handedly destroyed modern conservatism. Were the platform of the Republican Party and the hallmarks of modern conservative theory synonymous, this theory might hold true. However, the politics and governance of the GOP differ vastly from the fundamental tenets of modern conservatism.

Perhaps most importantly, the thesis that Bush destroyed conservatism presupposes the existence of a universal conservative ideology. Such an ideology, of course, does not exist. Indeed, the division created by years of infighting among various conservative factions has left the movement languishing in political doldrums.

Although the last eight years played no small role in crippling conservatism in the public’s perception, their more harmful effect was to convolute and disfigure the traditional conception of conservative governance. In order to restore a classical understanding of conservatism and resuscitate its legitimacy in the public’s eye, conservative thinkers must look to the past. In planning for the future, they must consult the intellectual framework from which they have sprung.

Returning to the Roots

Long before Ronald Reagan declared government the source of our problems or William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review, long before the candidacy of Barry Goldwater or the publication of Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind,” and even before the historic presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, there was the British statesman Edmund Burke. In 1790, amidst the early chaos of the French Revolution, Burke penned “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” which scholars have long considered the founding document of the modern conservative movement.

In sharp contrast to many of the ideologues who purport to advance conservatism today, Burke articulated his position based on practical considerations, not a doctrinaire political stance. His condemnation of the French Revolution – its violence and its excess – is remarkable for its uncanny prescience. When Burke wrote “Reflections,” he had only seen the fall of the Bastille and the abolition of feudalism. The execution of Louis XVI and the bloody Reign of Terror – encapsulated so vividly in Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” – had yet to occur. Nevertheless, Burke not only anticipated these imminent catastrophes but divined their historical and political import as well.

Burke’s opposition to political upheaval should come as no surprise, for above all else he valued continuity and stability within government and society. Although nations expend years in the cultivation of liberty and equality, he recognized, these seemingly natural entitlements can be abolished on the fleeting whims of an angry mob or seized by a charismatic demagogue. This recognition serves as the touchstone of conservative thought: Vigilant preservation of custom and tradition sustains the stability and well-being of society.

In this age of “Change We Can Believe In,” one might conclude that Burke’s opposition to change was inexcusably backwards. After all, Americans’ infatuation with “change” and “progress” hearkens back to the very origins of our Constitution, which felt the influence of historically radical thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Paine.

In listing several basic qualities of liberalism, Kirk included the “perfectability of man and the illimitable progress of society,” in addition to “contempt for tradition.” Since its inception, the United States has maintained a relatively liberal society. “How unlikely,” wrote George Packer of the New Yorker, that the “gloomy creed” of conservatism “took hold in America, the optimistic capital of modernity.”

But in Burke’s eyes, political and social conservation did not preclude necessary
improvements. “A state without the means of some change,” he cautioned, “is without the means of its conservation.” But whereas liberal thinkers embraced revolution by any means necessary, Burke understood that “hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration rather than a torch of progress,” as Kirk wrote. Because man is a limited creature, he should effect change slowly, deliberately and carefully. Moderation, he believed, could induce the reformation of government while averting the chaos and bloodshed of revolution.

The Reckoning

Because of its party affiliation, the Bush presidency has been labeled a product of conservatism. By this logic, of course, conservatism would signify failed policies and intransigent ideologies. But according to Burke’s thinking, upon which the 20th-century conservative intellectual movement was built, the Bush presidency represents a vast departure from conservative governance.

Radical foreign policy, for example, has compromised the efficacy of the U.S. military and blemished the country’s reputation in the international community. Two years after initiating what would become the most grievous American foreign policy disaster since Vietnam, President Bush acknowledged that the Iraqi invasion was based on flawed intelligence. As startling a realization as this may have been in 2005, in retrospect the most unfathomable blunder has been the absence of a clear post-invasion and exit strategy.

Then came Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, both of which also exemplified a divergence from such American ideals as integrity and universal respect for human dignity. In the perception of the international public, these discoveries further delegitimized the important mission of protecting America from the scourge of terrorism.

One can hardly call the Bush approach conservative. In belligerent contrast to the classic Burkean principles of moderation and deliberation, Bush split with 60 years of mostly bipartisan and multilateralist foreign policy. This was not the foreign policy of Wilson, FDR or Reagan; nor was it the foreign policy which navigated the Cold War’s turbulent waters and reaffirmed the capabilities of smart, principled diplomacy. Instead, this was a foreign policy rooted in triumphalism and roguish passion. This foreign policy scoffed at the traditions of the past and charged blindly onto the world stage.

Of course, foreign policy was only one component of the recklessly creative Bush years. There was also runaway spending, massive tax cuts and the perils of subprime mortgage-lending, which precipitated the economic tempest in which we now find ourselves engulfed.

If the conservative movement finds itself in political backwaters, it is not because moderation these last eight years has failed, but because moderation was never tried. Subprime lending, the reckless initiation of war, torture – this is not an age of backwards conservatism, but an age of intemperate innovation, exactly what Burke feared.

Looking Ahead

As conservatives sort through the wreckage of the last eight years and begin planning their comeback, they will either evolve with changing times or remain entrenched in the glory days of the Gipper. It is here, at the convergence between transformation and tradition, that the internal conflict intensifies.

On one side there is the Old Guard – the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys who dogmatically inquire, more than 20 years later, “What Would Reagan Do?” On the other side are the progressive conservatives, those who want to modernize the movement for the new challenges of the 21st century.

Progressive conservatives stem from the root of Burkean values. While deferring to the wisdom of their predecessors and tradition, they also value the social mobility and personal transformation made possible in America. They believe that to address current and future challenges, conservatives must not ignore but simply look beyond the hackneyed Republican mantras of “limited government” and “more tax cuts.”

Conservatives are facing the dilemma of their own doctrine: whether to evolve with changing times or to adhere to the wisdom of the past. And traditionalists like Limbaugh are beginning to sense the departure.

In a June 2008 broadcast Limbaugh cut loose on those whom he has dubbed “pseudo-conservatives”: “They believe in an activist government that has conservative tendencies, which is an oxymoron ... We have these two guys, these two young guys writing this book about how to save the Republican Party ... I’m telling you, there’s an all-out assault on conservatism even from within the Republican Party itself.”

The two young punks earning Limbaugh’s wrath happen to be Atlantic Monthly columnists Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam. In 2008 Douthat and Salam released “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.”

While underscoring the social conservatism of the New Deal, the authors argue that Republicans must reach out to the working class and develop policies to re-energize America’s social mobility. To counter the growing rift between rich and poor, educated and uneducated, they argue, Republicans should bolster the social and economic security of working-class Americans whose solidarity has been shaken by cultural revolutions and economic transformations.

Although conservatives like Douthat and Salam are pushing for substantive policy adjustments and new electoral strategies within the movement, they are also leading the stylistic vanguard of progressive conservatism. Rebuking what IU professor of American history James Madison called “standard Republicanism’s move toward anti-intellectualism,” writers like Douthat, Salam, David Frum, Megan McArdle, David Brooks, Yuval Levin and others have evidenced that rigor of thought which once defined conservatism.

In the midst of the 2008 election, Brooks offered an insightful critique of conservatism’s intellectual retrogression. “What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole,” he writes. “If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut.” This disdain came seething to a volcanic head with the nomination of Sarah Palin.

After all, her nomination was founded upon the belief that politics trumps governance. Winning elections matters more than ruling, and personality more than substance. For a movement bereft of ideas and solutions, this becomes the only viable approach.

Conservatism, though, is not that movement. Rooted in the great ideas of traditional Western thought and culture, American conservatism is once again trying to sprout fresh ideas and thoughtful solutions. Though it branches out with the changing climate of a globalized economy and the soil of new political landscapes, it remains firmly planted in the ideals of liberty, equal opportunity and individual responsibility.

Conservatives consult the past – its wisdom and its folly – that they might preserve the good and dispose of the bad. They look back with reverence to strive onward with dignity. The future of conservatism, like the course of history, will be determined by the vision of those into whose charge it falls.