The End Of the Right?
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/e.+j.+dionne+jr./>
Friday, August 4, 2006; Page A17
Is conservatism finished?
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.
Conservatism was always a delicate balancing act between
small-government economic libertarians and social traditionalists who
revered family, faith and old values. The two wings were often held
together by a common enemy, modern liberalism certainly, but even more
so by communism until the early 1990s, and now by what some
conservatives call "Islamofascism."
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.
Rarely has our system produced a more naked exercise in opportunism than
this measure. Most conservatives oppose the minimum wage on principle as
a form of government meddling in the marketplace. But moderate
Republicans in jeopardy this fall desperately wanted an increase in the
minimum wage.
So the seemingly ingenious Republican leadership, which dearly wants
deep cuts in the estate tax, proposed offering nickels and dimes to the
working class to secure billions for the rich. Fortunately, though not
surprisingly, the bill failed.
The episode was significant because it meant Republicans were
acknowledging that they would not hold congressional power without the
help of moderates. That is because there is nothing close to a
conservative majority in the United States.
Yet their way of admitting this was to put on display the central goal
of the currently dominant forces of politics: to give away as much as
possible to the truly wealthy. You wonder what those blue-collar
conservatives once known as Reagan Democrats made of this spectacle.
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?"
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.
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