I wanted to write a scathing critique of Andrew Sullivan’s essay from today. It was full of his customarily tiresome hackery — and the almost unbearable allusions to our current president as the cure to our present woes.
But I can’t.
Because at bottom, he’s correct. There is something fundamentally wrong about conservatism today — although he’s entirely missed what it is.
Sullivan writes,
I cannot say this is the moment the fever broke. The “movement right” is still furious at Roberts, pushing Romney as the principle-free instrument of their next round of institution-smashing (Medicare). But that a conservative placed the country’s institutional stability before ideological fervor is so rare at this point it deserves some kind of praise. It’s a start. If the GOP is beaten this fall, it may even be seen as the moment the tide began to turn, and conservatism began to reach back toward its less feral traditions and ideas. But I know I’m getting way ahead of myself here.
But at some point, conservatism must re-emerge, if only because we so desperately need it. Conservatism is, after all, a philosophy that tends to argue that less equals more, that restraint is sometimes more powerful than action, that delay is often wiser than headlong revolution. It reveres traditional rules and existing institutions, especially endangered elite institutions that the Founders designed to check and cool the popular will. Roberts took a small step toward resuscitating that tradition last week.
And he’s being tendentious — and full of the occasional bluster that takes over his prose when most anything related to our current president comes into the discussion. But he’s right — and someone had to say it. Because institutions (and the principles that undergird them) do matter. Senators, presidents and political parties come and go — and this city can make them go from omnipotent to the opposite in a matter of moments. What can’t be treated with such callousness are the institutions that safeguard our republic.
Give me the poseur award. Call me overwrought. Banish me from conservatism. I don’t care.
If conservatives — and liberals who claim to care about civic society, community, etc. — give a damn about preserving the best of our society, they’ll protect the institutions. That’s why I called for conservatives to exercise restraint in the event that we retake Washington in the fall. That’s why it would be a dramatic mistake to follow up on Newt’s suggestion that we end lifelong tenure for judges.
And it’s why I can never return to the political left — because the institutions most essential to individual liberty and limited government are disavowed by those who would burn them to the ground in exchange for the ends they desire. We learned that during the Progressive Era, and we’re seeing it again today.
Andrew, you say that you await the moment when the fever breaks.
I’d say you have to weather the storm.
Because, while both cliches suck, you’ve managed to be correct about the problem and entirely incorrect about potential solutions.
I generally agreed with you until you hit this spot: “And it’s why I can never return to the political left — because the institutions most essential to individual liberty and limited government are disavowed by those who would burn them to the ground in exchange for the ends they desire. We learned that during the Progressive Era, and we’re seeing it again today.”
Then I re-read your post and think the issue is your conflation of “the right” with conservatism and “the left” with liberalism. The Tea Partiers are no more conservative than the young Tom Hayden, but there is a historical home for radicals on the left. And the Black Panthers (or any other identity group) celebrate the individual just as much as the Birchers, but there is a historical home for xenophobia on the right. In sum, there may be two rough coalitions of interests that we call the left and the right, but within each there is too much splintering to call either one conservative or liberal.
Modern conservatism, as Sullivan and many others (Frum, Bartlett, etc.) point out, is not conservative at all, which is a shame because a healthy society requires a full-throated defense. For all of my ideological disagreements with William F. Buckley, he had an admirable willingness to consistently defend the institutions of society even when it was obscene. His obscenities may have sprung from his desire to fight off even greater obscenities (the Birchers) so they might be forgiven. Every healthy society also needs a full-throated critique, which in our history tends to be a criticism of institutions and power, particularly how they relate to the individual. Young Tom Hayden was an important critic of post-war American institutions, but his writings were generally ignored for the flashier celebrity stuff and anti-Vietnam activity. Reasonable people can choose between these two. That’s self-government.
Which brings me to your critique of the Progressive Era. I’m not sure what you mean by this, since Progressivism can be traced to the 1880s (if memory serves) and re-emerges cyclically. Progressivism broke political machines, gave us primaries, secret ballots and ballot initiatives, created the SEC and FDIC, protected labor unions, outlawed employment discrimination, integrated schools, cleaned up our air and water, and (if you consider government investment in basic research “progressive”) gave us this medium. Each of these was accomplished through the very institutions you claim they were trying to circumvent, and each was designed to re-balance the relationship between the individual and the power centers of society. (If you feel like arguing that government should not protect unions against private employers, I suggest you look at how the forces of government — police and army — were used to break strikes. Not very private employers.)
Are there excesses? Yes, of course, and they aren’t to be excused. I think if you examine the excesses you will find that they often result from newly-organized interests who use the reforms in ways contrary to the original intent. Primaries are taken over by organized activists so that candidates do not represent the average partisan voter, ballot initiatives are written for and funded by industries, regulatory creep incorporates ideology rather than modern technology, science, or economics, and identity groups freely shout “discrimination” as a political weapon and not a fact. Also, some reforms were just wrong-headed or harmful. AFDC’s single-mother requirement destroyed black families at a disproportionate rate. Does this mean we should roll back the clock? No, I don’t think so.
If you want to protect institutions, support education with everything you’ve got. Pick a fight against anti-intellectualism. Teach people how to choose between Buckley and Hayden.
Yet another exceptional comment.
I’ve noted in the past that there is a dearth of “conservatism” within modern conservatism — so no argument from me on that front. If you Google “Justin Green Daily Nebraskan Conservatism,” you’ll see a wealth of words from me on why the modern GOP is reactionary and radical instead of conservative.
(Here’s a relevant post: http://jgreendc.tumblr.com/post/18570167502)
And yes, there were a lot of good things accomplished in the Progressive Era. My broader point is that we also suffered institutional damages during that time — and that it was by design.
I’ll have more on this later.
[...] If you’d like to know more about what I think is wrong with the GOP and the broader conservative movement, feel free to read this, this, this, this, and this. [...]