americanideal.org Blog

Conservative pundits have been trying to comfort themselves and us with the claim that, despite the election results, America is still a conservative leaning country. The preferred adjective is “center-right.” Even Newsweek made the claim in a cover story before the Obama victory http://www.newsweek.com/id/164656, and Rush Limbaugh has opined that conservatism didn’t lose on November 4th, because “it wasn’t even on the ballot.”

Yet it is dangerously Pollyannaish for conservatives to think that the majority of voters did not know they were voting for a big-government nanny state when they cast their ballot for Obama.

Rush is right that McCain’s attempt to wear the mantle of conservatism never really worked, because his lifelong reputation as a “moderate” more intent on reaching compromise than on leading a movement aimed at advancing key principles could not ultimately be overcome. Along the same lines, Sean Hannity’s prescription is that the Republican Party has to identify strong candidates who will articulate strong conservative principles, and they will carry the day. Sean is right, but only half right.

Running articulate, conservative candidates is essential, but not adequate in and of itself. Conservatives have to face the fact that we are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of a critical mass of the American people. And we have to rebuild the movement by re-emphasizing persuasion and education, concerning the fundamental principles that serve as the foundation of conservatism and the founding of the United States.

It is not enough to say, “we believe in limited government, personal liberty, private property, and the principles of the Founding Fathers, so vote for us.” I am convinced that most people don’t even understand these principles or know why they are important. For conservatives to succeed significantly in national elections, we are going to have to continually teach these principles, explain them thoroughly, and make it clear why straying from them can ultimately be so dangerous. This was the genius of Reagan, and no Republican president since him has had it. Reagan never stopped selling conservative principles. He understood them because he internalized them by reading widely, thinking deeply, and communicating (in speech and in writing) about these principles, and he never let up. In politics, just when you think you have won, that’s the time to push even harder.

Democrats have always seemed to understand this basic tenet of the effective acquisition of political power: Never stop campaigning. Bill Clinton’s entire presidency was a campaign; Barack Obama’s re-election campaign will begin on January 21, 2009 (maybe it has already started). Pick a major issue important to the waning Republican administration, however, and look at the horrible failures to teach, explain, and sell their position in a relentless way. Partial privatization of social security should have been a winning issue, but the administration caved at the first sign of a fight. And the Democrats successfully convinced a majority of Americans that Bush was trying to “take away” their social security.

The war in Iraq began with popular support, yet Bush failed to keep selling it, allowing the Democrats to make it into a liability for the GOP that brought the Dems back to power in 2006. If you step back and try to look at them with a little historical perspective, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been resounding successes overall, though not without serious but expected setbacks along the way. The American military, led by President Bush, overthrew two violent, bloody, terribly repressive regimes, liberated more than 50 million people, and killed tens of thousands of terrorists, all with breathtakingly low casualty rates. I am convinced that this administration’s historic unpopularity–before the economic crisis–had more to do with its inexplicable negligence in failing to keep selling the war (yes, a little propaganda–as long as it was true–would have been a good idea) and the Democrats relentless attacks than it had to do with Bush’s alleged incompetence.

My thesis here is not intended to give comfort to liberals or to depress conservatives. Nor am I lining up with so-called moderate conservatives–like David Brooks of the New York Times–who believe that conservatism needs to be reformed or modernized to become competitive again. That’s another way of saying Republicans need to create a new kind of conservatism, essentially liberalism lite, in order to be competitive. My argument could not be further from that. I am saying that the conservative movement needs to realize that we have to re-fight the old battles. No longer is it safe to assume that the principles of limited government, free markets, and individual liberty are widely embraced.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of us thought that would be the death knell of the planned economy. Sadly, we were premature. While Russia is looking more and more like the Soviet Union of old, and dictator Hugo Chavez, the darling of the “world community” and of the American left, is nationalizing significant aspects of the Venezuelan economy, the United States has just elected a leftist President and Congress, on the promise of government guaranteed health care, education, prosperity, etc. Then there’s the bail-out, supported by a Republican president and both his would-be successors, not to mention both parties in Congress. Thus we find ourselves in the United States with an “economy czar” who has near-dictatorial authority to spend upwards of a trillion dollars, in the person of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and his eventual successor.

In future posts, I hope to examine some of the specific reasons for my conclusion in more detail. But if we do not admit that the conservative movement has a challenge before it more serious than the mere packaging of slicker and more attractive candidates, we will be doomed to more failure. And we could be witnessing the dawning of a new era of big-government liberalism that will change America as drastically, or more so, than the New Deal.