The 3 Strains of Conservatism Stirring in the Political Ferment

Unless Republican Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts – the nation’s most left-leaning state – was some freak accident resulting from an astrological convergence or Karl Rove’s tampering with  Massachusetts voting machines, the Democrat Party is headed for an electoral disaster of historic proportions.   Conservatives are going to regain power.  Just how much power they will win back and whether or not conservatives have learned anything from their own failures during the Bush years are the essential and closely related questions.     Three distinct strains of conservatism are stirring in the current climate of exception political ferment.   Conservatives need to consider which is likely to be the most fruitful.

The first and most visible conservatism is a populist conservatism embodied by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and television-talk-show host Glenn Beck.  Each was a keynote speaker at a recent gathering of conservatives, with Palin at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville and Beck at the C-Pac meeting in Washington.

Maybe no one on the planet deserves simultaneously less scorn and less adulation than Sarah Palin.  The former Governor of Alaska, who quit before finishing her one and only term, is inexplicably seen by many as Presidential timber.   At a time when extremely well-educated politicians and bankers seem to be leading the nation to ruin, it is perhaps not surprising that many ordinary people should hold up one of their own.    Still, if well-seasoned and educated people are wrecking the country, surely the antidote is not merely to replace them with ordinary hockey moms (and dads) without sufficient education or experience.   Here is Sarah Palin’s keynote address given at the Tea Party Convention.

While Sarah Palin lacks the background to craft legislation or negotiate foreign policy, at least she seems mostly without guile or malice.  The same cannot be said of the various conservative talk-show hosts, including Glenn Beck, who make their livings spewing demagogic vitriol.     Here is Beck’s keynote speech at C-Pac</a>.

For many reasonably well-educated citizens, Palin and Beck are so inarticulate, demagogic and / or self-satisfied that they are excruciating to watch, yet each is obviously considered an exceptional leader of the current conservative movement.   Beck claims to stand for something different from the Republicanism of the Bush years.  He refers to favoring less spending and less government than the Republicans delivered when they held power.  But the simple-minded and awkward populist tone of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin is entirely consistent with that of George W. Bush.

Here is just one illustration.  During the 2000 Republican Primary, George W. Bush was asked who was his favorite political philosopher.  Bush named Jesus Christ.  Jesus was not a political philosopher.  Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s,” which was Jesus’ way of explicitly separating himself  from politics.  Not only did Bush seem unfamiliar with his own faith, but his answer suggested that he could not name a single real political philosopher.  Instead, he fell back on his instinct to pander to religious conservatives.  Even with this awkward answer, and many others, conservatives elevated him to the Presidency.

Bush, Palin and Beck are all part of the recent trend of dumbing down American conservatism.  At the C-Pac meeting, however, there was a reminder of what American conservatism once was.   No one today carries the banner of traditional Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley conservatism like George Will, who represents a second, more respectable and intellectually vigorous conservatism of the past.

Here is Will’s speech.  Hard-hitting and gentle, ironic and true, almost every paragraph is packed with meaty ideas, steeped in American history, and punctuated with hilarity.  Who knew George Will could be this funny?

During the George W. Bush years George Will fought an insurgent battle within the conservative movement for a more cautious foreign policy, more prudent fiscal policies, and he resisted the general trend toward simple-minded conservatism.  In his C-Pac speech, unlike Beck’s, he did not turn on his fellow conservatives but instead he modeled effective conservative discourse.  In many ways, Will offers of a powerful condemnation of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress and ably represents traditional conservatism.

In representing the conservatism of the past, however, Will implicitly promotes a dichotomy no longer acceptable to modern Americans.  Will suggests we must choose between “dependence” on government and individual “independence.”  These are themes that go back to the very founding of the nation.  But today most Americans want their government to provide a reasonable safety net for themselves and their neighbors.  While traditional conservatives are loath to embrace the necessity of various and expensive social programs, modern Americans expect their government both to protect them from criminals and hostile foreign nations, and to help them in the event of personal calamities beyond their individual control.    For example, Americans insist that they not be denied insurance coverage for a pre-existing medical condition.    Similarly they believe that no one should go broke paying medical bills.  George Will rails against the “entitlement” mentality, and though the term may be poorly chosen, Americans like Medicare and Social Security.  And today they’re rightly worried that these programs may go bankrupt.

Now comes the new third strain in American conservatism, represented by Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.  Ryan was singled out for his bold ideas by President Obama at the last meeting he had with Congressional Republicans.  As it turns out, Obama was only teeing up Ryan for his fellow Democrats so that they could take swings at him, part of cynical partisan bipartisan strategy (the idea is to pretend to be bipartisan while making the Republicans look bad) .    The Democrats may come to regret giving Ryan a platform.   Here is Ryan being interviewed about healthcare on CNBC.  And here he describes his plan to attack the national debt through comprehensive entitlement reform.

Ryan is young, handsome, intelligent and quick on his feet.   His fresh brand of conservatism embraces progressive goals on healthcare reform with free-market tools.  Along with other Republicans, Ryan has come to back universal healthcare coverage, something unthinkable for conservatives a generation ago.  Such a development should have the liberals doing victory laps, but most of them have rigidly and uncompromisingly insisted on state-centered healthcare.  It is entirely possible that Republicans, under the leadership of Ryan and other like-minded innovative legislators, will have another “Nixon Goes to China” moment, and eventually deliver on universal healthcare instead of the Democrats.  How ironic it would be for Republicans to achieve something they have historically opposed, and for Democrats to fail to get credit for an important social welfare goal generations in the making.

If the Republicans create a fiscally responsible market-based universal healthcare plan, and likewise propose similarly creative entitlement reform, this third centrist strain of Conservatism, one that weds market solutions to progressive goals, will become a powerful force in American politics.  But first the Glenn Beck / Sara Palin wing of the conservative movement will have to be marginalized in favor of new conservatives / centrists like Ryan.  Make no mistake, these are momentous times in American politics.