Let’s Not Get Carried Away
It took a leader of the Decider’s uncommon gifts to kill the philosophy he worships. ~Eugene Robinson
Perhaps Mr. Robinson has been cribbing from Michael Gerson’s notes about the modern Republican Party, but the idea that Bush or any major Republican leader has acted as if “government is useless, if not inherently evil” is silly. Ours has been the era of bleeding-heart conservatism, epitomised by Gerson’s weepy manifestoes of world revolution speeches, and Republican do-gooding, which, like pretty much all government do-gooding, has brought about very, very bad results. Mr. Bush and his enablers (including Gerson!) have argued for the virtue of government activism more than any one of his predecessors since perhaps LBJ. It is also silly to suggest that the last eight years have seen the apotheosis of anything that could reasonably be called free market policies. Setting up collaboration with pharmaceutical corporations to create a new government entitlement has nothing to do with the “cruel genius of free markets,” nor does feeding military contractor companies with rich deals in the midst of one of the largest armed social engineering projects in our history. It could be argued that a full-throated pro-market, small government, constitutionalist platform could not have won any of the presidential elections of the last forty years and that such a platform was rejected by a huge majority of the public 44 years ago, and you could make various arguments about what that might mean for a small government conservative politics, but to take the legacy of one of the most statist, government-expanding, government-trusting, government-ennobling administrations in recent history and make its failure into a story of how this discredited a philosophy to which it did not adhere is preposterous.
Arguably, Mr. Bush pushed the contradictions between a fundamentally pro-corporate, government-expanding party and a rhetoric of small government to “absurd extremes,” such that the relatively few remaining supporters of the “paradigm” that allegedly dominated politics for my entire lifetime (and yet operationally never commanded more than minimal influence) grew disgusted with that party. It might be that the legacy of Mr. Bush’s tenure has been to support the claim that “government is useless, if not inherently evil.” However, conservatives have never claimed and do not believe that government is useless, though we might describe it as a necessary evil in some circumstances. On the contrary, conservatives assume that government can be rightly ordered and limited so that it does not become abusive or destructive of the common good. More likely, Mr. Bush’s legacy will be that he killed the electoral chances of the Republican Party for at least a decade and helped ensure that the rising generation will react to the GOP with contempt for the rest of their lives.
to take the legacy of one of the most statist, government-expanding, government-trusting, government-ennobling administrations in recent history and make its failure into a story of how this discredited a philosophy to which it did not adhere is preposterous.
True.
However, the party, and the party apparatus, that supported the administration tooth-and-nail has traditionally adopted the mantle of conservatism.
I don’t think that we disagree about this. Robinson attributes the demise of conservatism to disenchantment with Bush; I, and maybe you too, attribute it to that, plus movement conservatives eagerly cheerleading all the while.
What an insane politics we have, that all I can do is agree with you all the time, when I disagree with many of your policy views. It would be a great thing for America if there were a conservative party in this country; maybe I’d even be arguing with you from inside that party how it should proceed. In the meantime, we just have to hope that the GOP finds a principle somewhere to which to adhere, and that the Democrats don’t overreach.
No doubt the party has made use of the language and claimed the principles as its own, and movement conservatives were happy to endorse the identification. So, in practical terms, institutional or movement conservatism is being dragged down by Bush because it allied itself with him, so I think we are in agreement on all of this.
I look forward to a time when we have a political system healthy and representative enough that we can vigorously disagree with each other again from time to time.
Terrific post. That first paragraph is just a wonderfully succinct description of reality.
You hint at it, but just to make it explicit I’d like to point out that the overwhelming majority of Americans approve of the domestic policy decisions made by Bush– even if they don’t approve of Bush himself.
As evidence of that, see the rightward rush by the Democrats…
So, those opposed to the Bush domestic policy (on the left and right) are in a tough spot democratically and practically…
So, those opposed to the Bush domestic policy (on the left and right) are in a tough spot democratically and practically
And you are living on what planet?
Bush’s energy policy – not popular.
Bush’s education policy – no child left behind is depised by both side of the isle,
War on terror? Many hate his abuse of civil and constitutional rights, others hate is failure to protect the borders and control entry into the country.
Yeah, things like gun control and late term abortion are not targets of the Democrats anymore, but these have been victories for the Republican party in general and have taken a long time to achieve. If anything Bush is putting them in jeopardy again but given the democrats huge majorities.
But, maybe I am missing something and you are aware of highly successful domestic programs put forth by the Bush admin.
The next president has two jobs: end a worthless, silly war–occupation, really–and move us closer toward national health care. All else is babble and foolishness.