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Meaningless Statements, Meaningless Threats

A prominent conservative senator said that Washington political leaders should “be replaced” if they do not back a document of conservative principles signed Wednesday. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) deemed it necessary that politicians endorse the Mount Vernon Statement, a document outlining a vision of “constitutional conservatism” backed by a number of right-wing activists. “If our […]

A prominent conservative senator said that Washington political leaders should “be replaced” if they do not back a document of conservative principles signed Wednesday.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) deemed it necessary that politicians endorse the Mount Vernon Statement, a document outlining a vision of “constitutional conservatism” backed by a number of right-wing activists.

“If our leaders cannot agree to the Mount Vernon Statement, they are part of the problem and should be replaced,” DeMint tweeted. ~The Hill’s Briefing Room

This is not much of a threat, and it isn’t much of a litmus test. The statement itself is so anodyne, unobjectionable and filled with stock phrases that no one to the right of Olympia Snowe could have that much to say against it. The statement was written specifically to be as inclusive, vague and undemanding as possible. It was done this way so that every movement faction could accept it without complaint. It reads like remedial instruction on civics from the Claremont Institute, and the actual politics of most of the signatories have about as much to do with “the Founding” as does Claremont’s distorted understanding of the same. If I thought it worth the time, I might pick apart some confused ideas about “the conservatism of the Declaration,” but as far as conventional movement conservative rhetoric goes this is unremarkable stuff.

There is no danger here of an unreasonable “purity test.” The standard being set by this statement is so low that anyone in the conservative movement could claim to agree with everything in the document and still merrily go about his way violating both the letter and the spirit of the principles to which he supposedly just subscribed. The statement is so generic and so divorced from any contemporary policy debate that everyone from Marc Thiessen to Ron Paul could endorse it without the endorsement having any effect on their current policy views. Any consensus this broad and unrelated to actual policy is pretty meaningless.

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