Sitting On the Conservative Coffin
Tom Frank's The Wrecking Crew is a devastating account of the massive damage that the conservative movement, its ideology, and its leaders have inflicted on the country. The same exact blurb applies as well to other excellent books published within the past year or so by such authors as James Galbraith, Robert Kuttner, Paul Krugman, Jane Mayer, Rick Perlstein, Charlie Savage, Kevin Phillips, Ron Suskind, Jared Bernstein, Steven Greenhouse, Charles Morris, Jeff Madrick, Naomi Klein, Matthew Yglesias, Glenn Greenwald, Sidney Blumenthal and Greg Anrig. All of those books make the unambiguous case, from a variety of angles in a variety of styles, that conservatism produced failed government because conservatives disdain government and put self-interest above other values.
But while Republicans seem destined to be clobbered on November 4, the conservative movement will no doubt climb out of its coffin after a nap of unknown duration to bite the country in the neck again. Polls show that the share of the population self-identifying as "conservative" continues to hold steady at around the same level as it has for years. In the latest New York Times poll, for example, 36 percent self-identified as conservative, 38 percent as moderate, and 22 percent as liberal; the reading for conservative is toward the high end of the fairly narrow range the Times poll has measured since the early 1990s. Don't these people read books!?
Though I've argued ad nauseum that progressives should strive to make the "conservative" label as toxic as the right succeeded in rendering the "liberal" brand, it's becoming pretty clear at this point that it ain't going to happen. If roughly the same number of Americans are as proud to call themselves conservative after the past eight years of disastrous right-wing governance as before, those folks aren't going to be talked out of anything.
One revealing aspect of Barack Obama's campaign has been his steadfast refusal to apply the label "conservative" to the Bush policies he criticized so effectively and relentlessly, even though the label very much applies to those failed ideas, foreign and domestic. Obama clearly was hoping that he would be more likely to win votes from disillusioned Republicans and independents if he avoided alienating them by criticizing the belief system that some of those people think of themselves as ascribing to. Given Obama's standing in the polls at the moment, it's hard to argue that any aspect of his campaign strategy was misguided. But the experience also underscores the constraints on politicians running for office, particularly at a national level, in attacking an ideology that nearly 40 percent of the population stubbornly embraces. No doubt many of those people buy into the delusion propagated by the right-wing echo chamber that conservatism had nothing to do with how Bush governed. Obama probably made the correct calculation that trying to explain why those people are, in fact, deluded would counterproductively divert him too far from his more positive messages. Plus Obama himself tends to conflate some legitimate insights offered decades ago by conservatives with the uniformly destructive modern conservative movement.
So, while I agree with everything Tom and Dean Baker wrote here, I guess I've given up on my hope that, as Dean put it, the conservative movement will ever succumb to a stake through the heart. The best hope for keeping it slumbering for as long as possible will be for the next administration and Congress to govern successfully. And that will be enormously difficult precisely because conservative governance produced such expansive and severe damage.
Better question to ask is, 'can they read!?'
October 8, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect you will find that the "religious" wing of the conservatives is steadfast in refusing to read anything but the Bible. Many of those people have been brainwashed into believing that any writing more modern than the Bible is evil and must be avoided. I have been told by more than one of that group that I am sinning by reading non-Bible literature.
Church leaders can most easily maintain their hold on their followers if they can restrict their access to information other than what they provide. This allows them to succeed at dictating the voting habits of their followers as well.
October 9, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the demographic polling is correct, we have a younger generation that is hardly conservative, and we need to make certain this identification is made permanent, Just as the New Deal Generation remained relatively liberal for 50 years or so. The Obama ascendency needs to be a great deal about bringing a new set of cultural attitudes to the fore, and not just a shift in the cast of characters.
October 8, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Any sensible definition of the term conservative would refer to qualities such as maturity, prudence and caution. One wants conservatism in the person to whom one entrusts one's savings in the hope of getting a moderate return, but above all trusting that the money will be safe. The "conservatives" of the GOP are like a fund manager who adopts sober dress and a serious expression as he takes your money but then rushes off to Las Vegas and blows it all at the crap table. The analogy holds, not just for what one might laughingly call the Bushies' financial policy, but also for their foreign policy and their custodianship of the Constitution. They've taken the country's inheritance and literally blown the lot. And yet some people still think of them as conservatives ...
October 8, 2008 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bush's policies were never conservative accept in dressing them up as such and the results have not been conservative for America either. I have made this point to my conservative friends and family members down here in Texas for the last eight years. The GOP here in Texas in the 90's was a peek at the future Bush presidency. If we did not have the financial problems we are facing you could be sure that the GOP would be running the same campaign they have always run over the last two decades, talk about the desecration of our society because of liberal policies, embrace the free market, say you are going to lower taxes, you must be pro-life and you are against LBGT. The only problem is that most conservatives in Texas only care about two things: Small government and fiscal conservatism. Their party on the other hand has done neither of these things and in most cases the exact opposite, yet people still want to believe in the GOP which embraced these two principles. The thing is because many conservatives believe in these two principles will allow the progressives and more moderate liberals to find agreement on the protection of our rights, the protection of our land, and hopefully an much more conservative portfolio when it comes to our economy growth and its ties to foreign diplomacy.
October 8, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Add John Dean to your reading list.
October 9, 2008 6:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look, we have to understand what we are actually dealing with. They are zealots. Which means, they DO NOT, WILL NOT, and CANNOT accept that their ideology is the fault. They will blame individuals (Bush), or groups (liberals), but not their house-of-cards ideology. They simply want to believe what they want to believe, much like children wanting to believe in Santa Claus.
That's why we see them saying that the solution to the economic crises is LESS regulation, not more! They truly believe that the answer to getting us out of this mess is to do more of what got in to it. They MUST believe such a thing, else their whole ideological framework implodes. Their baseless self-importance and false moral superiority would implode with it.
It's magical thinking to them, a matter of faith. They hold beliefs, not opinions. Since rational arguments played no role in the formulation of their beliefs rational arguments WILL NOT alter them. Neocons, supply-siders, anti-government Reagan-ists, evangelical Christians, zealots all.
The only way I can see to defeat them is to reach the young or the unconverted before they poison those open minds with their irrationality. But, for those who are already GOP true-believers, they are lost forever, and would willingly commit national suicide for the sake of their zealously held beliefs.
October 9, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I always enjoy Anrig's posts, and I generally agree that the word "liberal" has been unfairly tarnished by people pretending to be "conservatives." But I disagree with some of the people here who claim that all people who call themselves conservative, or even evangelical, are the cause of the trouble.
Obama has done a wonderful job of not pointedly vilifying any broad group. That is why he will be president, and that is why he has the potential to truly be a uniter and not a divider. Sure, there are some who, despite Obama's message of hope and unity, choose to call him a terrorist or a muslim, as though the two are always the same thing. And that's the problem. Some here speak of broad groups of people that we disagree with in the same unproductive terms.
A conservative (or an evangelical) is not always a terrorist to the American way of life. Most people I meet in my travels to rural Missouri (I live in the liberal college town) would call themselves conservative. Most have gradually grown tired of Bush and Cheney. Most are Christians, and yes, many are evangelicals...which really only means that you are compelled to share your faith.
A better word for these people, and I include myself in this group, is traditionalists. Obama holds traditional values, so does Biden. They believe in all that "We the People" stuff that the modern day "conservatives" think is just hooey to placate the masses and keep the party going. But traditionalists (who might wear Donkey pins or Elephant pins or, like me, no pin at all) really do believe in the right of the people to be free from tyranny.
I imagine that Obama is not "pro-abortion" but rather "anti-unwanted child." He believes that abortion should be safe and legal, but if pressed, he'd probably agree to some limits on the practice. In the same way, he believes in equal rights for all citizens but he has not endorsed gay marriage, as marriage is a church term that somehow got the government involved in the issuing of licenses. These are traditional positions, too.
It is my great hope that the Bush legacy will be a revitalization of the traditional values of the American people. The Bush-Cheney-Corporate cabal has so warped the country and put us in such a ditch, that whether you call yourself a conservative, liberal, moderate, progressive or independent, if you're paying attention, you now yearn for the traditional values of America: Freedom, equality, peace through strength, liberty and justice for all.
October 9, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your comment is well communicated. I would like to maybe clarify my point above. My description of Republicans as all being zealots is, of course, a generalization. As the old commercial used to say: Your mileage may vary. However, I do think the disease of zealotry greatly permeates the GOP and is the central cohesive element among the major GOP factions.
I don't see any philosophical connection between the neocons, the supply-siders, the anti-government Reagan-ists, or the evangelical Christians aside from their TENDENCY toward zealotry. The GOP gives them a means of attaining mutual political power.
The neocon philosophy finds it's origins in far-left ideology stemming from the French Revolution. Supply-siders are Milton Friedman acolytes, essentially believing that all money making activity is inherently good. Anti-government Reagan-ists have roots in the Federalist Society and libertarianism. Evangelical Christianity (for the record, I'm a Christian) is based on having an individual direct one-on-one relationship with God, but crosses the line when they confuse matters of THEIR relationship with God with matters of everyone ELSES.
The common thread of among those GOP factions is an unquestioned faith in the correctness of their views. They hold beliefs, not opinions. As such, rational arguments carry little weight in affecting their beliefs, simply because rational arguments were not used to formulate them. The economy crashes due to insufficient regulation and what's their solution? It's to further reduce regulation. That's an example of why I say they are zealots.
October 9, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
All we need is 30 years of well-funded propaganda to make "conservative" mean something other than "grasping bigoted vulture". The word used to mean something quite different (although not particularly good), so it could change its spots again. And most of the people who call themselves conservatives would never notice, any more than they notice the socialism being practiced in their name during the past week.
October 9, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's hard to discredit the label "conservative," which, after all, is practically a literal synonym for "moderate." What needs to be argued is that today's "conservatives" aren't conservative but radical, and reactionary. (How come no one ever uses the word "reactionary" any more?--it sounds almost quaint.) In conversation I never refer to right-wing Republicans like Bush and McCain as "conservative"--that's the propaganda label they have chosen for themselves, so why should I accommodate them? I call them right-wingers, or rightists, or "so-called conservatives." I think it's a habit we should all get into.
October 9, 2008 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is quite true that the word 'conservative' is misused nowadays. It sort of changed with Reagan's fantasy world agenda. As though some segments of our society gave up on the real world after Carters 'malaise' speech, and began to live in a fictional world. .
October 12, 2008 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink