Part of me wants to nap until election day — and I’m a political junkie. The campaign coverage has descended to such a level of distraction and foolishness, especially in the electronic media, that it’s difficult to bear. Unfortunately, most people will be sufficiently indoctrinated by this sideshow, and I give you President-elect McCain. Where he is the truly risky choice, the media must have Obama in that box. Where the election should be a referendum on the now incontestable consequences of the Republican policies McCain will continue, it will be a referendum on Obama. I give you: President-elect McCain.
And he’s the "conservative." Yet he is no impostor. He is the same kind of "conservative" that has run the country for years.
This perhaps is the biggest irony in the room. A quarter century of "conservative" rule — including Bill Clinton and the Gingrich Congress — have given us a larger government, huge deficits, a crippling debt, debased culture, overseas adventures and imperial presidential power (We’re Americans: we torture) that would make Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater cringe. It is even counter to the ideas of Ronald Reagan as a political thinker (and, yes, he was a formidable one). By way of context, Ike, Nixon and George H.W. Bush were right-of-center pragmatists, not conservatives.
The heirs of Buckley bravely carry water for today’s "conservatives," but Buckley couldn’t have died a happy man, to see where his counter-revolution led (he became a vocal critic of the Iraq adventure). Burke and Russell Kirk are spinning so fast in their graves as to provide new data to particle physicists.
Let’s consider a real American conservatism and what it might offer. For example, a major devolution of power, and taxing ability, to the states might actually be a useful innovation. Thus, Texas could be as "individualistic" as it chose, and reap the consequences. California could drastically regulate greenhouse gases (which the "conservative," states’ rights Bush administration opposed). Let people vote with their feet. In the new world economy, talent and capital will go to quality places.
Do we really need federal education, commerce, agriculture and, especially "homeland security" departments? Or could those responsibilities be largely devolved to the states? With the challenges of the 21st century, the federal government as currently constituted may be untenable. A conservatism that, as its old boosters said, sought to preserve the best while being open to ideas, resistant to dogma (!) and relevant, could offer some interesting new answers. What are the proper and most effective responsibilities for the federal government, and what should be devolved to the states? The current "conservatives" just say "tax cuts" to every issue, as if their spokesman was the Aflac duck.
This is a pipe dream, of course. For one thing, today’s "conservatism" is devoid of ideas, a power-holding coalition of big business, culture warriors, pressure groups like the NRA, assorted reactionaries and the angry, slipping lower middle classes. Every group but the last uses the huge and powerful federal government to enhance its wealth and power. Second, as constituted, "conservatism" has become as rigidly ideological as communism. It can’t shift gears as new facts present themselves — those damned facts always have a left-wing bias. With only a few tricks — tax cuts, "God hates fags," terrorists-will-kill-you-if-you-vote-for-Democrats, etc. — it is incapable of comprehending, much less addressing the major issues of the day.
It would be fun for the slight majority (maybe) of Americans who voted for George W. Bush, and will probably elect McCain, to get real conservatism, to see their personal gravy trains dry up. The "average folks" who have consistently voted against their economic interests have slowly seen things get worse under "conservative" policies. What fun to see them really get whacked as government was drowned in the bathtub. And if a principled American conservatism were applied, it would be very suspicious of large, concentrated wealth, and take away all those no-bid contracts while pushing for a return to a small-town/Jeffersonian ideal of small business and yeoman farmers.
No matter what, alas, conservatism allies with power. That is why the Founders established a liberal democracy. Whether it exists any longer, less than 100 days will show.
I tend to agree with the “doomers” about the next 8 years. While I doubt the empire will collapse in this period, a painful contraction looks likely. Major industries are in trouble. And it appears that massive government intervention will be the only possible way to avoid another Great Depression.
The first domino is construction. The housing bubble has sent the real estate industry into contraction. Even solid commercial locations are having trouble getting financed, as capital has dried up and risk aversion has frozen the little bit that remains. I think that this is THE reason why illegal immigration has slowed, not because of the “git tough” policies the media is attributing it to.
The second domino is the airline industry – it will be unrecognizable in 4 years – and major dependent industries like aircraft manufacturing, airport operations, car rentals, and the hospitality/tourism sector more broadly will shrink with mass layoffs.
The third domino is the U.S. auto industry. While demand will rise significantly for the most fuel efficient cars available, the American management has made an enormously foolish mistake by not foreseeing the end of cheap oil. They simply do not have the capacity to deliver hybrids to the market in time and will lose marketshare to unsustainable levels, which will result in major contraction, layoffs and most likely Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reorganization.
Throw in the wild card of Climate change-induced natural disasters and you have the recipe for an overwhelmed government and a nation cut off at the knees.
I can see a President McCain react with complete cluelessness here, and I seriously doubt he will enact the programs necessary. Earmark reform as a central economic strategy will be soon seen as ridiculous by a large majority of Americans. I’m unsure that his stubbornness and rigidity will subside enough to change his mind from rightwing orthodoxy. Offshore drilling will likely be soon authorized, but again, it will soon dawn on America that this too was a ridiculous strategy to lower fuel costs.
A McCain victory could be the death nail for the GOP.
What is conservatism, really? You can read Burke to Hayek to Kirk to Sullivan and it’s still so many ink blots looking for Rohrschach. So, why not just understand it as it’s used here in America today? It’s tribalism slash authoritarianism. The “us” in their duality will believe many different and sometimes contradictory things. But it will believe them fervently because their tribe self-dramatizes around belief. Global warming is not real because science is liberal. Islamic extremists want to wage jihad in shopping malls and megachurches. And most importantly, white people are the real victims.
So, when Republicans explode the deficit or increase the size and scope of government, there’s no cognitive dissonance since their tribe is the good one. They can invest the presidency with dictatorial powers, and that’s good since it’s meant to keep us safe. That president can suspend habeas corpus and not mutter a murmur of doubt will cross the lips of believers.
Republicanism is probably the better word since conservatism does have a philosophical pedigree. The New Dixiecrat Party, by contrast, is an ad hoc response to the demographic shock waves happening across America. It’s trench warfare in suburban lawns where entitled burghers aim to keep modernism at bay.
What keeps the seemingly heterogenous coalition of Republicans together is their system of epistemology: fervent belief. Libertarians might as well be fundamentalist Christians given the way they process information. Neocons have conjured their own End Times, an eschatology of victorious Jerusalem. Maybe these improbable bedmates will find some of their partner’s thinking “quaint”. Doesn’t matter at all. Belief for its own sake is the glue keeping them together.
Nice Post.