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Advancing Conservatism: Is It Possible?

Submitted by Daniel Ruwe on Wed, 02/25/2009 - 22:05

Crossposted at Right Minds

Imagine, for the moment, the following scenario. It’s 2012. Bobby Jindal has just been elected with 61% of the vote. The Republicans have taken a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and have a forty seat advantage in the House. Also, assume that all these Republican Congressmen are staunch conservatives—there aren’t any “RINOs” here. (This isn’t a very likely scenario). So Republicans have both a near total control of the government and a national mandate.

What would they do? How would they change the country? I don’t know what they’d do to advance a really conservative agenda. And worse, I can’t even begin to imagine what they could do to advance that agenda. Reform Social Security? Roll back the welfare state? Reduce the ease of abortion? Is there anyone, even the most optimistic conservative, who actually thinks that it would be possible for the Republican party to make a meaningful difference on any of those issues?

If so, they are very wrong, because the GOP has tried to do all of those things in the recent past. In 1996, congressional Republicans—with a great deal of controversy and trouble—managed to pass the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. It was hailed as a great victory for Republicans.

And what did this bill change? Most importantly, it decreed that welfare wasn’t an entitlement program. And it put limits on the amount of federal aid individuals could receive. (No federal aid for more than two consecutive or five total years). And it tried to discourage out-of-wedlock births.

All good things, to be sure. But hardly enough to start rolling back the New Deal or Great Society. This bill didn’t slow down the advance of government in the least—it merely made government welfare smarter and more effective. And while that is good, that sort of thing won’t create a classically conservative nation.

Reform Social Security? George W. Bush pushed for a plan that would give Americans more flexibility regarding Social Security. The plan would have let workers open investment accounts, which would serve as a substitute for Social Security payments. Not drastic stuff (certainly nowhere near ending the program). But voters were horrified, and the notion was quickly dropped.

Ending abortion? Bush appointed constructionist Supreme Court justices, and has appointed mostly conservative judges to the lower courts as well. And Republicans have done what they could to reduce abortion for years—repealing the Mexico City policy and passing parental notification laws. Yet the status of abortion in the United States is nearly identical to what it was forty years ago. The abortion rate is similar, and it is every bit as easy to get an abortion (easier, really) now than it was then.

All three of these efforts weren’t (in the big picture) very effective. But they represented the best the Republican party could do. Why couldn’t the GOP do more to push back liberalism? Quite simply, because liberal (or statist) policies have become so ingrained the U.S. (and all Western democracies) that they now represent the status quo; the default setting for political debate. It would be literally impossible to push them back—about as difficult as it would be to abolish Congress.

But if Social Security, Medicare, and the rest of Big Government aren’t going away, what are conservatives to do? Most conservative thought assumes a universe where, if conservatives work hard and make progress, it would be possible to create a truly conservative (low taxes, low welfare, low regulation) state.

If we assume (and I think it’s a safe assumption) that this isn’t possible, what are conservatives to do? The first option is to keep trying, which is a noble but quixotic policy doomed to failure. The second option is to accept big government as a fait accompli and try to make it work unintrusively and efficiently, which would spell the end of conservatism as we know it. Neither option is good—but conservatives have to choose either one or the other.

And a semantic point: it there a bigger misnomer in politics than “conservatism?” Whatever conservatives are trying to “conserve” passed away before the last World War, if indeed it ever existed, and it probably didn’t. Liberalism is the status quo, and leftists are the true conservatives.   

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Comments

promoting conservatism

Submitted by chemjeff on Wed, 02/25/2009 - 22:51.

Well, your recall of history is a bit pessimistic.  Recall that Bush's Social Security proposal, which really was quite modest when it came to personal accounts, only cratered after a protracted campaign from the loyal opposition's outright lying about it.  Furthermore, Bush didn't hit back in kind, preferring instead to play the role of genteel statesman.  IMO this is more a lesson about tactics than the proposal itself.

But you have a point that there's a lot of liberal socialism that is simply taken for granted.  I really believe that true conservative renewal is a cultural matter more than an electoral one.  We should focus on living in a conservative manner.  Don't go excessively into debt, take responsibility for your actions, don't expect taxpayers to bail you out, live true to your values, be firm but considerate to your adversaries, etc.  These are the recipes for conservative renewal IMO.

Hitting the nail on the head

Submitted by Chris Palko on Wed, 02/25/2009 - 23:23.

Excellent point to raise.  If conservatives had the ability to pass whatever we wanted, what would our agenda be?  Getting rid of the welfare state?  Outlawing abortion?  At this point, I don't know what we would do if we had power.  I think this predicament is why we are out of power.

I always thought "conservatism" was an inadequate word for what is called conservative.  I don't think it is conservative in the conventional usage of the word--to conserve, to want to roll back the size of the government.  Belief in free-market capitalism is more accurately classical liberal because the free-market is great at creating social disruption, even if it is beneficial in the long run.  I think using the terms right-wing and left-wing are better descriptors than conservative and liberal.  This way, neither side is automatically always for change or always for preservation.

but leftwing and rightwing fails.

Submitted by RisingTide on Thu, 02/26/2009 - 11:17.

there are more dimensions.

romantics versus modernists

genetic versus behaviorists.

 You have said a lot of

Submitted by In between on Wed, 02/25/2009 - 23:39.

 You have said a lot of things, and I cannot begin to cover it all. On Social Security, with Bush it was a flawed program. It would have cost 2 trillion dollars for the transition. It would have left those left behind in Social Security into a welfare program and the tax payers would have to fund it. It would have been to risky. We see the 50% drop in the stock market, 401k's slashed in half, crooks on Wall Street, even pension funds lost with Madoff. It is really money for Wall Street in the end. 

I think with programs and the government in general you need a balance between risk and safety. Right now Social Security looks pretty good considering all the bad news.

I don't know why I have to say this so many times. Outside of our financial crisis, the deficits and debt, the single most important problem is globalization. It is closing down factories, people are losing the jobs, or lower pay, healthcare, and pensions. Cities and states are going broke. The infrastructure has been in neglect. We have heard Bush say "free trade is good" as our factories close. How in the world does this make any sense. I am not asking for protectionism, but you have to recognize the middle class. In every case when republicans fail, they fail the middle class. If you are going to send jobs overseas, then you need to replace them. And I am still waiting for an answer in which the republicans have no answer. It is just not tax cuts and then letting the free market take care of itself. It is recognizing problems and fixing them. Do we have an energy problem? Yes. Where was Bush? Do we have people losing jobs? Even with a good economy? Yes. Do we have more people without healthcare? Yes. Are we more competitive with the world? I think not. We are losing on embryonic stem cell research with Singapore, we are falling behind in battery technology with China, Japan, and South Korea. Other countries are educating their students for a globalized world, and we are not. 

I should not even talk about Bush as far as the republican party goes. He could have been a democrat as far as I care. This guy could not be president of third grade, and that is one main reason people were fed up. Here is a guy that let cronyism take over, free trade and not fair trade as we lose the middle class, the attempt of putting religion in government, the attack on science, militarism, and corporate fascism. So we have seen just how far the far right will take this country.

I don't want big government, but I want an effective government. I have said a lot about laissez-faire. I get bashed by saying the word (laissez-faire) but the last 8 years seems like it. True Bush worked on Social Security his way and no other way. True Bush gave more on the Medicare part D. But there were so many other things to work on that was destroying the middle class as I talked about. But it just seemed like (Bush) was focused on tax cuts, the war, free trade, and laissez-faire. And when he did work on something, it was only when something was in trouble. Or that he was in trouble, and someone was always bailing him out of trouble.

I would say this. Think of something great. Kennedy putting a man on the moon. Eisenhower putting in the Interstate System. Do something great for the country that we all can appreciate, that will help all of us and that all of us can be proud of America.