Toward a Dialogue on Conservatism

Since Obama’s victory in November, there has been much chatter on “the Right” over “the future” of “the conservative movement.”

If, however, the current cacophony of sounds is to be transformed into a potentially fruitful dialogue between discernible voices, there are some matters that need to be resolved immediately.

First, while the popular contemporary imagination equates the GOP with “conservatism,” the two are not one and the same. Thus, the future of the one may very well follow a very different trajectory than the other. Contributors to this discussion, then, need to exercise great caution so as not to confuse the two.

Second, any genuinely open dialogue must accommodate as many voices as possible, regardless of how unorthodox or uncomfortable the majority of interlocutors may find some of the views to be. Of course, like all dialogues, there must be rules of civility from the observance of which no participant is exempt. Yet those interested in “the future” of “conservatism” must staunchly avoid the hypocrisy and intolerance of their leftist counterparts who simultaneously insist on the need for “an honest conversation on ‘race’” while excluding from participation in that conversation anyone and everyone who fails to conform to their preconceived template.

These preliminary remarks are critical, for the most audible of voices purporting to speak on behalf of “conservatism” emanate from within the province of our “polite,” “politically correct” society, and they are almost invariably guilty of the two offenses that I warn against. What has been derisively (but truthfully) referred to as “the Establishment Right” consists of an assortment of talk radio hosts and other major media commentators who, in spite of all their wailing against “political correctness,” enjoy the popularity that they do precisely because, while they may have nudged, they have not tipped certain sacred cows of “political correctness.”

Race is the most sacred of the Establishment’s sacred cows and, hence, the manner in which a person speaks of it is as reliable an indicator as any as to the extent to which a person has imbibed “political correctness.” For example, Rush Limbaugh and his cohorts constantly criticize “liberals” for undermining any sense of individual responsibility by wildly exaggerating the importance of government on human conduct. However, the only account of the problems besetting “the black family” Rush and his colleagues are willing to consider is government-based: it is the Welfare State, we are continually reminded, that so harmed the black family. No responsibility on the part of individual blacks is invoked.

Often, they go so far as to brand “liberals” and Democrats -- the only proponents of the Welfare State, to hear them tell it -- with the dreaded “R” word becauseof their support for these race-based government policies. But by accusing their (white) opponents with “racism,” the very “politically correct” orthodoxy these self-declared “conservatives’ claim to vehemently oppose receives new life.

These “conservatives” also claim to oppose “affirmative action,” yet when this issue is mentioned -- which is relatively seldom, and becoming even rarer -- the justification they supply for their position is one that a certain sort of “liberal” could, in good conscience, endorse. That is, their reasoning is as much a function of “political correctness” as is that of their opponents who support “affirmative action”: the latter is bad policy, they tell us, either because it is “racist”; it harms blacks; or it repudiates Martin Luther King’s “dream” of a “color-blind” society. Never will one hear any of these “conservative” commentators oppose “affirmative action” because of the harm it inflicts on whites.

All this needs to be born in mind, for the most visible “internecine” conflict facing “the conservative movement” today, though it is characterized by the partisans involved in it as a fight between “traditionalists” and “moderates,” is actually a battle between two kinds of Establishmentarians. And the “traditionalists” have done as much if not more to marginalize dissident “conservative” voices as their “moderate” and leftist counterparts (Ron Paul, for instance, was treated relatively well by left-leaning commentators and politicians, but horribly by the members of his own party as well as “the conservative media.”).

Before a dialogue on “conservatism” has any hope of commencing, these facts need to be acknowledged. They need to be brought out into the open so that the voices written out of “conservatism” may be permitted to be heard once more. Only if the right-wing Establishment allows itself to be challenged, not by “moderates” -- it consists of nothing but “moderates” -- but by those who have both an understanding of the “politically correct” orthodoxy for the culturally corrosive poison that it is, and the fortitude to combat it, come what may, does conservatism stand a chance of not only surviving, but flourishing.