Conservatism Might Be A Good Thing...

I allude by reference to George Bernard Shaw's famous quotation, Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.  Actually, Christianity has been tried by a great many people, and with considerable success.  And the same is true of conservatism, but in a much more limited way.  

Romney, much to my surprise, often sounded like a conservative, but only when he found himself in that Venn overlap where conservatism and capitalism are one. [1]  A decent, honorable, capable and accomplished man he is.  If he has a political philosophy at all, it is not conservatism; which is exactly why he was so attractive to the Republican establishment.  Which is exactly why, with the help of party stalwarts, he lost [2] the 2012 election.  The Republican Party does not like conservatives, nor the Tea Party; it doesn't understand them; it fears them, and it will silence their voices wherever possible. 

Job one, temporarily uniting conservatives with party leadership, was to defeat Obama.  Having failed in that, job two belongs to the conservatives alone: purging the party establishment of its "liberal-lite" contingent that willingly sacrifices principle to comity and Beltway prestige.  Not only elected officers in the House and Senate, but perhaps more importantly, campaign consultants and strategists.  As has been proven time and again, "moderate" candidates lose because they do not offer bright-line contrasts to the Washington governing culture. [3]

Job two will not be an easy task.  Many Republicans around the country have subliminally absorbed the liberal meme that bright-line distinctions damage the party's image.  Not hard to understand, given the ability of the Left to funnel their own message screaming through an unrelenting Alinsky-style state media.  That fact cannot be lost on conservative candidates who know in advance of their campaigns they will have endure and survive a never-ending barrage of mendacious personal attacks.  That is especially true of minority conservatives who earn a very special place in Liberal Hell.

Still, the Tea Party faction, though not much in the public eye, uses money and influence to encourage conservative candidates, as do organizations like the Senate Conservatives Fund.  And many donors are turning away from the Republican Party to spend on conservative proxies and contribute directly to campaigns around the country.  The objective is to create elite conservative "clubs" in both Houses; membership in good standing [4] will have the luxury of not having to spend most of their time fretting over the constant and onerous burden re-election finances.  The wayward will come to covet membership.

Whether citizen initiatives to re-form Republican representatives into a genuinely conservative contingent that stands clearly in contrast to statists remains to be seen.  But, contrary to liberal orthodoxy, it is their last, best hope of winning elections.  Conservatism might be a good thing... if more people tried it.  Though it may already be too late.

I have long resisted the conclusion, attributed to H.L. Menken, that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people [5].  I had believed that the distrust of government and the independence of spirit expressed by the Founders was deeply rooted in our culture; that in America abides a native wisdom.  The last election has left me re-thinking the matter.





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1.  One can argue that capitalism (of the free-market kind) is the cornerstone of conservatism and libertarianism, because it presumes the liberty freely to acquire and dispose of property.
2.  Whether the outcome of the election was legitimate or fraudulent is something we are not likely ever to know, but the fact is that Republican turnout underperformance effectively moots the point.  Given the sheer power and reach of the statist Left, I think it unlikely that any Republican presidential candidate will win an election in the foreseeable future.
3.  Interestingly, moderate Democrats seem to do well enough with their constituents and are secure in office so long as they remain under the radar of party leadership.  But if they attract attention by being insufficiently ideological, the party will raise and fund opposition candidates.
4.  ACU ratings, which mainly tally gross vote numbers, will no longer have sufficient credibility.  Closer examination will measure the ideological importance of individual votes.  Cases in point, Graham (SC, immigration) and Saxby Chambliss (GA, Gang of 8) conservative defectors.
5.  The actual quotation, according to my queries, is: “No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”