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Adios, Conservative Kooks
By Matthew C. Scheck | November 12, 2008
The conservative movement that has dominated American politics and government for the last thirty years has been toppled by an angry electorate hungry for change. Let us dance happily about conservatism’s demise and begin immediately to undo all the damage it has inflicted on our country and the world, but let’s also examine why it has failed and why it is being rejected so completely across the country.
This brilliant essay on the fall of conservatism by George Packer, published last May in The New Yorker, has one passage that glaringly exposes the major problem of modern conservatism in America:
The orthodoxy that accompanies this kind of insularity [of conservative ideology] has had serious consequences: for years, neither National Review nor Commentary was able to admit that the Iraq war was being lost. [National Review Editor Rich] Lowry, who received the editorship from Buckley before he turned thirty, told me that he particularly regretted a 2005 cover story he’d written with the headline “WE’RE WINNING.” He said, “Most of the right was in lockstep with Donald Rumsfeld. We didn’t want to admit we were losing and said anyone who said otherwise was a defeatist. One thing I’ve loved about conservatism is its keen sense of reality, and that was totally lost in 2006.” Last year, National Review ran a cover article on global warming, which Lowry, like Brooks, Frum, and other conservatives, listed among the major issues of our time, along with wage stagnation and the breakdown of the family. Although the article, by Jim Manzi, proposed market solutions, the response among some readers, Lowry said, was “ ‘How dare you?’ A bunch of people out there don’t want to hear it—they believe it’s a hoax. That’s the head-in-the-sand response.”
This head-in-the-sand idealism is the most destructive aspect of modern conservatism. Take any major issue that the United States faces today, examine it from a conservative perspective, and you’re immediately struck by the folly of conservatism’s dogmatic, inflexible, and head-in-the sand approach to the issue, and just how destructive this has been for the country:
- Global warming. For years conservatives not only rejected the science of global warming, they claimed it was a gigantic fraud perpetrated by liberals. The Bush administration blocked any attempt by the government to even discuss global warming, let alone legislate new regulations to prevent and reverse it. Furthermore, Bush and his people deregulated, debased, or refused to enforce the sound environmental laws already on the books. Time will tell how destructive this will be for our future. It certainly didn’t help to suffer through eight years of having a government hostile to the very idea of global warming.
- Foreign Policy. Apparently making the entire world hate us by being arrogant, bullying, and xenophobic warmongers, and completely disregarding any idea of multilateral action, even with our closest allies, is sound policy. So is showing open disdain for the United Nations, an organization we helped create and that we host on our soil. Invading, occupying, and destabilizing countries, and slaughtering tens of thousands of their citizens, even if there’s no compelling reason to do so, is fine if you can create enough convincing lies to stir up war fever in an American citizenry reeling from the horrific 9/11 attacks. We should congratulate conservatives for making the Muslim world hate us even more than Israel. Please explain how an attack on us by a very small band of Islamic extremists, criminals, and brigands motivated us to alienate ourselves from the remaining hundreds of millions of Muslims who wished us no ill will and once looked upon us as a beacon of hope?
- Human rights/civil rights. Conservatives support torturing prisoners of war. They oppose the right of same-sex couples to marry. They oppose the right of women to choose their reproductive course. They support the death penalty. They support “preemptive” wars where the USA can attack countries, like Iraq, who do not pose a clear and present threat to the security of the USA or its allies, nor have shown any agression towards the USA or its allies. They adamantly oppose immigration reform that grants amnesty to undocumented aliens who are working in the USA and paying taxes. They support draconian mandatory sentencing laws for drug offenders that quite often incarcerate drug offenders longer than child molesters and rapists. The fanatical fundamentalist wing of conservatism openly seeks to turn America into a Christian theocracy.
- Health care. Conservatives for over a generation have blocked any attempt to reform the American privatized health care system. The two major problems with this system are risings costs and inadequate coverage, both of which threaten to topple the entire system and plunge the already plummeting economy even farther downward. It’s not just that conservatives refuse to allow government to do anything; most even refuse to believe there’s a problem. The fact nearly 47 million Americans, about 15% of the population, have no coverage is either of no consquence to conservatives, or doesn’t move them one inch from the current status quo simply because they don’t give a shit.
- The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lowry’s comments above pretty much sums up the insanity of the conservative movement’s absolute refusal to criticize the completely mismanaged war effort in both countries. Criticism was seen as “unpatriotic” and “seditious” even if it was dead-on correct. Rumsfeld’s ruthlessly arrogant dominion over the inept and completely mismanaged war effort, and the refusal of conservatives to even admit things were going horribly wrong, caused the needless deaths of thousands of Iraqis and Americans. Moreover, how many hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were flushed down the toilet in this pointless Global War on Terror? Are we any safer? Hardly. But now our military has been stretched thin and tens of thousands of our servicemembers have sacrificed way more than they should have. And for what? Not much.
- Science. In order to hold onto their fundamentalist Christian base, even the most intellectual conservatives refuse to publicly accept evolution science, despite the fact many privately know it is scientific fact. Moreover, conservatives, once again pandering to fundmentalist Christians, adamantly oppose stem cell research and vaccinating young girls against the HPV virus despite the fact the vaccine has been proven 100% effective in preventing cervical cancer caused by HPV. By pandering to their anti-intellectual base’s refusal to accept both global warming and evolution science, conservatives have harmed all science for a generation. The damage is deep and will be difficult to overcome for many years. How can a country as rich and modern as ours have such a significant portion of its population reject modernity as resolutely as many fundamentalist Christians do? And why aren’t the educated elites of the conservative movement trying to reverse this willful ignorance of its political and ideological allies instead of shamelessly pandering to it, and in many instances encouraging it vigorously?
- Government. Not only are conservatives viciously anti-government, when in power they are also lousy at governing. Gingrich and his “Contract with America” largely did nothing but cut programs that hurt the lower classes, plus deregulated the financial industry, which caused most of the current crisis. Bush was the worst President since Herbert Hoover, and his list of failures is monumental: the current recession and collapse of the free market economy, the two wars, the New Orleans fiasco, and the failure to get meaningful immigration reform legislation passed all happened on his watch. Oh, and let’s not forget 9/11. In nearly every case Bush buried his head in the sand rather than listen to sound advice or change course when the current policy was failing. He appointed incompetent fools (”You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie”) or arrogant idiots (Donald Rumsfeld) to positions of immense power in his administration, then refused to fire many of them even when they failed miserably. Conservative advocate Grover Nordquist’s famous dictum of “drowning government in the bathtub” also meant American citizens would drown right along with it, as was the case in New Orleans, and could have been the case in the current economic crisis if not for the fact Obama won the election instead of McCain, who would have followed the same head-in-the-sand course as Bush.
- Education. Conservatives have defunded, debased, and opposed public education for a generation. Their alternative is to offer “vouchers” for private schools (mostly religious-run schools), knowing full well this would be costlier and wouldn’t work for a majority of Americans, simply because there are not enough private schools to accomodate this “school choice” policy. Their nutty idea is to “privatize” education, subjecting it to the same marketplace forces that drive our economy, which would plummet the entire public education system into complete chaos, benefitting no one, and would greatly increase the social inequalities already eroding the egalitarian nature of our democracy. While I would agree liberal Democracts have also done great harm to public education the last forty years, they still believe in the idea of a strong public school system as the foundation of a sound and healthy democracy. Conservatives, on the other hand, treat public education the same way they treat government, with sneering contempt and an intense and irrational desire to destroy both. How this insane attitude serves the public weal is the major mystery of our time. They are like those crazy people who are obsessed with having one or both of their perfectly healthy legs surgically removed.
- Economics. Since Ronald Reagan was President, conservatives have been ardent supporters of libertarian “free market” economics, deregulating the economy and removing trade barriers, cutting taxes for the wealthy, attacking the size and power of labor unions, shipping jobs and whole industries overseas, and touting the primacy of the marketplace as the sole entity determining economic well being (as opposed to, say, the government and the citizenry), yet for the last decade the real wages of middle class and working class Americans have declined, their health care costs have increased astronomically, their debt load has increased dramatically, and their home values have rapidly declined, and meanwhile the wealthiest 2% of Americans have seen their incomes shoot through the roof while their taxes have been generously cut, first under Reagan and then under George W. Bush. The rich did indeed get much richer at the expense of everyone else; and this so-called “trickle-down effect” certainly didn’t enrich the lower classes any more after the tax cuts of 2001 than it did after the 1981 tax cuts by Reagan. When Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy in the 1990s, the entire nation prospered. Now the free market is collapsing without many of the New Deal and Great Society programs that used to cushion the blow for the lower classes. In 2008 we’re stuck with a massively failing economy and very few substantive means to stop the crash from causing great pain not only in America, but all over the world. Luckily, we elected a center-left liberal who can undo some, if not all, of this damage. History is on Obama’s side: as most credible economists know, the country’s economy always does better under Democrats dating back to when Truman was in office in the 1940s.
I have listed a few issues that illustrate the failure of conservatism. There are so many more. These are not just ideological differences between liberals and conservatives; in every case there is concrete evidence of abject policy failure when all of these destructive, crazy, and stupid ideas were foisted upon the American people.
The biggest failure of conservatism happened in the 2006 and 2008 national elections. After many years of conservative dominance in the White House and Congress, both government branches are back in the hands of center-left liberals. Nothing expresses failure quite like public opinion turning against an ideology or political movement.
Luckily, the conservative movement has been marginalized for the time being, and it is doubtful we’ll see it get any stronger in the near future. The true measure of a failed ideology is when its partisans fail to accept blame for their failures, and furthermore even refuse to accept they have failed. Time and again this was the case for conservatives with the wars, the economy, and nearly every other aspect of their governing while they controlled Congress and the White House. Not only that, but after years of conservative rule, they couldn’t even legislate their one major idealistic goal of reducing the size of government. And why couldn’t they? Because it’s a stupid idea, like most of their ideas. Stupid and destructive, I might add.
Blaming liberals and Democrats for the country’s decline is rather difficult to do since conservatives have been in power for long time and have had an overwhelming influence on the the political views of many Americans since Reagan was in power. For most of the last thirty years the working class bought into conservative ideology and voted for conservatives at nearly every level of government, but that began to change as everything started to come unraveled the last few years.
And now the American conservative movement has been completely marginalized. Let’s hope it stays that way for a generation so this country can get back on track and start working for all Americans.
November 12th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I think the biggest impediment to fixing our health care system is, and has always been, the insurance companies. If they go belly-up—which is entirely possible in this economic climate—your average American won’t be able afford to get a couple of stitches.
I have asked conservatives for years to point to the society they are looking to build. Just how conservative do they want to be? Saudi Arabia conservative? Taliban conservative? I point to countries like The Netherlands, France, and Finland for the sort of model I wouldn’t mind following. Their goal is nothing but a figment of their collective imaginations (and not very good imaginations I would add).
November 13th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Oh well conservative nut jobs, you’ll always have the high ground in the war on Christmas.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Sayonara, conservative movement!
What an excellent synopsis of the clusterfV<k known as conservative rule, Matthew. Thank you.
The cons got to try out their theories, and the facts did the theories in. It never dawned on them that empirical reality wouldn’t cooperate. They still don’t grasp that, because they still think they can manipulate facts to fit their ideology. They don’t know humility, reflection, research or knowledge; they simply reverse engineer arguments to fit their principles.
In reality, their “principles” are propaganda and stubborn refusal to acknowledge facts.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:16 am
That’s a wonderfully concise summary of the sins of modern conservatism. Thank you.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Totally agree with you - a great summary of the failings of conservatism.
I have one point where I wish to differ somewhat from your opinion however - Education and school vouchers.
I agree: The privatisation of schools is a very bad thing - especially if it fosters religious schools. In effect the government might end up paying for religious education - which would be a disaster.
However competition BETWEEN publicly funded schools for students and funding is not an evil - it is a good way for low income students to escape from bad schools and vote with their feet and attend a school that does better. This may or may not be based on vouchers. Vouchers do not necessarily mean private schooling - they do suggest that ‘funding follows students’ however.
It is illiberal to compel students to attend only bad schools when a bit of mobility to another school would motivate everyone to do better.
When funding follows students (vouchers in effect) then to compete for students schools have to do better than their neighbours.
You can tell from my spelling that I was not US educated. As a New Zealander I experienced competition between schools and I was able to attend the high school of my choice - a publicly funded school that was so popular that it grew to 2100 students, so good that the current NZ Prime Minister attended, and so integrated that students from all income levels & races attended.
Perhaps school vouchers is now a pejorative term - but public school mobility, however it is achieved, is vital to ensure that schools stay on top of their game. Unfortunately a lot of education reform is resisted by Teacher Unions. Politicians need to be sure that any new policy focuses on students and not just protecting bad teacher’s jobs.