The Threats to Conservatism

Patrick Hynes has written a significant piece on the future of conservatism that’s sure to spark vigorous debate and get a lot of attention. I disagree with a lot of Pat’s analysis, but think this kind of spirited conversation about the movement is long overdue. Since coming to D.C. in 2001, I’ve retained a healthy skepticism of the inside-the-Beltway “movement” (a/k/a “the groups”). On the ideas front, the Reagan and Bush II administrations got to implement more than most, leaving the cupboard of emerging conservative ideas relatively bare. By contrast, there is a reason that liberalism’s energy isn’t spent, and it’s that Bill Clinton didn’t get anything done as President (in terms of legislative passage of his signature priorities).

Pat thinks the conservative brand is broken — from Iraq to immigration to the Michael Gerson critique of conservatism on compassion/”mercy”. I think he’s saying that conservatives need to be more flexible and tolerate some dissent within their ranks — except on abortion, where we are too promiscuous in tolerating Romneyite pandering. Speaking as Pat’s former adversary, the Ryan Sager attack is bogus, but it definitely looks like Pat’s analysis is colored by his personal experience with the base’s utter rejection of John McCain.

Whatever the way out of this is, I don’t think the answer is being Democrat Lite. That may sound cliched or Kos-like, but as any good operative knows (and Pat is one) once you start letting the other guys dictate the terms of the debate, you lose. It’s one thing to critique the botched execution of Iraq. It’s another to adopt the liberal frame that conservatives are out to screw the little guy, especially when the Federal Budget has lacked for nothing these last few years, and “tax cuts for the rich^TM” worked. Conservatism is going to have to find a way to address different types of challenges (outlined below) — but do so in a way that’s radically different than the left.

Pat also read the Economist leader on “Is America turning left?”, and the situation they depict is a bleak one. There are a whole bunch of cyclical reasons I believe we are at a 1968-like point in our political history, and Hillary is Nixon. I won’t delve too deeply into those here, but I think this a time when history is sending out clear warning signals, and there is still time to heed these lessons to avoid a complete Carter-like meltdown in 2016 or 2020.

With that said, what are the immediate threats to the center-right majority that I’m most worried about. Some of them track with Pat’s, some of them differ.

Conservative Hostility to Immigration in an Increasingly Diverse Nation. I disagreed with the Senate immigration deal. I think you can do a guest worker program without a pathway to citizenship (they are coming here to work, not vote). I think you can build the fence as a security measure without alienating the Latino vote, provided you communicate a basic openness towards the Latino community that President Bush projected masterfully in the 2000 campaign.

The problem is it’s too late. The time to do a deal on immigration that defused these tensions was three years ago, not now. The Administration went way out on a limb for extreme regularization, hoping to lead the party there, when they should have gone for achievable objectives that also gave serious conservatives like Duncan Hunter what they really wanted (basic enforcement). Instead, we now have the Tancredoites baying for mass deportation and buying into groups that are not only anti-illegal immigration, but anti-population and anti-growth, funded by radical environmentalists like John Tanton. And we have exposed an entire generation of Latino voters to this message, erasing whatever hard-earned gains we might have achieved. There was an enforcement-first road that could have worked, but it was not taken.

Ours is a changing society. 25% of the population over 40 is a member of a minority group. That number for those under-40 is 40%. 46% of the children born in the U.S. last year were non-white.

The fact alone is not a problem for conservatives. What is is that we increasingly have to find votes among groups that traditionally vote against us by 2-to-1 margins or more, and that task will be harder because of how the immigration debacle played out. Karl Rove made the not unreasonable calculation that it’s better to have 40% to 45% of a larger, immigrant-heavy Hispanic vote than it is to have 30% of a smaller, immigration-restricted Hispanic vote — and whether any act of Congress can keep it “small” for long is a dubious proposition. One may take issue with how they tried to go about implementing it, but that was the rationale.

So what is conservatism’s message for a multiracial nation? It seems to me there is a greater opportunity for a positive message of assimilation. The old identity politics are breaking down before our eyes. The inner cities that Mike Gerson built a worldview around are literally disappearing. African Americans are moving to the suburbs, and becoming middle class. Hispanics have shown that they behave more like swing voters if you treat them as such. (We bounced back nicely from our post-187 21% showing in ‘96.) Minorities are becoming more independent, and interwoven into the fabric of American society. That should create new opportunities for Republicans, if we remain the party that represents the hope of upward mobility.

The Young Voter Issue Matrix. Pat takes issue with my leaving of social issues on Agenda 2.0. That was partly an oversight on my part, but it’s also true that the contours of those issues are already pretty well defined. No one is going to figure out a clever new idea on gay marriage. That’s pretty much a black and white issue.

Over the short and intermediate term, social issues will continue to work for the Republican Party. Long term, I have questions. The trendlines are good on one and only one issue: abortion. And that’s because of technology, specifically the ultrasound machine. Things don’t look so great on one of the other triad issues, marriage. We already have de jure gay marriage in Massachusetts and de facto gay marriage in a growing number of blue states including New Jersey. And once established, gay marriage is very difficult to rescind. Within 20 years, most states with marriage amendments will have some form of judicially-imposed civil unions (which even President Bush supports). And public opinion will follow. People my age and younger have no problem with gay marriage — and when these voters hit 45 and 50, that changes the equation. The numbers for stem cell, on the other hand, are already awful.

Ironically, the issue set Pat is suggesting we hang our hat on is arguably the one with the earliest expiration date. (Perhaps that’s because he wrote the book on it.) There is no doubt that the religious right provides a lot of the enthusiasm and manpower for the Republican Party at election time. That was certainly the case in 2004, and will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. But in his post, and in a few places in his book, Pat seems to endorse jettisoning issues with more long term promise to keep the religious part of the base happy in the short run. In a couple different places in his book, In Defense of the Religious Right, Pat channels the Christian Right’s anger with the Bush White House for putting Social Security reform before a marriage amendment. It’s just this sort of — what’s the term? — identity politics that sabotages the movement. Social Security reform was our chance to lock in a generation for the notion that individual responsibility beats collectivism every time. It was a play for the future, for the same kind of generational sway that FDR or Reagan had. But by not advancing the idea seriously enough we decided to pander to the old vote, just like we did on Medicare Part D. And it was clear that the Republican coalition was not “all in” for transformational reform — choosing instead to advance their pet issues.

The War. There is no doubt that our biggest short term problem is the war — specifically Iraq. It is the meta problem without which the “competence” critique would not exist, without which the economy would appear to most Americans to be doing as well as it actually is, without which overall confidence levels would be 20 points higher, and without which President Bush would enjoy approval ratings over 50%.

I’m not sure how much this problem extends to the broader GWOT, as Pat contends. Soren Dayton has done a bang-up job in the last few days of demonstrating that there is a grassroots pro-national security majority in Congress. The Blue Dogs are being successfully cross-pressured on stuff like FISA and the war supplemental. Remember: this is a war whose leading exponent is a President with 35% approval ratings. Any time his positions are embraced by a bare plurality, as is the case on FISA/Gitmo/GWOT issues, that’s 30 points better than his approval spread. Think how much success a new pro-war President would have with these issues, without the same Iraq baggage.

Health Care. I’ll put in a plug for health care. This is an issue I strongly feel conservatives need to come to grips with and own. Trends that favor us overall, namely the rise of small business, self-employment, and the eBayization of the economy, are also leading to the breakdown of the employer-based health insurance system, and leading entrepreneurial voters (that’s our voters) to scramble for health insurance. The solution, at least in large measure: Deregulate health insurance, just like we did the airlines.

Global Warming. There needs to be a cogent conservative response to climate change that’s not small ball stuff like lowering the thermostat two degrees and driving a Prius. That’s all nice, but even the experts would agree this does nothing to stop the existing buildup of greenhouse gases that’s more than to do the predicted damage. How about an Apollo-like project to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, funded privately? (The hardcore enviros would hate it because it keeps Hummers on the road a few more years.)

Tagged: conservatism movement

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