Wendling on the Conservative Implosion
Jason Kuznicki on Oct 11th 2007
One of the best characterizations of the present-day American conservative movement is that it’s a form of identity politics. Zach Wendling writes,
An identity group is blind to their own faults, hostile to even constructive criticism, unflaggingly loyal to the ingroup, disinterested in philosophy, and devoted to power as an end unto itself. This thirst for power, combined with assurance that conservatism, whatever it happened to be, was right, led to all sorts of mischief: the exploitation of wedge social issues, abandonment of fiscal responsibility, disastrous foreign policy, hypocrisy, incompetence, and corruption. And still, there are die-hard partisans, and they are the face of the conservative movement, probably because everyone else has left (or was thrown out).
It is as if they witnessed the apparent success of far-left identity groups that sprouted on the college campuses of the 80s and 90s, and concluded that this is how real politics works. They grew jealous of the campus radicals’ success: the polarization, the outrage (real or feigned), the one-uppsmanship, the fierce loyalty to… well, to whatever.
Trouble is, the college radicals didn’t succeed, except insofar as they succeeded in annoying the conservatives. Without exception, and in near chronological order, identity politics groups arose and became parodies of themselves: Black power, women’s separatists, radical environmental groups and animal rights groups, gay liberation groups, and so forth. Apart from a few stale jokes on the standup circuit, their only lasting cultural or political effects were among the conservatives who despised them. And who tried to imitate them.
And who are now in charge.
Hackery? Reading too much into it? Just asking.
Filed in The Bureau
I grew up in a world that was the result of Blacks agitating for more power, of gays demanding recognition, and of women insisting they are the equal of men. An alternative take would be that the interest groups pushing those causes from the left have lost influence because their causes became the norm rather than being radical ideas that needed a cadre of dedicated advocates.
In other words, maybe the groups aren’t important any more because they won; their insignificance is a result of victory, not failure.
Or maybe not, I don’t know — the era of radical groups rioting on campus was before my time. Like I said, I live in the world that came out of it (born in 1969). It may be that those groups were irrelevant and all of the massive social change of the last fifty years would have happened if they’d all kept quiet, but somehow I doubt it.
I guess I’m a lot less confident that the extremists in each group made a worthwhile contribution to the debate. I am certainly grateful as a gay man to some aspects of the gay rights movement. But I have little use for separatism, and I think that many of the tactics I saw on campus and elsewhere did nothing except scare straight people (and gay people) and push them away.
…all sorts of mischief: the exploitation of wedge social issues, abandonment of fiscal responsibility, disastrous foreign policy, hypocrisy, incompetence, and corruption.
This seems to be a conflation on the part of Mr. Zendling. The social issues were a mere revanchism toward the 1950s, not a grab for the power to establish a more restrictive society than existed at any time in our history. Neither were they necessarily cynical. Indeed, the disastrous (?) foreign policy owed more to Wilsonian idealism than conservatism. (Certainly not to Leo Strauss.)
The corruption, etc., and attempt to defuse the Democrats by spending domestically with equal profligacy was predictable and par for the course of the new careerism of Republican elected office. They’d just come out of the wilderness of being the perennial opposition party.
Hypocrisy, well, that’s a subject unto itself. But structurally, there are problems where one size does not fit all.
I would add that there seems to be an unstoppable tide in the entire Western world toward socialism,—”progressivism,” if you will—at least until it inevitably crashes on the rocks of reality. Western Europe may or may not be reaching that point, but America has far more crippling statism to endure before it reaches the shoals of unsustainability. In that respect, we are far behind Europe.
And so, “conservatism” in the US is in its least, a preservation of the status quo, and at its best, allying with the party of reform. Status quo is never sustainable either, so when the Gingrich Revolution (more properly, a tide of reform) petered out in favor of careerism, the GOP lost its relevance.
And neither does there seem to be much in the way of new reformist ideas among the current crop of careerists and wannabe careerists. More “progress” ala Hillary may indeed be our fate.
As for your point about aping the radicals, Jason (the putative key dynamic of “neo-conservatism,” the 50s-60s radicals turning to the right, bringing all their passion, ethics, and tricks), I think you’re correct there—indulging one’s thumos seems to bring more personal emotional satisfaction than actual achievement of one’s political goals. It scares the hell out of everyone else and repulses more than it attracts.
But me, I think the GOP has done a far better job at reining in its thymotic wing than have the Democrats. If Hillary and the Demos don’t sweep to bigtime victory in ‘08, that will be the sole reason, because the GOP will bring neither competence nor reform to the table.
Wendling. Apologies. Feel free to correct.
Hmm…as someone who was a member of many campus women’s and minorities group, I can say a lot of them are for internal support purposes, to help each other survive and have a good experience in a campus environment that may not always be supportive of that. I don’t consider myself a separatist by any means and find your view of these groups to be rather condescending. There’s a big difference between “Feminism” as a big societal movement which has had quite a backlash (read Faludi?) and women’s groups on campus especially at an engineering school like Tech where I was. If you honestly think that there are people that would despise me for being active in these groups any more than my involvment in the campus choir or newspaper, well I guess they would despise me anyway for being an outspoken Latina woman.
As someone who still aspires to go into academia someday, I have the utmost respect for groups like SHPE and SWE which encourage women and minorities to go on in science and technology fields though guess history doesn’t have this same problem. And now I am starting to get involved in activism groups for the environment and mental health rights in the “real world” and have seen first-hand the impact they can have though it’s definitely still far from a large-scale “victory”. Have you really gotten that cynical that you don’t believe that there can’t be progressive change for the better even if the administration is conservative? I guess you’re the DC think-tank guru now.
Marcela,
Hmm…as someone who was a member of many campus women’s and minorities group, I can say a lot of them are for internal support purposes, to help each other survive and have a good experience in a campus environment that may not always be supportive of that…. If you honestly think that there are people that would despise me for being active in these groups any more than my involvment in the campus choir or newspaper, well I guess they would despise me anyway for being an outspoken Latina woman.
Many people would look down on anything feminist. I’m not one of them. In my experience there was a lot of good and a lot of bad in the “progressive” student groups with which I was sometimes associated. Experiences will vary, so maybe I’d do best to share one that sticks out in my own mind.
I remember I once went to an Ohio State board of trustees meeting about domestic partnership benefits. Several speakers got up and just gratuitously insulting the trustees for not having acted already. On this they were very clear; one of them spoke words to the following effect: “I’m not really here to address the trustees, since they have already made their minds up to be bigots. It’s too bad for them that they are exercising their heterosexual privilege, but we gays and lesbians can see through what they’re doing. We know better.”
This isn’t the way to make progress. It may have made the insulters feel good, but if anything it pushed back equal treatment for gays and lesbians on campus. The radicals’ tactics close more minds than they open, I think.
As someone who still aspires to go into academia someday, I have the utmost respect for groups like SHPE and SWE which encourage women and minorities to go on in science and technology fields though guess history doesn’t have this same problem. And now I am starting to get involved in activism groups for the environment and mental health rights in the “real world” and have seen first-hand the impact they can have though it’s definitely still far from a large-scale “victory”. Have you really gotten that cynical that you don’t believe that there can’t be progressive change for the better even if the administration is conservative? I guess you’re the DC think-tank guru now.
You know, sometimes I wish I’d never gotten the Ph.D., and sometimes I wish I’d never taken the job at Cato. Sometimes that’s all that anyone ever sees when they look at me anymore, and I’ve wondered if I might be more effective if I were just a disembodied, unqualified voice somewhere.
I know that student groups are often very, very good — very often they do real social and political good. I don’t think that the good they do exonerates the bad, and I think conservatives do have a point when they argue that a lot of campus radicalism is overblown and fundamentally silly.
I just wish they’d stop imitating the worst of it now that they’re holding the reins of power.