Max Boot, stalwart conservative, hails goodbye to today’s conservatives in WaPo:
In the past I would have been indignant at such attacks [from the left] and eager to assert my conservative credentials. I spent years writing for conservative publications such as the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Commentary magazine and working as a foreign policy adviser for three Republican presidential campaigns. Being conservative used to be central to my identity. But now, frankly, I don’t give a damn. I prefer to think of myself as a classical liberal, because “conservative” has become practically synonymous with “Trump lackey.”
Richard Brookhiser, a longtime stalwart at National Review, summed up the Trump effect: “Now the religious Right adores a thrice-married cad and casual liar. But it is not alone. Historians and psychologists of the martial virtues salute the bone-spurred draft-dodger whose Khe Sanh was not catching the clap. Cultural critics who deplored academic fads and slipshod aesthetics explicate a man who has never read a book, not even the ones he has signed. . . . Straussians, after leaving the cave, find themselves in Mar-a-Lago. Econocons put their money on a serial bankrupt.”
Principled conservativism continues to exist, primarily at small journals of opinion, but it is increasingly disconnected from the stuff that thrills the masses. I remember as a high school student in the 1980s attending a lecture at UCLA by William F. Buckley Jr. I was dazzled by his erudition, wit and oratorical skill. Today, young conservatives flock to the boorish and racist performance art of Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter. The Conservative Political Action Conference couldn’t find room for critics of Trump, save for the brave and booed Mona Charen, but it did showcase French fascist scion Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.
I suppose it’s the ultimate repudiation of team politics – by leaving the team completely. Yet, as a professed conservative over the years, he must have been aware of how the GOP was moving from responsibility to extremism, all through the lure of power and money. To jump ship at this late date is unfortunately a bit late.
Source: Gallup
Not that I know how Gingrich, Ryan, and Co. could have been stopped, but I think the loss of the Republican Party as a responsible and respectable party (see previously cited Gallup poll on the right) and potential governing entity will be an enduring wound in the side of the United States. Will the probable accession of the Democrats to power in the halls of Congress in a bit less than a year resolve the problem? Not necessarily. As a country we need responsible voices on both the side of liberalism and conservatism. We do have some voices on the liberal side, but they need responsible critiquing by a serious opposition party. Did we see that when Obama was in power? Sadly, not. What we saw was No No No No No Fuck No! It’s not us so screw you!
Extremists are too much in love with themselves and their ideology to honestly and responsibly critique the other side. This group listens too much to their echo chamber, which, as Boot notes, seems to be populated by people who “… must be ever more transgressive to get the attention they crave. Coulter’s book titles have gone from accusing Bill Clinton of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” to accusing all liberals of “Treason,” of being “Godless” and even “Demonic.””
The failure of the Republicans is a failure of the United States, and is going to hurt the United States until the GOP returns to sober responsibility – or a sober and responsible successor party emerges to take its place.
And I must confess I have trouble visualizing just how that is going to happen without some truly earth-shattering revelations concerning some of the leading lights of the current GOP.
