I tend to place more value on the critiques of those in the camp of that which is critiqued, or former such members, over those claiming a place in the opposing camp. Not because I doubt the sincerity of the latter, but for the simple reason that the member, or former thereof, is more likely to be familiar with the important facets and critical, but obscure, details. Even if their observations function merely to confirm the criticisms made by the opposition, it remains a pivotal and extremely persuasive part of the entire assemblage of critiques cast against a philosophy.
Therefore, when conservative Max Boot writes something like the following, I tend to pay more attention than if the name were, say, Hillary Clinton:
Upon closer examination, it’s obvious that the history of modern conservative is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, isolationism and know-nothingism. I disagree with progressives who argue that these disfigurations define the totality of conservatism; conservatives have also espoused high-minded principles that I still believe in, and the bigotry on the right appeared to be ameliorating in recent decades. But there has always been a dark underside to conservatism that I chose for most of my life to ignore. It’s amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed!
The ur-conservatives of the 1950s — William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and all the rest — were revolting not against a liberal administration but against the moderate conservatism of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ideological conservatives viewed Eisenhower as a sellout; John Birchers thought he was a communist agent. Why the animus against this war hero? Conservatives were furious that Eisenhower made no attempt to liberate the “captive nations” of Eastern Europe or repeal the New Deal, and that he did not support Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare. Worst of all, from the viewpoint of contemporary conservatives, Eisenhower was a moderate on racial issues. He appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren, who presided over the Supreme Court’s school desegregation decision, Brown v. Board of Education, and then sent troops to Little Rock to enforce desegregation. [WaPo / from Boot’s new book, The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right]
It’s an enlightening and affirming remark as to the nature of cultural conservatism, vs the intellectual and more respectable conservatism I often encounter. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Boot confirms my observations of the nature of current conservatism:
The history of the modern Republican Party is the story of moderates being driven out and conservatives taking over — and then of those conservatives in turn being ousted by those even further to the right. A telling moment came in 1996, when the Republican presidential nominee, Bob Dole, visited an aged Barry Goldwater. Once upon a time, Dole and Goldwater had defined the Republican right, but by 1996, Dole joked, “Barry and I — we’ve sort of become the liberals.” “We’re the new liberals of the Republican Party,” Goldwater agreed. “Can you imagine that?”
I have often written of moderate Republicans being RINOed out of the Party by extremists, and then in turn being RINOed out by the even more extreme. In fact, I can recommend the entire article as enlightening. Boot has been a long time Republican Party member, who worked in the intellectual sphere for the Party, and so he speaks from certain knowledge, not malicious opposition.
For those who are casual conservatives for reasons of tradition or sloth, it’s important that they understand that today’s Trumpist Republican would have little to do with Goldwater, Dole, Reagan, or many other honorable conservatives of the past. To them, the compromises and decisions they came to would mark them as apostates in today’s Church of Extremist Conservatives, where to be bipartisan is to admit to uncertainty and error.
This unrealistic certainty, the denial of realities which I’ve run into the ground in other posts, mark them as uniquely unsuited for governance of even a village, much less the Federal level of the United States. Boot provides the confirmation of the processes and attitudes about which I and many others have been writing. It’s now up to my conservative readers to decide if they will be fellow-travelers with such regressive and damaging attitudes, or if it’s time to begin removing them from the Republican party in the most effective way possible.
By making them losers at the ballot box. Again and again, until they learn that there’s more to life than righteous indignation and amateurism, or they all just die off.
