Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Conservative critics of President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming administration have focused their initial lens on the change.gov web site. Some have characterized it as a potentially deceptive fund-raising scheme, while others have suggested that it may indicate that the Bush administration — which would have to approve use of the .gov domain — is far from the demonic influence cast by anti-Bush critics.
The Next Right, a web site dedicated to rebuilding the conservative movement, has argued that change.gov exposes contradictions between elite decision-making and community-based grass-roots action, but that the site also presents an opportunity for conservatives to develop their own broadened base by inviting public ideas.
I would argue that this precisely misses the challenge that faces conservatives right now. To steal ruthlessly from Simon and Garfunkel, what is missing is a network of undiscovered conservative Joe DiMaggios for the nation to turn its lonely eyes toward. The problem is not an inadequate mechanism for gathering grass-roots ideas for reform, it is the lack of good new ideas available on the right at all. Conservatism has a long and proud intellectual history that has very recently fallen into disrepair. The McCain campaign was remarkable for its lack of substantive content — it was, in its essence, a campaign against Barack Obama and his policy proposals but not really for any of John McCain’s. Amid calls of “socialism” and “redistribution” and vague rumors of Muslim identity from the fringes, there was little in the way of substantive policy suggestions other than aged calls for more tax cuts.
This begs the question: If conservatives were to match Obama’s mechanisms for gathering public input and encouraging public participation, what kind of ideas would actually be generated? The last couple of years of history in the conservative blogosphere does not present many hopeful signs either. It is easy to find posts and comments on some conservative blogs suggesting mass deportations as a solution to immigration, Paulist demands for the abolition of the Federal Reserve or the embrace of a gold standard modeled on the 1870s, and other impractical and even downright destructive demands. Borderline racism and recycled crackpot theories do not present sound foundations for an intellectual revival.
So where are the budding new generations of Buckleys that are waiting to be tapped by novel new internet tools in the hands of conservative web sites? This is the question that must be answered. In order to answer it, conservatives will have to jettison their reflexive disdain for intellectualism, move beyond anti-intellectual avatars on talk radio and intellectual underachievers like Gov. Sarah Palin, and reestablish genuine conservative outlets in the academy.
And it will take a lot more than a fancy web site to do that.
Jason, although I agree with most of your assessment of the McCain campaign - at the end, McCain did present plans for the economy / taxes for instnace, but he failed to articulate them clearly, and the plans came rather late - I have to say that I believe your undervalue think tanks and other places where conservatives, moderate conservatives, libertarians, etc. develop effective policy plans. The American Enterprise Institute, the CATO Institute, Brookings, the Independent Institute, all are places for policy development; I receive books on a regular basis from all - with some great works on education policy, the economy, foreign policy, and so on. Reasonably complicated stuff, but that is to be expected of policy papers and books.
So, the ideas for specific policy plans are there. The academic knowledge is there. What, then, is missing? These plans are either not accepted by politicians and ‘the conservative movement’ or they do not articulate them well. For the plans are there - seriously, I could write posts on health care, education, foreign policy policy plans, all from a conservative, independent, moderate conservative or libertarian perspective. The ideas are there, they are just not articulated by leaders and the movement itself.
The movement has quite some intellectual baggage to work with already - most should be encouraged of course, as should more conservative journalism, etc. - but to pretend that they do not have plans, etc. is not correct in my opinion. The plans are there, but ‘the bloggers,’ the ‘media’ and the politicians aren’t articulating them, and instead campaigning against plans proposed by the Democrats.
I am more aware of their work than you perhaps realize. Its quality and level of originality is far less than it used to be.
Conservative think tanks formed the foundation for the establishment of conservative dominance in the 1980s and 1990s. But some of the funding sources that lay beneath these institutions have gone out of business and the institutions themselves have become somewhat ossified.
A revival is necessary. Unfortunately, it is hard to achieve in light of the broad and reflexive hatred among many conservatives for intellectuals these days.
I share your criticism to a degree, but “hatred” is not correct, in my opinion, at least, not more than it once was, I presume. The ones you speak about are, I think, the same as they have always been; it’s just that you did not hear from them, because there was no Internet. Don’t you think there’s something to that?
Solutions: I don’t know - the books, etc. strike as quite convincing and creative. Perhaps the plans should be implemented ones
There is only so much you can say about education and school vouchers, for instance; at a certain moment, people will have to press those issues, and that is up to activists and politicians. The problem is, as I see it, that they do not do it.
For instance, a very strong case could be made for school vouchers. Stronger today than ever before. So much research has been done, showing that they improve the quality of education at private and public schools. What needs to happen is, I think, that activists and politicians pick this up and press those issues and that the intellectuals pressing those issues are given room to make their case online, on television, and on the radio.
An intellectual revival is necessary, I agree with that, for intellectual conservatism may have come somewhat to a standstill compared to what there once was. But there’s still quite some intellectualism on the right, it’s just being ignored by most.
This does, I believe, fall back to what you said about growing anti-intellectualism, of course. Those intellectuals are not given the respect and opportunities they once were. That is a problem, but there certainly are conservative intellectuals, you spoke of Jonah Goldberg yourself recently; it’s not as if there are no intel. cons. there. There are, not as much as we would like perhaps, but they are there, and they do have policy plans. The problem is, I believe for the biggest part, that nothing or little is done with them. See how liberal intellectuals are treated compared to conservative ones.
Of course, int. should be improved: for instance in academia - liberals dominate, both in the U.S. and in Europe. This has to change. Conservatives everywhere should basically declare an intellectual war, aim at taking over universities, doing research, publishing books, etc. in order to raise a new generation of intellectual leaders who can approach policy questions from an intellectual conservative perspective rather than “tax cuts are ALWAYS good because Reagan said so.”
I notice I contradicted myself there, so let me explain: the growing anti-intellectualism I speak of is growing signs of anti-intellectualism, those people becoming more vocal.
What about being more active with universities? I know there are College Republicans, but my understanding is that Democrats and all liberal establishments have much more friendly and deep relationships with your average American university.
I agree that anti-intellectualism is very dangerous and can lead the GOP to ruin. But it’s not inevitable. There are potential thinkers out there, but you need to motivate them.
Most people go to college with some fundamentals of political views, but many may drift away from the original views or become more active in college. Since universities are generally very liberal, I would imagine it’s more frequent for an originally conservative youth to become more liberal than the other way around. Providing encouragement and safe havens to young conservatives within the confines of the university would help breed a new generation of conservative intellectuals.
Ahh the joys of not refreshing the page…I see Michael has already mentioned the matter, lol.