On principles
I've been thinking some about conservativism, lately - especially in light of... well, of Trump.
And it seems to me that there's a basic failing that we-as-conservatives have had - a failure to clearly communicate what that label means. Let me see if I can make sense of this.
First: let's consider how American conservativism - or at least, some strain thereof - might describe itself. I'm not debating, here, whether that self-description is true about the world, or even whether it's necessarily sincere. If you read this and think that these purported principles are a fig-leaf to cover true motivations, fine; if you think it's basically sincere, but factually mistaken, that's fine, too. It's fine! I'm not debating whether it's right or not; I'm just trying to say, this is how I and folks like me would describe the movement.
And one of the ways that I and folks like me would describe the movement is by saying that conservative takes actions that help people, but that these actions often contrast sharply with actions that look like they help people. So, for instance: say we take as a given that the standard of living for the poorest Americans should be raised, all else being approximately equal. A straightforward mechanism that looks like it helps this problem is to raise minimum wages, or to provide government handouts - in other words, to solve the problem in the most straightforward way: "Here, have more money."
But conservativism says that this approach is actually destructive, on the whole; that the effects of minimum wages are, among other things, to take jobs from people who need them most, to drive up inflation, and so on; that the effects of government handout are to create a dependency that makes work less of a rational choice, and so to harm everyone. Again, whether it's correct in these assertions isn't my point; my point is that, right or wrong, the philosophy says, "It's not as simple as that - we need a theory of what's happening here before we take any actions."
If we accept this self-description for a moment, then conservativism faces a problem that liberalism doesn't: it depends on people understanding these underlying principles and theories to make sense of its decisions. It cannot simply declare, "Let's do the thing that makes sense," because "sense" is inadequate. It doesn't sound-bite well. It doesn't late-night-comic well. It only really works as a consistent, integrated philosophy.
And what this election has demonstrated pretty clearly is that a lot of people who claim the label of "conservative"... aren't. Sean Hannity isn't, to the surprise of no one who has heard him complain about government inaction. Ann Coulter isn't, to the surprise of... well, no one, really. More depressingly, evidently millions of Republicans aren't real, philosophical conservatives; they're Team Not The Other Guys.
And the problem with being Team Not The Other Guys is that Trump isn't the other guys. He's a lying, philandering, pseudo-fascist bully - yes. That's a thing he is. He's absurdly gullible; he's prone to threatening little old ladies and political opponents with force; he's disastrously unfamiliar with international politics. He's all these things, or at least he plays them in public, and past a certain point what's the difference? But most Democrats are not these things, and that makes Trump an honorary member of Team Not The Other Guys, too.
But that doesn't - or shouldn't - make him a member of our team; it should be reason to kick him off the field altogether. He is disastrously - disastrously - incompatible with any kind of consistent philosophy of conservativism. And the fact that so many Republicans welcome him in despite this is pretty solid evidence that they don't have those principles to begin with.
(I don't mean to say that they're unprincipled; they may be good, honest people. They may have strong political principles, too - they may be, for instance, fervently pro-life, or they may have a strong preference for the world as it was twenty or thirty years ago. I mean only that they have no core of conservative philosophy; that their convictions do not stem from this common core of principles of How The World Works Differently Than It First Appears.)
Or, to put that another way: we've failed to teach these principles. We've failed not only to persuade people that they're true; we've failed even to communicate that they exist. We have millions of people who are theoretically our political allies and who can't articulate the reasons for our philosophy, even for the purpose of dismissing them - people for whom loyalty is to the party, and then to whatever positions it espouses, instead of to the principles, from which both party and positions flow.
Is it any surprise that's a disaster? Is it any surprise it would give us a cuckoo of a candidate, who fakes belonging just well enough to shove the real birds out of the nest?
And whether it is or not: what are we to do about it?
And it seems to me that there's a basic failing that we-as-conservatives have had - a failure to clearly communicate what that label means. Let me see if I can make sense of this.
First: let's consider how American conservativism - or at least, some strain thereof - might describe itself. I'm not debating, here, whether that self-description is true about the world, or even whether it's necessarily sincere. If you read this and think that these purported principles are a fig-leaf to cover true motivations, fine; if you think it's basically sincere, but factually mistaken, that's fine, too. It's fine! I'm not debating whether it's right or not; I'm just trying to say, this is how I and folks like me would describe the movement.
And one of the ways that I and folks like me would describe the movement is by saying that conservative takes actions that help people, but that these actions often contrast sharply with actions that look like they help people. So, for instance: say we take as a given that the standard of living for the poorest Americans should be raised, all else being approximately equal. A straightforward mechanism that looks like it helps this problem is to raise minimum wages, or to provide government handouts - in other words, to solve the problem in the most straightforward way: "Here, have more money."
But conservativism says that this approach is actually destructive, on the whole; that the effects of minimum wages are, among other things, to take jobs from people who need them most, to drive up inflation, and so on; that the effects of government handout are to create a dependency that makes work less of a rational choice, and so to harm everyone. Again, whether it's correct in these assertions isn't my point; my point is that, right or wrong, the philosophy says, "It's not as simple as that - we need a theory of what's happening here before we take any actions."
If we accept this self-description for a moment, then conservativism faces a problem that liberalism doesn't: it depends on people understanding these underlying principles and theories to make sense of its decisions. It cannot simply declare, "Let's do the thing that makes sense," because "sense" is inadequate. It doesn't sound-bite well. It doesn't late-night-comic well. It only really works as a consistent, integrated philosophy.
And what this election has demonstrated pretty clearly is that a lot of people who claim the label of "conservative"... aren't. Sean Hannity isn't, to the surprise of no one who has heard him complain about government inaction. Ann Coulter isn't, to the surprise of... well, no one, really. More depressingly, evidently millions of Republicans aren't real, philosophical conservatives; they're Team Not The Other Guys.
And the problem with being Team Not The Other Guys is that Trump isn't the other guys. He's a lying, philandering, pseudo-fascist bully - yes. That's a thing he is. He's absurdly gullible; he's prone to threatening little old ladies and political opponents with force; he's disastrously unfamiliar with international politics. He's all these things, or at least he plays them in public, and past a certain point what's the difference? But most Democrats are not these things, and that makes Trump an honorary member of Team Not The Other Guys, too.
But that doesn't - or shouldn't - make him a member of our team; it should be reason to kick him off the field altogether. He is disastrously - disastrously - incompatible with any kind of consistent philosophy of conservativism. And the fact that so many Republicans welcome him in despite this is pretty solid evidence that they don't have those principles to begin with.
(I don't mean to say that they're unprincipled; they may be good, honest people. They may have strong political principles, too - they may be, for instance, fervently pro-life, or they may have a strong preference for the world as it was twenty or thirty years ago. I mean only that they have no core of conservative philosophy; that their convictions do not stem from this common core of principles of How The World Works Differently Than It First Appears.)
Or, to put that another way: we've failed to teach these principles. We've failed not only to persuade people that they're true; we've failed even to communicate that they exist. We have millions of people who are theoretically our political allies and who can't articulate the reasons for our philosophy, even for the purpose of dismissing them - people for whom loyalty is to the party, and then to whatever positions it espouses, instead of to the principles, from which both party and positions flow.
Is it any surprise that's a disaster? Is it any surprise it would give us a cuckoo of a candidate, who fakes belonging just well enough to shove the real birds out of the nest?
And whether it is or not: what are we to do about it?