After six years of President Bush-thought by nearly every observer to be the most socially conservative president of recent decades-where does social conservatism stand? No one can deny there have been some bright spots: the defeat of the Democrats’ Senate leader Tom Daschle in 2004, the nominations of Justices Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court in 2005, a few successful state referenda in 2006.
What isn’t so clear is what it all amounts to. The noise has been overwhelming since George W. Bush took office. Abortion, euthanasia, stem cells, public Christmas displays, same-sex marriage, pornography in the movies, faith-based initiatives, immigration, visible patriotism: We’ve been warned by the media, over and over again, that Republicans are reshaping America into a Puritan’s paradise. But, at the end of the day, the media mostly won and the Republicans mostly lost. Social conservatism is in little better shape now than it was when Bush was first elected. In many ways, it is in worse shape.
...Every conservative I know is depressed these days, and they are right to be. Under President Bush, conservatism has won only in the sense of not losing as quickly as it would have under a President Gore or a President Kerry.
Bottum says the problem is not, as various Bush critics on the Right have said, that Bush is a fake conservative. The problem, Bottum bluntly asserts, is that Bush is "incompetent." How are things worse for conservatives? Bottum:
President Bush was absolutely right that social security is a looming disaster, and as a result of his efforts, social-security reform is now dead for a generation. The White House saw clearly that education in this country needs a complete overhaul, and we got as a consequence only the bureaucratic annoyance of the No Child Left Behind Act. The Republicans’ lack of political savvy abandoned an astonishing number of unconfirmed judicial nominees-and now we have a Democratic Senate unlikely to confirm any conservative judges at all.
And then he gets to the elephant lollygagging on the coffee table: the war, which Bottum declares that we have lost. He doesn't concede that we have actually been defeated, but he says the perception that America has lost is now fixed, no matter what happens next, and that in terms of our now and future politics, that's what counts. Bottum concludes that the war was justified, but that Bush blew its execution badly, and that will hurt the conservative cause for a long time to come.
So, what to make of this? For one, I don't believe that making Bush a scapegoat for the Iraq failure is entirely fair. Without question his (i.e., his, Rumsfeld's, Bremer's, et al.) handling of the war has been thoroughly incompetent. But the original sin was the war itself, by which I mean choosing to launch a war of conquest and democratic nation-building in a region and among a people who were obviously spectacularly unsuited for it. We went to war with the broader goal of stopping Islamic extremism in the region; now, the best we can hope for is a stable Shia theocracy. How, exactly, could better execution of the war prevented this ultimate outcome? If we'd gone in with vastly more troops, and if Bremer had not disbanded the Iraqi military, we possibly wouldn't have civil war right now. But when given the vote, the Iraqi people voted for their sectarian parties, unsurprisingly. One way or the other, we would have been fated to have tried to dam a river, a river that's going to go the way it wants to go, despite our exertions. To the extent that conservatives still believe this was a wise or just war, only incompetently executed, we will have failed to have learned its lessons, and will not be worthy of the American people's trust on foreign policy.
Which leads to the more interesting question, first suggested to me by a friend who read the Bottum essay. This next election will be about Iraq. Foreign policy will dominate US politics for the foreseeable future. Given that social conservatives have lashed ourselves to the GOP and to the Iraq War, to what extent will our continued association with this failed war cripple our prospects for seeing our policy goals implemented? The American electorate is still more or less socially conservative, meaning that on the issues that matter most to social conservatives -- e.g., abortion, gay marriage, racial quotas -- they agree with us more than with the Democrats. [N.B., on abortion, obviously most Americans don't want it outlawed, but most Americans do favor some form of restriction on the practice, which the Democratic Party does not]. But because organized social conservatism is so closely tied to the GOP and, in turn, to the war, our fortunes in the political arena are going to continue to decline.
What to do? It seems to me that social-conservative leaders have got to start doing some thinking and strategizing independent of the GOP. The environmentalist movement has been in such a ditch for such a long time because it became so closely allied with the Democratic Party. Even though environmentalism is broadly popular with the American people, it's anathema to the GOP. Had environmentalist leaders not put all their eggs in the Democratic basket, and demonized Republicans, they would have learned how to talk to Republicans and conservatives about green issues in conservative terms, and would have diversified their portfolio, so to speak. In the next political order, social conservatives are likely to find themselves in the same position as environmentalists were in the order now passing away: leading a movement whose principles have a lot more public support than its leaders do among the political elite.
I don't expect the Democratic Party to welcome back with open arms the social conservatives they drove away at the 1972 convention and thereafter, at least not anytime soon. But it is in the interest of both the Democrats and social conservative leaders to reach a modus vivendi with each other. And social conservatives really do need to come to terms with the war and where we stood on it then, and stand on it now. I think it's true that at least some of us suppressed misgivings about the war because our allies in the broader conservative movement were all for it, and we either trusted their judgment, or at least didn't want to be seen abandoning them and siding with the liberals against whom we stood on most other important issues. The Iraq debacle calls the efficacy of those old alliances into question. There is no reason why church people whose social and cultural agenda is conservative should feel compelled by force of habit to stand by this failed war and those who waged it. It might be a good time to ponder the difference between being conservatives, and being partisan Republicans.
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Rod: I think you raise an important question: Did environmentalists "play into the hands" of anti-enviros in the GOP? I know others believe this, but on what basis? One controversial op-ed does not prove the point.
I see a knee-jerk eagerness to blame environmentalists for their inability to move legislation in a GOP Congress, when in fact under Gingrich and Delay all environmental issues were shoved to the side, assigned to the likes of Richard Pombo, and industrial interests were hugely empowered. Even many corporations--such as GE and Duke Energy--think the obsessive avoidance of the environment in the GOP has been out of line.
Last week a House committee invited four reputable scientists to speak on the issue of global warming. This was the first hearing to ask the views of the likes of Kevin Trenberth, who leads the National Center on Atmospheric Research, in many years--12 I think it is. Certainly it's the first such respectful hearing before the Congress this century, on what might prove to be the most important issue of our times.
You can't put that blame that environmentalists.
Simon writes: "For 40+ years, the politics of social conservatism have been fueled almost exclusively by popular reaction against arbitrary and lawless judicial edicts that have forced public policy leftward -- whether on abortion, the role of religion in public life, homosexuality, racial balkanization of the country, etc." Correct. It is fueled by reaction to more potent driving forces that do not all originate in the minds of a cadre of like-minded judges. Homosexual acts used to be criminal, now companies are covering unmarried domestic partners (gay or otherwise) to for health and benefits. That's mostly voluntary, not judicially mandated. Those genies are not going back into the bottle. Gay marriage may not happen for some time but domestic partnerships are pretty well tolerated as a compromise. Interracial marriages are up: My parent's marriage would have broken the law in a couple states and now it wouldn't even raise an eyebrow. Birth control is readily accessible in all 50 states. Who would've thought condoms would be displayed in front of pharmacy counters? Mothers working outside the home were at lot less common in the '50s and '60s; now most hold down outside jobs. And Jews can actually get into country clubs. Busing and affirmative action may have run their course but segregation and racially discriminatory hiring practices are not likely to be tolerated again anytime soon. Go figure!
Simon, You say "No, but the government can effect and maintain a reasonably just social order." I doubt it can, for the following reason. To quote Weyrich and Lind, "culture is more powerful than politics." As W&L point out, we if win some elections but lose culturally, we lose on the strategic level. More from their article in the same direction: "This recovery should not be, indeed cannot be, imposed through political power. . . . The rejection of the counterculture that has become the mainstream culture must proceed bottom-up, person by person and family by family, on a voluntary basis. The model here is the home-schooling movement. . . . The power behind this important act of secession has been the only safe form of power: power of example. By building the next conservatism primarily on the power of example, the example of lives well lived in the old ways, we can give honest reassurance to those Americans who fear that a vibrant cultural conservatism would impose some sort of Puritan theocracy on America. We may dismiss those fears as fanciful, but they are real." The real power of those fears -- which are fed when people like Pat Robertson say outrageous things -- has a lot to do with the political brick wall that social conservatism has hit (as Rod described in his Social Conservatism after Bush post). We need a new bumper sticker: a cross, with the words: "Change hearts, not laws."
"We need a new bumper sticker: a cross, with the words: 'Change hearts, not laws.' " I want one! Dubya failed social conservatism because laws are not the way to do it. I have only ever had one "If you want peace, Wrok for justice. Paul VI"
Simon, "For 40+ years, the politics of social conservatism have been fueled almost exclusively by popular reaction against arbitrary and lawless judicial edicts that have forced public policy leftward -- whether on abortion, the role of religion in public life, homosexuality, racial balkanization of the country, etc." You mean you WANT back alley, coat hanger abortions to come back? You WANT religion (presumably YOURS) imposed into public life? You WANT there to be no homosexuals? You WANT 'racial purity' in the country? You rail against "arbitrary and lawless judicial edicts". Surely judges must concern themselves with what is JUST, not what is popular. Then you speak of Constitutional "amendments". To amend something means to make it BETTER. Kicking a group out of the protections offered by the Constitution does NOT make it better. "the government can effect and maintain a reasonably just social order. And that's whole the point." Granting equality before the law to ALL citizens - as promised - DOES make for a "just social order".
"The reason millions of Americans want to ... preserve traditional marriage have nothing to do with wanting to "make immoral people moral." Virtually everyone ... in our society agrees that child pornography should be prohibited. Is this because we hope to make the purveyors and users of kiddie porn "righteous"?" You are confused. "Kiddie porn" has NOTHING to do with equal marriage. As for "preserving traditional marriage", nothing in treating gay citizens equally takes anything away from "traditional marriage". Heterosexuals can and will still get married even when gays can also. "Traditional marriage" is NOT disappearing, is not under any threat. That is a misperception of the 'right'. "No. It's because we want their repulsive activities to stop" Presumably you're still talking about 'kiddie pronographers (and kp consumers)', and if so, well more power to ya. But gay people aren't going to stop being gay, even if people like you do consider our love "repulsive activities" - (your comparison, not mine).
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