Daniel Larison says the future of conservatism in this country doesn't lie in the pseudo-populism of Sarah Palin, which struck an oppositional rhetorical stance while embracing conventional GOP policies, nor in neoconservative "reformism," nor in adopting a knee-jerk oppositional stance to Obama. Rather, he calls for the founding of a rightist movement based on decentralized populism. Excerpt:
On certain matters of policy, particularly concerning foreign policy and civil liberties, populist dissident conservatives are today at odds with most conservatives' views, but they have far more in common with them than "reformists" in their shared opposition to mass immigration, legal abortion, expansion of government and, most recently, the massive government intervention in the financial sector. The populists have also long anticipated popular dissatisfaction with the current "free trade" regime, and have advanced arguments against corporate power and collusion between corporations and government that are not only consistent with free market principles but which also resonate with the electorate far beyond the right.A decentralist and decentralized populism stands the best chance of going around the gatekeepers of institutional conservatism centered in the Northeast by organizing a parallel movement based in cities and towns throughout the country. Creating institutions of this parallel movement would take time, but they would be at once more focused on state and local government, more responsive to local and regional issues and would be more representative of Middle American conservatives. This decentralized movement would not only be more responsive, but would necessarily also be more accommodating to intellectual and regional diversity. It would avoid the ideological ossification that afflicts the mainstream movement and would make possible a far greater degree of participation from the people in whose name populist conservatives claim to speak.
Regardless of how one views Sarah Palin herself, the phenomenon of enthusiasm for Palin, like the grassroots mobilization for Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul we saw in the primaries, shows the powerful hunger in Middle America for someone to speak for them and defend their interests. Except perhaps on immigration, institutional conservatism and elected representatives in the Republican Party have largely failed to do this. During the primaries, institutional conservatism was content to foist two rebranded Northeastern liberal Republicans on conservatives as their champions while denigrating the two candidates with the strongest grassroots support. As the enthusiasm for candidates as different as Huckabee and Paul shows, Christian conservatives and libertarians are looking for representation. These voters are not going to find it in a mainstream movement that loathes Huckabee and Paul, nor will they find what they seek among the "reformists," so their support is up for grabs. What populist conservatives need to do in the coming years is to make sure that Middle Americans are presented with a credible, substantive populism from the right that provides a genuine alternative to the left's agenda and does not settle for the false comfort of empty anti-elitist rhetoric.
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If you'd like a fascinating literary take on a possible late 21st century rise of Neo-Victorian social mores (with a bit more political decentralization than I think even Larison would be comfortable with thrown in), try Neal Stephenson's science fiction novel The Diamond Age, written in 1994, if I recall correctly.
Of course, in that imagined future it is only the elite who revert to a new moralism upon the withering away of nation-state power--the great unwashed still live in a Blade Runner meets Jerry Springer trailer trash planet. Instead of states, the world's productive classes are now grouped into many "phyles", also known as tribes. There are three Great Phyles; Han Chinese, the Neo-Victorians (consisting largely of Anglo-Saxons, but also accepting Indians, Africans, and others who identify with the culture), and Nippon (consisting of Japanese). The novel deliberately makes it ambiguous whether Hindustan (consisting of Hindu Indians) is a fourth Great Phyle or an association of microphyles. In addition to these larger phyles, there are countless smaller phyles. Membership in some phyles, such as the Han and Nipponese, has an ethnic requirement, but the Neo-Victorian phyle and many lesser phyles accept anyone who aspires to live according to the phyle's mores.
"Ron Paul's biggest problem was that the Neocons are dug in like a tick in the so called conservative media and think tanks."
Well, that and the fact he's a bit of a crack-pot with unworkable policy positions and absolutely no real ability to lead and govern.
Re: I'm sure you're also aware that Enlightenment secularism gave way to Christian "Victorian" morality.
Victorian culture was based on the Enlightenment. Even at its most reactionary it took for granted the Enlightenment's accomplishments, notably in science but also in politics. The Victorians made no attempt to restore the ancien regime of the late 1600s-- and they had no desire to. And when they really got their dander up they could become rather radical themseles: abolitionism, women's rights for example.
Ron Paul could never be elected, because Paul's politics is actually just a set of specific policy stances, some very strident arguments about some rather obscure monetary system changes, and he offers absolutely NOTHING in the "lead the people" department.
You might gain something if you stuck Ron Paul in a committee tasked with specific policy decisions, but he does NOT inspire individals to vote for him. Rather, his target audience is very narrow and has only specific policy interests.
I suppose you could call him the inverse of Obama. No interest in inspiring people emotionally, and all about very technical and detailed theoretical issues about which he is very strident and verbal in addressing.
My opinion of Larison is that he's so wrapped up in a little world he has no idea of what the general 'conservative' is interested in doing or talking about. I'm not interested in "populism" which is nothing more than feel-good emotional manipulation, without any particular guiding principle. The very term cancels any ideological preface you might give it.
Rather, it will be up to someone who can speak clearly, who can reach people where they are, who can explain to them, convince them, and inspire them to do the right thing when it comes to the role of government - which right now, needs to shed liabilities faster than a drowning soldier needs to shed his 70 lbs of heavy weaponry and boots and armor so he can get his head above water.
Rather, Obama and co is determined to wreck the market for lending, investment, and health care, leaving no means of escape of self-imposed massive liabilities.
You're going to see them confiscate our retirement plans, spend the money, and then discover that Social Security and the IOU's they are going to write to us in place of our own retirement plans are obligations they'll then default upon, leaving us without significant health care infrastructure, no retirement of any kind, and nobody with the means to rebuild an economy because it was all taxed away.
At that moment, selling people on the value of conservative government - one that does NOT do what liberals and leftists do - will be easy. In fact, at that moment, ANYTHING can be sold easy, and usually it turns out to be tyranny - a dictatorship or other corrupt "leadership" that sells itself as the way out. Generally, these are "scapegoat" snowjobs and someone will be targeted and there will be no protection from the angry mobs backed by a tyrant's henchmen.
There will be truth, but the question is whether or not the truth will be as attractive as a con man.
Total oxymoron.
Sorry, but this is the kind of thing that comes of thinking too much.
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