If there’s one thing liberal pundits are experts on these days, it’s the sorry state of conservatism. The airwaves and op-ed pages brim with more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger lamentations on the GOP’s failure to get with President Obama’s program, the party’s inevitable demographic demise, and its thralldom to the demonic deities of the Right — Limbaugh, Beck, Palin.
Such sages as the New York Times’s Sam Tanenhaus and Frank Rich insist that the Right is out of ideas. After all, the religious dogmatism and “market fundamentalism” of the Bush administration were entirely discredited, leaving the GOP with its intellectual cupboard bare.
“During the two terms of George W. Bush,” Tanenhaus declares in his latest book, “conservative ideas were not merely tested but also pursued with dogmatic fixity.”
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Even worse than being brain-dead, the right is black-hearted, hating good-and-fair Obama for his skin color and obvious do-goodery.
Predictably, Republican Dede Scozzafava’s withdrawal from the congressional race in New York’s 23rd District is not only proof the experts are right, but also conveniently a more important story than the Democrats’ parlous standing with voters. Don’t look at the imploding Democrats. No, let’s all titter at the cannibalistic “civil war” on the Right.
Frank Rich, gifted psephologist, finds the perfect parallel to the GOP’s squabbles in Stalin’s murderous purges.
“Though they constantly liken the president to various totalitarian dictators,” Rich writes, “it is they who are re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode.” Stalin’s “full purge mode” involved the systematized exile and slaughter of hundreds of thousands (not counting his genocide of millions). The GOP’s purge has so far caused one very liberal Republican to halt her bid for Congress.
Let me offer a counter-theory, admittedly lacking in such color but making up for it with evidence and consideration of what conservatives actually believe.
After 15 or 20 years of steady moderation, many conservatives think it might be time to give their ideas a try.
Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” was promoted as an alternative to traditional conservatism. Bush promised to be a “different kind of Republican,” and he kept that promise. He advocated government activism, and he put our money where his mouth was. He federalized education with No Child Left Behind — co-sponsored by Teddy Kennedy — and oversaw the biggest increase in education spending in history (58 percent faster than inflation), according to the Heritage Foundation, while doing next to nothing to advance the conservative idea known as school choice.
