GARY KAMIYA DOESN'T GET IT

In Salon, Gary Kamiya makes a case for the inevitable death of conservatism-as-we-know-it that's elegant, compelling, and entirely wrong:

...sooner or later, conservatives will have to change course or see their movement wither away.

The issues that have been winners for conservatives are fading. White resentment of federal civil rights laws is the ur-conservative issue, the engine that drove the right's rise.... More recently, right-wing strategists successfully mobilized resentment over "values" issues like the "three Gs" -- gays, God and guns. These issues still mobilize some conservative voters, but they aren't nearly as effective as they used to be. Studies show that the electorate, especially younger voters, are moving left on these issues.

Support among voters for conservatism's powerful no-more-taxes wing is dwindling as well. As Bush found out recently, Americans will do anything to save the nation's two largest entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, including paying higher taxes.

The fall of communism was another heavy blow to the conservative movement.... Although Bush won reelection in 2004 by convincing enough frightened Americans that a nonexistent entity called "Islamofascism" was the second coming of the Evil Empire, that fear-mongering comparison will not work anymore. The Iraq debacle, and Bush's misguided "war on terror," have made it only too clear that moralistic militarism and disdain for diplomacy only makes the problem worse.

OK, let's work back.

If shouting "Islamofascism" simply won't work anymore, someone has to explain why, in recent polls, Rudy Giuliani is, on average, a mere two points behind Hillary Clinton.

And regarding Social Security and Medicare, yes, the public wanted to preserve the status quo, but who in the public endorsed a specific tax increase to do so?

But this gets us away from Kamiya's real error here, which is thinking that conservatism depends on whatever specific issues seem to be fueling it at any given time. It doesn't.

As I said a couple of days ago, conservatism changes and evolves; 1961's segregationist was 1991's Clarence Thomas supporter. How much did conservatism suffer when the end of the Cold War deprived it of a big enemy? Well, Bill Clinton got into the White House -- but two years later Republican rightists took over Congress, and four years after that they impeached the president. Between anti-communism and anti-Islamism they had anti-Clinton's penis-ism, and before that they were motivated by Whitewater, for heaven's sake.

What's important to American conservatism is less the issues of the day than the core message, which doesn't change much -- basically, that coastal elitists with unacceptable values threaten our simple, moral way of life. Issues come and go, but conservatism feeds on whatever fuel is available. Right now it's Islamic extremism (which coastal elitists are said to aid and abet). A decade or three from now, it'll be something else.

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Now, here's where Kamiya really gets it wrong:

In the end, conservatism will have to decide if it wants to be a real party of governance, moving beyond empty labels to engage with real issues, or if it wants to remain a party of reaction, in permanent rebellion against modernity, proffering emotionally satisfying but incoherent policies. Conservatism ... is based on unmediated emotions, erupting from the individual ego -- Get big government off my back! Keep those civil rights laws out of my white backyard! Lower my taxes! This is ultimately an infantile or an adolescent politics, a failure to come to terms with a world that does not do exactly what the omnipotent self demands. Does conservatism want to grow up, or stay an angry teenager forever?

Er, here are the last three presidents we thought enough of to send back to D.C. for a second term:





Yeah, we're a country that really values political maturity, aren't we?

What Kamiya portrays as conservatism's weakness is actually its strength. It knows what it stands for. It makes a lot of noise. It knows exactly who's evil and needs to be neutralized. Americans love that. It's rock and roll.

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(Barbara at the Mahablog thinks much more of Kamiya's essay than I do.)