[Politics]
[politics] Will the real conservatives please stand up?
One thing I’ve noticed lately in my own comments section, on my Twitter feed, and around the blogosphere in general, is a growing trend for conservatives to say something along the lines of “Don’t confuse X with real conservatives, we’re not like that.” The most common values of X are neocons, theocons and George W. Bush.
I find this comment both amusing and saddening. On behalf of liberal-progressives everywhere, let me extend a hearty and loving raspberry to all you conservatives.
See, I remember the dawn of the Reagan era, when Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes were quite happy to goose the latent theocon base of the GOP in order to recover from the Republican disaster that was Richard Nixon. I don’t recall “real conservatives” speaking out against the cynical manipulation of the abortion issue or the “God, guns and gays” strategy, at least not when it was picking up votes for the GOP.
I remember during the Reagan presidency when the neocons were getting footholds in the Republican establishment, helping drive policy into such unConstitutional dead ends as the Iran-Contra affair. I don’t recall “real conservatives” speaking out against abuse of executive power, unilateralism, or sheer bugfuck paranoid policy regarding the projection of American power, at least not when it was securing the right political flank of a popular Republican administration.
I remember the elections of 2000 and 2004, and the Permanent Majority, when George W. Bush rode a neocon/theocon coalition into office and built, at least for a while, a heady perception that conservative values and governance could be permanently cemented into the American body politic. I don’t recall “real conservatives” speaking out against the whole constellation of bizarre blunders, deliberate ineptitude, unConstitutionality and outright criminal activity of the Bush administration, at least not when that alliance seemed to guarantee a Republican ascendancy and prove America’s resolute might on the world stage.
So, now that conservative values and governance have generated the largest political and economic trainwreck in modern history, and the wheels have come off of Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, and your party’s spokesman seems to be Sarah Palin (who could not be a more bizarre political figure if she’d been scripted by Mel Brooks), and the media mad dogs are setting the conservative agenda, and your polling numbers are somewhere down near Charles Manson’s, you, my conservative friends, are grumbling that these are not “real conservatives”? I’d be a hell of a lot more impressed with your complaints if you hadn’t been mocking me and telling me to shut my traitorous liberal mouth between, oh, 1980 and 2006. And even if you personally weren’t doing that, you were happily voting for and supporting politicians, commentators and media that were doing so. Without objecting to their their alleged lack of real conservatism.
All those crazies and criminals were good friends to “real conservatives” when the going was good. Maybe you guys should look in the mirror now before you complain to people like me about how we lump all conservatives together. You’ll see what I’ve been seeing all my adult life, and maybe you’ll understand where my strong negative reaction to the American Right comes from.
Or maybe not.
Posted: 5:36 am Thu October 15 2009 |
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Steve Buchheit
October 15th, 2009 at 8:13 amIt’s the knee jerk reaction to “We stood on the mountain all weekend, why didn’t God end the word, Pastor Miller?” The answer is invariably, “Because we didn’t believe in it hard enough.”
The conservatives are trying to console themselves that they lost and it appears their policy adherence may have created bigger and longer lasting problems in the sobering light of the morning after. So the question comes down to should they change (as some moderates have suggested), or find out what went wrong. It’s easier to do the later, and the easiest answer is that Tinker-bell didn’t come back to life because the audience didn’t clap hard enough or fast enough.
So they ditch those who were their standard bearers as either not promoting the True doctrine, or for not believing in it hard enough and try again with True Believers.
At least that’s my humble opinion of what we’re seeing. Of course it could also be us nasty leftists are so clever we’ve tricked everybody into believing the sky isn’t blue even though we can’t even get 60 cats in a line to vote for health-care.
tetar
October 15th, 2009 at 9:00 amExcellent commentary, Jay. Bravo.
Meran
October 15th, 2009 at 10:21 amHear hear! ( thunderous applause )
glad to see you back in discussion in full form
Would love to hear your take on Fear Politics…. That’s been my perception of what drives politics here in Oregon (and, I’m sure, many other places)
Jay
October 15th, 2009 at 4:50 pmThe politics of fear is certainly something I touch on from time to time. I should definitely come back to it. An entire political generation on the Right has come to power and stayed there on a negative agenda driven by fear – that can’t be good for our culture or our country.
Rob Darnell » Blog Archive » Conservatives and Liberals
October 15th, 2009 at 10:50 am[...] This comes in the light of Jay Lake’s blog entry Will the real conservatives please stand up? [...]