The fault lines of conservatism: finding a new unity by Fred Hutchison
We have traveled a long way through the history of conservatism and are nearing the end of the story. It is 2009, and I am doing post mortems of the disastrous election year of 2008.
After my post mortems, we shall consider the present crisis in conservatism. I hope to find some remedies from what we have learned from our study of the five kinds of conservatism in history. The old conservative fusionist movement has shattered. We must now seek new grounds for conservative unity.
We shall consider the fault lines and rifts between the five historic kinds of conservatism. We shall also consider the natural harmonies that have historically tended to unite the five kinds of conservatism.
Toward the end of the essay, I shall discuss potential new combinations of conservatives for a fresh new conservative political alliance. I shall also discuss the two new kinds of leaders that the conservative movement will need.
I anticipate that this essay will be the last in the series titled A Brief History of Conservatism. The 18 essays are being converted to 18 chapters for a new book.
Post mortems
From a conservative's point of view, there were three disastrous elections in the past century. The first was the election of 1932, resulting in Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" programs. The second was 1964, leading to Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs. The third and most disastrous election was 2008, quickly followed by Barack Obama's "great leap forward" toward socialism and national bankruptcy.
Obama's election mandate and the domination of Congress by liberal Democrats seem to betoken that the triumph of a morally and intellectually bankrupt postmodernism is near. Historically, the sudden advance of a depraved evil sometimes is soon followed by its own precipitous collapse. On the other hand, the ascent of evil sometimes opens the door to new evils. Let us hope and pray for the first and prepare for the second.
As is obvious from the last essay, modernism, hyper-modernism, and postmodernism embody everything that a principled conservative abhors. The only good news here is that ascendant modernism might provide a rallying point to unite the five camps of conservatism in a common battle. The conservative movement is now seriously divided, and such a unification is badly needed.
'More conservative than thou'
Going back to 2007, it appeared that 2008 was going to be a good year for conservatives. The 2007 Iowa Straw Poll was a beauty contest for conservatives. Amazingly, eleven conservative Republican candidates came to the straw poll!
None of the moderate Republican candidates showed up! I don't blame them. It would have been embarrassing for them to appear at this festival of conservatism.
The straw poll was a contest to see who was the most conservative. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most conservative one of all?" During the speeches each candidate tried to convince the crowd that he was more conservative all than the other candidates. In essence, each candidate said to the other candidates, "I am more conservative than thou."
During the straw poll, I thought I was in a paradise for conservatives. As I strolled the grounds of the straw poll event, the carnival of happy conservative hoopla spread out before me as far as the eye could see.
My feeling of being in conservative paradise took another leap upwards when I became a Policy Advisor to the presidential campaign of Alan Keyes, who seemed to be the ultimate conservative. Keyes told TV reporters. "I am the only complete conservative in the race." He would have fit in perfectly at the "more conservative than thou" straw poll, but was not yet a candidate at the time.
Civil war among conservatives
After the presidential primaries started in 2008, the tide turned and gradually began to look like a hell for conservatives. I felt I was going from a 2007 paradise for conservatives to a 2008 hell for conservatives. 2008 was the annus terribilis (the dreadful year). The annus terribilis is the story of a tragic division among conservatives. Let us consider a few of the causes of this division.
Conservative energy, zeal, finances, and organizational skills were scattered and dissipated by being spread among too many Republican primary candidates.
As conservatives fought hard against other conservatives, many painful divisions
opened up in the conservative movement. Dirty tricks were used to keep media-labeled "minor" candidates out of the debates and off television. Competing factions formed within particular campaigns.It was a civil war for conservatives! The good guys were fighting the good guys! Fine conservatives were stabbed in the back. What fifty years of the conservative
fusion movement had built was now in ruins and ashes!
There is no escape from the depravity of man in this fallen world! Such escape is not to be found even in the company of the best of men. This perishing world is not, and cannot be a paradise, not even a paradise for conservatives. I should have known better.
The conservatives killed each other off. As the ground was littered with conservative bodies, there was one man left standing. It was John McCain, a moderate, whom we had all left for dead — that is to say, politically dead. I dubbed McCain the man with nine lives.One reason why McCain lost the general election in November was that his team was divided, while Obama's team was united. The man with nine lives could not survive the fatal divisions within his own team.
The denouement
The denouement of the annus terribilitis finally came around. The proud "I am more conservative than thou" syndrome, which I was as much caught up in as anyone, led to the election of the most liberal president in American history.
The moral of the story is that when conservatives are divided, moderates will dominate the Republican Party, and Democrats will win the general elections. However, judging from the legions of enthusiastic conservatives at the Iowa Straw Poll, if conservatives could be united once more and all of them could get behind one candidate, that candidate would be hard to beat by a Republican moderate in the primaries or by a Democrat in the general election.
Causes of conservative division
There were four causes of conservative division this last election:
1) There was now no natural national leader of American conservatives. Reagan and Buckley were dead. Some of the second tier of leaders were weak. Second-tier conservative leaders of the 80's and 90's had died or retired without being replaced with men of commensurate maturity, talent, competence, or moral authority.
2) The internecine divisions among conservatives were caused by a disturbing lack of grown-ups in the conservative movement. A quotation from the Apostle Paul illuminates the problem:
"I appeal to you brothers...that there might be no divisions among you....there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this, one of you says, 'I follow Paul,' another 'I follow Apollos,' another 'I follow Cephas,' still another, 'I follow Christ'....Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly — as infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it....You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?" (excerpts: 1 Corinthians chapters 1-3)
An emotionally immature and unprincipled man with inordinate personal ambition might be politically motivated to become someone great — instead being driven by a desire to serve his country and be a blessing to the commonweal. The inordinately ambitious man might be lured into destructive factions. In the spirit of faction and selfish ambition, a ruthless conservative might stab other conservatives in the back. Caesar was not stabbed by his enemies, but by his friends. Such betrayals begin with the clash of egos and the competition of swollen personal ambitions — as we saw this last election.
More Christian ministries and conservative political organizations have been ruined by the inordinate personal ambitions and the proud rivalries of leaders than from any other cause.
3) Among conservatives, there appeared to be a falling away from conservative principles or a failure to teach them to the emerging generation. Among Christians, there has been a general falling away from biblical principles — or so it seems to me. I am not just talking about the theological liberals. I am also talking about the falling away of some of those who fairly recently professed to be doctrinally conservative. I shall address the catastrophic spread of the "emerging church" in a separate essay and the role it has played in drawing Evangelicals away from sound doctrine.
It is my hope that A Brief History of Conservatism will play a role in calling conservatives and Christians back to the historical principles and truths that made our nation and our civilization great.
It has been reported that a surprising number of Evangelicals voted for Obama. We are told by some sources that certain Evangelicals today are rebelling against their former commitment to conservative politics. If this be true, I attribute it to an increase of worldliness among Christians, and a corresponding decline in doctrinal
orthodoxy.
Essay # 16 of this series demonstrated the general compatibility, if not the perfect fit, of doctrinal orthodoxy with political conservative philosophy. We also learned in that essay that doctrinal orthodoxy is radically incompatible with modernism, such as the modernism of Barack Obama. Obviously, many Evangelicals have become so fuzzy on matters of doctrine that they cannot recognize this incompatibility.
Many of the drifting Evangelicals who withdrew their support from conservative candidates were disingenuous in their rationalizations. In many cases, they withdrew their support of conservatives in order to back liberals. I happen to think that they have been seduced by the spirit of this age — that is to say, the spirit of
modernism.Are we to conclude that an apostate church of the near future will fawn over the false political messiahs of modernism? Or, has the time come for another reformation — this time a reformation of Evangelicalism?
4) Some of the natural fault lines among the five kinds of conservatives had opened up into schisms. Later in this essay, we shall consider how the schisms and rifts can be healed. We shall also consider how we can take advantage of the natural harmonies that tend to unite the five kinds of conservatism. The original goal of this series of essays was to unite the five kinds of conservatives so that they will listen to each other, learn from each other, and work with each other.
That is pretty strong stuff – but right on target!
Question is – what do we do about it?
For reason # 1 – how and where do we find natural national leaders? It certainly is not Michael Steele and I doubt it’s Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh – and maybe not even Sarah Palin or Mark Sanford. Those last 4 are “good” conservatives but they seem to have a niche following rather than a national following – some have bigger niches than others of course but is it big enough? I’m not sure I have a good solid suggestion here – do you?
Reason 2 – Seems to describe at least 3 of those people previously named. As much as I like Newt and Rush, they certainly seem to be their own biggest fans… They have great ideas but can they be the natural national leader we need? Can they turn it around and focus on “we the people”? There are are plenty more of them too – Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and others. When they speak it’s as if they forget they are Republicans and what we stand for. McCain, who I would never call a conservative (and don’t even like using his name and the word conservative in the same sentence) certainly is focused on his own personal ambitions. (Aside: McCain is going to have a competitor in the primary next year – Chris Simcox – that will be an interesting race to watch!)
Reason 3 – Some would probably try to lay the blame on pastors and ministers – and certainly some of them should share some blame. Far too many churches today are busy trying to “get” as many people to attend as possible – which is admirable – but only if they do not fail to disciple people and always preach the truth. Far too many are sugarcoating the gospel and the truths about God in an effort to “bring them in”. But Christ’s command included “make disciples of them” – we can’t forget that part.
However, pastors and ministers are not where the primary blame should go. I personally believe it is the fault of parents and the subsequent breakdown of the family. Parents are ultimately responsible for how the next generation thinks. And quite frankly the Baby Boomer generation (not all but generally speaking) AND the generation immediately following (mine – early 40’s) have failed miserably to teach our children. We have lost our way and fallen away from Godly principles. Both of these generations were, and are, so busy trying to make life “better” that they forgot what really makes it better. I don’t think there is anything at all wrong with wanting to be successful or wanting to provide the best for your family. But when we do that that and forsake our responsibilities to teach our children we fail. It does not take a village to raise a child – it takes committed parents. We haven’t necessarily failed to teach our children right from wrong – but we have failed to teach them our core beliefs and principles. Many of our kids today don’t even know basic Bible stories like Samson, Moses or Noah. And they certainly haven’t been taught to apply Biblical standards and principles to their daily lives. Most have no idea that they can have a relationship with the Creator of the universe. We’ve left them alone to fend for themselves while they were being taught that we came from monkeys so morals don’t matter.
In political matters we have also failed to teach them. We have the knowledge – listen to us talk to each other. We can complain about the state of affairs with the best of them but we have failed to pass that knowledge to our children. I’m as guilty as the next. I finally realized that none of my kids would have any interest in “things political: if I didn’t start teaching them now. So I’ve started. I took my 9 and 10 year old daughters to a TeenPact (teenpact.com) one day event in Austin where they got to learn how a bill becomes a law and even got to write their own, argue (debate?) over it and even vote on them! They loved it! Find something that fits your kids and your situation. Buy books. Get conservative magazine subscriptions. Teach them why we believe the way we do! Just do something so that the next generation isn’t completely void of good, right political thinking.
Reason 4 – Yes, we must find a way to work with all conservatisms. Cooperation is the rule – but not to the lessoning of our core values. There are areas we must not compromise in. Compromise over the last 8 years is what has done us in as conservatives. We compromised when we shouldn’t have and failed to when we could. This has resulted in runaway spending – even before Obama - and in nothing substantial being done to lower or stop the increasing abortion industry, along with a host of other things. Now that we are on the brink of losing our precious freedom of speech and many others rights and freedoms we want to try and band together and fight. I only hope and pray it isn’t too late.
It may be too late to find a natural national leader in our generation. But if we begin to find a way to come together, without compromising our principles, which ultimately makes us look like those we oppose, AND we educate and disciple our children we may be able to turn this around. Who knows? Maybe one of our children or someone in the 20’s crowd may step up to become that natural national leader. Let’s find them before it’s too late.
