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Home , Movement conservatism, The Heritage Foundation, Yuval Levin

No. 1140 Delivered December 7, 2009 January 11, 2010

Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American George H. Nash

Abstract: What do conservatives want? To be free, to live virtuous and productive lives, to be secure from threats beyond and within our borders, and to live in a society that Talking Points sustains and encourages these aspirations: freedom, virtue, safety—goals reflected in the libertarian, traditionalist, • What do conservatives want? To be free, to live virtuous and productive lives, and to be and national security dimensions of the conservative secure from threats beyond and within our movement and coalition. But to achieve these perennial borders. goals, conservatives must communicate in language that connects with the great majority of the American people • Conservatives want a society that sustains and encourages these aspirations: freedom, in all stations of life. Virtually all conservatives hold in virtue, safety—goals reflected in the liber- common the conviction that there is indeed an “eternal tarian, traditionalist, and national security meaning.” The recent past has been unsettling to Amer- dimensions of the conservative movement ican conservatives, but in the words of William F. Buckley and coalition. Jr. nearly 50 years ago, “the wells of regeneration are • To achieve these perennial goals, conserva- infinitely deep.” tives must communicate in language that connects not only with themselves, but with the great majority of Americans in all sta- In the American election year of 2008, as Barack tions of life. Obama glided unexpectedly toward the , • If there is one thing that virtually all conser- a new political narrative took hold among the chatter- vatives hold in common, it is the conviction ing classes: The conservative era, the Age of Reagan, that there is an “eternal meaning.” was said to be ending. According to liberal writers like • The recent past has been unsettling to Amer- E. J. Dionne, the once-mighty conservative intellectual ican conservatives, but in the words of Will- and political movement that had dominated the iam F. Buckley Jr., “the wells of regeneration nation’s debates since the late 1970s had fallen into are infinitely deep.” moribundity and disarray.

A few conservative pundits seemed half-inclined to This paper, in its entirety, can be found at: agree. Yuval Levin, a frequent contributor to National www.heritage.org/Research/Thought/hl1140.cfm Produced by the B. Kenneth Simon Review Online, sensed “intellectual fatigue” among his Center for American Studies ideological allies and added, “The conservative idea Published by factory is not producing as it did.” 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002–4999 (202) 546-4400 • heritage.org Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflect- ing the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress. No. 1140 Delivered December 7, 2009

Another rising conservative commentator, Jonah ______Goldberg, commenced a column in USA Today in Most activists and intellectuals on the Right in mid-2008 by quoting the writer-humorist Philander 2009 seem less convinced of their movement’s Johnson: “Cheer up, for the worst is yet to come.” supposed exhaustion and infidelity to Burke Although Goldberg went on to insist that the con- than of its need for a speedy escape from the servative movement had “a lot of life left in it,” his political wilderness. But how, on what terms, bon mot captured the mood of the trepidation grip- and under whose banner? ping many around him as the election approached. ______Some on the Right were more acerbic. Patrick Buchanan expressed his dismay at the conservative with President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod, Establishment by invoking an aphorism attributed Mr. Axelrod was conspicuously carrying a copy to Eric Hoffer: “Every great cause begins as a move- of ’s Reflections on the Revolution ment, becomes a business, and then a racket.” in France. Such sentiments did not dissipate with the defeat Sam Tanenhaus has taken the Burke revival even of the Republican Party—that imperfect vehicle of further. In The Death of Conservatism, he distin- modern conservatism—at the polls later in the year. guishes between what he calls Burkean “realists” Some weeks before the election, Sam Tanenhaus, (the good guys in his formulation), committed to the editor of Book Review, assert- “flexible adjustments” to “changing conditions,” ed in print that the conservative movement in and those he excoriates as “revanchists”: ideologues America had entered “its last and genuinely deca- seeking a destructive “counterrevolution.” Accord- dent phase.” Some weeks after the election, his ing to him, the American conservative movement is prognosis became grimmer still. Writing in The New dominated by extremist revanchists who have Republic, he offered what was called an “intellectual betrayed Burkean moderation for a politics of desta- autopsy” of the movement. And just three months bilizing intemperance. ago, he turned this essay into a little book entitled Tanenhaus’s book has been criticized by conser- The Death of Conservatism. vative reviewers as a tendentious misreading of Once again, voices on the Right could be found American conservatism. What Tanenhaus wants, who at least partly agreed with him. Within days of they charge, is a passive, defeatist, accommodation- last year’s election, Jeffrey Hart—a longtime senior ist “conservatism” that politely adjusts in the name editor of who left the magazine in of Burke to a political and social order created and 2008 and endorsed Obama—declared at a liberal controlled by the American Left: an arrangement, as Web site: “, RIP.” one conservative has put it, in which conservatives “serve as chauffeurs to liberals, tapping the brakes The Burke Revival occasionally as speeds toward socialism.” As if all this were not sufficiently unsettling, in This is not the first time in recent American his- recent months we have witnessed a sudden revival tory that liberals have tried to appropriate Edmund of interest in Edmund Burke in a most unexpected Burke, a conservative patron saint, for their purpos- quarter: the American Left. Last spring, Jon Mea- es and interpret him as little more than an artful cham, the liberal editor at Newsweek, hailed Burke compromiser: a liberal Republican, as it were, in as a role model for our times—a “complex, prag- 18th century garb. I think I know what matic figure” who “distrusted absolutes” and who would have thought of such an interpretation. might be “an antidote to the pervasive spirit of divi- Be that as it may, most activists and intellectuals sion” in today’s America. More recently, Meacham on the Right in 2009 seem less convinced of their has proclaimed Barack Obama “the most significant movement’s supposed exhaustion and infidelity to Burkean in American politics today.” Burke than of its need for a speedy escape from the Meanwhile, David Brooks of The New York Times political wilderness. But how, on what terms, and has reported that when he had a meeting last spring under whose banner?

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“A Dance Along the Precipice” conservatives, paleoconservatives, big-government Beneath all the intramural squabbling of the conservatives, leave-us-alone conservatives, com- past year lie philosophical and strategic fault lines passionate conservatives, crunchy conservatives, of importance: populist conservatives, elitist conservatives, tea- party conservatives, dinner-party conservatives— • How should American conservatives regain and the list goes on. their footing in the new political terrain? Another sign is the volume and vehemence of • Should they go “back to basics” and proclaim intramural polemicizing in which some of these ele- their principles with renewed fervor after the ments have engaged in recent years and months. A frustrations and muddled compromises of the once relatively disciplined band of brothers and sis- past eight years, or should they calm down and ters (or so it used to appear in the Age of Reagan) concentrate on devising fresh ini- has seemingly devolved into a jumble of inharmoni- tiatives designed to attract a putatively centrist ous factions. and pragmatic electorate? Several adventitious factors have strengthened • Should they militantly reaffirm their antistatist the impression that American conservatism has convictions or reluctantly concede that, like it come to a cul-de-sac. The deaths of Milton Fried- or not, “big government” is here to stay? man in 2006, of William F. Buckley Jr. in 2008, and • How much—if at all—should the conservative ______message and movement be reconfigured? “Those who remain in the world,” Whittaker In back of these questions lies the specter of a Chambers observed, “if they will not surrender on dilemma that described to its terms must maneuver within its terms. That is William F. Buckley Jr. in another time of conserva- what conservatives must decide: how much to tive anguish more than 50 years ago. “Those who give…in order not to give up the basic principles.” remain in the world,” Chambers observed, “if they ______will not surrender on its terms must maneuver within its terms. That is what conservatives must of in 2009 precipitated an outpouring decide: how much to give in order to survive at all; of retrospection and an intensified awareness that how much to give in order not to give up the basic nearly all of modern conservatism’s founding principles.” All this, he predicted, would lead to “a fathers have now gone to the grave. dance along a precipice.” Coupled with this generational changing of the guard has been a phenomenal upsurge of popular A Movement in Ferment interest in the life and achievements of Ronald In 2009, a new era of conservative maneuvering Reagan. Critics scoff at this as mere nostalgia, the began. It did not commence auspiciously. Last year, right-wing equivalent of the liberal cult of John F. The New York Times’s technology columnist David Kennedy. It is much more than that, of course, but Pogue listed the five stages of grieving when you memories of the Gipper do remind conservatives of lose your computer files: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, better days and reflect the feeling of disorientation Depression, and Moving to Amish Country. It that many on the Right now feel. sounded like a fair description of the mood gripping many American conservatives in the wake of the A more subtle ingredient in this mix has been the 2008 election. efflorescence in the past decade of historical schol- arship about American conservatism since World Well. Have conservatives really lost their “com- War II, much of it written by young liberal histori- puter files”? Certainly, evidence abounds of a politi- ans. This is not necessarily a sign of declension, but cal and intellectual movement in ferment. One sign it certainly testifies to the growing passage of time: of this is the growing tendency on the Right to clas- The conservative movement has now been around sify conservatives into ever smaller groupings: neo- long enough to be the object of academic inquiry.

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To put it another way, modern American conser- concentrate their minds, it became easier for former vatism, a marginalized orphan in academia when I allies to succumb to the bane of all coalitions: the began research on it a generation ago, has become sectarian temptation, the tendency to go it alone. middle-aged. Which, of course, raises the uncom- Cropping up in both of these sets of explanations fortable question: Are old age and remarginalization from time to time has been a kind of historical just around the corner? determinism: the notion that political and intellec- Explaining the Conservative Predicament tual movements, like individuals and nations, have immutable life cycles. Just as it was once believed Current explanations of the conservative predic- that civilizations ineluctably pass from barbarism to ament tend to fall into two distinct categories. The arcadian bliss to urban prosperity and eventual rot first stresses the movement’s political failures and and decline, so, it sometimes seems, must the con- frustrations during the recent presidency of George servative movement itself pass, in Jacques Barzun’s W. Bush. With the exception of its tax-cutting poli- phrase, from dawn to decadence. This half-articu- cies and judicial nominations, Bush’s Administra- lated theory of social entropy underlies much of the tion, at least on the home front, now seems to many recent giddiness on the Left about conservatism’s conservative stalwarts to have been in considerable prospects—and perhaps some of the angst that one degree a liberal Republican Administration—more finds among some commentators on the Right. akin to and than to . Foundations of Modern The second cluster of explanations for conserva- American Conservatism tism’s present malaise focuses not so much on exter- So, then, is the house of conservatism about to nal political circumstances as on internal factors— collapse? How firm are the foundations of modern that is, the structure and dynamics of the conserva- American conservatism? I suggest to you that they tive movement itself. Perhaps the most important are sturdier than many observers think. ______First, when examining the epiphenomena of Perhaps the most important thing to understand contemporary politics, especially in our era of ever about modern American conservatism is more frenzied and frothy news cycles, it is helpful to that it is not, and has never been, univocal. remember the ancient adage: “This, too, shall pass It is a coalition with many points of origin and away.” The divisive Bush presidency is over, and diverse tendencies, not always easy to reconcile many of the “external” political circumstances that with one another. so dismayed conservatives in recent years have ______begun to dissipate. thing to understand about modern American con- As George Orwell reminded us years ago, one of servatism is that it is not, and has never been, univo- the temptations to which intellectuals are suscepti- cal. It is a coalition with many points of origin and ble is to assume that whatever is happening right diverse tendencies, not always easy to reconcile now will continue to happen—that tomorrow will with one another. inevitably look just like today. In some ways it will, but in some ways it won’t. Certainly the future is Now, so long as the continued, this preconditioned by the past, but it is not predeter- coalition held together reasonably well. Anticom- mined by the past. We are creatures of our mental munism—a conviction shared by nearly every- constructs and our life experiences, yes, but we are one—supplied much of the essential unifying not robots. cement. But with the end of the Cold War in the ear- ly 1990s and the departure from office of the ecu- The longer I study history, the more impressed I menical Reagan, long-suppressed centrifugal am by the importance of contingency—the unfore- tendencies resurfaced on the American Right, as we seen and the unforeseeable—in the shaping of well know. Without a common foe on whom to . American conservatives, I believe, instinctively look upon our history in this way:

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______A third source of durability for conservatives is American conservatives…instinctively look this: On the home front, the cohesion that was once upon our history…not simply as a burden and supplied by Cold War anticommunism has increas- constraint, but as possibility. ingly come from another “war”: the so-called cul- ______ture war, pitting an alliance of conservative Roman Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and Orthodox not simply as a burden and constraint, but as possi- Jewish believers against a post–Judeo-Christian, bility. They should therefore take heart (and indeed even anti-Christian, secular elite whom they per- are already doing so) from the knowledge that this ceive to be aggressively hostile to their deepest con- moment, too, shall pass away. victions. Every day, fresh tremors break out along Second, in their fixation on the sound and fury of this fault line over abortion, , “death pan- the stormy present, it is easy for conservatives to els,” the definition of marriage, and the composition overlook and undervalue one of their most impres- of the federal courts. sive achievements during the past 40 years: the cre- Last year, the clash appeared in then-Senator ation of a veritable conservative counterculture, a Obama’s claim that “bitter” rural Americans “cling” burgeoning infrastructure of alternative media, to God and guns. Today, as I speak, it is front and foundations, research centers, think tanks, publish- center in the fight over federal funding of abortions ing houses, law firms, home-schooling networks, ______and more. From the Beltway to the blogosphere, these clusters of purposeful energy continue to mul- For the foreseeable future, the perception of an tiply and flourish. They comprise a significant part irrepressible conflict between conservative people of faith and the secular Left is likely to of what has been called the “influence industry” in energize large sectors of the American Right. Washington. ______From the perspective of a historian, this flower- ing of applied conservatism, this elaborate institu- in the Senate health care bill. It is a struggle literally tionalization of conservative impulses and ideas, is a over the meaning of right and wrong, a battle (for remarkable intellectual and political development. conservatives) against what Pope Benedict has called “the tyranny of relativism.” Think of it: When eminent conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley Jr., Richard Weaver, and Early in 2008, it became fashionable in the Russell Kirk were writing in the 1950s and early 1960s, media to suggest that the culture wars were over as the number of publicly active, professing conserva- a salient feature of American life. But, oh, the unpre- tive intellectuals in the was minuscule. dictable contingencies of history: In the meteoric Today, how can we begin to count? Since 1980, ascent of to national prominence, and in ______the storm of publicity that has enveloped her ever since, the smoldering culture wars (in some ways This flowering of applied conservatism, this also a class war) have reignited. For the foreseeable elaborate institutionalization of conservative future, the perception of an irrepressible conflict impulses and ideas, is a remarkable intellectual between conservative people of faith and the secular and political development. Left is likely to energize large sectors of the Ameri- ______can Right. prosperity has come to American conservatism and Fourth, and perhaps most important of all, the with it a multitude of niche markets and specializa- seems likely to survive for a tion on a thousand fronts. The fruit of a generation while because most of the external stimuli that of successful conservative institution building has goaded it into existence have not disappeared. On reached a critical mass that seems unlikely to crumble the contrary, they have recently grown stronger and anytime soon. This augurs well for the continued in- more threatening. The Berlin Wall may be gone, and fluence of conservatism on our national conversation. with it the unifying force of anticommunism, but

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fresh authoritarian challenges abound overseas on any tendency to relax. Consider, for example, the many fronts, while at home the drive to tax, regu- phenomenon known as globalization. When we use late, and even socialize the private sector gathers this word, we tend to think first of the globalization force. Large swatches of American cultural life— of markets, of in goods and services across notably the universities, the major media, and the national borders. entertainment industry—continue to move in But far more significant, I think, in the long term directions antithetical to conservative beliefs. For is the accelerating globalization of human migration defenders of Judeo-Christian ethics—and that means patterns, with cultural and political consequences most conservatives—there is still a potent enemy on that we have scarcely begun to fathom. More people the Left. are now on the move in the world than at any time ______in the history of the human race, and more and The most hopeful portent for conservatives, more of them are making America their destination. paradoxically, may be the very audacity and The number of international students, for instance, even hubris of their ideological foes. attending American colleges and universities is now ______approximately 600,000 per year—a figure more than double what it was in 1980. This awareness of a revived external challenge Meanwhile, increasing numbers of Americans from the Left is integral to the prospects for American are electing to live outside the United States. At least conservatism in the years just ahead. The most four to six million Americans are now permanent hopeful portent for conservatives, paradoxically, may residents abroad. Among American college stu- be the very audacity and even hubris of their ideo- dents, particularly those matriculating at elite insti- logical foes. As the Obama Administration and its tutions, it is now quite common to spend part of congressional supporters have lurched leftward, talk one’s junior year overseas, something very few of a conservative crackup has all but disappeared— could afford to do just a generation ago. at least on the Right. More quickly and effectively than many observers thought possible, President This unprecedented intermingling of peoples Obama’s initiatives have galvanized his intellectual and cultures, abetted by expanding air travel and and political opponents into fervent resistance. the incredible velocity of mass communication, has already begun to have ideological ramifications. In A Revived Spirit of Insurgency the United States: A spirit of insurgency has swiftly returned to • It has been accompanied by the emergence of conservative ranks. The language of liberty—“Don’t multiculturalism as the driving dogma of our tread on me”—has acquired new resonance on the educational system. Right and beyond. Just as Sarah Palin’s candidacy in • It has been accompanied by the deliberate 2008 reinvigorated millions of despondent grass- dilution of traditional civic education and the roots conservatives, the reality of liberalism in power resultant explosion of cultural illiteracy about in 2009 has bestirred them even more. America’s heritage. The setbacks of 2008 and the “tea party” protests • It has been accompanied, in the field of histori- of 2009 have taught the Right a valuable lesson: In ography, by narratives which accentuate the fail- the words of the computer scientist Alan Kay, “The ures and blemishes of the American experience. best way to predict the future is to invent it.” As 2009 gives way to 2010, resurgent conservatives • It has been accompanied by the rise of a liberal, seem determined to do just that. cosmopolitan elite imbued with a post-national, even anti-national sensibility and motivated by Nevertheless, spirit alone cannot do it all. Ideas, what the historian John Fonte calls “transna- too, have consequences, as Richard Weaver long tional progressivism”—an ideology profoundly ago reminded us, and it is in this realm that conser- antithetical to conservative beliefs. vatives face long-term challenges that should curb

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David Gelertner of Yale University put it this campaign. Behind the disputes last year over public way just before Thanksgiving in a blog at National policy and personal fitness for the presidency, Review Online: behind the vehemence of the surround- Each year there is less Americanism and more ing Governor Palin, lurked the question: What kind globalism among our leading citizens, less of a polity does America desire to become? knowledge and more sophistication. Among As the conservative British commentator Gerard children, less interest in Thanksgiving and a Baker has noted, the election of 2008 turned into a small band of fierce Christians hanging onto a “struggle between the followers of American excep- new world by their fingertips, [and] more in- tionalism and the supporters of global universal- terest in Black Friday, the perfect post-Chris- ism.” As the election outcome made plain, American tian feast. conservatives have not yet adequately articulated What does all this portend for the party of the their convictions in terms that can appeal to people Right? For generations, American conservatives outside their own camp and particularly to those have been united in their defense of our nation, of whom called the “verbalizers” of our inherited constitutional order, against enemies our society. both foreign and domestic—something relatively ______easy to do during the Cold War but increasingly Behind the disputes last year over public policy difficult today. Traditionally, American conservatives and personal fitness for the presidency, behind have been Eurocentric in their political and cultural the vehemence of the culture war surrounding discourse, but how can conservatives convincingly Governor Palin, lurked the question: What kind articulate this perspective to non-European immi- of a polity does America desire to become? grants and to millions of superficially educated ______young Americans, and at a time when much of Europe itself no longer seems Eurocentric? On this point, consider a demographic datum from These are not idle questions. In 2008, the politi- the last election. Make a list, as Ronald Brownstein cal scientist James Ceaser observed that for 30 years, and David Wasserman have done, of all the counties the conservative movement in the United States has in the United States with at least 20,000 people. been defending ideas “that almost all other nations Then look at the 100 “best educated” of these coun- in the West are abandoning”: “the concept of the ties: those having the highest percentage of college nation itself,” “the importance of Biblical religion,” graduates, defined as people over the age of 25 with and “the truth of natural right” philosophy. - a bachelor’s degree or higher. Most of these coun- ally, Americans have adhered to a form of national ties—America’s so-called Diploma Belt—used to be self-understanding that scholars term American Republican. That is no longer the case. In 1988, the exceptionalism. Ronald Reagan did, and he carried Democratic presidential candidate carried only 36 the country with him. Now, increasingly, the of these 100 counties. Last year, the Democratic Reaganite vision of American goodness and unique- candidate won 78 of them. ness that most conservatives embrace seems both Another datum sends a similar warning signal more exceptional and more vulnerable than ever. to conservatives. According to exit polling statis- tics cited by , 50 percent of Amer- Making the Case icans aged 30 and over voted in 2008 for Barack With what arguments, symbols, rituals, and Obama. In other words, Americans aged 30 and vocabulary can conservatives make their case for up were divided almost evenly in that election. the American way of life that they cherish to those But among voters aged 29 and under, Obama won for whom the traditional arguments, symbols, ritu- by a margin of 66 percent to 32 percent. It was the als, and vocabulary are either unfamiliar or seem widest “generation gap” in the history of American hopelessly passé? Again, this is not a trivial concern. exit polling—and probably in the history of the It lay at the heart of our recent presidential election United States.

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All this prompts me to ask: ______• Isn’t it time that conservatives create a kind of Sophisticated discourse is thriving on the conservative version of National Public Radio, American Right. But it also appears that, in or at least a coordinated network of conserva- this Age of the Internet, too much conservative tive equivalents of NPR’s Fresh Air, On Point, advocacy has been reduced to sound-bite and Talk of the Nation programs, devoted not certitudes and sterile clichés. just to daily political combat and commentary, ______but to conservatively oriented cultural explora- tions of the broadest character? It is not a new problem. In fact, it is a perennial problem, the essence of which Whittaker Chambers • Isn’t it time to revive the great 1970s television captured long ago. “Each age,” he wrote, “finds its program The Advocates, which featured periodic, own language for an eternal meaning.” prime-time, nationally televised, 90-minute, live debates on public television between liberal Conclusion and conservative attorneys and supporting teams What do conservatives want? To put it in elemen- of expert witnesses? (As some of you may recall, tary terms, we want to be free, we want to live virtu- William A. Rusher was the conservative star of ous and productive lives, and we want to be secure that series.) from threats beyond and within our borders. We • Isn’t it time to revive Firing Line or something want to live in a society which sustains and encour- like it? ages these aspirations: freedom, virtue, safety—goals Surely, the talent, the resources, and the audience reflected in the libertarian, traditionalist, and nation- are there to make such acts of cultural reclamation al security dimensions of the conservative move- worth attempting. ment and coalition. But to achieve these perennial goals, we must communicate in language that con- What Do Conservatives Want? nects not only with ourselves, but with the great This leads me to a final observation. I am a histo- majority of the American people in all stations of life. rian of American conservatism, and I can happily Can it be done? I think it can. If there is one thing report that sophisticated discourse is thriving on that virtually all conservatives hold in common, it the American Right. But it also appears to me that is the conviction that there is indeed an “eternal conservatives spend much of their time, in current meaning,” a fount of wisdom to be drawn upon parlance, “cocooning” with one another and that, through thick and thin. And believing this, we in this Age of the Internet, too much conservative can smile and persevere. The recent past has been advocacy has been reduced to sound-bite certitudes unsettling to American conservatives, but the and sterile clichés. immediate future is waiting to be invented. And in What do conservatives want? Limited govern- the words of William F. Buckley Jr. nearly 50 years ment, they answer; free enterprise, strict construction ago, “the wells of regeneration are infinitely deep.” of the Constitution, fiscal responsibility, patriotism, —Dr. George H. Nash is a Senior Fellow at the traditional values, and respect for the sanctity of Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, an Associate human life. No doubt, but I wonder: How much of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at are these traditional formulations and abstractions Grand Valley State University, and the author of The inspiring the rising generation (present company Conservative Intellectual Movement in America excepted)? How much are they resonating with Since 1945 and The Life of . This America’s new immigrants and dominant profes- lecture is adapted, with the kind permission of ISI sional classes, particularly those in the more secu- Books, from the introduction and concluding chapter of larized, urbanized, and globalized regions of this Dr. Nash’s Reappraising the Right: The Past and country? Future of American Conservatism (2009).

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