A PUBLicaTION OF HILLSDALE COLLEGE ImpOVERr 2,700,000imi READERS MOsNTHLY January 2014 • Volume 43, Number 1 The Tea Party, Conservatism, and the Constitution Charles R. Kesler Editor, Claremont Review of Books CHARLES R. KESLER is the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and editor of the Claremont Review of Books. He received his A.B., his A.M., and his Ph.D. in government from Harvard University. He is editor of the Signet Classic edition of The Federalist Papers; editor of and a contributor to Saving the Revolution: The Federalist Papers and the American Founding; co-editor, with William F. Buckley, Jr., of Keeping the Tablets: Modern American Conservative Thought; and author of I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Future of Liberalism. The following is adapted from a speech delivered on October 21, 2013, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series. The Tea Party movement is named, of course, for the famous event in late 1773 when cases of tea were dumped unceremoniously into the Boston harbor. The Boston Tea Party—a carefully orchestrated strike against a commodity that was being taxed and sold by a monopoly provider—was intended as a one-time thing, though it ended up being an important link in the chain of events that led to the American Revolution. Today’s Tea Party, on the other hand, has ambitions to become an ongoing force—maybe even the major force—in American conservatism. And it strives for a revolution of its own, a return to a more limited, more constitutional form of government. If I had to judge its performance so far, I would say that it has been courageous and right in its diagnosis of the problems facing American politics, but somewhat off in its prescriptions. When I say the Tea Party is correct in its diagnosis, I mean it is correct in its very clear sense that Obamacare is not just another costly, bureaucratic, top-down, HILLSDALE COLLEGE: PURSUING TRUth • DEFENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1844 regulatory scheme, of which we have, to overturn contemporary liberalism alas, so many. There is something genu- itself; as liberals today are so fond of say- inely tyrannical (despite the good inten- ing, there is no turning back the clock. tions of many of its supporters) about To liberals the Tea Party appears, well, Obamacare. It threatens not only to ruin bonkers, precisely because it recalls the our medical care system, but indirectly American Revolution, and in doing so and directly—and sooner as well as implies that it might not be such a bad later—to subvert our form of govern- thing to have another revolution—or ment and our way of life, fundamentally at least a second installment of the changing the relation between citizens original—in order to roll back the bad and government. government that is damaging both the safety and happiness of the American people. Hubris and Nemesis This is the position, for instance, of Sam Tanenhaus, former editor of In a way, you can see how danger- the New York Times Book Review and ous Obamacare is by noticing how it has author of The Death of Conservatism. brought out the worst in liberals—which For Tanenhaus, conservatism is good is evident in how they have responded to insofar as it consolidates and preserves the Tea Party. Liberal impatience with the liberal order. If conservatism turns partisanship—that is, with people who revolutionary, i.e., attempts to roll back oppose their plans—arises from the fact the liberal order, then it exceeds its com- that in contemporary liberalism, there mission—it goes off the reservation, so is no publicly acknowledged right of to speak—because liberalism stands for revolution. That may seem like a strange progress and progress is final. President thing to say, but if Obama himself made one looks at some of Imprimis (im-pri-mis),−´ this point a few years the political theo- [Latin]: in the first place ago regarding national rists who were most EDITOR health care: “I am important to modern Douglas A. Jeffrey not the first presi- DEPUTY EDITORS or statist liberal- Rebecca Burgess dent to take up this ism—Kant and Hegel Timothy W. Caspar cause,” he said, “but I COPY EDITOR in Germany, say, or Monica VanDerWeide am determined to be Woodrow Wilson ART DIRECTOR the last.” But in fact, here in the United Angela E. Lashaway Obamacare’s strained MARKETING DIRECTOR States—they are usu- William Gray and narrow victory ally quite explicit PRODUCTION MANAGER in 2010 looked not so in rejecting a right Lucinda Grimm much inevitable as CIRCULATION MANAGER of revolution. In Wanda Oxenger desperate. It passed by their view, a people STAFF ASSISTANTS a party line vote, with Robin Curtis always has in the Kim Ellsworth rampant side deals to Kathy Smith long run the govern- Mary Jo Von Ewegen buy out the relevant ment it deserves. So interest groups, and there’s no right of the Copyright © 2014 Hillsdale College against bitter resis- The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not people to “abolish,” necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. tance that has not gone Permission to reprint in whole or in part is as the Declaration of hereby granted, provided the following credit away. Then came its Independence pro- line is used: “Reprinted by permission from disastrous rollout and Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.” claims, the prevail- SUBSCRIPTION FREE UPON REQUEST. its failure to meet any ing form of govern- ISSN 0277-8432 of its own targets for ment and substitute Imprimis trademark registered in U.S. success. All of which Patent and Trademark Office #1563325. a better one. In suggests overexten- particular, there is sion and hubris on no conceivable right the part of liberalism, 2 JANUARY 2014 • VOLUME 43, NUMBER 1 < hillsdale.edu and in the wake of this hubris the Tea the old constitutional mechanisms of Party has confirmed itself as Obama’s, judicial review and separation of pow- and Obamacare’s, devoted nemesis. ers did not seem capable of defending What the Tea Party needs now is the Constitution against this funda- a strategy—something it has so far mental challenge, and that the only conspicuously lacked—to allow it to recourse would be a direct appeal to achieve its worthy ends. Thinking the American people—to the ultimate through a strategy will help clarify source of authority for any constitution. those ends: What is it, exactly, that the To them, John Roberts’s about-face Tea Party means by limited govern- revealed the failure, maybe even the ment? Limited to what? And limited treachery, of the governing establish- by what? Clearly the Tea Party’s form ment—including the establishment of conservatism points back to the Republicans who had nominated and Constitution as the basis for restoring backed Roberts as chief justice. That American government. But how practi- judgment might be unfair—at the very cally to move in that direction? least it is not completely true—but in The Tea Party rightly concluded any case, the Tea Party concluded that from the battles over Obamacare that it was now urgently necessary to raise what we are seeing in our politics these the consciousness of the American days is not two clashing interpretations people to this new threat. of the same Constitution, but increas- At this point we should note the ingly two different Constitutions in con- paradoxical character of the Tea Party: flict: the old Constitution of 1787 and a It is a populist movement to defend “living” Constitution that is not just a the Constitution, but the Constitution different approach to the original, but is meant, among other things, to limit an alternative to it. The extraordinary populism in our politics—to channel, fight the Tea Party was willing to put up moderate, and refine popular passion arose from this fact—that Obamacare through constitutional forms, such as amounted to a colossal battle between elections, officeholding, and the rule two different ways of government. of law. The point was to ensure, as The And it was the Tea Party and President Federalist put it, that the reason, not Obama who shared a clear under- the passion, of the public would control standing of the stakes; mainstream and regulate the government. So it Republican leaders understood them was incumbent on the Tea Party to try with much less clarity and intensity. to keep its populist means in line with its constitutional ends. And it is in this respect that the Tea Party has some- Matching Means times fallen short. to Ends Last fall, the Tea Party seized upon the latest Continuing Resolution to try The failure of the Supreme Court to bring down Obamacare. Granted, to strike down Obamacare and the Continuing Resolutions, the multi- individual mandate played into the Tea thousand page omnibus spending bills Party’s suspicions. The Court, after that pass for appropriations bills these all, had come close to striking down days, are abdications of Congress’s the act. There were five votes to rule it own budget process and derelictions unconstitutional under the Commerce of its constitutional duty to protect the Clause before Chief Justice Roberts public purse. Yet bad things can some- changed the subject to the taxing times be used for good purposes. But power. When the Court punted on the mainstream Republican leaders warned main question and allowed Obamacare that the Tea Party senators never had to become law, it suggested to Tea Party a realistic plan to obtain the votes to leaders in and out of government that defund Obamacare in the Senate, or 3 HILLSDALE COLLEGE: PURSUING TRUth • DEFENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1844 beyond that to overcome Obama’s veto than defunding it; verifying the sub- pen.