It turns out conservatism isn't dead after all.
It was only a year or so ago we were being told that conservatism had been relegated to the ash heap of history. An obsolete and outdated philosophy bitterly clung to only by angry white tea baggers, racist rubes and gun-totin' hicks.
Recall Newsweek declaring that we are all socialists now. And Colin Powell's assertion that people wanted more government in their lives — not less.
Not surprisingly, rumors of conservatism's death were premature. In fact I'm not sure it can die in what remains a center-right country. But it can be temporarily abandoned. And it certainly was by a big-spending Republican president and congress during the early 2000's. Of course you could argue they had bigger things to focus on such as defending the country against the jihadist onslaught. But that is only a partial excuse.
In many ways we conservatives should thank Barack Obama for stirring the sleeping giant.
A good many people had become turned off to politics. Tired of the abrasive chatter and negativity. After eight years of Bush and the bitter 2000 election and truthers and other weird national distractions it could only be the election of a hard left ideologue — a true believer — to rattle us back to our senses. Had the Democratic party filtered out a pragmatic centrist it is possible none of the current hyper-partisanship would be happening.
But as I have opined before, the Democratic party is historically awful at vetting their candidates during the primary process. At least in the last couple of decades (See Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry). So while we were inundated with commentary that Bush had ruined the Republican brand and that conservatism would wander in the wilderness for a generation, when you look at the big picture, the truth is Bush's unpopularity and the GOP's following slide over those eight years were merely a blip compared to the larger thirty-year decline of the Democratic party.
A decline that has forged that party's angry identity and has led it far from the mainstream.
It is now a party that has allowed its leadership to ratchet their platform and policy way to the left. It is no longer the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. No longer the party of the working man. It's the party of ex-60's radicals and neo-socialist Europhiles and Alinsky revolutionaries.
Kooks in suits. All adopting the appearance of normality. Becoming the man to beat the man. The modern American fifth column of the glorious workers revolution. Down with the long struggle. Patient. Creeping in. Hollowing out the capitalist system from the inside.
It has become something that many Americans find distasteful and scary. A party that welcomes the Cindy Sheehans and Ward Churchills and Noam Chomskys and the 20% or so (my estimate) of people who actually believe maybe we were behind the 9/11 attack — or at least deserved it. While the other 80% — Republican and Democrat — who still cherish the foundations and institutions and goodness of this country find that kind of thinking repulsive and offensive.
It has become a party that is both arrogant and ignorant at the same time. A party that believes it is entitled to rule instead of blessed to represent. More interested in fomenting victimhood in order to sustain voter rolls than to solve real problems.
I believe that while the natural born instinct of most Americans is to resist big government. It is also natural to resist a group which openly works to tear down this country.
The perception that the Democratic party of today doesn't take national security and American sovereignty seriously exists because, well, they don't. They are too busy domestically trying to transform this country into a sunlit dreamland where all needs are attended to by the State.
An ideal and just and "fair" society forcefully created by redistributive social and economic change. A great societal realignment to atone for centuries of imperialist oppression and other perceived global sins. Utopia, at long last — or at least Switzerland.
While the rest of us who live in reality understand that while improvement is a necessity, perfection is a fantasy. And in some cases not a harmless one.
Now the mask is off. And many people — including independents and blue-collar Democrats in Massachusetts — are rejecting what they see. If this is not a repudiation of the current administration's stated agenda what else could it possibly be?
With such a stunningly quick reversal in national opinion, then, how do you explain what happened in 2008 anyway? I'm not sure it can ever be completely understood. But essentially Barack Obama rode an anti-Bush, anti-war wave into office with just the right mixture of superbly canned happy talk about hope and change, GOP missteps and media worship on a level not seen before. No one — except for a few of us — seemed to want to question seriously whether this person was actually right for the job. Whether this former street radical and liberal law professor and cultural Marxist actually deserved to be given the privilege of leading this great nation and the solemn honor of commanding her armies.
It always seemed to me that Obama was just the same old stale populist leftism we've heard for years. Platitudes and cliches. Tired and empty and meaningless words. But many were just taken in by the American Idol marketing, followed the conventional wisdom, and dared not be called out as someone who didn't appreciate the historical significance. After all, if you disagreed with Obama the candidate or didn't care for him, you had the added racial guilt to live with.
Those of us who felt we had the correct sense seem to have been proven right. That this is a man that is all about words and appearances and less about substance and action. So after a year of our President's constant and sometimes bizarre speechifying the backlash has culminated with the stunning victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. A Republican from a deep blue state. A regular guy. A moderate. An average American who drives a truck and believes in limiting government and reducing taxes and treating terrorists as terrorists. A citizen legislator who understands that government does not increase the standard of living of people — liberty does.
The result of this victory seems to have many of the left in a simultaneous state of confusion, denial and delusion.
Well, as our President's former pastor would say, the chickens are coming home to roost.
