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Conservatives “Getting Back in the Game”? |
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Ross Douhat thinks it’s about conservatives applying core convictions to today’s pressing questions:
What Yglesias says here about conservatives and transportation policy - that there are plenty of free-market reforms that the Right could and should be championing, but isn’t - applies to a host of topics. I was on a later panel at the NRI event he cites, and I tried to make exactly this point: On too many issues, conservatives have simply avoided the most important emerging debates, changing the subject whenever possible and leaving liberals to argue against liberals when it isn’t. This is true, too often, in transportation and infrastructure policy; it’s been true for some time in the climate change debate (though I’m hopeful that this changing); and it’s often true in education, where the most interesting arguments are between liberal reformers and liberal interest groups, with conservatives sitting on the sideline talking about vouchers and occasionally praising the Michelle Rhees and Corey Bookers of the world.
This problem is not, repeat not, a matter of conservatives needing to abandon their core convictions in order to win elections, as right-of-center reformers are often accused of doing. Rather, it’s a matter of conservatives needing to apply their core convictions to questions like “how do we mitigate the worst effects of climate change?” and “how do we modernize our infrastructure?” and “how do we encourage excellence and competition within our public school bureaucracy?” instead of just letting liberals completely monopolize these debates, while the Right talks about porkbusting and not much else.
And I think that’s hogwash. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. How are you going to jump in on the climate change debate in a credible fashion without squeezing out the global warming deniers? What’s the free market solution to climate change anyway? Go ahead and tell me that it’s about “raising consciousness” and taking shorter showers and you’ll start to sound like the dirtiest of dirty hippie environmentalists.
Either someone will have to give up their core principles or the idea becomes laughable.
There comes a time when people either decide to shut down a debate or when one side goes completely reactionary. Mainstream people in our country no longer debate whether slavery should be legal or not, or whether women should be allowed to vote or not. One side lost those debates and was silenced except for in a few radical pockets of America. I anticipate conservatives will have to make the same choice regarding climate change: either admit it’s a problem and hence accept the need for a government solution, or continue to cling to your madness. There’s not much of a middle ground, I’m afraid.
And I suspect that despite pretty words and pretty thoughts from people like Douhat, we’re not going to see a leap toward rational debate - or the center/center-left - from American conservatives any time soon. Y’all have a few more reactionaries in your deck. So America will go a few more rounds over these issues.
Like Digby says,
I’ve lived long enough now that I’ve seen the zombie conservatives rise more than once. They aren’t dead, I guarantee it.
Interesting thoughts. As far as climate change, I suspect the corporate right knows in its hearts that climate change is real, they’re just trying to slow down changes in policy so they can hold onto their profits for as long as possible.
I think Jim is right. Corporate leaders by and large are well informed enough to know that climate change is coming, and the consequences will be huge. But for now, profits keep rolling in, and shareholders are narrow minded and short sighted when it comes to dividends and share price.
I think some of our corporate captains are looking over their shoulders at each other a little nervously, wondering who will be daring enough to brave shareholder wrath and start re-investing profits into climate-friendly plant and policy instead of paying fat dividends. There’s bound to come a tipping point as climate disasters escalate, but with this kind of setup for the control of wealth, I fear it will come far too late if left to itself.