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Right Doesn’t Need Leader to Revitalize Itself:
We already have a Galvanizing Idea, Freedom

by

With a recent Gallup poll showing that conservatives outnumber liberals in every state, even the President’s Illinois and socialist Bernie Sanders’ Vermont, it is clear, to paraphrase Mark Twain, that reports of the death of the conservative movement are premature.

And while some may say we need a leader to begin anew, the signs of the revitalization of conservatism are everywhere.  Many (if not most) of those gathering in public squares and congressional town halls to take issue with the Democrats’ proposed health care overhaul may not identify as conservatives.  But, by the very questions they raise, they stand up for a basic tenet of American conservatism:  distrust of big government.

Poll after poll show the American people continue to oppose ever increasing government spending, with a July Gallup survey showing that the primary reason for “disapproval of the president’s economic policies was, literally, ‘spending too much.’”  In short, conservative ideas continue to resonate.  We don’t need a leader to galvanize our base (but we will need leaders to defeat increasingly unpopular spendthrift Democratic politicians).

That the issues continue to rally the right (that Gallup survey showed that 65% of those who disapproved of Obama did so because of issues*) shows the contrast between the revitalized conservative movement and the fading appeal of the movement which propelled the President to power.  Obama’s movement was little more than a personality cult built on his image.  The “Tea Parties” and the spontaneous expressions of opposition to Obamacare grow out of an idea, the same one that motivated patriots in thirteen British colonies to take first to the streets and harbors, then to arms, in the 1770s:  freedom.

In recent years, the left was first united in opposition to George W. Bush, then in support of his successor.  We conservatives (and libertarians) have long been drawn to an idea.  Had George W. Bush and congressional Republicans understood the importance of small-government principles to their conservative base, the former may have left office with higher approval ratings and many of the latter might still be in office.

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*Whereas only 17% of those who approved his performance cited “issues” as the reason for their support.

Comments

  2. I think my favorite part of this post is the complete lack of anything resembling policy or a coherent governing direction. That’s why it can be trotted out, year after year, politician after politician, one spendthrift Republican after religious-right-embracing, freedom-restricting Republican after another. It doesn’t ever have to translate to anything. The fact that nearly every elected Republican in office spent years in office doing precisely the opposite of what this article spoke of is irrelevant. Conservatism cannot fail, as Balloon Juice once said – it can only be failed.
    At which point you pretend you believe in all the things you never governed under while you had power, accuse your political enemy of hating America and freedom, print the bumper stickers, and run again. Sad.

  3. It should be no surprise that you don’t understand freedom as a guiding principle, torrentprime; after all, it involves thinking for yourself and avoiding mindless conformity to talking points, and you’ve shown a singular inability to do either.

  4. one spendthrift Republican after religious-right-embracing, freedom-restricting Republican after another. It doesn’t ever have to translate to anything.

    Citation Needed.

  5. The Faustian bargain the left makes is the promise of complete freedom to do anything you want to anybody without consequences in the bedroom in exchange for utter and complete micromanagement of their lives outside the bedroom. For the left, freedom begins and ends at the gonads.