Moving from Left to Right
James Delingpole's post today about "trolls" mentioned Paul Johnson, a great British historian who moved from left to right. I can think of many other examples: James Burnham and Frank Meyer, both foundational in the creation of National Review, Whitaker Chambers, author of Witness, P. J. O' Rourke, Sidney Hook, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Malcolm Muggeridge, Melanie Phillips, David Horowitz, and many more.
On the other hand, it is hard for me to identify many who moved the opposite direction: Garry Wills, David Brooks and David Frum (though they really moved from right to center), David Brock (whom no one should count as an intellectual--he's a hired gun with no principles).
Who have I missed?
Why to they do it? I'm sure there are a variety of reasons that people move from the left to the right, but I feel the central elements are (1) a realization that the left is ultimately the enemy of freedom and economic vitality and (2) the perception that the conservatism (or classical liberalism, if you prefer) is based on universal first principles.
Your thoughts?
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Comments :
Jul '11
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Taxes convert more than a few as does just growing up in general. Those who initially buy in to what most university professors vomit daily often turn quite dramatically away from the darkside when the sunshine of conservatism rises in their breast.
Nov '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Michael Medved moved from left to right, and documented the process in his book Right Turns. Medved is not as good a writer as he is a radio host, though.
Nov '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Michael Lind used to be on the right.
And of course...Arianna Huffington.
Edited on Dec 23, 2011 at 6:01pmMay '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
No one, really, except of course for 90% of people who get elected to office and move to Washington.
Jun '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Robert Lux: Michael Lind used to be on the right.
And of course...Arianna Huffington. · Dec 23 at 6:00pm
Edited on Dec 23 at 06:01 pm
I know little about Lind--is he a real player? As to Huffington, you're certainly right--however, I've always felt that Huffington has always been more interested in a business plan than political principles. I'll take Tom Sowell for her any day.
Jun '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Cynical, but true.
Jun '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
My mom. It's depressing.
Sep '11
Re: Moving from Left to Right
On the left to right move: a common thread might be the sense that one was living in abstractions. I suspect the figures you mentioned were increasingly bothered by having to adapt facts to fit a theory. They became acute of observers of human experience, the concrete realities of everyday life, and the consequences of political decisions for people (thinking here especially of Chambers, Kristol, Podhoretz).
Nov '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
I'll bet more than a few of our members wasted part of their youths on the left.
May '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
1) Michael Lind was never really conservative, nor was Garry Wills. Both were t5alented WFB proteges who got some experience at NR, then did their real thing.
2) David Frum is not that much different from the way he ever was. He has always been skeptical of radical change, for example, flat tax, etc., due to political viability issues. Most of what he compromises on now is less conviction than political expediency. He has never been a fiery reformer.
May '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Re: Moving from Left to Right
We've all seen the pattern of the young moving left to right as they get older.
What I never really considered is why the default position is to start left.
Any ideas? Is it schools?
Jun '11
Re: Moving from Left to Right
David Mamet: Left to Right
Andrew Sullivan: Right to Left
Winston S. Churchill: Right to Left to Right into our Yankee hearts...
Ronald Reagan: Democrat Celeb to Leader of Conservative Revolution & Liberator of the Oppressed
Me: Right - High School > Left - College & too much of my young adulthood > Caveman - Dad/Greybeard :D
Edited on Dec 24, 2011 at 5:43amMay '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
He's also never been pro-life, a key indicator of unreliability, in my view.
Andrew Sullivan is another instance of same.
Here's another general trend--it doesn't account for every case, but it's a pattern. Kids grow up in conservative families and generally absorb their parents' thinking and values. Then they go to college, start indulging in immorality, and jettison inconvenient truths that interfere with their living just the way they please. At that point, liberalism looks like the thing to be.
Later, at least many of them wake up, revert to the faith of their childhood, get back on the straight and narrow, and become conservative in their politics.
Edited on Dec 24, 2011 at 6:03amMay '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Tommy De Seno: We've all seen the pattern of the young moving left to right as they get older.
What I never really considered is why the default position is to start left.
Any ideas? Is it schools? · Dec 24 at 5:37am
It's propaganda in schools, but it's also--more importantly— immoral living. Start indulging in bad behavior and before you know it, you don't see anything wrong with bad behavior. And you begin to resent limits of any kind.
May '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Will I ever be able to post a comment without immediately having to edit for typos?
May '10
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Tommy De Seno: We've all seen the pattern of the young moving left to right as they get older.
What I never really considered is why the default position is to start left.
Any ideas? Is it schools? · Dec 24 at 5:37am
Maybe it's Sowell's idea that liberals see only see the immediate, emotionally satisfying Stage 1 of a particular policy, not the less-obvious, harmful Stage 2, which takes time and wisdom to grasp:
Give open-ended cash to a poor mother and her child (at the price of subsidizing fatherless homes, thus destroying the inner-city family); tax the rich (and destroy their incentives to create wealth); raise the minimum wage (and deny an unskilled worker entrance into the job market); mock religion (and lose the time-tested, moral foundations of society); create ever-more "rights" (and then struggle with the corresponding, road-to-serfdom duties), etc.
Re: Moving from Left to Right
I made the journey from left to right in my undergraduate years. I started out on the left because I opposed the Vietnam War and favored the civil rights movement. I started moving right when I began recognizing that the left was hostile to intellectual and academic freedom. I completed that journey when I recognized that the left would not defend the country. The New Left and the Black Power Movement made me a conservative of sorts. Jimmy Carter persuaded me that there would never again be a Democratic Presidential nominee whom I could support.
Re: Moving from Left to Right
Scott Reusser
Tommy De Seno: We've all seen the pattern of the young moving left to right as they get older.
What I never really considered is why the default position is to start left.
Any ideas? Is it schools? · Dec 24 at 5:37am
Maybe it's Sowell's idea that liberals see only see the immediate, emotionally satisfying Stage 1 of a particular policy, not the less-obvious, harmful Stage 2, which takes time and wisdom to grasp:
Give open-ended cash to a poor mother and her child (at the price of subsidizing fatherless homes, thus destroying the inner-city family); tax the rich (and destroy their incentives to create wealth); raise the minimum wage (and deny an unskilled worker entrance into the job market); mock religion (and lose the time-tested, moral foundations of society); create ever-more "rights" (and then struggle with the corresponding, road-to-serfdom duties), etc. · Dec 24 at 6:04am
Nicely put. Very nicely put.
Re: Moving from Left to Right
I doubt it. I certainly will not be able to do so.