The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
It has been almost 60 years since the birth of the modern American conservative movement.
Conservatives have won some electoral victories over those years: two Reagan landslides, the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994, and the Tea Party victories last election.
Yet, in terms of lasting policy changes, what have conservatives accomplished? What do we have to show for so many years of effort?
The answer is, unfortunately, not much.
The primary objective of conservatism has been to limit the size and scope of the government. By this standard, the movement is a near complete failure.
Since Reagan’s election in 1981–the first time conservatives arguably controlled the reins of power–the federal government has continued to grow and grow and grow some more. Federal outlays have more than doubled in constant dollars and Congress—often with Republicans in the majority—has run up over $15 trillion in debt.
Attempts to shrink the federal government have gone nowhere. President Reagan proposed closing the Education and Energy departments. Speaker Gingrich advocated shutting down those departments plus one or two more. Not one federal department has ever been eliminated. Instead, two new departments have been created over the past 25 years: Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.
Other conservative policy goals have come and gone with little progress made: private Social Security accounts, limiting access to abortions, a balanced budget amendment, securing the borders, term limits, tort reform, and so on.
New entitlements programs – often with the support of conservatives – have been enacted (such as Medicare Part D and SCHIP) whereas no one has been able to reform or restrain the growth of old entitlements.
The failure of the conservative movement also pertains to the courts. As Ricochet’s own John Yoo has recently written:
The conservative revolution in constitutional law has fizzled. The court has reaffirmed the right to abortion, intervened in wartime military decisions, upheld distortions of the separation of powers such as the independent counsel statute, and barely nibbled at the outer reaches of the New Deal expansion of federal power over the states.
And this was before Chief Justice John Roberts pulled the rug out from under his conservative brethren with his Obamacare decision.
The conservative movement has certainly had some successes. President Reagan dramatically cut marginal tax rates and indexed those rates to inflation, leading to 20 years of almost uninterrupted economic growth in the United States.
Welfare reform as enacted by the Gingrich-led House was also a big policy victory, cutting welfare caseloads nearly in half.
These two achievements are showing signs of wear, however. Without congressional action, tax rates are set to rise again in 2013. Moreover, it was only last week that President Obama gutted welfare reform by eliminating federal work requirements.
Sixty years of policy battles have left conservatives with little to show for it. Perhaps the leviathan that is the federal government cannot be tamed. Growth in government size and power may be inevitable, with conservatives able to mount nothing more than a rearguard action.
Signs of hope exist, such as the efforts of Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Chris Christie in New Jersey, and Paul Ryan in the House. However, who is to say that the successes of these politicians will be any more enduring than those of their conservative predecessors? Remember, a Republican Congress balanced the federal budget for four straight years in the late 1990s and early 2000s yet we are now running more than a trillion-dollar deficit for the fourth straight year.
After more than a half-century, conservatives must re-evaluate everything, from short-term and long-term policy goals to electoral strategies and tactics. We cannot waste another 60 years without significant and permanent policy achievements. The country cannot afford it.
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Comments:
Apr '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
GOVICIDE: We as conservatives are to blame for our ideology not succeeding, not the politicians.
We have too many small business owners who think they're conservative because they're pro-life and are members of the NRA. But, they employ illegals.
We have too many 70 year olds who think they're conservative because they've always voted Republican and go to church every Sunday. But, they'd never think about burning their Social Security check or their Medicare card.
Many good points. Government money is corrupting. How many farmers are pretty conservative, but take subsidies? They figure "I'm paying taxes just like my neighbors and they're taking the subsidies. I may as well get them, too." Many business owners may not agree with this or that tax deduction in principle, but if their competitors are taking advantage of them, it puts him at a disadvantage to not use them. It's one thing to stand on principle at the voting booth. It's harder to turn down a philosophically objectionable benefit that is already in the law, when you've paying for it with your taxes.
Mar '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
Wish I had more time to respond, but I think part of our problem is this:
We lost the language debate. WFB's famous expression of "Standing athwart history yelling Stop!" may have been a tidy summary of anti-communism of the time, but how can we fight "Progress"?
See, our opponents always use words like "Progressive" or "Socialist" - and these are tough words to counter.
How can we be against progress?
How can we be anti-social?
We're also up against the same forces that took down the Roman republic: victims of our own success, we've grown arrogant in our disregard for old structures that held our society together. Like the Romans, we're now bribing the masses with freebies while the powerful and hyper-wealthy position themselves into coalitions, vying over minor power shifts.
They'll annihilate each other, of course, while taking out the productive sectors in the process (witness even now the war on coal).
The end of the Republic won't be pretty.
Jul '12
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
Good article. Perhaps in '80 there was something worth conserving but a detached assessment has to conclude not anymore. The people have willfully embraced immorality as a positive value and, please correct me if I'm wrong, you never come back from that voluntarily. If there is a coherent 'ideology' for these times, it is reaction not conservatism.
Edited on July 18, 2012 at 3:36amOct '10
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
You want a reason for optimism?
Demography. Conservatives have more babies than liberals. Soon there will be two workers for every retiree … you will see a flat out revolt against shipping half a paycheck to someone’s Granny living in splendor and getting “free” medical care into triple digit longevity. Entitlement culture collapses under these conditions.
You want to contribute to the conservative revolution?
Get married, stay married, have babies in marriage, model “family values.”
Hint: none of that is possible w/o a worldview that makes those behaviors coherent.
Rummy was wrong: the “long war” isn’t against Islamic terror. That’s a mere campaign. The long war is a culture war fought to sustain the American trinity as Dennis Prager explains it in Still the Best Hope. So get on board for the long hard slog. It’s going to be a helluva ride.
May '12
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
Mar '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
Dan Hanson: The problem is that by definition, conservatives generally act as a brake on the progressive impulse, rather than defining a different path forward.
Edited 4 hours ago
Exactly. Being a Conservative means forever trying to prove a negative. Things would be better if we we had more liberty and the equilibrium of truly free markets. But freedom carries risks that people are unwilling to take. After all, free people can fail.
The Progressive advantage is that they offer the one thing that everyone wants: less risk. And the promise for some reason remains much more alluring than the actual results. The 20th century should have proven to everyone that consolidating power in the state is the ultimate risk.
As Thomas Sowell points out, good economic decisions are not the same as good political decisions. Everyone, even Republicans, want to get reelected to fight another day. This hardly ever entails taking goodies away, which Conservatives must do if we are to get where we need to go.
That...or we'll just run out of money. I'm cool with it either way.
Jun '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
When was the last time a politician formally proposed repealing the Sixteenth Amendment or that any state actually repealed its ratification of that amendment?
Sep '10
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
The "conservative" movement has not been a failure. The movement that adopted the name conservative has been quite successful. Members of the ruling class view themselves as superior to ordinary people and use various ideological and political labels in their quest to maintain power so that they can care for the less socially and culturely fortunate. It makes little difference if this group of arrogant pseudo-do-gooders use the labels liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrats or their names are Obama, Romney, or Bush. Conservatism has little to do with liberty or limited government.
Jun '12
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
Progressives have been working to change our society, at least since the Wilson administration (or since T. Roosevelt did the Bull Moose thing) and where they have had great success first, was in the colleges and universitites. Education has been dumbed down, and students spend 12-16 years in school, learning that it is government's role to take care of them, that they are owed stuff! They are NOT taught about the history of the United States, what our constitution means, what it meant at the time of the founding or what the value of individual work can bring. With this background, we are lucky conservative principles have as much success as they do. We need to work much harder to change the education system, then to gain local control, once an educated base exists at the local level, one hopes change at the national level can begin. But it is late in the game.
Economic forces may cause change sooner, but the problem with forced change, is the eventual outcome is uncontrolled, and can result in unwanted results. We need to educate on convervative principles and morals to achieve lasting conservative results.
Mar '12
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
This article is good but doesn't address a real problem within conservatism. There are pro-life/moral conservatives, limited government conservatives, and defense of America conservatives. A recent gesture for Condi Rice would note that many Republicans and conservatives were willing to dump the pro-life/moral conservatives for Condi on the ticket.
Does anyone believe that the Republicans can win a national election if any of the legs of conservatism are dumped?
I was called by the TEA Party, whose principles I generally agree with. I asked the caller about abortion and was told that they had no position on it. I thanked him for his call and hung up.
The Democrats cannot win my vote. They are wretched. The Republicans are the only major party that has a hope to win my vote, and even some financial backing, but I won't support a pro-abort politician. Condi Rice turns me cold.
Until the Republicans and the conservatives figure out who they are and if they want to win election in order change things, they'll lack the Reagans and Gingriches that they need to really change things.
Jan '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
It wasn't just the Left but I think you're correct about what has to happen to reverse it.
This is a problem but only because no one has the spine to defend taking away the goodies or postponing access to them. I can understand why politicians can't say these things but wonder...seriously wonder...why conservative pundits aren't saying these things forcefully and confidently.
Andrew Barrett
But why are conservatives only winning elections intermittently? We are obvious doing something wrong when we have power; see, for example, the Speakership of Dennis Hastert.
I am disturbed by these strung-together words and sentiment.
Edited on July 18, 2012 at 3:33pmMar '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
LowcountryJoe
Andrew Barrett
But why are conservatives only winning elections intermittently? We are obvious doing something wrong when we have power; see, for example, the Speakership of Dennis Hastert.
I am disturbed by these strung-together words and sentiment. · 8 minutes ago
Edited 7 minutes ago
I am confused about why you find these words disturbing. Someone will always "have power," whether it is conservatives, liberals, socialists, or Martians following a galactic invasion. We can use different words: "when politicians hold office"; "when elected officials are entrusted by the citizenry'; etc, but the fact that someone or a group of individuals is in a position of authority to take action will never change. My point was simply that, when conservatives have been entrusted with the reins of government, they have achieved little, and, thus, there has often been no subsequent electoral success.
Jan '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
Hard work or productive and value-added work? Self-sufficiency or taking responsibility for one's own well-being?
I think there are subtle yet distinctive and significant differences.
Yes! Say and write supposedly radical things which defend liberty and free markets and do so without fear. And when confronted, keep at it vigorously; then win the debate!
Mendel
One of the central tenets of both the US Constitution and free market economics is that people will naturally act in their best interest. But once you have a huge entitlement state, maintaining that state is the best interest of most voters - including those who have strong philosophical objections to a large government.
I really do think think that when we're discussing issues with others and it gets to this point in the discussion, it's best to use some combination of shame-instilling and teaching that self-interests could and should have been better served if the state we not involved.
Jan '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
Andrew Barrett
LowcountryJoe
Andrew Barrett
But why are conservatives only winning elections intermittently? We are obvious doing something wrong when we have power; see, for example, the Speakership of Dennis Hastert.
I am disturbed by these strung-together words and sentiment. · 8 minutes ago
Edited 7 minutes ago
I am confused about why you find these words disturbing.
For no other reason than it's a pet-peeve of mine and I'm somewhat fanatical about rejecting state-ism. I like the idea of conservatives "holding office" so that perhaps they'll limit the amount of influence (or if you prefer, power) that they have (wield).
May '12
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
It isn't conservatism that has failed; it is we the people. Conservatism is an oracle, a Cassandra, a prophet without honor in its own country. When the U.S. has journeyed too far down the road of debt and entitlement, conserve principles will still exist, pointing the way to---possibly---a new government and country rising out of the failure of the old.
Jun '12
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
Andrew, I completely sympathize with your well stated comments. At least half the time I am inclined to settle on all of the same grim conclusions. However, earlier today a friend asked me about my trip to Normandy a year ago and in response I was confronted with my own photographs. This one in particular:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sallysadventures/5806036524/in/set-72157626901706804/lightbox/
Some people don't know that this is an excerpt from one of the top 100 speeches of all time, given by Ronald Reagan, and written by Peggy Noonan, which now resides chiseled in stone at Pointe du Hoc, a few miles from the American Cemetery in Normandy, France.
In re-reading it, my conclusion is always the same: I do not have the right to give up, no matter how tempted I am to do so. Failure is not an option, though I may die fighting.
Edited on July 18, 2012 at 11:22pmMar '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
SallyVee: I do not have the right to give up, no matter how tempted I am to do so. Failure is not an option, though I may die fighting. · 19 minutes ago
Edited 17 minutes ago
Thanks for the inspiration, SallyVee. I am far more optimistic than my post implies, yet, after 30 years of supporting the conservative movement, my frustration level is pretty high. I mostly have John Roberts to thank for that these days. We will nonetheless continue the fight.
Apr '11
Re: The Conservative Movement Has Been a Failure
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