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When the New Lines are Drawn, Don’t Abandon the Social Conservatives
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This election cycle has exposed growing divisions in both political parties. It’s almost an assumption at this point that the GOP is heading for an inevitable disintegration, and there’s reason to believe the Democrats might not be far behind. Either way, the victories of Trump and Sanders are seen as indicators of the desire by many voters to upend the status quo. I’ll agree that plenty in the status could use some un-quoing, but whether things get better or worse depends entirely on where the new lines are drawn.
While it may be dealing with some amusing drama, I’m not convinced the Democrats are actually splitting right now. I’d argue they already did, and that’s why Trump is so successful. Democrat voters who want the US to be strong but don’t care much about limited government have found a a home with Trump. Watching Clinton have to work at getting her party’s nomination might be fun, but — at the end of the day — the choice isn’t any more substantial than picking a headache relief medicine: quick-acting or long-lasting? This is an internal dispute over means not ends, and isn’t the sort of thing that leads to new parties.
On the other hand, the Republican party’s internecine inquisitions are coming to a head. After witnessing the momentum of Trump’s candidacy, it’s harder and harder to believe what conservatives have been trying to convince themselves: that a majority of Americans share their principles. Consequently, I don’t think any of the parties (Democrats included) to emerge after the GOP falls apart will be able to win majorities. If Trump continues to succeed, I think we’ll see some sort of Trumpian Big-America party, which will crusade mightily against waste, fraud, and abuse while changing basically nothing. Long-term success may depend on whether or not Trump delivers on the immigration promises, but his current support seems so unflinching even failing to build a wall might not disappoint his supporters.
In the remainder’s attempt to build a majority, I could see a coalition forming between libertarians and conservatives who are willing to drop social issues in favor of wooing the “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” crowd. I hope I’m not just saying this because I am a social conservative, but I think dropping social issues would be a huge mistake.
First, let’s understand that there’s a step between abandonment and tactical positions. I would think most social conservatives would be willing to push for a platform that takes incremental wins on social issues where it can. For instance, a guy like me who thinks abortion is wrong in every instance would still support any law that limits abortion even if it doesn’t go that far. I’d rather save some than none. In other words, I don’t think you have to lose support from social conservatives to gain support from other circles.
However, let’s disabuse ourselves of the notion that social issues are simply pedantic when they are central to the rule of law. Social issues deal with how we respect the bonds we have and form with other people. If we won’t protect defenseless individuals deemed inconvenient, why would we order a society that grants power to the minority? If we believe every emotion or whim has a right to be satisfied, why should we expect a government that doesn’t spend us into oblivion? If we don’t take on the responsibilities we have towards others, the State will fill the void. In time, you’ll end up with a feckless, indebted, bloated government incapable of sustaining itself and a tyranny at worst. (Kinda like that thing we’re trying to avoid right now.)
With respect to the economy, if the only reason I care about the free market is that it produces the best results, I’ll stop caring as soon as I perceive those results to be wanting. If I care about the free market because I believe individuals’ rights to pursue their interests stem from their intrinsic worth as human beings, I’ll recognize that the market is failing not because it is free, but because it is not free enough. Where are people best taught that we have intrinsic worth as individuals? In the family, where it doesn’t matter what you are, but simply that you are.
It may seem attractive, when the dust settles, to leave behind social conservatives and rebrand the GOP as something fresh and new. (Speaking for SoCons, I think it’s fair to say we’re used to it.) Just keep in mind that the law does teach, and if the State doesn’t empower individuals and families, it will take that power for itself, and we’ll end up right back where we started.
Published in Politics
I’m curious if anyone here has been following Rod Dreher? In his telling, the fix was in when the business wing skuttled Indiana’s RFRA legislation. From a recent piece of his over at The American Conservative: “The Indiana RFRA loss was huge because for the first time, Big Business took a side in the culture war — and demolished the socially conservative position. Now you cannot expect the GOP at the national level to defend religious liberty, if only because it offends the business community and the GOP donors.”
I think that the best you or I can hope for in the current moment is a religious liberty carve-out and then order your personal affairs and local governance as best as your conscience permits. Honestly though, I’m not too sanguine.
I think you’re confusing the Ricochet community with the Republican party. The GOP is not devoted to limited and local government.
Here on Ricochet, everybody cites the Constitution, political philosophies, and history. Out in the real world, Republican voters skip political news half the time and are more likely to talk of tax breaks than tax reforms, of regulatory oversights rather than deregulation, and so on.
Reagan employed the bully pulpit refocus voters are right priorities. Real leaders don’t follow the polls.
The fights within the political space are artifacts of the real struggle. We have a scripted culture war when it gets to the political space.
I wouldn’t say fighting in one space precludes fighting in the other. But the fights we have when they get to the political sphere don’t matter. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t hold unfashionable views. I’m saying that politicking on them is not only useless, but actually harmful because it misallocates creative resources. The broader culture doesn’t care about principles, and never will. They care that it’s mean to be a conservative because our mass culture has made it mean.
We’d be better served writing a TV series or book which depicted the successes of our views and how great they were. Or to put it another way, influencing mass culture will be far more successful than influencing politicians. Ultimatley the people get what they want, and mass culture has made them to want harmful things.
The real problem is left has put all these cultural production institutions on lockdown and erected very high barriers to entry for right thinking individuals. They’re all leftists and they want to keep it that way, because they understand the power of being able to produce culture.
I’d be happy just to hear Republican politicians reminding voters that Americans took care of the sick, the elderly, the poor, and downtrodden long before the introduction of social welfare programs.
Generations have grown up with the assumption that government (be it national or local) is supposed to provide for the needy. It is not obvious to them that charity flourishes when left to voluntary services and cultural norms.
By the way, I disagree that culture is independent of politics or vice versa. They influence and depend upon each other. Politics is a practice of ethics (applied morals). There has always been and will always be crossover of moral and political leadership.
Dunno about the rest of the “social-conservative issues”, since those shift frequently. But my generation is shockingly pro-life, something like 2/3rds. Biology classes teaching about DNA and sex ed make the “life starts at conception” position harder to ignore.
Also, as much as all the demographic groups that form the “Obama coalition” are growing, they’re still not voting in midterm elections. 2014 and 2010 were as much about their absence as they were about our passion.
Who shut down the government? As I recall Republicans preemptively capitulated on the budget, didn’t take it up early enough to avoid the false shut down narrative, then jumped all over Cruz for trying to give them back some leverage. Obama shut it down once and spent a small fortune doing so, and Republican leadership accepted the blame. We’ve every right to throw a hissy fit over their ineptitude and fear of Obama’s media.
You probably saw your own ultrasound.
Actually, this has been the goal for most of us all this time. The problem has been that the Federal Government has for the last two and a half decades spent much time and energy advancing the social progressive agenda. In general our actions have been to halt the tide, though our methods clumsy.
Many Socons did not resist SSM out of animosity, but rather they didn’t want the Social Progressive forcing us all to adopt their moral (or sometimes amoral in our view) standings though coercion, which is exactly what’s happening now.
So while socons now see the law coming down on them for not participating in a ceremony, we’re told by the moderate side that we just need to stop being such jerks.
We are not the aggressors in the social battles, here.
That’s great observation. I had never thought of it that way.
The sense I get from libertarians (especially the big L version) is “so I may live my life according to my will.” I think there is a substantial difference between liberty to the ends of values/morality and merely basing it on will. I could be reading that wrong, but that is the impression most often left on me by Reason, etc.
My favorite pastor used to say that we’re not going to win the abortion fight with legislation. We’re going to need to win the hearts and minds of the people. With modern technology, we can see into the womb and see the little life growing there. The pictures we can see now of early life are amazing. Its going to be hard to ignore. And with modern birth control – we can prevent most unwanted pregnancies and therefore, prevent most abortions. Most abortions are just late attempts at birth control……
And some of us were shocked when the libertarians chose to not just stand with the social progressives but to advocate for them — all the while bullying us with vicious insults — which they continue to do. See #1 Most Popular on the Member Feed for examples.
Yes, me too. According to my will, not God’s will. It’s completely self centered.
This is exactly what I mean. The narrative you recount exists solely in the minds of of the burn, baby, burn crowd of the GOP, and not at all in the minds of the general electorate.
In reality, the government shutdown accomplished absolutely nothing, and pushed public opinion in Obama’s favor. If you are going to pull a political stunt, it should be something that will make the other side look bad. Not something that makes your own side look bad.
Sure, the media took Obama’s side. Sure, it was technically Obama who shut down the government rather than accept defunding of Obamacare. Were these developments unforeseen? Did any of this come as a shock to anyone? You can plan a strategy that doesn’t have a prayer of working, and then throw your hissy fit over the fact that you think it should have worked. But that doesn’t work either.
It’s likely my faith that interprets their statements this way. The strong emphasis on selflessness and sacrifice in Christianity makes libertarianism’s seeming selfishness (especially the Randian variety) hard to reconcile. It even makes discussing the differences difficult.
And there is the nut of the problem. If you will not take allies who agree with you on (most of) the conclusions, but reach them from another rationale, then you will stand alone in self-righteousness.
To be fair, we’ve plenty of Libertarians here and even some of the stronger SSM-proponents here who have stated publicly that the current coercion is not acceptable at all.
And that is precisely why I value Ricochet so much. I realize much of the disagreement is more misunderstanding, and here people have the patience to get concepts through my thick skull. Even if I never end up agreeing with the rationale, understanding it makes alliance possible.
National platforms should be abolished. For efficacy, politics must be personalized. Go lobby the platform writers every four years. Your opponents will quote you in fundraising letters, and chase jurists and state legislators instead.
Scott, we agree on the last two on your list. Religious liberty is a foundation principle of our civilization,which is currently at war with the world’s fiercest opponents of religious pluralism. Good political messaging will show that religious liberty is bigger than recalcitrant county clerks and politically-charged pastry orders.
Cloning? It may be okay for Barry Diller’s dog, but the idea of the Angels cloning nine Mike Trouts is downright scary. Besides, human cloning just preserves the status quo. Humans need an upgrade. Gene therapy — CRISPR, etc. — seems more promising.
Sure, but we told them that redefining marriage would inevitably lead to coercion and they called us silly for thinking that. We knew with complete certainty that it would destroy religious freedom and freedom on conscience, and it is well on its way to doing so. Why do you think the Little Sisters of the Poor are losing all they way up the ladder? Because religious liberty is all but dead. Redefining marriage was the nail in its coffin.
This is Ricochet at its best: I learn so much! I’ve not heard much about social conservatism–isn’t that what they called John McCain with great disdain? But as the conversation is unfolding, I’m beginning to think that I’m a social conservative. I would love to see a party develop that embraces at least some of these ideas that all of you are suggesting. I do want limited government; I do want decisions that belong to the states to stay there. I do want government to stay out of my personal business. I think it would be great to hear even more on what people think social conservatism is (and I found Tom Meyer’s comments and King Prawn’s comments especially helpful.) Thanks!
The left will not admit that their religion is equality and worship of the state–basically Paganism. Their weapon is the empty idea of equality, which they use to get their way, though of course, they don’t really believe in actual equality. Still, it gets them what they want–it makes their religion pre-eminent and destroys everyone else’s ability to live by their’s.
But redefining marriage was but the last and final assault on marriage. We had previously allowed it to be so thoroughly hollowed out (exclusivity and permanence having been removed from its substance already) that we were fighting for the only remaining aspect of the definition which, quite frankly, makes almost no sense whatsoever when divorced from the other two. SSM was simply getting ridden down after the rout that began with the very first progressives in the late 1800s.
This is exactly correct. Very well put.
I never said I would not ally with the Libertarians. Tom rightly points out some overlap.
My hope is this: reality is conservative. If we don’t respect personal property, freedom of conscience, the family, civic organizations and the like, society falls apart, as ours is doing. Then we have to take a good hard look at ourselves and ask what has gone wrong. What happens in the long run when children are bought and sold through third party reproduction, when many are aborted and old people are killed for convenience, when thinking children need a mother and father is considered bigotry, when churches are punished for pursuing their idea of the good, when everyone is forced to share private and personal spaces with the opposite sex under the lie that there is a right to do so, when college students use a myth of victimhood to make selfish demands, and on and on and on. In the long run, and even in the short run, all of this is a disaster that will either destroy us or we will find a better way. A better way that those of us who understand the power and import of the social conservative reality will keep alive.
And think about entertainment. Yes the left owns it, but what are the good stories that sell? Stories of courage, family, love, overcoming obstacles, etc. At bottom, the happy stories are the conservative stories. And guess what–all my lefty friends want exactly what I want for my kids for their kids–happy marriages, good jobs, and grandkids who have a mother and father.
There was a book review in the WSJ about a book canvassing historical polygamy and whether it is natural/cultural. The swingers’ and the not sure whether I am a man or a woman crowd will push for their “rights” next.
“Progress” never stops marching. Next up is pedophilia advocacy by the way, and it’s already starting. That might wind up being their undoing because its so viscerally disgusting. But we said the same thing about same sex marriage years ago, consoling ourselves. So who knows how long “progress” can march on thin air.
I do, however, believe there are limits on how much mass culture can bend human nature against nature. What I truly fear is the reactionary backlash when that breaking point is finally hit.
We know exactly what happens when enough people are long suppressed from legitimate political representation.
Haha, I have a thicker skull than you. :)
The cases are already in the courts.
We all agree there should be limiting principles. We simply never debated what they were before the last 60 or so years. Once the first was called into question and discarded then all others came under the same scrutiny and are susceptible to the same arguments that removed the first.