Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Christian Democrats to the left of me...   [Jonah Goldberg]

I'm more in Andrew's camp on this one than some of my fellow Cornerites. And I think he and Rod make a good point, one that Ramesh has been illuminating for a very long time. Social conservatism is the GOP's greatest asset (politically speaking), not it's greatest weakness. It is an amazing thing to keep in mind when you watch, say, the Today Show or read the New York Times. For example, there is this propagandistic received wisdom that "if only" the GOP could drop the pro-life stuff  then it would clean up with those legions of "socially liberal but fiscally conservative" voters out there (we've batted the SLBFC thing around here many times).  This is poppycock, as Ramesh has explained plenty of times. Remember the final season of West Wing where Alan Alda — playing the Republican! —  insisted that he would clean up because of all the votes his pro-choice stance would bring? Lots of people believe this stuff. 

And this points to the real danger. Huckabeeism is much less of a threat to the GOP (though I wouldn't want to say it's not a threat at all) than it is to conservatism. It is the job of "fusionist" conservatives to convince the socially conservative to be economically conservative as well. It is also their job to explain to the socially liberal but economically conservative folks why they should be socially conservative or at least welcome the socially conservative to our cause. Huckabeeism (if it turns out to be what folks like Andrew and I fear) threatens to unfuse fusionism as an operating political ideology. If the GOP wins on Big Government conservatism, then traditional small government conservatism could become politically homeless. I think Dreher and many others believe the time has finally come for exactly that and that this is their moment. They might be right about where we are politically, but I hope they're wrong. 

01/08 11:50 AMShare