Well, Stacy, if I’m able to dissuade but one Takimag reader from taking part in Republican politics, then I think I will have performed a great service to my country, the Right, and Western Civilization.
Sam Francis was surely correct when he noted a certain asymmetry between the Right and Left in America (and, in many European countries as well.) Among Democrats, the party leadership is to the left of its voters (think “Hillary Democrats” (mostly Midwest Catholics) who voted for Obama and Biden because they thought they were two decent guys who’d stick up for the folks.) With the GOP, it’s the opposite: the rank-and-file is to right, often far to the right, of the people in charge. Most everyday Republicans view mass immigration as an outright invasion of their country that must be halted immediately and Obama’s expansion of government as not only an attempt to run their lives but a massive wealth redistribution from the productive savers towards the underclass and well connected financial elite. They are certainly justified in feeling this way.
The problem is, of course, that the Tea Party people, as Kevin has pointed out, have no place to go but into the arms of the GOP and Newt (who, of course, sparked this whole controversy with his endorsement of Mrs. Scozzafava in New York’s 23rd.) The fact that Señor Hoffman took typically milk toast positions on major issues even though he essentially had nothing to lose—six weeks ago he was polling in the single digits—proves just how widely the Newt-cancer has metastasized within the GOP establishment: even unknown long-shots running as “conservative” outsiders are completely worthless wimps.
It’s also worth pointing out that in his response, Stacy describes well how the base essentially sells itself out to the Republicans year in, year out: Activists thump their chests over thwarting wicked, unpatriotic liberals like Scozzafava and New York Times editorialists—never mind that the politicians who benefit, whether it be Hoffman, Bush, or McCain, have no interest whatsoever in countering the therapeutic managerial state or the gradual displacement of the traditional American nation by Third World migrants.
And it’s gone on like this for years!
If one were to measure “conservatism” by the amount of bestselling books published in support of the cause, by the amount of functionaries making a living working in a movement that bears this name, and by self-identification, then surely one would conclude that America must be some über-traditionalist, authoritarian order that puts Franco’s Spain to shame or perhaps rivals Galt’s Gulch in laissez-faire. “Conservatism” is, without question, the biggest ideological business out there.
But is America actually a “center-right nation,” as so many people tell me it is? Who knows? Who cares? What’s important is that the Constitution has been rendered irrelevant, every citizen is burdened with tens of trillions in debt and liabilities, our cultural and artistic productions are vulgar and risible to the extreme, a quarter of the population is obese, and national demographics are pointing towards Brazil, if not something worse. “Conservatism” has failed utterly and conspicuously on all these fronts and more; and before a real alternative can arise, the “conservative” movement, and the lesser-of-two-evils logic the undergirds it, must be brought to an end.
But it’d, of course, be unfair of me if I didn’t mention that one area in which “conservatism” has been wildly successful—making sure America never stops invading the world. If one would like a glimpse of how the movement has been brought on board this agenda, look no further than this photo, which I found displayed proudly on the blog of a one Robert Stacy McCain: it’s of the “conservative” activist embracing the great William Kristol on the occasion of some old WASPy foundation’s bestowing on him a quarter million for services rendered to democracy and the Republican Party.
Keep fighting the good fight, Stacy!
Posted by Richard Spencer on November 09, 2009