Advertisement

The online magazine for independent conservatives, edited by Taki Theodoracopulos

Advertisement

Advertisement

Ron Paul’s Pyrrhic Defeat

When I first started to read various articles from American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (2006) I was both pleased and amused to discover that a fine article by Jeremy Beer had been devoted to the thought of George Grant (1918-1988). Pleased, because I believed that this Canadian Tory philosopher deserved considerable attention and appreciation from conservatives of all nations and cultures. Amused, because here was an encyclopedia of American conservatism that included an article on a Canadian nationalist who doubted that there even was such a thing as American conservatism! As a descendant of the old Tory ruling class which once dominated Canadian politics, Grant believed that the republic to the south had been far too revolutionary and liberal to merit the accolade of possessing a “conservative tradition.” Many bloggers on this site have made similar claims to those of Grant, and I won’t repeat these here.

I bring up the thought of Grant for a different reason than that of rehashing debates over which nation—Canada or America—once had the “real” conservatism. My purpose is to warn against the temptation of drawing parallels between conservative movements, past and present. Having noticed various favorable predictions of the future success of the Ron Paul movement on this site and elsewhere, I was struck by the prediction of a few admirers of Dr. Paul that his movement was in the “Goldwater” stage. That is to say, even though defeat of Paul at the GOP convention is a foregone conclusion, the overall appeal of his movement will presumably build a new vanguard of supporters (especially among the young) who will eventually revive true conservatism in America, just as Goldwater’s massive defeat in 1964 foreshadowed the emergence of a new and successful conservatism that lasted until the Bush hegemony finished it off.

Now George Grant had some interesting observations about the Goldwater debacle. In his deeply pessimistic book, Lament For A Nation: The Defeat Of Canadian Nationalism, which appeared one year after the GOP defeat of 1964, Grant made it clear that the Goldwater massacre was not a victory in disguise, anymore than the defeat of the conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker in the Canadian election of 1963 presaged a golden age of Toryism. Instead, he dismissed it as “the last-ditch stand of a local culture,” since most of the votes for the GOP had come from the South. Grant laid much of the blame on the naivete of the Goldwater camp itself, especially their failure to grasp what they were up against.

The older liberalism had its swan song in the election of 1964. The classes that had opposed Roosevelt were spent forces by 1964. [...] Goldwater’s cry for limited government seemed as antediluvian to the leaders of the corporations as Diefenbaker’s nationalism seemed to the same elements in Canada. [...] The Goldwater camp was outraged by the sustained attacks of the television networks and newspaper chains. Were they not aware who had become the American establishment since 1932?  Corporation capitalism and liberalism go together by the nature of things. The establishment knew how to defend itself when threatened by the outrageous challenge of outsiders from Arizona. The American election of 1964 is sufficient evidence that the United States is not a conservative society. It is a dynamic empire spearheading the age of progress.

Of course, this “establishment” consisted of the left-liberal managers of the warfare/welfare state which came into existence in America in the 1930s (minus the warfare element, a virtually identical type of state came into being in Canada at the same time). No one on the right denies the power of this elite. Still, it may be easy to sneer at Grant’s pessimism. Did not the GOP build a new “republican majority” energized by millions of disaffected Southern whites out of the ashes of the Goldwater defeat?  And did not this majority go on to win several elections for the GOP for almost forty years after the blow-out of 1964? And can’t the Paulist legions do it all again?

Well, it is hard to glean from the evidence of the last 40 years that the establishment which Goldwater went up against has been challenged in any significant way. As it turns out, Grant correctly surmised that this power elite would consume any serious right-wing opposition (as Goldwater, Diefenbaker, Manning, and Buchanan have all discovered). Big government is even bigger than it was in 1964, fewer differences on foreign and domestic policy exist between the two political parties than they did in 1964, and GOP administrations have alienated traditional conservative voting blocs on a host of issues (of course none of this is news to takimag writers and bloggers!)

Perhaps, after all, a cigar is just a cigar, and the Goldwater defeat was truly a defeat, rather than a prelude to true victory. And perhaps Ron Paul supporters (among whom I include myself) ought to retire the “Goldwater” parallel, lest history truly repeat itself with a new defeat for American conservatism in the third millennium. 

• Print Article
• Email Article
• Email the Editor