I can honestly claim to have been one of the godfathers of the existing
conservative movement. In some ways, that movement has achieved far more
than we ever dreamed it could when we started it in the late 1960s and
1970s. Then, most people thought of conservatism as a marginal force
that had been killed and buried with Barry Goldwater's defeat in 1964.
The idea that conservatism could in just a few decades come to represent
the American mainstream while liberalism was marginalized would have
been unimaginable. Yet that has been the very real achievement of
today's conservative movement.
At the same time, every political movement that succeeds pays a price
for its success. In its early stages, as an outsider, it can be true to
its agenda. But once it takes power, it inevitably comes to find much of
its agenda politically inconvenient. It gets in the way of making deals,
gaining more power and collecting money. In time, it ceases to be a real
movement and becomes an Establishment.
Regrettably, I have to say this has happened to most of the existing
conservative movement, with the exception of the Religious Right. It has
gotten in bed with the Republican Party, which provides access,
influence and resources to those who will play along. The price has been
a "conservatism" that in many respects bears little resemblance to what
many of us thought we were fighting for. Most conservative institutions
support or are at least silent about a Republican Party government that
will not control spending, has driven deficits up to dangerous levels,
exports America's industrial base through "free trade," promotes
ever-larger and more intrusive Federal government and follows a
Wilsonian foreign policy. In the face of this abandonment of our old
agenda, it is not surprising that it is hard to speak of a conservative
"movement" anymore, again excepting the Religious Right. Most of the
troops have gone home in disgust.
The old conservative movement is now so compromised that it has little
grass-roots credibility. This is the first reason the next conservatism
needs a new movement. The existing movement just isn't real anymore.
But it is not the only reason. The old movement, with a few exceptions
like the home-schoolers, was just about politics. As these columns have
said over and over, the next conservatism needs to be about much more
than politics. Politics of course remain important. Conservatives must
remain politically involved and effective, or the Left will mobilize the
full power of the state to destroy us and all we believe in.