{"id":1387,"date":"2015-09-10T07:52:08","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T11:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2015-09-10T07:52:08","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T11:52:08","slug":"hey-jonah-hey-ben-what-is-a-conservative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2015\/09\/hey-jonah-hey-ben-what-is-a-conservative.html","title":{"rendered":"Hey Jonah, hey Ben: What IS a “Conservative?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regarding Donald Trump\u2019s domination of the GOP presidential contest, National Review\u2019s <\/em>Jonah Goldberg has recently remarked: \u201cWell, if this is the conservative movement now, I guess you\u2019re going to have to count me out.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Breitbart\u2019s <\/em>Ben Shapiro<\/a> has noted that Goldberg and other \u201cestablishment Republicans\u201d are, at the very least, inconsistent on this score, for they have had no use for conservative \u201clitmus tests\u201d when it has come to their <\/em>candidates of choice: John McCain, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, etc. Such candidates are no less lacking in conservative bona fides as is Trump, Shapiro notes, and yet not only has Goldberg and his Republican ilk supported them; in some instances, as with Romney, Goldberg specifically advocated on behalf of Romney precisely because he was not <\/em>a conservative!<\/p>\n

Shapiro further contends that Trump is \u201cthe political love child of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, a combination of the non-conservative \u2018victory mentality\u2019 [exemplified by Goldberg\u2019s support of Romney in 2012] and the arrogance of a dictatorial left many conservatives want to see countered with fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, over the last couple of elections, Republicans threw \u201cconservative principles\u201d to the wind and nominated \u201cnon-conservative\u201d candidates, like Romney and McCain, just in order to secure victory (which never arrived). This established the precedent that has allowed a \u201cnon-conservative\u201d like Trump to soar.<\/p>\n

Shapiro is correct that Goldberg and the like are patently selective, even cynical, in their application of \u201cconservative\u201d standards. As I\u2019ve recently shown in a series of articles, while Trump is no conservative, neither are any of his competitors <\/em>in the presidential race\u2014least of all those candidates, like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, for whom the Goldbergs of the world have been rooting.<\/p>\n

But, nonetheless, Shapiro\u2019s analysis is<\/em> flawed.<\/p>\n

As for those \u201cconservative litmus tests\u201d to which he refers, I\u2019d like to know what they would be if Shapiro were in charge of designing them. In other words, I\u2019d like to know what, in Shapiro\u2019s judgment, is a conservative<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Notice, Shapiro, rightly, identifies Romney, McCain, Kasich, and McConnell as \u201cconservatism-less\u201d Republicans. Yet he does not <\/em>include, say, George W. Bush or Dick Cheney within this rogues\u2019 gallery. The suggestion seems to be that it was only within the last seven years or so that Republicans began jettisoning conservatism.<\/p>\n

Nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some questions for Ben (and Jonah and\u2026whomever):<\/p>\n

Must conservatives acquiesce in \u201cgay marriage\u201d just because the Supreme Court declares it Constitutional? For that matter, must a conservative support \u201ccivil unions\u201d for homosexuals?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives endorse preferential treatment policies\u2014usually known as \u201caffirmative action\u201d (when \u201cconservatives\u201d like Jeb Bush aren\u2019t pretending to oppose it while repackaging it with a different label in order to perpetuate it)?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives support \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d\u2014amnesty\u2014for millions and millions of illegal, and mostly Third World, aliens?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives support immigration at all<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives denounce all displays of the Confederate flag and demonize the likes of Robert E. Lee and Thomas \u201cStonewall\u201d Jackson?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives lavish praise upon the likes of such hard leftists as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives endorse socialized medicine\/healthcare\u2014i.e. Medicaid and Medicare?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives favor an omnipotent \u201cfederal\u201d government, a government with the power and authority to deploy the resources in time, energy, money, and blood<\/em> of American citizens to the end of ridding the world <\/em>of evil? <\/em>In short, must conservatives believe in using the United States military as an agent for democratizing non-democratic countries throughout the Middle East (and beyond?)?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives be \u201cpro-choice\u201d with respect to abortion when it comes to rape, incest, and the mother\u2019s life?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives believe in \u201chuman rights?\u201d<\/p>\n

Must conservatives believe in \u201cdemocracy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Must conservatives support vast surveillance programs courtesy of such federal agencies as the NSA?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives favor an income tax?<\/p>\n

Must conservatives favor such redistributive policies as public education, social security, and the like?<\/p>\n

This list of questions is hardly exhaustive. Yet it is sufficiently impressionistic to make the main point that while Ben Shapiro, like radio, television, and print personalities in the \u201cconservative\u201d media generally, haven\u2019t any difficulty in throwing the term \u201cconservative\u201d around, given the wide range of contexts, persons, and positions to which they have and haven\u2019t affixed this label, the unprejudiced observer can only be left thinking one of two things:<\/p>\n

(1)Conservatism may be meaningful, but the Shapiros of the world are ignorant as to its meaning; or (2) The Shapiros are ignorant as to what \u201cconservatism\u201d means because the latter isn\u2019t meaningful at all.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going with (1): Conservatism is meaningful.<\/p>\n

Ideas of conservatism can be gotten easily enough from the writings of its \u201cpatron saint,\u201d Edmund Burke\u2014of whose mind today\u2019s \u201cconservatives\u201d indicate scarcely the slightest awareness. David Hume, John Calhoun, and John Adams are other figures from the past who lend insight into conservative thought.<\/p>\n

More recently, such 20th<\/sup> century intellects as Michael Oakeshott and the inimitable Russell Kirk have provided us with much guidance in navigating the contours of conservative thought.<\/p>\n

Yet if I were a betting man, I\u2019d bet the bank that neither Jonah nor Ben have any of these intellectuals in mind when they speak of \u201cconservatism.\u201d For that matter, dollars to donuts says that they don\u2019t have these men in mind ever.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason for this:<\/p>\n

The conservative <\/em>movement isn\u2019t conservative at all.<\/p>\n

It is neoconservative. <\/em><\/p>\n

And between conservatism and neoconservatism there is all of the philosophical difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cConservatism\u201d doubtless has greater marketing value than \u201cneoconservatism.\u201d If, though, we\u2019re going to be intellectually honest, then we have to recognize Shapiro\u2019s and Goldberg\u2019s movement for what it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeoconservatism\u201d is no slur. Irving Kristol, the \u201cgodfather\u201d of neoconservatism<\/a>, certainly didn\u2019t think that it was.<\/p>\n

In his, The Neoconservative Persuasion, <\/em>Kristol informs us of neoconservatives\u2019 support of \u201cthe welfare state.\u201d Neoconservatives support \u201csocial security, unemployment insurance, some form of national health insurance, some kind of family assistance plan, etc.,\u201d and they will not hesitate \u201cto interfere with the market for overriding social purposes\u201d\u2014even if this requires \u201c\u2018rigging\u2019\u201d instead of imposing upon it \u201cdirect bureaucratic controls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neoconservatives don\u2019t want to \u201cdestroy the welfare state, but\u2026rather, reconstruct it along more economical and humane lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding foreign policy, the United States, Kristol insists, does indeed have a duty to \u201cmake the world safe for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kristol is blunt: \u201cNeocons,\u201d he remarks, and \u201ctraditional conservatives\u201d are different.<\/p>\n

While traditional conservatives tend to admire such \u201cconservative worthies\u201d as Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barry Goldwater, these men are \u201cpolitely overlooked\u201d by neoconservatives. Rather, the latter are disposed to lionize Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Ronald Reagan.<\/p>\n

In Neoconservatism: Why We Need It<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Douglas Murray seconds Kristol\u2019s thoughts when he enthusiastically writes that \u201csocially, economically, and philosophically,\u201d neoconservatism differs in kind <\/em>from traditional conservatism. Murray even goes so far as to describe neoconservatism as \u201crevolutionary conservatism\u201d (incidentally, a contradiction in terms).<\/p>\n

Neoconservatives are distinguished first and foremost on account of their robust, activist foreign policy vision. For all of neoconservatives\u2019 preaching to Republican voters against being \u201cone issue\u201d voters when it comes to, say, abortion, they are one-issue voters themselves\u2014even if their issue is not the other guy\u2019s issue.<\/p>\n

Paraphrasing the French historian Julian Vaisse, Elliot Abrams<\/a>, a neoconservative, writes that neoconservatives want, first and foremost, a \u201cforeign policy\u201d that is \u201cboth muscular in promoting American interests and moralistic in promoting freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abrams also notes that the original home of neoconservatives is the Democratic Party. Opposed as these Democrats were to both the realpolitik <\/em>of Nixon and Kissinger as well as the McGovern wing of their own party, neoconservatives descended upon the GOP.<\/p>\n

To repeat, today\u2019s \u201cconservative movement\u201d and the Republican Party that it dominates is, largely, a neoconservative movement.<\/p>\n

Going into this next election, we should begin to recognize realities for what they are.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regarding Donald Trump\u2019s domination of the GOP presidential contest, National Review\u2019s Jonah Goldberg has recently remarked: \u201cWell, if this is the conservative movement now, I guess you\u2019re going to have to count me out.\u201d In response, Breitbart\u2019s Ben Shapiro has noted that Goldberg and other \u201cestablishment Republicans\u201d are, at the very least, inconsistent on this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHey Jonah, hey Ben: What IS a "Conservative?"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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